Brandt, SEBASTIAN

Brandt, SEBASTIAN, author of the Narrenschiff, or Ship of Fools, was born at Strasburg, 1458; studied law and the classics with zeal at Basel, where he received permission to teach; and soon became one of the most influential lecturers in that city. The Emperor Maximilian showed his regard for Brandt by appointing him an imperial councillor. He died at Strasburg in 1521. His Ship of Fools, a satire on the follies and vices of his times, which was published at Basel (1494), is not very poetical, but is full of sound sense and good moral teaching, and was so much esteemed that the German popular preacher Geiler occasionally took his texts from it. The best editions are by Zarneke (1854), and Goedeke (1872). It has appeared in almost every European language; it was translated into Latin by Locher (1497), and into English by Henry Watson, The Grete Shyppe of Fooles of the Worlde (1517); partly translated and partly imitated by Alexander Barclay (q.v.), and imitated by W. H. Ireland in the Modern Ship of Fools (1807).