Johannes Narssius
Dutch physician and poet (1580–1637)
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Johannes Narssius[1] (9 November 1580 – 1637)[2] was a Dutch physician and Neo-Latin poet, initially a Remonstrant minister.
Life
He was born Johan van Naars(s)en in Dordrecht on 9 November 1580,[3] and studied philosophy and theology at the University of Leiden.[4] He may have lived in the house of Gerardus Vossius in 1602.[5] A disciple of Jacobus Arminius, his theological beliefs came into question in 1605.[6] In one of the early Leiden debates involving Arminius, he responded to Johannes Kuchlinus.[7]
Narssius was a subscriber to the Confessio orthodoxa of Conrad Vorstius, successor to Arminius at Leiden, and was strongly reprimanded for that by the Synod of Harderwijk.[4] He was pastor at Grave and then Zaltbommel, but lost his posts because of his combative Remonstrant approach.[5] He reportedly travelled to England to present Arminian documents to Archbishop George Abbot, meeting a very hostile reception.[8] After the general exile of Remonstrants from the Netherland he was at the Arminian colony of Friedrichstadt in Holstein.[9]
He spent time in Poland, and Sweden, where he was court poet.[10] In Riga he knew Rütger Hemsing (1604–1643), another physician-poet, and an associate of Galileo.[11] He corresponded with Ole Worm on archaeology.[12] Under the name Hans van der Ast he took letters from Frederick V, Elector Palatine in Germany to his wife Elizabeth of Bohemia, who was in The Hague.[13]
Returning to the Netherlands, he took a position with the Dutch East India Company. He travelled to the Indies, where he died.[4]
Works
Narssius belonged to the "Dordrecht School" of Latin poets, which included also the Remonstrant Samuel Naeranus.[14] He is remembered for Gustavidos sive de bello Sueco-austriaco libri tres 1632) and Gustavidos liber quartus (1634), published in Hamburg, which were Latin epic poems.[15] He also wrote a tragedy Gustavus saucius (1629 and 1632) on Gustavus Adolphus, for whom he was physician and historiographer, from 1625 or 1626.[16][17][18]
Other poetical works were:
- Prosopopoeia Hamburgi (1623)[4]
- Poëmata septentrionalia aliaque nonulla miscellanea (1624)[citation needed]
- Fides et humanitas Polonica erga delegatos regios Suedorum (Riga, 1625)[19]
- Riga devicta ab Augustissimo principe Gustavo Adolpho (Riga, 1625)[11]
- Meva Pomerelliae obsidione Polonorum liberata ductu augustissimi Sueciae &c. regis Gustavi Adolphi (Stockholm, 1627)[20]
An epitaph of his was collected in Robert Monro, Monro his Expedition with the Worthy Scots Regiment.[21] It was for John Sinclair, third son of George Sinclair, 5th Earl of Caithness, killed at Newmarke in the Palatinate, in 1632.[22]