Editing Jakob Balde (section)

== Biography ==

Driven from [[Alsace]] by the marauding bands of [[Count Mansfeld]], he fled to [[Ingolstadt]] where he began to study law. A love disappointment, however, turned his thoughts to the church, and in 1624 he entered the [[Society of Jesus]]. Continuing his study of the humanities, he became in 1628 professor of [[rhetoric]] at [[Innsbruck]], and in 1635 at Ingolstadt, whither he had been transferred by his superiors in order to study [[theology]]. In 1633 he was ordained a priest.

His lectures and poems had now made him famous, and he was summoned to [[Munich]] where, in 1638, he became court chaplain to the elector [[Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria|Maximilian I]]. He remained in Munich till 1650, when he went to live at [[Landshut]] and afterwards at [[Amberg]]. In 1654 he was transferred to [[Neuburg an der Donau|Neuburg on the Danube]], as court preacher and confessor to the [[count palatine]]. He remained at Neuburg for the rest of his life. 

A collected edition of Balde's works in 4 vols was published at [[Cologne]] in 1660; a more complete edition in 8 vols at Munich, 1729; also a good selection by L. Spach ([[Paris]] and [[Strasbourg]], 1871). An edition of his Latin lyrics was edited by Benno Müller in 1844 in Munich and another edition also appeared at Regensburg in 1884. There are translations into German of some of his odes by [[Johann Gottfried Herder]] (1795), his satires by Johannes Neubig ([[Munich]], 1833) and J. Schrott and M. Schleich ([[Munich]], 1870). See G. Westermayer, ''Jacobus Balde, sein Leben und seine Werke'' (1868); J. Bach, ''Jakob Balde'' ([[Freiburg]], 1904). Various odes have been translated into English by Karl Maurer.