Rutgerus Sycamber or Roger of Venray (b. 1456/57, d. after 1509) was a

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humanism" ha ...

, music theorist, and a prolific but little-published writer. He was a

canon regular The Canons Regular of St. Augustine are Catholic priests who live in community under a rule ( and κανών, ''kanon'', in Greek) and are generally organised into religious orders, differing from both secular canons and other forms of religiou ...

of the

Augustinian Order Augustinians are members of several religious orders that follow the Rule of Saint Augustine, written about 400 A.D. by Augustine of Hippo. There are two distinct types of Augustinians in Catholic religious orders dating back to the 12th–13th ...

based for most of his life at the monastery of

Hagen Hagen () is a city in the States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany, on the southeastern edge of the Ruhr area, 15 km south of Dortmund, where the rivers Lenne and Volme meet the Ruhr (river), Ruhr. In 2023, the ...

near

Worms The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) is a taxonomic database that aims to provide an authoritative and comprehensive catalogue and list of names of marine organisms. Content The content of the registry is edited and maintained by scien ...

. Sycamber is notable for the expansiveness of his correspondence with other humanists in Germany, the Netherlands and France, among them

Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus ( ; ; 28 October c. 1466 – 12 July 1536), commonly known in English as Erasmus of Rotterdam or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic priest and Catholic theology, theologian, educationalist ...

Johannes Trithemius Johannes Trithemius (; 1 February 1462 – 13 December 1516), born Johann Heidenberg, was a German Benedictine abbot and a polymath who was active in the German Renaissance as a Lexicography, lexicographer, chronicler, Cryptography, cryptograph ...

Robert Gaguin Robert Gaguin (older spelling: ''Robert Guaguin''; winter of 1433/34 – May 22, 1501) was a noted French Renaissance humanist and philosopher; he was minister general of the Trinitarian Order. Biography He was born at Calonne-sur-la-Lys n ...

and Wigand Wirt, the last debating the

Immaculate Conception The Immaculate Conception is the doctrine that the Virgin Mary was free of original sin from the moment of her conception. It is one of the four Mariology, Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Debated by medieval theologians, it was not def ...

. His latest known letter is dated 3 September 1507. He was part of a circle of literary men living in the cities of southwest Germany, and was known for his "aggressive self-promotion." Sycamber was born in

Venray Venray or Venraij (; ) is a Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality and a city in Limburg (Netherlands), Limburg, the Netherlands. The municipality of Venray consists of 14 towns over an area of , with 43,494 inhabitants as of July 2016 ...

in upper

Gelderland Gelderland ( , ), also known as Guelders ( ) in English, is a Provinces of the Netherlands, province of the Netherlands, located in the centre-east of the country. With a total area of of which is water, it is the largest province of the Nethe ...

, close to the border with the

Duchy of Cleves The Duchy of Cleves (; ) was a state of the Holy Roman Empire which emerged from the medieval . It was situated in the northern Rhineland on both sides of the Lower Rhine, around its capital Cleves and the towns of Wesel, Kalkar, Xanten, Emme ...

. In antiquity, this was the territory of the

Germanic people The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northern Europe in Classical antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. In modern scholarship, they typically include not only the Roman-era ''Germani'' who lived in both ''Germania'' and parts of ...

called by the

Romans Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

the

Sicambri The Sicambri or Sugambri were a Germanic people who lived in the area between the Rhine, Lippe, and Wupper rivers, in what is now Germany, near the border with the Netherlands. They were first reported by Julius Caesar, who encountered them in 55 ...

, Sigambri, Sugambri, etc., and from this

ethnonym An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...

he took his Latin surname. It can thus be surmised that he self-identified in some sense as "German." Trithemiusmoredetail

Little known in the 21st century, Sycamber was a prolific but "rather mediocre" writer. Between 1495 and 1505, he produced as many as 140 '' opuscula'' in both poetry and prose, which have survived only erratically. Despite his wide network of influential literary contacts, few of his works were published. Even his friend Trithemius remarked on his prodigious if unavailing output: Sycamber's ''Dialogus de musica'' (''ca.'' 1500), also known as ''De recta, congrua devotaque cantione dialogus'', dealt with the correct performance of

chant A chant (from French ', from Latin ', "to sing") is the iterative speaking or singing of words or sounds, often primarily on one or two main pitches called reciting tones. Chants may range from a simple melody involving a limited set of no ...

in the

liturgy Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and participation in the sacred through activities reflecting praise, thanksgiving, remembra ...

. Other published works are ''De quantitate syllabarum'' (Cologne, 1502) and ''Litania ad omnes sanctos'' (Deventer, 1514). The former is written as a dialogue between Sycamber and the dedicatee, the teacher (''magister'') Jacob Sonnenschyn, to whom Sycamber also addresses appended poems.Louis Thuasne, ''Roberti Gaguini Epistole et Orationes'' (Paris, 1904), vol. 2, p. 5
online.
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Sources

* Unless otherwise noted, biographical information comes from R.A.B. Mynors, D.F.S. Thomson, and Wallace K. Ferguson, ''Collected Works: The Correspondence of Erasmus, Letters 1 to 141, 1484 to 1500'' (University of Toronto Press, 1974), pp. 138–13
online.
* Detailed bibliographical information is provided by Konrad Wiedemann, entry on Sycamber in ''Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation'' (University of Toronto Press, 1985, reprinted 1995), pp. 301–302, limited previe
online.
* Further bibliography of primary sources by

Paul Oskar Kristeller Paul Oskar Kristeller (May 22, 1905 in Berlin – June 7, 1999 in New York, United States) was a scholar of Renaissance humanism. He was awarded the Haskins Medal in 1992. He was last active as Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia Uni ...

, ''Iter Italicum: A Finding List of Uncatalogued or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and Other Libraries'' (Brill, 1983), vol. 3, pp. 33
online
and 59
online.
* Three letters written by Sycamber (dated January 1498, where his tone is described as "uncooperative and even petulant," June 1503, and September 1507) appear in English translation in Barbara Crawford Halporn, ''The Correspondence of Johann Amerbach: Early Printing in Its Social Context'' (University of Michigan Press, 2000), pp. 74–8
online
and p. 33
online.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sycamber, Rutgerus 16th-century writers in Latin Augustinian canons Dutch Renaissance humanists German Renaissance humanists Dutch essayists German essayists Dutch music theorists German music theorists German male essayists