Loans, Jacob Ben Jehiel

Physician in ordinary to the German emperor Frederick III. (1440-93), and Hebrew teacher of Johann Reuchlin; died at Linz about 1506. Loans rendered lifelongfaithful service to the emperor, by whom he was knighted. At Linz in 1492 Reuchlin, who had been sent to the emperor's court by his protector Eberhard of Württemberg, met Loans; and the latter became his first teacher in Hebrew grammar. Reuchlin always held him in grateful remembrance; he cites him as "præceptor meus, mea sententia valde doctus homo Jacobus Jehiel Loans Hebræus" ("Rudimenta Hebraica," p. 249) or "humanissimus præceptor meus homo excellens" (ib. p. 619). Geiger supposes that Reuchlin took Loans as a model for the Jewish scholar Simon, one of the three disputants in Reuchlin's "De Verbo Mirifico."

Bibliography:

  * Ludwig Geiger, Johann Reuchlin, pp. 105 et seq.;
  * Grätz, Gesch. ix. 47, 83, 147;
  * Gross, Gallia Judaica, p. 273;
  * Steinschneider, Jewish Literature, p. 208;
  * Winter and Wünsche, Die Jüdische Litteratur, ii. 225.



G. M. Sc.