Maximilien de Wignacourt


Maximilien de Wignacourt, alternatively Vignacourt or Vignacurtius was a writer in Latin and French in the Spanish Netherlands.

Life

Wignacourt was born in Arras in 1560, a nephew of the renowned jurist François Baudouin. In the late 1570s he studied at the University of Leuven under Justus Lipsius, to whom he wrote a letter on 9 November 1586. In 1582 he entered the service of Bernardino de Mendoza in England, and on his recommendation seems to have become a hanger-on at the court of Philip II of Spain. His poems of commemoration and congratulation for powerful figures provided a meagre income. By 1602 he was attached to the court in Brussels. He died in Leuven on 21 November 1620.

Works

  • Sereniss. Parmae et Placentiae ducis nominis anagrammatismus
  • Discours sur l'estat des Pays Bas, auquel sont déduictes les causes de ses troubles et calamitez et leurs remèdes. .
  • Serenissimi Ernesti adventum gratulatur Belgicae Maxaemyliani V.
  • In res Belgicas deinosis. .
  • Antistitis praecellentis euphemia. Congratulatory verses on the occasion of Nicolas Mainfroy's enthronement as abbot of Saint-Bertin.
  • Preliminary verses included in Estienne Ydens, Histoire du S. sacrement du miracle reposant à Bruxelles. .
  • ''Pro eutrapelia seriis interposita per Isabellam Claram Eugeniam, regiam ex Hispania progeniem, archiducem Austriae, principem ditionum Belgicae Inferioris apologia''