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1V Introduction
(1458-1521), was a Strasburg inn-keeper’s son,
who, having taken his degree in law, added to
his legal work great literary activity in Bergmann
von Olpe’s press at Basel. Brant conceived the
idea of a ship laden with fools, about to set sail
for the land of Narragonia; but he grew so
interested in depicting the crew that the ship
was forgotten and never left its port. The
‘Narrenschiff’ was published in 1494, and its
success was immediate. The 112 several kinds of
fools, described with blunt realism, gave men
opportunity to recognize their neighbours’ por¬
traits, and delightedly to fit caps on other heads.
The book was further welcomed for its moral
value, and was even used as the text for a series
of sermons given by a famous Strasburg preacher.
Despite his scholarship, Brant had written
in his own Swabian dialect as the best medium
for reaching the mass of his countrymen. But
contempt for ‘ the vulgar and vernacular’ did
not keep the learned world from interest ; and
the moment the book appeared, Trithemius
added it to Brant’s Latin works in his Catalogue
of Ecclesiastical Writers, calling it a ‘ divine
satire’. In 1497 it became accessible to the