Note 296 — Chapter XI · ALESIUS.

[In his Introduction (pp. xviii-xx) to Gau's 'Richt Vay to the Kingdom of Heuine,' Dr Mitchell says: "The treatise 'De Apostolicis Traditionibus,' in which he [i.e., Alesius] has given an account of his visit, and of the manner in which he was received by his countrymen and the reforming preachers of Malmö, is one of the rarest of his minor treatises, and is not to be found in any of our Scottish libraries, nor in the British Museum, nor even in the library of the University of Leipsic, in which he was so long an honoured professor.... Neither the name of Gau nor that of any other of his countrymen then in the city is given by Alesius.... Principal Lorimer has ingeniously conjectured that Gau may have come out to act as chaplain to his countrymen at Malmö. And I am inclined to accept the conjecture to a modified extent.... At any rate, we find that before the close of 1533 he was in Denmark, and had got such an accurate knowledge of the Danish language that he had translated and published a treatise of considerable length from Danish into his native Scotch." In the Appendix to the same Introduction (p. xlv) Dr Mitchell explains that "modern Danish scholars express doubts whether, in the early part of the 16th century, any nation, save the German as represented by the Hanseatic League, was organised as a distinct community at Malmö."]