The Age of Erasmus by P. S. Allen

P >> P. S. Allen >> The Age of Erasmus

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18

The fact is that in the splendour of the new invention of printing,
the possibilities of accompanying error had not been realized. In just
the same spirit the idea went abroad that when a book had been
printed, its manuscript original had no value. We have seen how
Erasmus was allowed to carry off the manuscript of Valla from Louvain
to Paris. Aldus received codices from all parts of Europe, sent by
owners with the request that they should be printed; but no desire for
their return. In 1531 Simon Grynaeus came from Basle to Oxford and was
given precious texts from college libraries to take back with him and
have published. Generosity helped to mislead. To keep a manuscript to
oneself for personal enjoyment seemed churlish. If it were printed,
any one who wished might enjoy it. That any degeneration might come in
by the way, that the printed text might contain blunders, was not
perceived. The process seemed so straightforward, so mechanical; as
certain a method of reproduction as photography. But the human element
in it was overlooked. _Humanum est errare_.

It was the same with the New Testament as with Seneca. When the form
of the work had been decided upon--a Greek text side by side with
Erasmus' translation, and notes at the end--two young scholars,
Gerbell and Oecolampadius, were installed in charge of the book. For
the Greek Erasmus had expected, he tells us, to find at Basle some
manuscript which he could give to the printers without further
trouble. But he was annoyed to find that there was none available
which was good enough, and he positively had to go through the one
that he selected from beginning to end before he could entrust it to
his correctors. In addition to this he put into their hands another
manuscript, which had been borrowed from Reuchlin; presumably to help
them in case they should have any difficulty in deciphering the
first. However, after a time he discovered that they were taking
liberties, and following the text of the second manuscript, wherever
they preferred its reading: as though the editing were in their own
hands. He took it from them and found another manuscript which agreed
more closely with the first. For the book of Revelation only one Greek
manuscript was available; and at the end five verses and a bit were
lacking through the loss of a leaf. Erasmus calmly translated them
back from the Latin, but had the grace to warn the reader of the fact
in his notes.

As to the translation, an interesting point is that it is modified
considerably from the translation which he had made in 1505-6, and is
brought closer to the text of the Vulgate. In the second edition of
the New Testament, March 1519, he explains in a preliminary apology
that he had changed back in this way in 1516 from fear lest too great
divergence from the Vulgate might give offence. But the book was on
the whole so well received that he soon realized that the time was
ripe for more advanced scholarship. His earlier version was the best
that he could do, in simplicity of style and fidelity to the original.
Accordingly in 1519 he introduced it with the most minute care, even
such trivial variations as _ac_ or _-que_ for _et_ being restored. The
transformation was not without its effects. Numerous passages were
objected to by the orthodox; as for example, when he translates
[Greek: logos] in the first verse of St. John's Gospel by _sermo_,
instead of _verbum_, as in the Vulgate and the edition of 1516.

The New Testament appeared in March 1516, dedicated by permission to
the Pope; in the following autumn came Jerome, in nine volumes, of
which four were by Erasmus, dedicated to the Archbishop of Canterbury:
and thus the Head of the Church and one of his most exalted suffragans
lent their sanction to an advancement of learning which theological
faculties in the universities viewed with the gravest suspicion.

Erasmus had now reached his highest point. He had equipped himself
thoroughly for the work he desired to do. He was the acknowledged
leader of a large band of scholars, who looked to him for guidance and
were eagerly ready to second his efforts; and with the resources of
Froben's press at his disposal, nothing seemed beyond his powers and
his hopes. Wherever his books spread, his name was honoured, almost
reverenced. Material honours and wealth flowed in upon him; and he was
continually receiving enthusiastic homage from strangers. He saw
knowledge growing from more to more, and bringing with it reform of
the Church and that steady betterment of the evils of the world which
wise men in every age desire. In all this his part was to be that of a
leader: not the only one, but in the front rank. He enjoyed his
position, feeling that he was fitted for it; but he was not puffed up.
In his dreams of what he would do with his life, he had ever seen
himself advancing not the name of Erasmus but the glory of God. In
his later years he became impatient of criticism, and resented with
great bitterness even difference of opinion, unless expressed with the
utmost caution; to hostile critics his language is often quite
intolerable. But the spirit underlying this is not mere vanity. No
doubt it wounded him to be evil spoken of, to have his pre-eminence
called in question, to be shown to have made mistakes: but the real
ground of his resentment was rather vexation that anything should
arise to mar the unanimity of the humanist advance toward wider
knowledge. Conscious of singleness of purpose, it was a profound
disappointment to him to have his sincerity doubted, to be treated as
an enemy by men who should have been his friends.

Into the discord of the years that followed I do not propose to enter.
They were years of disappointment to Erasmus; disappointment that grew
ever deeper, as he saw the steady growth of reform broken by the
sudden shocks of the Reformation and barred by subsequent reaction.
Throughout it all he never lost his faith in the spread of knowledge,
and gave his energies consistently to help this great cause. He
produced more editions of the Fathers, either wholly or in part:
Cyprian, Arnobius, Hilary, Jerome again, Chrysostom, Irenaeus,
Athanasius, Ambrose, Augustine, Lactantius, Alger, Basil, Haymo, and
Origen; the last named in the concluding months of his life. The
storms that beat round him could not stir him from his principles. To
neither reformer nor reactionary would he concede one jot, and in
consequence from each side he was vilified. He was drawn into a series
of deplorable controversies, which estranged him from many; but of his
real friends he lost not one. It is pleasant to see the devotion with
which Beatus Rhenanus and Boniface Amerbach comforted his last years;
never wavering in the service to which they had plighted themselves in
the enthusiasm of youth.

The chance survival of the following note enables us to stand by
Erasmus' bedside in his last hours. It was written by one of the
Frobens, possibly his godson and namesake, Erasmius, to Boniface
Amerbach, and it may be dated early in July 1536, perhaps on the 11th,
the last sunset that Erasmus was to see. 'I have just visited the
Master, but without his knowing. He seems to me to fail very much: for
his tongue cleaves to his palate, so that you can scarcely understand
him when he speaks. He is drawing his breath so deep and quick, that I
cannot but wonder whether he will live through the night. So far he
has taken nothing to-day except some chicken-broth. I have sent for
Sebastian . If he comes, I will have him
introduced into the room, but without the Master's knowledge, in order
that he may hear what I have heard. I am sending you this word, so
that you may come quickly.'

Erasmus' last words were in his own Dutch speech: 'Liever Got'.

No account of Erasmus must omit to tell how he laboured for peace.
Well he might. In his youth he had seen his native Holland torn
between the Hoeks and the Cabeljaus, the Duke of Gueldres and the
Bishop of Utrecht, with occasional intervention by higher powers. Year
after year the war had dragged on, with no decisive settlement, no
relief to the poor. One of his friends, Cornelius Gerard, wrote a
prose narrative of it; another, William Herman, composed a poem of
Holland weeping for her children and would not be comforted. _Dulce
bellum inexpertis._ War sometimes seems purifying and ennobling to
those whose own lives have never been jeoparded, who have never seen
men die: but not so to those who have known and suffered. Throughout
his life Erasmus never wearied of ensuing peace; and for its sake he
reproved even kings. In 1504 he was allowed to deliver a panegyric of
congratulation before the Archduke Philip the Fair, who had just
returned from Spain to the Netherlands; and after sketching a picture
of a model prince, inculcated upon him the duty of maintaining peace.
In 1514 he wrote to one of his patrons, brother of the Bishop of
Cambray, a letter on the wickedness of war, obviously designed for
publication and actually translated into German by an admirer a few
years later, to give it wider circulation. In 1515 the enlarged
_Adagia_ contained an essay on the same theme, under the title quoted
above: words which, translated into English, were again and again
reprinted during the nineteenth century by Peace Associations and the
Society of Friends. In 1516 he was appointed Councillor to Philip's
son, Charles, who at 16 had just succeeded to the crowns of Spain. His
first offering to his young sovereign was counsel on the training of a
Christian prince, with due emphasis on his obligations for peace. In
1517 he greeted the new Bishop of Utrecht, Philip of Burgundy, with a
'Complaint of Peace cast forth from all lands', _Querela Pacis vndique
profligatae_. And besides these direct invocations, in his other
writings, his pen frequently returns upon the same high argument. For
a brief period in his life it seemed as though peace might come back.
Maximilian's death in 1519 followed by Charles' election to the Empire
placed the sovereignty of Western and Central Europe in the hands of
three young men, who were chivalrous and impressionable, Henry and
Francis and Charles: only the year before they had been treating for
universal peace. If they would really act in concord, it seemed as
though the Golden Age might return, and Christendom show a united face
against the watchful and unwearying Turk. But though the sky was
clear, the weather was what Oxfordshire folk call foxy. Strife of
nations, strife of creeds cannot in a moment be allayed. Suddenly the
little clouds upon the horizon swelled up and covered the heaven with
the darkness of night; and before the dawn broke into new hope,
Erasmus had laid down his pen for ever, and was at rest from his
service to the Prince of Peace.

VI

FORCE AND FRAUD

As you stand on the Piazza dei Signori at Verona, at one side rises
the massive red-brick tower of the Scaliger palace, lofty, castellated
at its top, with here and there a small window, deep set in the old
masonry, and the light that is allowed to pass inwards, grudgingly
crossed by bars of rusty iron--a place of defence and perhaps of
tyranny, within which life is secure indeed, but grim and sombre.
Opposite, in an angle of the square, stands a very different building,
the Palazzo del Consiglio. It has only two storeys, but each of these
is high and airy; above is a fine chamber, through whose ample windows
streams in the sun; below is a pleasant loggia, supported by slender
columns. Marble cornices and balustrades give a sense of richness, and
the wall-spaces are bright with painting and ornament. The spacious
galleries invite to enjoyment, to pace their length in free
light-hearted talk, or to stand and watch the life moving below, with
the sense of gay predominance that the advantage of height confers.

The two buildings typify most aptly the ages to which they belong: the
contrast between them is as the gulf between the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance. Step back in thought to the twelfth century, and we find
civilization struggling for its very existence. Few careers were
possible. Above all was the soldier, ruthlessly spreading murder and
desolation, and expecting no mercy when his own turn came; in the
middle were the merchant and the craftsman, relying on strong city
walls and union with their fellows, and the lawyer building up a
system, and profiting when men fell out; underneath was the peasant,
pitiably dependent on others. On all sides was bestial cruelty and
reckless ignorance: the overmastering care of life to find shelter and
protection. How strong, how luxuriously strong seemed that tower, with
so few apertures to admit the enemy and the pursuer! once inside, who
would wish to stir abroad? For the man who would think or study there
was only one way of life, to become sacrosanct in the direct service
of God. The Church, with splendid ideals before it, was exerting
itself to crush barbarism, and its forts were garrisoned by men of
spirit, whose courage was not that of the destroyer. In the
monasteries, if anywhere, was to be found that peace which the world
cannot give, the life of contemplation, in which can be felt the
hunger and thirst after knowledge.

By the middle of the sixteenth century the scene has changed. Much
blood has flowed through the arches of time; and now the conqueror has
learnt from the Church to be merciful, from nascent science to be
strong. He can spread peace wherever his sword reaches; and fear that
of old ruled all under the sun, now can walk only in dark places.
Walls no longer bring comfort, and soon they are to be thrown down to
make way for the broad streets which will carry the movement outwards;
and, most significant change, the country house with 'its gardens and
its gallant walks' takes the place of the grange. From the thraldom of
terror what an escape, to light, air, freedom, activity! The gates of
joy are opened, the private citizen learns to live, to follow choice
not necessity, to give the reins to his spirit and take hold on the
gifts that Nature spreads before him.

In the pursuit of peace, human progress has lain in the enlargement of
the units of government capable of holding together; from villages to
towns, from towns to provinces, from provinces to nations. The last
step had been the achievement of the Middle Ages, though even by the
end of the fifteenth century it was not yet complete: the twentieth
century finds us reaching forward to a new advance. We have spoken of
Erasmus' efforts to bring back peace from her exile, of the
experiences of his youth when Holland had wept for her children. In
1517, when he wrote his 'Complaint of Peace cast forth from all
lands', he was a man and one of Charles' councillors; but Holland was
still weeping and refusing comfort. She had good reason. The provinces
of the Netherlands were disunited, no sway imposed upon them with
strength enough first to restrain and then to knit together. On either
side of the Zuider Zee lay two bitter enemies: Holland, which had
accepted the Burgundian yoke, and Friesland, which after a long
struggle against foreign domination, had been reduced by the rule of
Saxon governors, Duke Albert and Duke George. To the south was
Gueldres, which, under its Duke, Charles of Egmont, had thrown in its
lot with France against Burgundy, and was continually instigating the
subjugated Frieslanders to rebellion. Then was war in the gates.

This was the kind of thing that happened. In 1516, after a fresh
outbreak of the ceaseless struggle, Henry of Nassau, Stadhouder of
Holland and Zeeland, ordered that all Gueldrians or Frieslanders who
showed their faces in his dominions should be put to death; and some
who were resident at the Hague were executed on the charge of sending
aid to their compatriots. A raid by the Gueldrians ended in the
massacre of Nieuwpoort. Nassau replied by ravaging the country up to
the walls of Arnhem, the Gueldres capital.

Duke Charles had terrible forces at command. A body of mercenary
troops, known as the Black Band, had been used by George of Saxony for
the repression of Friesland in 1514, and since then had been seeking
employment wherever they could find it. At the same time, one of the
conquered Frieslanders, known as Long Peter, had turned to piracy as
an effective way of revenging himself on Holland. Proclaiming himself
'King of the Sea', he seized every ship that came in his way, showing
no mercy to Hollanders and holding all others to ransom.

In May 1517, the Duke, violating a truce not yet expired, renewed
hostilities. The Black Band, some of whom had strayed as far as Rouen
in quest of fighting, flocked back. At the end of June 3000 of them
crossed the Zuider Zee in Long Peter's ships and disembarked suddenly
at Medemblik, in North Holland. The town was quickly set on fire, and
everything destroyed except the citadel; the fleet carrying back the
first spoils. Then they marched southwards, burning what they list;
and happy were those whose offer of ransom was accepted, to escape
with plunder only.

There was no fixed plan. The murderous horde wandered along, turning
to right or left as fancy suggested. After burning five country towns,
they appeared at Alcmar, the chief town of North Holland, into which
the most precious possessions of the neighbourhood had been hurriedly
conveyed. By a heavy payment, the burghers purchased immunity from the
flames; but for eight days the town was given up to the lust and
ferocity of an uncontrolled soldiery, from whose senseless destruction
it took thirty years to recover. Egmond, with its great abbey, was
pillaged; and then it was Haarlem's turn to suffer. But by this time
resistance had been organized. Troops had been called back from
garrison work in Friesland, and a strong line drawn in front of
Haarlem. Headed off, the Black Band turned suddenly away. Passing
Amsterdam and Culemborg, it penetrated down into South Holland, whence
it would be easy to pass back into Gueldres. Asperen was its next
prey. Three times the citizens beat off the cruel foe: a few more to
man their walls, and they might have driven him right away, to
overwhelm others less fortunate and less brave.

But it was not to be. At the fourth attempt the marauders were
successful, and massacre ensued. Death to the men, worse than death to
the women: nor age nor innocence could touch those black hearts. A
schoolmaster with his boys fled into a church and hid trembling in the
rood-loft. Before long they were discovered. Thirsting for blood, some
of the monsters rushed up the steps and tossed the shrieking victims
over on to the pikes of their comrades below. When all the butchery
was finished, a few helpless and infirm survivors were dragged out of
hiding-places. The miserable creatures were driven out of the city and
the gates barred in their faces. For a month the Black Band held
Asperen as a standing camp, living upon the provisions stored up by
the dead. Then Nassau came with troops and drove them forth, pursuing
into Gueldres, where he burned '46 good villages' in revenge. The
sight of fire blazing to heaven is appalling enough when men are
ranged all on one side, and the battle is with the element alone. Our
peace-lapped imaginations cannot picture the terror of flames kindled
aforethought. As those poor fugitives scattered over the country,
cowering into the darkness out of the fire's searching glow, they
cannot but have recalled the words: 'Woe unto them that are with child
and to them that give suck in those days.' At least they could give
thanks that their flight was not in the winter.

Meanwhile Long Peter had not been idle. On 14 August he had a great
battle with the Hollanders off Hoorn. Eleven ships he took, and cast
their crews into the sea: 500 men, save one, a Gueldrian, struggling
in the calm summer waters and stretching out their hands to a foe who
knew no pity. In September he surrounded a merchant fleet. The
Easterlings escaped at heavy ransom; but the crews of three Holland
vessels were flung to the waves. Then he carried the war on to the
land, to glean what the Black Band had left. With 1200 men he took
Hoorn by escalade; plunder-laden and sated, they returned to the sea.
Nothing was too small or too helpless for his rapacity. Along the
coast they picked up a barge of Enckhuizen. Its only crew, master and
mate, were thrown overboard, and Peter's fleet sailed upon its way. We
must remember that the provinces engaged in this internecine strife
were not widely diverse in race, and that to-day they are peacefully
united under one governance.

The winter of 1517-18 was spent by the Black Band in Friesland. Three
thousand men who are prepared to take by force what is not given to
them, do not lie hungry in the cold. We may be sure that under them
the land had no rest. At Easter they began to move southwards in quest
of other victims and other employ. But as they halted between Venlo
and Roermond, resistance confronted them. Nassau had arrayed by his
side the Archbishop of Cologne and the Dukes of Juliers and Cleves:
the gates of the cities were closed and the ferry-boats that would
have carried them across the Maas had been kept on the other side.
Caught in a trap, the freebooters promised to lay down their weapons
and disperse. The disarmament proceeded quietly till one of the
company-leaders refused to part with a bombard, the new invention, of
which he was very proud. A trumpeter, seeing the man hesitate, sounded
a warning, and the containing troops stood on the alert. Readiness led
to action. Suddenly they fell on the helpless horde, for whom there
was no safety but in flight. A thousand were massacred before Nassau
and his confederates could check their men.

Erasmus was about to set out from Louvain to Basle, to work at a new
edition of the New Testament. Bands such as these were, of course, a
peril to travellers. Half exultant, half disgusted, he wrote to More:
'These fellows were stripped before disbandment: so they will have all
the more excuse for fresh plundering. This is consideration for the
people! They were so hemmed in that not one of them could have
escaped: yet the Dukes were for letting them go scot-free. It was mere
chance that any of them were killed. Fortunately, a man blew his
trumpet: there was at once an uproar, and more than a thousand were
cut down. The Archbishop alone was sound. He said that, priest though
he was, if the matter were left to him, he would see that such things
should never occur again. The people understand the position, but are
obliged to acquiesce.' To Colet he exclaimed more bitterly: 'It is
cruel! The nobles care more for these ruffians than for their own
subjects. The fact is, they count on them to keep the people down.'
Let us be thankful that Europe to-day has no experience of such
mercenaries.

A sign of the troubles of the times was the existence of the French
order of Trinitarians for the redemption of prisoners. This need had
been known even when Rome's power was at its height, for Cicero[25]
specifies the redemption of men captured by pirates as one of the ways
in which the generously minded were wont to spend their money. The
practice lasted down continuously through the Middle Ages. Gaguin, the
historian of France, Erasmus' first patron in Paris, was for many
years General of the Trinitarians, and made a journey to Granada to
redeem prisoners who had been taken fighting against the Moors. Even
in the eighteenth century, church offertories in England were asked
and given to loose captives out of prison.

[25] _De Officiis_, 2. 16.

Where the king's peace is not kept and the king's writ does not run,
men learn to rely on themselves. Those who protect themselves with
strength, discover the efficacy of force, and soon are not content to
apply it merely on the defensive. It is not surprising, therefore, to
find in Erasmus' day many cases of resort to violence to remedy
defective titles. Nowadays we never hear of a defeated candidate for
a coveted post trying to obtain by force and right of possession the
position which has been given to another. It is unthinkable, for
instance, that a Warden of Merton duly elected should have to eject
from college some disappointed rival who had possessed himself of the
Warden's office and house: as actually happened in 1562. It is,
perhaps, not so much that we have become more law-abiding, as that we
realize that any such attempt must be fruitless when the strong arm of
the State is at hand, ready to assert the rights of the lawful
claimant.

In Erasmus' day might was often right. Thus in 1492 the Abbot of St.
Bertin's at St. Omer died, and the monks elected in his place a
certain James du Val, who was duly consecrated in July 1493. The
Bishop of Cambray, however, had had the abbey in his eye for his
younger brother Antony, who had been ejected ten years before by the
powerful family of Arenberg from the Abbey of St. Trond in Limburg,
and meanwhile had been living unemployed at Louvain. The Bishop
persuaded the Pope to annul du Val's election and appoint Antony in
his place, probably on some technical ground. Armed with this
permission he appeared at St. Omer in October 1493 and violently
installed his brother; who held the abbey undisturbed till his death
nearly forty years later. The Bishop's success with the Pope is the
more noteworthy, as for a period of seven years he himself had refused
to surrender an abbey near Mons to a papal nominee, who was not strong
enough to wrest it from him. Again, during the five years of the
English occupation of Tournay, 1513-18, there was a continual struggle
between two rival bishops, appointed when the see fell vacant in
1513--Wolsey nominated by Henry VIII and Louis Guillard by the Pope.
It goes without saying that Wolsey won; and Guillard did not get in
till 1519, the year after the evacuation by the English.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18