The Faust Legend   The Faust Legend  The Faust legend is
probably based on the life of a real person named Jorg or George
Faust, also referred to as Georgius and as Johannes Faustus. He
was a traveling performer or magician, thought to have been born
around 1480 in the Württemberg region of southwest Germany, and
to have died in the same region around 1540. The first lengthy
historical mention of him occurs in a letter written in 1507 by
the Benedictine scholar Johannes Tritheim. The letter is not
complimentary of Faust. In it, Tritheim refers to him as one
"who has presumed to call himself the prince of necromancers,"
but who is in fact "a vagabond, a babbler, and a rogue, who
deserves to be thrashed so that he may not henceforth rashly
venture to profess in public things so execrable and so hostile
to the holy Church."  The principal German source of the legend
surrounding Faust is the volume edited by Johann Spies in 1587
and published as Historia von D. Johann Fausten. This version,
commonly called the Fa