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SELECTIONS FROM ERASMUS

Principally From His Epistles

By

P. S. ALLEN

* * * * *

PREFACE

The selections in this volume are taken mainly from the Letters of
Erasmus. Latin was to him a living language; and the easy
straightforwardness with which he addresses himself to what he has to
say, whether in narrating the events of every-day life or in developing
more serious themes, makes his works suitable reading for beginners. To
the rapidity with which he invariably wrote is due a certain laxity,
principally in the use of moods and tenses; and his spelling is that of
the Renaissance. These matters I have brought to some extent into
conformity with classical usage; and in a few other ways also I have
taken necessary liberties with the text.

In the choice of passages I have been guided for the most part by a
desire to illustrate through them English life at a period of exceptional
interest in our history. There has never been wanting a succession of
persons who concerned themselves to chronicle the deeds of kings and the
fortunes of war; but history only becomes intelligible when we can place
these exalted events in their right setting by understanding what men
both small and great were doing and thinking in their private lives. To
Erasmus we owe much intimate knowledge of the age in which he lived; and
of none of his contemporaries has he given us more vivid pictures than of
the great Englishmen, Henry VIII, Colet, More, and many others, whom he
delighted to claim as friends.

With this purpose in view I have thought it best to confine the
historical commentary within a narrow compass in the scenes which are not
drawn from England; and to leave unillustrated many distinguished names,
due appreciation of which would have overloaded the notes and confused
the reader.

The vocabulary is intended to include all words not to be found in Dr.
Lewis's _Elementary Latin Dictionary_, with the exception of (1) those
which with the necessary modification have become English, (2) classical
words used for modern counterparts without possibility of confusion, e.
g. _templum_ for _church_; (3) diminutives--a mode of expression which
both Erasmus and modern writers use very freely--as to the origin of
which there can be no doubt.

Mr. Kenneth Forbes of St. John's College has kindly gone through the
whole of the text with me, and has given me the benefit of his long
experience as a teacher. I am also obliged to him for most valuable
assistance in the preparation of the notes.

LONGWALL, COTTAGE, OXFORD. June 1908.

In a second edition I have been able to incorporate a few of the
corrections and suggestions made by reviewers and friends. My thanks are
especially due to the Warden of Wadham and to Mr. Hugo Sharpley, head
master of Richmond Grammar School, Yorks.

23 MERTON STREET, OXFORD. June 1, 1918.

* * * * *

CONTENTS


LIFE OF ERASMUS

I. AN ORDINATION EXAMINATION

II. A DOMESTIC AFFRAY (55 : 47)

III. A WINTER JOURNEY (88 : 82)

IV. AN ENGLISH COUNTRY-HOUSE (103 : 98)

V. A VISIT TO COURT (I. p. 6 : i. p. 201)

VI. ERASMUS AT OXFORD (115 : 104)

VII. AN OXFORD DINNER PARTY (116 : 105)

VIII. LEARNING IN ENGLAND (118 : 110)

IX. A JOURNEY TO PARIS (119 : 122)

X. ERASMUS RENDERS ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF TO COLET (181 : 180)

XI. A VISIT TO LAMBETH (I. pp. 4-5 : i. p.393)

XII. A LETTER TO ALDUS (207 : 204)

XIII. AN INTERVIEW WITH GRIMANI ( :i. p. 461)

XIV. A CONVERSATION AT CAMBRIDGE (237 : 231)

XV. AN ENCOUNTER WITH CANOSSA

XVI. ERASMUS' APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA (296 : 290)

XVII. ERASMUS' RECEPTION AT BASEL (305 : 298)

XVIII. BISHOP FISHER (457 : 446)

XIX. A JOURNEY FROM BASEL TO LOUVAIN (867 : )

XX. ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES (965 : )

XXI. AN EXPLOSION AT BASEL

XXII. ARCHBISHOP WARHAM. I

XXIII. ARCHBISHOP WARHAM. II

XXIV. THE LIVES OF VITRARIUS AND COLET

XXV. COLET AND HIS KINSMAN

XXVI. THOMAS MORE ( :585B)

XXVII. A DISHONEST LONDONER

XXVIII. THE CONDITION OF ENGLISH HOUSES

XXIX. FISHER'S STUDY AT ROCHESTER

NOTES

VOCABULARY

LIST OF PLACE-NAMES


(Of the figures in brackets, the first give the references to my _Opus
Epistolarum Erasmi_, the second to the late Mr. F. M. Nichols' _Epistles
of Erasmus_.)

* * * * *

LIFE OF ERASMUS

Erasmus of Rotterdam was born on October 27, probably in 1466. His father
belonged to Gouda, a little town near Rotterdam, and after some schooling
there and an interval during which he was a chorister in Utrecht
Cathedral, Erasmus was sent to Deventer, to the principal school in the
town, which was attached to St. Lebuin's Church. The renewed interest in
classical learning which had begun in Italy in the fourteenth century had
as yet been scarcely felt in Northern Europe, and education was still
dominated by the requirements of Philosophy and Theology, which were
regarded as the highest branches of knowledge. A very high degree of
subtlety in thought and argument had been reached, and in order that the
youthful student might be fitted to enter this arena, it was necessary
that he should be trained from the outset in its requirements. In the
schools, in consequence, little attention was paid to the form in which
thought was expressed, provided that the thought was correct: in marked
contrast to the classical ideal, which emphasized the importance of
expression, in just appreciation of the fact that thought expressed in
obscure or inadequate words, fails to reach the human mind. The mediaeval
position had been the outcome of a reaction against the spirit of later
classical times, which had sacrificed matter to form. And now the
pendulum was swinging back again in a new attempt to adjust the rival
claims.

The education which Erasmus received at Deventer was still in thraldom to
the mediaeval ideal. Greek was practically unknown, and in Latin all that
was required of the student was a sufficient mastery of the rudiments of
grammar to enable him to express somehow the distinctions and refinements
of thought for which he was being trained. Niceties of scholarship and
amplitude of vocabulary were unnecessary to him and were disregarded.
From a material point of view also education was hampered. Printing was
only just beginning, and there were few, if any, schoolbooks to be had.
Lectures and lessons still justified their name 'readings'; for the boys
sat in class crowded round their master, diligently copying down the
words that fell from his lips, whether he were dictating a chapter in
grammar, with its rules of accidence and syntax, or at a later stage a
passage from a Latin author with his own or the traditional comments.
Their canon of the classics was widely different from ours; instead of
the simplified Caesar or Ovid that is now set before the schoolboy,
Terence occupied a principal position, being of the first importance to
an age when the learned still spoke Latin. Portions of the historians
were read, for their worldly wisdom rather than for their history; Pliny
the Elder for his natural science, and Boethius for his mathematics; and
for poetry Cato's moral distiches and Baptista of Mantua, 'the Christian
Vergil.'

In this atmosphere Erasmus's early years were spent; but from some of his
masters he caught the breath of the new life that came from Italy, and
this he never lost. By 1485, shortly after he had left Deventer, both his
parents were dead, and a few years later he was persuaded to enter the
monastery of Steyn, near Gouda, a house of Augustinian canons. The life
there was uncongenial to him; for though he had leisure to read as much
as he liked, his temperament was not suited to the precision and
regularity of religious observance. An opportunity for escape presented
itself, when the Bishop of Cambray, a powerful ecclesiastic, was
inquiring for a Latin secretary. Erasmus, who had already become very
facile with his pen, obtained the post and for a year or more discharged
its duties.

At length in 1495 he persuaded the Bishop to fulfil a desire which he had
long cherished, and send him with a stipend to a University. He went to
Paris and began reading for a Doctor's degree in Theology. But the course
was too cramping, and he therefore used his opportunity to educate
himself more widely; eking out the Bishop's grant by taking pupils. It
was a hard life, and his health was delicate; but he did not flinch from
his task, doing just enough paid work--and no more--to keep himself alive
and to buy books. In 1499 one of his pupils, a young Englishman, Lord
Mountjoy, brought him to England for a visit, and in the autumn sent him
for a month or two to Oxford. There he fell in with Colet, a man of
strong character and intellect, who was giving a new impulse to the study
of the Bible by historical treatment. Colet's enthusiasm encouraged
Erasmus in the direction to which he was already inclined; and when he
returned to Paris in 1500, it was with the determination to apply his
whole energy to classical learning, and especially to the study of
Theology, which in the new world opening before him was still to be the
queen of sciences. For the next four years he was working hard, teaching
himself Greek and reading whatever he could find, at Paris or, when the
plague drove him thence, at Orleans or Louvain. By 1504 his period of
preparation was over, and the fruitful season succeeded. His first
venture in Theology was to print in 1505 some annotations on the New
Testament by Lorenzo Valla, an Italian humanist of the fifteenth century
with whose critical temperament he was much in sympathy.

Shortly afterwards a visit to England brought him what he had long
desired--an opportunity of going to Italy. He set out in June 1506, as
supervisor of the studies of two boys, the sons of Henry VII's physician.
After taking the degree of D.D. at Turin in September he settled down at
Bologna with his charges and worked at a book which he had had in hand
for some years, and of which he had already published a specimen in 1500.
To this book, the _Adagia_, he owed the great fame which he obtained
throughout Europe, before any of the works on which his reputation now
rests had been published. Its scheme was a collection of proverbial
sayings and allusions, which he illustrated and explained in such a way
as to make them useful to those who desired to study the classics and to
write elegant Latin. In these days of lexicons and dictionaries the value
of the _Adagia_ has passed away; but to an age which placed a high value
on Latinity and which had little apparatus to use, the book was a great
acquisition. It was welcomed with enthusiasm when Aldus published it at
Venice in 1508: and throughout his life Erasmus brought out edition after
edition, amplifying and enlarging a book which the public was always
ready to buy.

From Venice Erasmus went on to Rome, where he had a flattering reception,
and, though a northerner, was recognized as an equal by the humanists of
Italy. He was pressed to stay, but the death of Henry VII brought him an
invitation to return to England, in the names of Warham, Archbishop of
Canterbury, and his old patron Mountjoy, who was loud in his praises of
the 'divine' young king.

As he rode hastily northwards, his active brain fell to composing a
satire on the life he saw around him. He was a quick observer, and his
personal charm had won him admission to the halls of the great; whilst
bitter experience had shown him the life of the poor and needy. His
satire, _The Praise of Folly_, cuts with no gentle hand into the deceits
to which human frailty is prone and lays bare their nakedness. High and
low, rich and poor, suffer alike, as Folly makes merry over them. There
was much in the life of the age which called for censure, as there had
been in the past and was to be in the future. On untrained lips censure
easily degenerates into abuse and loses its sting: Erasmus with his gifts
of humour and expression caught the public ear and set men thinking.

In England, where he spent the next years, 1509-14, Erasmus began the
great work of his life, an edition of the New Testament and of the
Letters of Jerome. His time was spent between Cambridge and London, and
his friends did what they could for his support. Warham presented him
with a living--Aldington in Kent--and then as Erasmus could not reside
and discharge the duties of a parish priest, allowed him to resign and
draw a pension from the living--in violation of his own strict
regulation. Mountjoy gave him another pension, and Fisher, Bishop of
Rochester, sent him to Cambridge and gave him rooms in Queens' College.
For a time he held the Professorship of Divinity founded in Cambridge, as
in Oxford, by the Lady Margaret Tudor, mother of Henry VII. But teaching
was not his gift. Others might inspire students from the teacher's chair:
his talent could only enlighten the teacher through his books.

At length the time came to publish. By fortunate accident, if not by
design, he came into relations with John Froben of Basel, who with the
three sons of his late partner, John Amorbach, was printing works of
sound learning with all his energy--especially the Fathers. In July 1514
Erasmus set forth, and after a triumphal progress through Germany, fêted
and welcomed everywhere, he settled at Basel to see Jerome and the New
Testament through the press. By 1516 they were complete, and Erasmus had
achieved--almost by an afterthought, for his first project had been a
series of annotations like Valla's--the work which has made his name
great.

Mark Pattison says of Erasmus that he propounded the problem of critical
scholarship, but himself did nothing to solve it. By critical scholarship
is meant the examination of the grounds on which learning rests. In youth
we are uncritical, and accept as Caesar or Livy the books from which we
read those authors; but with growing experience we learn that a copy is
not always a true representation of its original; and with this, even
though there is little perception of the changes and chances through
which manuscripts have passed, the first lesson of criticism has been
learnt.

The problem may be stated thus--In no single case does an autograph
manuscript of a classical author survive: for our knowledge of the works
of the past we are dependent on manuscripts written at a later date. Only
rarely is there less than 300 years' interval between an author's death
and the earliest manuscript now extant of his works; in a great many
cases 1,000 years have elapsed, and in the extreme--Sophocles and
Aristophanes--1,400. The question therefore arises, How far do our
manuscripts represent what was originally written? and it is the work of
scholars to compare together existing manuscripts, to estimate their
relative value, and where they differ, to determine, if possible, what
the author actually wrote.

The manuscripts of the New Testament which scholars have examined and
collated are now numbered by hundreds. Erasmus was content for his first
edition with two lent to him by Colet from the library of St. Paul's
Cathedral, and a few of little value which he found at Basel. And though
for subsequent editions he compared one or two more, the work never
reached a high standard of scholarship. He had done enough, however, for
his age. Before Erasmus men were accustomed to read the New Testament in
Latin; after 1516 no competent scholar could be content with anything but
the Greek. But though the priority actually belongs to Erasmus, it must
be stated that the Greek version had already been printed in January 1514
in a Polyglott Bible published under the orders of Cardinal Ximenes at
Alcala in Spain. For definite reasons, however, this great edition was
not put into circulation till 1520.

By this time Erasmus had attained his highest point. As years went on his
activity continued unabated, his fame grew and his material circumstances
reached a level at which he was far above want and could gratify his
generous impulses freely. But a cloud arose which overshadowed him; and
when it broke--long after Erasmus's death--it overwhelmed Europe. The
causes which raised it up were not new. For centuries earnest and
religious men--Erasmus himself among the number--had been protesting
against evil in the Church. In December 1517 Martin Luther, a friar at
Wittenberg, created a stir by denouncing a number of the doctrines and
practices of the Church; and when the Pope excommunicated him, proceeded
publicly to burn the Papal Bull with every mark of contempt. From this he
was driven on by opposition and threatened persecution, which he faced
with indomitable courage, to a position of complete hostility to Rome;
endeavouring to shatter its immemorial institutions and asserting the
right of the individual to approach God through the mediation of Christ
only instead of through that of priests: the individual, as an inevitable
consequence, claiming the right of private judgement in matters religious
instead of bowing to dogma based on the authority of the Church from ages
past.

These conclusions Erasmus abhorred. He was all for reform, but a violent
severance with the past seemed to him a monstrous remedy. He always
exercised, though he did not always claim, the right of thinking for
himself; but he would never have dreamed of allowing the same freedom to
the ignorant or the unlearned. The aim of his life was to increase
knowledge, in the assurance that from that reform would surely come; but
to force on reform by an appeal to passion, to settle religious
difficulties by an appeal to emotion was to him madness.

The ideals of Erasmus and Luther were irreconcilable: and bitterness soon
arose between them. From both sides Erasmus was assailed with unmeasured
virulence. The strict Catholics called him a heretic, the Lutherans a
coward. But throughout these stormy years he never wavered. At the end he
was still pursuing the ideal which he had sought at the outset of his
public career--reform guided by knowledge. He lived to see some of the
disasters which he had dreaded as the result of encouragement given to
lawless passion--the Peasants' Revolt in 1525, and the Anabaptist horrors
at Munster ten years later. If he could have foreseen the course of the
next century, he would not have lacked instances with which to enforce
his moral.

After 1516 Erasmus returned to England, and then after a few weeks
settled in the Netherlands, first at the court of Brussels, where he had
been appointed Councillor to the young Archduke Charles; and then at the
University of Louvain. He was incessantly at work, a new edition of the
New Testament being projected within a few weeks of the publication of
the first. This appeared in 1519, after Erasmus had journeyed to Basel in
the summer of 1518 to help with the printing. In the autumn of 1521 he
determined to remove to Basel altogether, to escape the attacks of the
Louvain theologians and to be near his printers. For the next few years
he was at Froben's right hand, editing the Fathers in one great series of
volumes after another, and unsparing of his health.

It was during this period that one of the best known of his works, the
_Colloquia_, attained maturity. These were composed first in Paris for a
pupil, as polite forms of address at meeting and parting. In their final
shape they are a series of lively dialogues in which characters, often
thinly disguised, discuss the burning questions of the day with lightness
and humour. In all subsequent times they have been a favourite book for
school reading; and some of Shakespeare's lines are an echo of Erasmus.

In 1529 religious dissensions drove him from Basel and he took refuge at
Freiburg in the Breisgau, which was still untouched by the Reformation.
There he worked on, in the intervals of severe illness; his courage never
failed him and he was comforted by the affection of his friends. In 1535
he returned again to Basel, to be at hand in the printing of a work on
preaching, the _Ecclesiastes_, to which he had given his recent efforts;
and there death, which for twelve years had not seemed far away, overtook
him on July 12, 1536.

* * * * *

I. AN ORDINATION EXAMINATION

Non ab re fuerit hoc loco referre quid acciderit
Davidi quondam episcopo Traiectensi, Ducis Philippi
cognomento Boni filio. Vir erat apprime doctus reique
theologicae peritus, quod in nobilibus et illius
praesertim dicionis episcopis profana dicione onustis 5
perrarum est. Audierat inter tam multos qui sacris
initiabantur, paucissimos esse qui literas scirent.
Visum est rem propius cognoscere. In aula in quam
admittebantur examinandi iussit sibi poni cathedram.
Ipse singulis proposuit quaestiones pro gradus quem 10
petebant dignitate; hypodiaconis futuris leviores, diaconis
aliquanto difficiliores, presbyteris theologicas.
Quaeris eventum? Submovit omnes exceptis tribus.
Qui his rebus praeesse solent existimarunt ingens
Ecclesiae dedecus fore, si pro trecentis tres tantum initiarentur. 15
Episcopus, ut erat fervido ingenio, respondit
maius fore dedecus Ecclesiae, si in eam pro hominibus
admitterentur asini et omnibus asinis stolidiores. Instabant
ii quibus hinc aliquid emolumenti metitur, ut
moderaretur sententiam, reputans hoc seculum non 20
gignere Paulos aut Hieronymos, sed tales recipiendos
quales ea ferret aetas. Perstitit episcopus, negans se
requirere Paulos ac Hieronymos, sed asinos pro hominibus
non admissurum. Hic confugiendum erat ad
extremam machinam. Admota est. Quaenam? 'Si qua 25
coepisti' inquiunt 'visum est pertendere, salaria nobis
augeas oportet; alioqui sine his asinis non est unde
vivamus.' Hoc ariete deiectus est erectus ille Praesulis
animus.




II. A DOMESTIC AFFRAY

ERASMUS CHRISTIANO S. D.

Salve, mel Atticum. Heri nihil scripsi, et consulto
quidem; nam eram stomachosior. Ne roga in quem,
in te inquam. 'Quid commerueram?' Verebar mihi
insidias strui per te hominem argutissimum. Suspectam
habebam illam tuam pyxidem, ne quid simile 5
nobis afferret, quale ferunt Pandorae pyxidem Epimetheo;
quam ubi recluseram, mihi ipsi succensebam
qui fuissem suspiciosulus. 'Cur igitur ne hodie quidem
scripsisti?' inquies. Eramus occupatissimi. 'Quid tandem
negotii?' In spectaculo sedimus, sane iucundo. 10
'Comoedia' inquis 'fuit, an Tragoedia?' Utrumvis,
verum nemo personatus agebat, unicus duntaxat actus,
chorus sine tibiis, fabula nec togata nec palliata, sed
planipedia, humi acta, sine saltatu, e cenaculo spectata,
epitasis turbulentissima, exitus perturbatissimus. 15
'Quam, malum,' inquies 'mihi fabulam fingis?' Immo
rem, Christiane, refero.

Spectavimus hodie matremfamilias cum famula domestica
fortiter depugnantem. Sonuerat diu tuba ante
congressum, convicia fortiter utrinque regeruntur. Hic 20
aequo Marte discessum est, triumphavit nemo. Haec
in hortis, nos e cenaculo taciti spectabamus, non
sine risu. Sed audi catastrophen. A pugna conscendit
cubiculum meum puella, concinnatura lectos. Inter
confabulandum laudo fortitudinem illius, quod voce 25
conviciisque nihil cesserit dominae; ceterum optasse
me ut quantum lingua valebat, tantundem valuisset et
manibus. Nam hera, virago robusta ut vel athleta videri
posset, subinde caput humilioris puellae pugnis contundebat.
'Usque adeone' inquam 'nullos habes ungues, 30
ut ista impune feras?' Respondit illa subridens sibi
quidem non tam animum deesse quam vires. 'An tu
putas' inquam 'bellorum exitus a viribus tantum
pendere? Consilium ubique valet plurimum.' Roganti
quid haberem consilii, 'Ubi te rursus adorietur,' inquam 35
'protinus caliendrum detrahe' (nam mulierculae
Parisiorum mire sibi placent nigris quibusdam caliendris):
'eo detracto mox in capillos invola.'

Haec ut a me ioco dicebantur, itidem accipi putabam.
Atqui sub cenae tempus accurrit anhelus hospes; 40
is erat Caroli regis caduceator, vulgato cognomine
dictus Gentil Gerson. 'Adeste,' inquit 'domini mei,
videbitis cruentum spectaculum.' Accurrimus, offendimus
matremfamilias ac puellam humi colluctantes.
Vix a nobis diremptae sunt. Quam cruenta fuisset 45
pugna res ipsa declarabat. Iacebant per humum sparsa,
hic caliendrum, illic flammeum. Glomeribus pilorum
plenum erat solum; tam crudelis fuerat laniena.
Ubi accubuimus in cena, narrat nobis magno stomacho
materfamilias quam fortiter se gessisset puella, 'Ubi 50
pararem' inquit 'illam castigare, hoc est pugnis contundere,
illa mihi protinus caliendrum detraxit e capite.'
Agnovi me non surdae cecinisse fabulam. 'Id detractum'
inquit 'mihi venefica vibrabat in oculos.' Id
non admonueram. 'Tum' inquit 'tantum capillorum 55
evulsit quantum hic videtis.' Coelum ac terram testata
est se nunquam expertam esse puellam tam pusillam
ac perinde malam. Nos excusare casus humanos et
ancipitem bellorum exitum, tractare de componenda
in posterum concordia. Ego interim mihi gratulabar 60
dominae non subolere rem meo consilio gestam; alioqui
sensissem et ipse illi non deesse linguam.

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