Jan Amos Komensky

28 March, 1592 - Comenius was born in Moravia (now the Czech Republic). His family were members of the Unity of Brethren, a group folowing the teachings of Jan Hus.

1604 - both parents, and two of his four sisters, died. He then lived with his aunty in Straznice.

His aunt squandered his inheritance thus depriving him of an education. He worked in a mill.

1608? - went to the Latin school in Prerov. N.B. he was 16 before his formal education began.

1611-13 - educated in Herborn at a Calvinist academy.

1613-14 - educated at the University of Heidelberg.

1614-18 - Comenius was rector of the school in Prerov, Moravia.

1616 - ordained into the ministry of the Moravian Brethren.

1618 - 1648 - The 30 Year War

• 1620 - became pastor and rector of the church in Fulnek

• 1620-27 - lived in hiding in Bohemia. Wrote The Labyrinth of the World and The Paradise of the Heart.

• 1621 - as a result of the war, Comenius lost all of his property and writings.

• His wife and two sons died of plague.

• 1627 - as a result of the Habsburg Counter-Reformation and persecution of Protestants, Comenius led the Brethren into exile into Leszno, Poland. There he led a gymnasium (secondary school) and led the Moravian and Bohemian Brethren churches.

  • He began writing his first textbooks and books on the reform of education.

• 1629 - He produce his book, The Gate of Languages Unlocked. Published in 1631.

• 1632 - consecrated as a bishop of the Unity of Brethren.

• 1638 - Comenius went to Sweden following a request to draw up a scheme for the management of schools.

• Comenius promoted pansophism, the knowledge of all things in an organised system.

• He wrote several textbooks designed to bring all knowledge together in a way that would be comprehensible to a child.

• 1641 - he went to England at the request of the parliament, to reform the education system. The English Civil War interrupted that project.

• 1641 - published The Way Of Light, a plan for universal education and peace.

• 1642 - he returned to Sweden to reorganise the Swedish schools. Then moved to Ebling, Prussia.

• 1642 - he moved to Poland

• 1648 - returned to Leszno, Poland. His second wife died. He became Senior Bishop of the Unity of Brethren.

1650 - he was invited to go to Sarospatak, Hungary, where he was a professor of the First Hungarian Protestant College. He wrote a number of his most important works here.

1654 - he returned to Leszno, Poland.

1655 - he declared his support for the Protestant Swedish side in the Deluge. Consequently...

1656 - the Polish Catholic partisans burned his house, manuscripts and the school's printing press.

1657 - his house was burned and the manuscript of Pansophia destroyed. He took refuge in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

1657 - Opera Didactica published.

1658 - Orbis Pictus, the first illustrated textbook published.

1659 - Comenius produced a new edition of the 1618 Bohemian Brethren Hymnal containing 606 songs and 406 tunes. In various editions, this would be used until the 19th century.

1661 - he edited a 1566 German hymnal.

He wrote about both instrumental and vocal music linking music to mathematics, grammar, rhetoric and politics. Musical practice played a big role in his system of education.

15 November, 1670 - Comenius died in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He was buried in Naarden.