Cornelis de Schepper, Cornelis Duplicius de Schepper or Cornelius de Schepper (1503?-1555) was a Flemish mathematician, counselor and ambassador for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Ferdinand I of Austria and Mary of Hungary, governor of the Netherlands. He is also known by his Latin name Scepperus.
Early life
He was born in Nieuwpoort, Flanders probably in 1503. His father was Jan or Jacob de Schepper, the mayor of Dunquerke, and his mother Gislaine de Severin. His grandfather Jan was vice-admiral of Flanders and had an active military career fighting the English and the French. While the family name was originally the Flemish 'de Dobbele' or, in Latin: 'Duplicius' (meaning 'Double'), the honorific 'de Schepper' (the Captain) was later added because of the naval exploits of the grandfather.
Cornelis received his initial schooling from his uncle L. de Schepper, pastor of Ekelsbeke, near Cassel. He attended lectures at the Paris University where he studied under Gérard Roussel, a member of the circle of Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples. In December 1522 Schepper matriculated at the Collegium Trilingue of Louvain where he likely started his friendship with Goclenius, Viglius, Vives and other humanists from Bruges. He also studied philosophy, jurisprudence and mathematics. He published in 1523 in Antwerp a mathematical treatise entitle Assertionis fidei adversus astrologos sive de significationibus coniunctionum superiorum planetarum anni 1524, which established his reputation in this field.
It was possibly through an introduction from Fevyn and Cranevelt, that in 1523 he entered the service of Christian II of Denmark, the exiled brother-in-law of Emperor Charles V.
In the service of Christian II of Denmark
Initially de Schepper worked as secretary to Godschalk Ericksen, Christian's chancellor, and a few months later he became Christian's vice-chancellor. As part of the Danish royal retinue he travelled to England during the summer of 1523 and at the end of that year to Wittenberg where they met Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon. While staying at Wittenberg, de Schepper published a couple of pamphlets to defend Christian's claims against Fredrick of Holstein and the City of Lubeck who had joined the king's opponents to remove him from the throne.
In December 1524 the Danish King sent de Schepper to Spain to request Emperor Charles support in his attempt to recover the throne of Denmark. On his way to Spain de Schepper stopped in England to continue to advance the royal Danish cause with Henry VIII and Wolsey. It was probably during his stay in Spain that he first encountered his lifelong friends Johannes Dantiscus, the Polish ambassador at the imperial court, and Alfonso de Valdés, the Latin secretary at the imperial chancellery.
In the service of Emperor Charles V
He returned to the Low Countries in time to comfort Isabella of Austria, the wife of Christian II and sister of Charles V, on her deathbed on the 19th of January 1526 at Zwijnarden, near Ghent. He wrote an epitaph for her tomb and an elegy which well expresses his deep sense of affection for the royal couple. Following Isabella's death, he felt that as a Flemish he should rather try to enter the Emperor's service so during the spring of 1526 he probably travelled back to Spain and became close to the Imperial Chancellor Mercurino di Gattinara.
In 1527 he accompanied Gattinara during his trip to Italy and in 1528 undertook his first embassy to the Polish King. As part of Gattinara's entourage, he attended the Emperor's coronation in Bologna in February 1530. In April Emperor Charles V appointed de Schepper as general inquisitor of the Low Countries. De Schepper, in turn, employed Jean Vuystinck as inquisitor for Flanders. Vuystinck started to systematically arrest Jews of Portuguese origin and the whole episode damaged de Schepper's relationship with the Emperor.
After Gattinara's death, Valdés and de Schepper attended the Diet of Augsburg where they participated in some conciliatory negotiations with Lutheran representatives such as Philip Melanchthon and Justus Jonas, although they failed to produce any agreement.
In 1531 and 1532 de Schepper contributed to the Lutheran reformation debate as to the Emperor's envoy during several missions to Switzerland, Germany, Bohemia and Poland.