Jan Gruter (or Gruytere; Latinized Janus Gruterus) (December 3, 1560 - September 20, 1627), was a critic and scholar of the Netherlands.

He was Dutch on his father's side and English on his mother's, and was born at Antwerp. To avoid religious persecution his parents came to England while he was a child; and for some years he studied at Cambridge, after which he went to Leiden, where he graduated with an M.A.

In 1586 he was appointed professor of history at the University of Wittenberg, but as he refused to subscribe the formula concordiae he lost his position. From 1589 to 1592 he taught at Rostock, after which he went to Heidelberg, where in 1602 he was appointed librarian to the university.

Gruter's chief works were his Inscriptiones antiquae totius orbis Romani (2 vols., Heidelberg, 1603), and Lampas, sive fax artium liberalium (7 vols., Frankfort, 1602-1634).

Reference

• This entry incorporates public domain text originally from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.