Period I.

UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF ULRICH.

From these sources, just as the history of the deeds of Jac. Andreæ can be drawn quite copiously, so too can the genius of that man be easily known. Throughout his life he showed himself to be a man of business, little given to leisure, lively, agile, and of an upright spirit. He preferred to spare the subject rather than defeat the proud. He was of very quick conception, sweet and pleasant in conversation, easy in assenting, skillful and elegant in frequenting courts, and adapted to any form. He was of a liberal and open countenance, of firm health, made by nature to capture benevolence, seeking praise from virtue, varied in every type of study, and not careless of glory. He attempted great things, neglected small ones, and was desirous of an ambition aspiring to noble rule; he preferred to govern others rather than be governed by them. In the rest of his life, his manners were composed with elegance, and he emerged gradually from small beginnings to greater heights.

For he was born to a father of the same name, a blacksmith in Waiblingen, and for that reason, he was called Smidelinus as a term of reproach by Staphylus, when he had crossed over from the rites of the Lutherans to the rites of the Catholics. Many others also frequently attacked him with this taunt. His father Jacobus, having traveled much from his earliest youth—having journeyed through Bohemia, Hungary, France, and Spain, and having known those languages after a fashion—seems to have instilled an equal desire for traveling in his son Jacobus, by which he became known throughout all of Germany d.

d) The homeland of the Andrean family, if you trace it from Jacobus, is said to be the village of Micalu in the Eistett Eichstätt territory.