Nicholas of Cusa: A Sketch for a Biography

A Sketch for a Biography

5 a sKETch for a BioGRaPhY Birth and Name he was born in 1401. This we ascertain from the inscription on his grave, and the year is confirmed by other references. his birthplace gave him the name under which he entered history. in 1430 he referred to himself for the last time using his family name: Nicolaus cancer—in German, Krebs. cryfftz, Krieffts, Kreves, and similar variations indicate the Mosel-Franconian dialect. as early as his first university registration in 1416 he added his birthplace: Nycolaus cancer de coeße. in his German correspondence he usually wrote Niclas von cuße. he latinized the name to Nicolaus de cußa or also cusa—forms of the day that were typical for his village on the Mosel. in 1440 aeneas sylvius named him Nicolaus cusanus for the first time. Prior to this the italian humanists called him Nicolaus Treverensis. he had given himself this scholarly name as a young man. While this name is not seen after 1435, the name “Krebs” continued to be used for the rest of his life, above all by his political opponents. one senses the malicious disparagement it implies, beginning with the attacks of his opponents at the council of Basel and continuing on to the Invective of 1461 that Gregor heimburg, no doubt Nicholas’s most bitter enemy, opens with the words “cancer cusa Nycolae!” Nicholas himself kept a visual representation of his name on his coat of arms. it shows a red crab on a gold field. it is probably Nicholas of Cusa 6 the family coat of arms since his brothers and sisters used it as well. on his oldest seal a moon and a star accompany the crab. Entirely a child of his time, Nicholas believed in the influence of the stars. he possessed an astrological treatise in which marginal notes specifically highlight the sentences that place the year 1433, when his own star began its meteoric rise, under the auspicious sign of the crab. By 1425 he had already composed an astrologically interpreted history of the world covering the time up to Emperor Gallienus. Family Background Nicholas’s parents were Johan cryfftz, who was called cryfftz henne, and his wife Katharina, daughter of hermann Roemer. in 1408 and 1414 the Bernkastel magistrate, clais Roemer, officially registered land purchases made by the cryfftz couple involving annual payments.1 Perhaps Nicholas received his first name from clais— a shortened version of Nicholas. in 1431 the magistrates claes and Peter Roemer are named together. another native of Bernkastel, casper Romer, who died in aachen in 1451 as the canon of Münstermaifeld and st. Mary’s, is specifically identified as a blood relative of cusanus. Johannes Romer called himself cusanus’s “nepot,” nephew . Romer, born around 1425, came from Briedel, down the Mosel River near Zell. after the death of cardinal cusanus, Romer was director of the st. Nicholas hospital in Kues for a short time. Matthias Römer from Graach, who in 1493 relinquished inheritance claims on the Krebs house in Kues, must also have been a close relative. among the younger nephews of cusanus, simon von Wehlen gained special recognition. cusanus named him vicar-general of Brixen. simon von Wehlen’s uncle on his mother’s side was simon 1. Editor’s note: Terms in bold are listed in the Glossary. A Sketch for a Biography 7 Kolb, also called simon of Kues, who was at first assistant director of the hospital under Johannes Römer, and then from 1466 until his death in 1467 director. how cusanus’s mother was related to the individual members of the Römer family is still uncertain. her father was already dead by 1401. she herself died in 1427. We know that cusanus had two sisters and one brother. Margareta , the older sister who was married to a magistrate in Trier, died early, certainly before 1447. she, like her younger sister, Klara, left no children. Klara’s first marriage was to a Trier citizen, Johann Plynisch; her second, after 1441, was to the Trier magistrate, Paul von Bristge, who served repeatedly as mayor. he came from a patrician family in Trier. his father, clais von Bristge, was also a magistrate in Trier. Klara’s will, which she drew up in 1473, the year of her death, immediately after the passing of her husband, testifies to her affluence . in accordance with her wish, she...