The Age of Erasmus by P. S. Allen

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The habitual remarriage of widows proceeded in part from the desire,
or even need, for a husband's protection; and in consequence it was
not only the young who were open to men's addresses. Beatus Rhenanus,
writing to a servant-pupil who had recently left him to launch forth
into the world, counsels him to marry, if possible, a rich and elderly
widow; in order that in a few years by her death he may find himself
equipped with an ample capital for his real start in life. Such advice
from a man like Beatus can only have been in jest: but if there had
not been some reality of actual practice, the jest would have fallen
flat. Indeed Beatus goes on to indicate that this course had been
taken by Reuchlin; whose elderly consort was, however, disobliging
enough to live for many years. The ill-success attending Oporinus'
essay in this direction we have already seen.

But it was not so with all. Not infrequently Erasmus deplores the
imprudence of the young men who had left his service, in allowing
themselves to fall in love and marry without securing proper dowries
with their young brides. He was indeed, considering his natural
shrewdness, singularly ignorant of women; as his advice to youthful
husbands sometimes shows. To one, for example, who had written to
announce that before long he hoped to become a father, he replies with
congratulations, and then says: 'Now that your wife no longer needs
your care, you will be able to betake yourself to a university and
finish your studies'--advice which we may surely suppose was not
taken.

During the insecurity of the Middle Ages, the seclusion of women for
their own protection had been severely necessary. In the East the
'purdah-system' reached the length of excluding women of the better
classes from the society of all men but those of their own family. Of
such rigidity in Europe I cannot find any traces except under Oriental
influence;[28] but there is no doubt that women's life at the
beginning of the Renaissance in the North was circumscribed. Such
higher education as they received was given at home, by father or
brothers or husband, or by private tutors. But there are not a few
examples of educated women. In the well-known Frisian family, the
Canters of Groningen, parents and children and even the maidservant
are said to have spoken regularly in Latin. Antony Vrye of Soest, one
of the Adwert circle, wrote to his wife in Latin; and his daughter
helped him with the teaching of Latin in the various schools over
which he presided, at Campen and Amsterdam and Alcmar. Pirckheimer's
sisters and daughters, Peutinger's wife, are famous for their
learning. In England throughout the Renaissance period the position of
women and their education steadily improved. Alice, Duchess of
Suffolk, the foundress of Ewelme, had an interest in literature; and
the great Lady Margaret, besides the endowments which are her memorial
at the universities, constantly fostered the efforts of Wynkyn de
Worde, and herself translated part of the _Imitatio_ from the French.
The Princess Mary, as the result of the liberal training of Vives and
other masters, could translate from Aquinas, take part in acting a
play of Terence, and read the letters of Jerome; and before she was
30, made a translation of Erasmus' Paraphrase of St. John's Gospel,
which formed part of the English version of those Paraphrases ordered
by Injunctions of Edward VI to be placed beside the Bible in every
parish church throughout the realm.

[28] In 1729 the Abbe Fourmont found the seclusion of women
extensively practised in Athens for fear of the Turks; see
R.C. Christie, _Essays and Papers_, p. 69.

More, for his dear 'school', engaged the best teachers he could find.
John Clement, afterwards Wolsey's first Reader in Humanity at Oxford,
and William Gonell, Erasmus' friend at Cambridge, read Sallust and
Livy with them. Nicholas Kratzer, the Bavarian mathematician, also one
of Wolsey's Readers at Oxford, taught them astronomy: to know the
pole-star and the dog, and to contemplate the 'high wonders of that
mighty and eternal workman', whom More could feel revealed himself
also to some 'good old idolater watching and worshipping the man in
the moon every frosty night'.[29] Richard Hyrde, the friend of
Gardiner and translator of Vives' _Instruction of a Christian Woman_,
continued the work after the 'school' had been moved to Chelsea;[30]
and when Margaret, eldest and best-beloved scholar, was married. Not
that this interfered. The love of learning once implanted brought her
with her husband to keep her place among her sisters in that bright
Academy. Her fame is well known, how the Bishop of Exeter sent her a
gold coin of Portugal in reward for an elegant epistle; how familiarly
she corresponded with Erasmus; how she emended the text of Cyprian,
imitated the Declamations of Quintilian, and translated the
Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius.

[29] More, _English Works_, 1557, f. 154 E.
[30] See F. Watson, _Vives and the Renascence Education of
Women_, 1912.

It is evident that in England, for women as well as men, the seed of
the Renaissance had fallen on good ground. By the middle of the
century the gates of the kingdom of knowledge were open, and the
thoughtful were rejoicing in the infinite variety of their Paradise
regained. In 1547-8, Nicholas Udall, in a preface for Mary's
translation of Erasmus' Paraphrase, writes with enthusiasm: 'Neither
is it now any strange thing to hear gentlewomen, instead of most vain
communication about the moon shining in the water, to use grave and
substantial talk in Greek or Latin with their husbands in godly
matters. It is now no news in England to see young damsels in noble
houses and in the courts of princes, instead of cards and other
instruments of vain trifling, to have continually in their hands
either Psalms, "Omelies" and other devout meditations, or else Paul's
Epistles or some book of Holy Scripture matters, and as familiarly
both to read and reason thereof in Greek, Latin, French or Italian as
in English. It is now a common thing to see young virgins so "nouzled"
and trained in the study of letters that they willingly set all other
vain pastimes at nought for learning's sake.' It is melancholy to
reflect how soon the gates of the kingdom were to be closed again, and
its trees guarded by the flaming sword of theological certainty
mistaking itself for truth.

Besides marriage, almost the only vocation open to women in the
fifteenth century was the monastic life. It was not uncommon for
several daughters in a family to embrace religion: parents, apart from
higher considerations, regarding it as a sure method of providing for
girls who did not wish to marry, or for whom they could not find
husbands. As heads of religious houses women held positions of great
dignity and influence, and discharged their duties worthily. Within
convent walls, too, it was possible for some women to become learned;
though in later times the achievements of Diemudis were never
rivalled. She was a nun at Wessobrunn in Bavaria at the end of the
eleventh century, and during her cloistered life her active pen wrote
out 47 volumes, including two complete Bibles, one of which was given
in exchange for an estate.

We also hear of women of means, usually widows, dispensing hospitality
on a large scale to the needy and deserving. Wessel of Groningen, as
we saw, was adopted by a wealthy matron, who saw him shivering in the
street on a winter's day and fetched him into her house to warm.
Erasmus describes to us a Gouda lady, Berta de Heyen, whose kindness
he repeatedly enjoyed in his early years; and in addition to her
general charities mentions that she was wont to look out for promising
boys in the town school who were designing to enter the Church,
receive them into her family amongst her own children, and when their
courses were completed, bestir herself to procure them benefices--an
indication of the possession of influence outside her own home. He
goes on to say that when widowhood came to her, she refused to think
of a second marriage, and almost rejoiced to be released from the
bonds of matrimony, because she found herself free to practise her
liberality. But we must not lay too much stress on these latter
utterances. They come from a funeral oration composed after the good
lady's death, and addressed to her children, some of whom were nuns:
to whom therefore the conventional representation of the Church's
attitude towards marriage would be acceptable. Butzbach describes the
wife of a wealthy citizen of Deventer as entertaining daily six or
seven of the poorer clergy at her table, besides the alms that she
distributed continually before her own door. To him she frequently
gave food and clothes and money, with much sympathy.

It is noticeable how the charity is represented as proceeding from the
wife and not from the husband. A mediaeval moralist urges wives to
make good their husbands' deficiencies in this respect; and against
the remark Ulrich Ellenbog, the father, notes that he had always left
this burden to his wife. The inference is probable that though the
sphere of women was in many ways restricted, they were within their
own dominion, the household, supreme--more so perhaps than they are
to-day. Yet in spite of this domestic authority, I do not see how we
can escape the conclusion that the real power rested with the husband,
when we read such passages as this in the _Utopia_, where, speaking of
punishment, More says: 'Parents chastise their children, husbands
their wives.' Indeed, it was recognized as one of the primary duties
of a husband, to see that his wife behaved properly.

What we have been saying may be well illustrated by the letter just
alluded to from Antony Vrye 'to his dear wife, Berta of Groningen'. It
was written 'from Cologne in haste'; and as it appears in Vrye's
_Epistolarum Compendium_, it may be dated _c._ 1477. 'Your letter was
most welcome, and relieved me of anxiety about you all. I rejoice to
hear that the children are well and yourself; your mother too and the
whole household. You write that you are expecting me to return by 1
March, to relieve you of all your cares. I wish indeed that I could;
but besides our own private matters, there is some public business for
me to discharge, and this will take time. So be diligent to look after
our affairs, and pray to God to keep you in health and free from
fault: my prolonged absence will make my return all the more joyful.
It is great pain to me to be absent from you so long, who art all my
life and happiness. But as I must, it falls to you to guard our honour
and property, and to care for our family. This, Jerome says, is the
part of a prudent housewife, and to cherish her own chastity. Bide
then at home, most loving wife, and be not tempted by such amusements
as delight the vulgar; but patiently and modestly await my return. I
too will be a faithful husband to you in everything. Be a chaste and
honoured mother to our boy and little girls; and cherish your mother
in return for the singular kindness she has showed us.'

One feature of life at this time which materially affected the lives
of women, was the length of families and the accompanying infant
mortality. It was common enough in all classes down to the middle of
the last century; and it is still only too common among the poor. On
the walls of churches, more especially in towns, one frequently sees
tablets with long lists of children who seem to have been born only
to die: and yet the parents went on their way unthinking, and content
if from their annual harvest an occasional son or daughter grew up to
bless them. Examples of this may be collected on every side. Cole
(1467-1519), for instance, was the eldest of twenty-two sons and
daughters; and by 1499 he was the only child left to his parents. His
father, who was twice Lord Mayor of London, lived till 1510; the
mother of this great brood survived them all, and, so far as Erasmus
knew, was still living in 1521.

Another case which may be cited is that of Anthony Koberger, the
celebrated Nuremberg printer, 1440-1513: and it is the more
interesting, since owing to his care for genealogy, we have accurate
records of his two marriages and his twenty-five children. The first
marriage produced eight, born between 1470 and 1483; of these, three
daughters lived to grow up and marry, but of the remaining
five--including three sons, all named Anthony, a fact which tells its
own tale--none reached a greater age than twelve years. In September
1491 the first wife died; and in August 1492--without observing the
full year's 'doole'--Anthony married again, the second wife being
herself the sixteenth child of her parents. At first there was only
disappointment; in 31/2 years four children were born and died, two of
these being twins. But better times followed: of the remaining
thirteen only three died as infants. Anthony the fifth and John the
third, and three sons named after the three kings, Caspar, Melchior
and Balthasar, were more fortunate. When 21 years had brought 17
children, the sequence ended abruptly with the death of Anthony the
father; leaving, out of the 25 he had received, only 13 children to
speak with his enemies in the gate.

A family Bible now in the Bodleian[31] enumerates 16 children born to
the same parents in 24 years, 1550-74. One girl was married before she
was 16; one son at 20 died of exposure on his way home from Holland;
two reached 10, one 8, one 6. None of the remainder ten lived for one
year.

[31] Biblia Latina, 1529, c. 2.

Of public morals in the special sense of the term this is not the
place to speak in detail. But it may suitably be stated that
sixteenth-century standards in these matters were not so high as those
of the present day. 'If gold ruste, what shal iren do?' The highest
ecclesiastical authorities were unable to check a nominally celibate
priesthood from maintaining women-housekeepers who bore them families
of children and were in many cases decent and respectable wives to
them in all but name; indeed in Friesland the laity for obvious
reasons insisted upon this violation of clerical vows. A letter from
Zwingli, the Reformer, written in 1518 when he was parish priest of
Glarus, gives an astonishing view of his own practice. Under such
circumstances we need not wonder that the standards of the laity were
low. The highest record that I have met with is that of a Flemish
nobleman, who in addition to a large family including a Bishop of
Cambray and an Abbot of St. Omer, is said to have been also the
father of 36 bastards. Thomas More as a young man was not blameless.
But it is surprising to find that Erasmus in writing an appreciation
of More in 1519, when he was already a judge of the King's Bench,
stated the fact in quite explicit, though graceful, language; and
further, that More took no exception to the statement, which was
repeated in edition after edition. We can hardly imagine such a
passage being inserted in a modern biography of a public character,
even if it were written after his death. Just about the same time More
published among his epigrams some light-hearted Latin poems--doubtless
written in his youth--such as no public man with any regard for his
character would care to put his name to to-day.

There is another matter to which some allusion must be made, the
grossness of the age, though here again detail is scarcely possible.
The conditions of life in the sixteenth century made it difficult to
draw a veil over the less pleasant side of human existence. The houses
were filthy; the streets so disgusting that on days when there was no
wind to disperse the mephitic vapours, prudent people kept their
windows shut. Dead bodies and lacerated limbs must have been frequent
sights. Under these circumstances we need not be surprised that men
spoke more plainly to one another and even to women than they do now.
Sir John Paston's conversations with the Duchess of Norfolk would make
less than duchesses blush now. The tales that Erasmus introduces into
his writings, the jests of his Colloquies, are often quite
unnecessarily coarse; but one which will illustrate our point may be
repeated. One winter's morning a stately matron entered St. Gudule's
at Brussels to attend mass. The heels of her shoes were caked with
snow, and on the smooth pavement of the church she slipped up. As she
fell, there escaped from her lips a single word, of mere obscenity.
The bystanders helped her to her feet, and amid their laughter she
slunk away, crimson with mortification, to hide herself in the crowd.
Nowadays great ladies have not such words at command.

Theological controversy has a proverbial name for ferocity; in the
sixteenth century other qualities were added to this. In 1519 a young
Englishman named Lee, who was afterwards Archbishop of York, ventured
to criticize Erasmus' New Testament, with a vehemence which under the
circumstances was perhaps unsuitable. Erasmus of course resented this;
and his friends, to cool their indignation, wrote and published a
series of letters addressed to the offender: 'the Letters of some
erudite men, from which it is plain how great is the virulence of
Lee.' Among the contributors was Sapidus, head master of the famous
school at Schlettstadt, which was one of the first Latin schools of
the age. His letter to Lee concludes with a disgusting piece of
imagery, which would shock one if it proceeded from the most
unpleasantly minded schoolboy. One cannot conceive a Head Master of
Rugby appearing in print in such a way now.

VIII

THE POINT OF VIEW

There is one thing in the world which is constantly with us, and which
has probably continued unchanged throughout all ages of history: the
weather. Yet Erasmus' writings contain no traces of that delight in
brilliant sunshine which most Northerners feel, nor of that wonder at
the beauties of the firmament which was so real to Homer. He
frequently remarks that the weather was pestilent, that the winds blew
and ceased not, that the sea was detestably rough and the clouds
everlasting; but of the praise which accompanies enjoyment there is
scarcely a word. His utmost is to say that the climate of a place is
salubrious. He often describes his journeys. As he rode on horseback
across the Alps or was carried down the Rhine in a boat, he must have
had ample opportunity to behold the glories which Nature sometimes
spreads before us in our Northern clime, and lavishes more constantly
on less favoured regions. But the loveliness of blue skies and serene
air, the glitter of distant snows, the soft radiance of the summer
moon, and the golden architrave of the sunset he had no eyes to see.

Such indifference to the beauties of Nature admits, however, of some
explanation. With a scantier population than that which now covers the
earth, there was less agriculture and more of waste and unkempt
places not yet reduced to the service of mankind. Solitudes were
vaster and more complete. In a country so well cared for as England is
to-day, it is difficult to imagine how unpleasing can be the aspect of
land over which Nature still has the upper hand, how desolate and
dreadful the great mountain areas which men now have to seek at the
ends of the earth, where the smoke rises not and even the lone
goatherd has not penetrated. To-day our difficulty is to escape from
the thronging pressure of millions: we rarely experience what in the
sixteenth century must often have been felt--the shrinking to leave,
the joy of returning to, the kindly race of men. Ascham in the
_Toxophilus_ (1545), when discussing the relaxations open to the
scholar who has been 'sore at his book', urges that 'walking alone
into the field hath no token of courage in it'. But though this may
have been true by that time in the immediate neighbourhood of English
towns, it was not yet true abroad; for Thomas Starkey in his
_Dialogue_ (1538), almost as valuable a source as the _Utopia_,
praises foreign cities with their resident nobles by comparison with
English, which are neglected and dirty 'because gentlemen fly into the
country to live, and let cities, castles and towns fall into ruin and
decay'.

It is tantalizing, too, considering how abundant are Erasmus' literary
remains, that we get so little description of places from him. He
travelled far and wide, in the Low Countries, up and down the Rhine,
through France, southwards to Rome and Naples. He was a year in
Venice, three years at Cambridge, eight years at Basle, six at
Freiburg. What precious information he might have given us about these
places, which then as now were full of interesting buildings and
treasures of art! what a mine of antiquarian detail, if he had
expatiated occasionally! But a meagre description of Constance, a word
or two about Basle in narrating an explosion there, glimpses of
Walsingham and Canterbury in his colloquy on pilgrimages--that is
almost all that can be culled from his works about the places he
visited. When he came to Oxford, Merton tower had been gladdening
men's eyes for scarcely fifty years, and the tower of Magdalen had
just risen to rival its beauty; Duke Humfrey's Library and the
Divinity School were still in their first glory, and the monks of St.
Frideswide were contemplating transforming the choir of their church
into the splendid Perpendicular such as Bray had achieved at
Westminster and Windsor for Henry VII. But Erasmus tells us nothing of
what he saw; only what he heard and said. This lack of enjoyment in
Nature, lack of interest in topography and archaeology, was probably
personal to him. It was not so with some of his friends. More and
Ellenbog, as we have seen, could feel the beauty in the night

'Of cloudless climes and starry skies'.

Aleander in a diary records the exceptional brilliance of the planet
Jupiter at the end of September 1513. He pointed it out to his pupils
in the College de la Marche at Paris, and together they remarked that
its rays were strong enough to cast a shadow. Ellenbog enjoyed the
country, and Luther also was susceptible to its charms. Budaeus had a
villa to which he delighted to escape from Paris, and where he laid
out a fine estate. Beatus Rhenanus after thirty years retained
impressions of Louis XII's gardens at Tours and Blois and of a
'hanging garden' in Paris; and could write a detailed account of the
Fugger palace at Augsburg with its art treasures. Or think of the
painters. The Flemings of the fifteenth century had learnt from the
Italians to fit into their pictures landscapes seen through doors or
windows, gleaming in sunshine, green and bright. Van Eyck's 'Adoration
of the Lamb' is set in beautiful scenery; grassy slopes and banks
studded with flowers, soft swelling hills, and blue distances crowned
with the towers he knew so well, Utrecht and Maestricht and Cologne
and Bruges. Even in the interiors of Durer and Holbein, where no
window opens to let in the view, Nature is not left wholly
unrepresented; for flowers often stand upon the tables, carnations and
lilies and roses, arranged with taste and elegance. On the whole the
enjoyment of Nature formed but a small part in the outlook of that age
as compared with the prominence it receives in modern literature and
life; but we should be wrong in inferring that it was wholly absent.

To the men of the fifteenth century the earth was still the centre of
the universe: the sun moved round it like a more magnificent planet,
and the stars had been created

'to shed down
Their stellar influence on all kinds that grow'.

Aristarchus had seen the truth, though he could not establish it, in
the third century B.C. But Greek science had been forgotten in an age
which knew no Greek; and it was not till after Erasmus' death that an
obscure canon in a small Prussian town near Danzig--Nicholas
Copernicus, 1473-1543--found out anew the secret of the world. This
fruit of long cold watches on the tower of his church he printed with
full demonstration, but he scarcely dared to publish the book: indeed
a perfect copy only reached him a few days before his death. Even in
the next century Galileo had to face imprisonment and threats of
torture, because he would speak that which he knew. But when Erasmus
was born, the earth itself was but partially revealed. Men knew not
even whether it were round or flat; and the unplumbed sea could still
estrange. The voyages of the Vikings had passed out of mind, and the
eyes of Columbus and Vespucci had not yet seen the limits of that
western ocean which so long fascinated their gaze. Polo had roamed far
into the East; but as yet Diaz and da Gama had not crowned the hopes
which so often drew Henry the Navigator to his Portuguese headland.

In the world of thought the conception of uniformity in Nature,
though formed and to some extent accepted among the advanced, was
still quite outside the ordinary mind. Miracles were an indispensable
adjunct to the equipment of every saint; and might even be wrought by
mere men, with the aid of the black arts. The Devil was an
ever-present personality, going about to entrap and destroy the
unwary. Clear-minded Luther held converse with him in his cell; and
lesser demons were seen or suspected on every side. Thus in 1523 the
Earl of Surrey writes to Wolsey describing a night attack on Jedburgh
in a Border foray. The horses took fright, and their sudden panic
threw all things into confusion. 'I dare not write', he says, 'the
wonders that my Lord Dacre and all his company do say they saw that
night, six times, of spirits and fearful sights. And universally all
their company say plainly the Devil was that night among them six
times.' In that gaunt and bleak Border country the traveller overtaken
by night may feel a disquieting awe even in these days when the rising
moon is no longer a lamp to guide enemies to the attack. Four hundred
years ago, when it lay blood-stained and scarred with a thousand
fights, bearing no crops to be fired, no homesteads to be sacked, we
need not wonder if teams of demons swept down in the darkness and
drove through and through the trembling ranks.

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