The accusations of the abbot are to be taken with a pinch of salt, for he was himself suspected of dabbling in magic, and his indignation may have been coloured by more than a tinge of jealousy. He is known to have declaimed before the Emperor Maximilian against the followers of the black art, and there is a letter, written by him only four days before the above epistle to Virdung, in which he protests against the imputing to him of magic practices. He was even rumoured to have conjured up the spirits of the dead in the presence of the Emperor. At any rate, he does not seem to have been anxious for popular inclusion among the necromancers. Neither is it at all certain that there is any truth in the scandal about the school at Kreuznach, for that was the sort of vice which it was usual to attribute to dissolute magicians. It cannot be explained why Faust should have called himself _junior_, for there is no trace of any earlier magician of the same name. Whether _Sabellicus_ was his real name, and _Faustus junior_ a kind of professional title, or whether George Faust attached the title _Sabellicus_ to his name as an allusion to the magic art of the Sabines, is likewise a mystery. It will be noticed that he is called _George_, and the same Christian name occurs again, six years later, in the second existing reference to Faust. Conrad Mutianus Rufus (Conrad Mut, Canon at Gotha, called Rufus on account of his red hair), a friend of Reuchlin and Melanchthon, and one of the most cultured of the Humanists, makes the following statement in a letter written from Erfurt to his friend Heinrich Urbanus on the 7th of October, 1513:— “There came a week ago to Erfurt a certain chiromancer named Georgius Faustus, _Helmitheus Hedebergensis_, a mere braggart and fool. The professions of this man and of all the fortune-tellers are vain. The rude people marvel at him, the priests should denounce him. I heard him swaggering at the inn. I did not reprove his boastfulness, for why should I bother about the foolishness of others?” These two George Fausts are obviously the same person. The term _Helmitheus Hedebergensis_ may be meant for _Hemitheus Hedelbergensis_, half-god of Heidelberg, where the charlatan perhaps pretended to have studied.[1] There was a Bachelor named Johann Faust, of Simmern, at Heidelberg in the year 1509, but it is unlikely that he has any connection with our Faust. There is a legend that Faust was given asylum at the monastery of Maulbronn by the Abbot Entenfuss in the year 1516, and that he there pursued his alchemistic activities. The well-known “Faust tower” which is still shown there was, however, not built until nearly a hundred years later. The next reference we find is an entry in the account book of the Bishop of Bamberg by the latter’s chamberlain, under the date 12th of February, 1520:—