Otto Brunfels

Otto Brunfels
Born	1488 near Mainz, Electorate of Mainz
Died	23 November 1534 Bern, Swiss Confederacy
Education	University of Mainz
Church	Lutheran
Writings	Catalogi virorum illustrium Herbarum vivae eicones

Otto Brunfels (also known as Brunsfels or Braunfels) (believed to be born in 1488 – 23 November 1534) was a German theologian and botanist. Carl von Linné listed him among the "Fathers of Botany".

After studying theology and philosophy at the University of Mainz, Brunfels entered a Carthusian monastery in Mainz and later resettled to another Carthusian monastery at Königshofen near Strasbourg. In Strasbourg he got in contact with a learned lawyer Nikolaus Gerbel (they met in person in 1519). Gerbel drew Brunfels' attention to the healing powers of plants and thus gave the impetus to the further botanical investigations.

After the conversion to the Protestantism (he was supported by Franz von Sickingen and Ulrich von Hutten), upon the insistence of the Dean of Frankfurt Johann Indagine, Brunfels became a minister at Steinau an der Straße (1521) and later, in Neuenburg am Rhein. After that he served for eight years as the head of a Carmelite school in Strasbourg. In the list of most important heretics published by the order of the Emperor by the University of Leuven (1550), Brunfels was listed first.

In one of his works he defended Ulrich von Hutten against Erasmus of Rotterdam and published the manuscripts from the Jan Hus heritage. Brunfels' Catalogi virorum illustrium 1527 is considered to be the first book on the history of evangelical Church.

After his friend Ulrich von Hutten had died (1523), Brunfels' religious views brought him into a controversy with Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli. Later on he began to study medicine at the University of Basel, (M.D. 1532). In 1532 Brunfels became a City physician in Bern, where he stayed till the end of his life.

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