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GÁBOR ITTZÉS RENEWAL (1523-1526) The programme of renewal was outlined in Melanchthon’s 1523 oration commonly known as Encomium eloquentiae,** which inaugurated what we might call the third phase of reform. When he became Rector the following winter semester, he quickly moved to put the proposal into practice and issued a new order of study.” Matriculating students were to present themselves to the Rector, who would assign them an advisor. It was the latter’s task to prescribe a course of study for each student as seemed to fit him best. To replace the practice of philosophical disputations, which he thought otherwise not useless but which was now fallen by the wayside, Melanchthon instituted fortnightly declamations to be delivered, in turn, by the professors of rhetoric and grammar, on the one hand, and the students, under the professors’ guidance, on the other. This arrangement provided a unique opportunity for exercise. Disputations also survived, however, in a renewed form. Their subject matter was from now on not metaphysics but the natural sciences, mathematics and physics. Professors of those subjects were also enjoined to offer monthly disputations. Last but not least, Melanchthon emphasised the importance of eloquence and the necessity of learning to speak well. The material shift codified by Melanchthon’s reform, replacing logic with rhetoric — that is, speculation with philology —, neatly embodies the contrast between outgoing scholasticism and the new theology of the Reformation. Melanchthon’s study plan was geared towards the training of public speakers for the preaching ministry. It took about two years to introduce fully the new programme,” but it proved a great success in the service of evangelical preaching and confessional debates. Melanchthon himself wrote hundreds of eloquent speeches for academic and other occasions, many of which were delivered by his friends and students rather than by himself.‘ MELANCHTHON, Philip, Praise of Eloquence, in S. Kusukawa — C. F. Salazar (eds.), Orations on Philosophy and Education, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999, 60-78. 5° UBW 1:128-130 (No. 131). On the university reforms of the 1520s, see also DINGEL, Irene, Luther und Wittenberg, in A. Beutel (ed.), Luther-Handbuch, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2005, 168-178, here 170-171. A proposal for the renewal of was made already in spring 1523 (UBW 1:124, No. 122), and two rhetoricians were finally installed in 1525 (UBW 1:132-134, No. 139). For a systematic catalogue of his speeches, see KOEHN, Horst, Philipp Melanchthons Reden: Verzeichnis der im 16. Jahrhundert erschienenen Drucke, Archiv fiir Geschichte des Buchwesens 55 (1984) 1277-1496. 60 61 + 28 +
