Evenius was born in Nauen, a mid-sized town a short distance to the west of Potsdam and Berlin. His father was a clothier/weaver. On 23 April 1602 Sigismund Evenius commenced his studies at Leucorea. In due course he emerged with a Magister qualification, and in 1611 he obtained a position in the Philosophy faculty. Shortly after this, in 1613, he relocated to Halle, becoming the rector of the Gymnasium. During his time in Halle he came into contact with the education reformer Wolfgang Ratke, on whose ideas he seized. In 1618 he visited Köthen in order to see the implementation of Ratke's ideas at first hand. It is evident that Evenius was so enthused by Ratke's ideas that he began teaching, primarily religion, at according to Ratke's Christian school precepts, using the vernacular, despite personal differences between the two of them. He also put together a plan to create a "German Arts School", which would promote practical awareness with hands-on craftsmanship activities. His parting contribution, when he left Halle in 1622, was a speech entitled "De contemtu scholarum scholasticique ordinis". While in Halle Evenius produced a work in which he addressed the doctrine of the Eucharist, which set him against, in particular, the Jesuits and the Protestant reformed churches. Notwithstanding his essential humanism, his basic commitment to the tenets of Lutheranism is apparent across his writing. With his appointment later the same year as rector of the Gymnasium in Magdeburg he gave another speech entitled "De vindicando huiusmodi contemtu". It is evident from these and from his subsequent writings and activities that he was fully engaged in the passionate sectarian disputes which were erupting across much of western Europe at the time. His progressive approach to schooling continued in Magdeburg where initial teaching took place in the students' mother tongue, and instruction in other languages following one by one, extending only later to the classics. Religious instruction was an important segment of the overall curriculum but it did not, at this stage, provide the context for the entire curriculum, as it would come to do during the 1630s. It is apparent from his subsequently published writings that he was also deeply concerned for the moral condition of the young men sent to him to be educated. Magdeburg was besieged and then destroyed by Catholic armies under Tilly and others in 1630/1631. Historians sometimes contend that the Thirty Years' War was the most destructive event in Europe prior to the twentieth century: the massacre in Magdeburg that followed the surrender of the city may have involved the death of perhaps 20,000 inhabitants. Military destruction was followed, as so often, by plague. Evenius fled with his family to Tallinn where he took over the headship of the newly founded Gymnasium.
Sigismund Evenius: Published output (not a complete list)
Formul und Abriß wie eine christliche und evangelische Schule wohl und richtig anzustellen sei, Halle 1618
