AVENTINUS, JOHANNES (JOHANN TURMAIR)

AVENTINUS, JOHANNES (JOHANN TURMAIR). — Born at Abensberg in 1477, died at Ratisbona in 1534. He is the author of the Annales Boiorum, for which he deserved the name of father of Bavarian history. He searched the archives of the monasteries in order to gather their materials, and was in a certain sense a forerunner of the modern method, which connects causes with effects. Besides the Annales, which in the German translation bear the title Bayerische Chronik, he left a Panegyrica oratio ad Carolum V et Ferdinandum Romanorum, Hungariae et Bohemiae regem de suscepto bello in Turcas, a Chronicon sive annales schienses, and a Latin grammar. His attitude toward the Lutheran Reformation was highly ambiguous, and he possessed the spirit of the Protestants and, in some respects, their doctrine as well.