Johannes Trithemius (; 1 February 1462 – 13 December 1516), born Johann Heidenberg, was a German Benedictine abbot and a polymath who was active in the German Renaissance as a lexicographer, chronicler, cryptographer, and occultist. He is considered the founder of modern cryptography (a claim shared with Leon Battista Alberti) and steganography, as well as the founder of bibliography and literary studies as branches of knowledge. He had considerable influence on the development of early modern and modern occultism. His students included Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus. Early life The byname Trithemius refers to his native town of Trittenheim on the Moselle River, at the time part of the Electorate of Trier. When Johannes was still an infant his father, Johann von Heidenburg, died. His stepfather, whom his mother Elisabeth married seven years later, was hostile to education and thus Johannes could only learn in secret and with many difficulties. He learned Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. When he was 17 years old he escaped from his home and wandered around looking for good teachers, travelling to Trier, Cologne, the Netherlands, and Heidelberg. He studied at the University of Heidelberg. Career Travelling from the university to his home town in 1482, he was surprised by a snowstorm and took refuge in the Benedictine abbey of Sponheim near Bad Kreuznach. He decided to stay and was elected abbot in 1483, at the age of twenty-one. He often served as featured speaker and chapter secretary at the Bursfelde Congregation's annual chapter from 1492 to 1503, the annual meeting of reform-minded abbots. Trithemius also supervised the visits of the Congregation's abbeys. Trithemius wrote extensively as a historian, starting with a chronicle of Sponheim and culminating in a two-volume work on the history of Hirsau Abbey. His work was distinguished by mastery of the Latin language and eloquent phrasing, yet it was soon discovered that he inserted several fictional passages into his works. Even during Trithemius's lifetime, several critics pointed out the invented sources he used. His forgery regarding the connection between the Franks and the Trojans was part of a larger project to establish a link between the current dynasty of Austria with ancient heroes. While his colleagues like Jakob Mennel and Ladislaus Suntheim often inserted invented ancestors in their works, Trithemius invented entire sources, such as Hunibald, supposedly a Scythian historian. For his research on monasteries, he utilized “Meginfrid,” an imagined early chronicler