The Age of Erasmus by P. S. Allen

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I. LANGEN TO VRYE: from Adwert, 27 Feb. <1469>.

'Why do you delay so long to gratify the wishes of our devout
friend Wolter? With my own hand I have transcribed the little
book of _Elegantiae_, as far as the section about the reckoning
of the Kalends. I greatly desire to have this precious work
complete; so do send me the portion we lack as soon as you can.
The little book will be my constant companion: I know nothing
that has such value in so narrow a span. How brilliant Valla
is! he has raised up Latin to glory from the bondage of the
barbarians. May the earth lie lightly on him and the spring
shine ever round his urn! Even if the book is not by Valla
himself, it must come from his school.

'I write in haste and with people talking all round me, from
whom politeness will not let me sit altogether aloof. But read
carefully and you will understand me. At least I hope this
letter won't be quite so barbarous as the monstrosities which
the usher from Osnabruck sends you every day: they sound like
the spells of witches to bring up their familiar spirits, or
the enchantments "Fecana kageti", &c., which open locks whoever
knocks. Poor Latin! it is worse handled than was Regulus by the
Carthaginians. Forgive this scrawl: I am writing by
candlelight.'

We shall have other occasions to notice the admiration of the Northern
humanists for Lorenzo Valla (d. 1457), the master of Latin style, and
the audacious Canon of the Lateran, who could apply the spirit of
criticism not only to the New Testament but even to the Donation of
Constantine.

2. VRYE TO ARNOLD OF HILDESHEIM (Schoolmaster at Emmerich): Cologne, _c._ 1477>.

'I have still a great many things to do, but I shall not begin
upon them till the printed books from Cologne arrive at
Deventer. My plan was to go to Heidelberg, Freiburg, Basle and
some of the universities in the East and then return to
Deventer through Saxony and Westphalia. But at Coblenz I met
four men from Strasburg who declared that Upper Germany was
almost all overrun by soldiers. This unexpected alarm has
compelled me to dispose of the 1500 copies of _The Revival of
Latin_ amongst the schools.[2] After visiting Deventer and
Zwolle I shall go to Louvain, and then, if it is safe, to
Paris. I thought you ought to know of this change in my plans;
that you might not be taken by surprise at finding me gone
westwards instead of into Upper Germany.

'Please take great pains over the correction of the
manuscripts.'

[2] particularibus studiis.

3. AGRICOLA TO HEGIUS : from Groningen, 20 Sept. 1480.

'I was very sorry to learn from your letter that you had been
here just when I was away. There are so few opportunities of
meeting any one who cares for learning that you would have been
most welcome. My position becomes increasingly distasteful to
me: since I left Italy, I forget everything--the classics,
history, even how to write with any style. In prose I can get
neither ideas nor language. Such as come only serve to fill the
page with awkward, disjointed sentences. Verse I hardly ever
attempt, and when I do, there is no flow about it; sometimes
the lines almost refuse to scan. The fact is that I can find no
one here who is interested in these things. If only we were
together!

'My youngest brother Henry has been fired with the desire to
study. I have advised him against it, but as he persists, I do
not like to do more. For the last six months he has been with
Frederic Mormann at Munster, and has made some progress: but
now Mormann
has been sent as Rector to a house , and Henry has
come home. If you can have him, I should like him to come to
you. He will bring with him the usual furniture,[3] money will
be sent to him from time to time, and he will find himself a
lodging[4] wherever you advise. I should be glad to know
whether there are any teachers who give lessons out of school
hours, as Mormann does; and whether any one may go to them on
payment of a fee, whether candidates for orders[5] or not. I
should like him to get over the elements as quickly as
possible; for if boys are kept at them too long, they take a
dislike to the whole thing. The Pliny that you ask for shall
come to you soon. I use it a great deal; but nevertheless you
shall have it.'

[3] victui necessaria, vt solent nostrates. Victus is commonly
used in the technical sense of 'board'; but here the meaning
probably is 'the usual outfit for a schoolboy'. Gebwiler, in
1530, required a boy coming to his school at Hagenau to be
provided with 'a bed, sheets, pillow, and other necessaries'.
[4] diuersorium.
[5] capitiati.

In answer to a question from Hegius, Agricola goes on to distinguish
the words mimus, histrio, persona, scurra, nebulo; with quotations
from Juvenal and Gellius. 'Leccator', he says, 'is a German word; like
several others that we have turned into bad Latin, reisa,
burgimagister, scultetus, or like the French passagium for a military
expedition, guerra for war, treuga for truce.'

He then proceeds to more derivations in answer to Hegius. [Greek:
Anthropos] he considers a fundamental word, which, like homo, defies
analysis: but nevertheless he suggests [Greek: ana] and [Greek:
trepo], or [Greek: terpo], or [Greek: trepho]. To explain vesper he
cites Sallust, Catullus, Ovid, Pliny's Letters, Caesar's Civil War,
Persius and Suetonius. (We must remember that in those days a man's
quotations were culled from his memory, not from a dictionary or
concordance.) He goes on: 'About forming words by analogy, I rarely
allow myself to invent words which are not in the best authors, but
still perhaps I might use Socratitas, Platonitas, entitas, though
Valla I am sure would object. After all one must be free, when there
is necessity. Cicero, without any need, used Pietas and Lentulitas;
and Pollio talks of Livy's Patauinitas.' Other words explained are
tignum, asser, [Greek: dioikesis]; and then Agricola proceeds to
correct a number of mistakes in Hegius' letter. Rather delicate work
it might seem; but there is such good humour between them that, though
the corrections extend to some length, it all ends pleasantly.

4. HEGIUS TO AGRICOLA; from Deventer, 17 Dec. <1484>.

After apologies for not having written for a long while, he proceeds:

'You ask how my school is doing. Well, it is full again now;
but in summer the numbers rather fell off. The plague which
killed twenty of the boys, drove many others away, and
doubtless kept some from coming to us at all.

'Thank you for translating Lucian's Micyllus. I am sure that
all of us who read it, will be greatly pleased with it. As soon
as it comes, I will have it printed. If I may, I should much
like to ask you for an abridgement of your book on Dialectic:
it would be very valuable to students. I understand that you
have translated Isocrates' Education of Princes. If I had it
here, I would expound it to my pupils. For some of them, no
doubt, will be princes some day and have to govern.

'I have been reading Valla's book on the True Good, and have
become quite an Epicurean, estimating all things in terms of
pleasure. Also it has persuaded me that each virtue has its
contrary vice, rather than two vices as its extremes. I should
like to know whether the authorities at Heidelberg have
abandoned their Marsilius[6] on the question of universals, or
whether they still stick to him.'

[6] Of Inghen, first Rector of Heidelberg University (1386),
the author of the _Parua Logicalia_.

5. AGRICOLA TO HEGIUS; from Worms, Tuesday , in reply.

After thanks and personalities he writes:

'Certainly you shall have the Lucian, and I will dedicate it to
you: but not just yet, as I am too busy to revise it. My public
lectures take up a good deal of my time. I have a fairly large
audience; but their zeal is greater than their ability. The
majority of them are M.A.'s or students in the Arts course;[7]
who are obliged to spend all their time on their disputations,
so they have only a meagre part of the day left for these
studies. In consequence, as they can do so little, I am not
very active.

'In addition to this I am trying to keep up my Latin and Greek
(though they are fast slipping from me) and am beginning
Hebrew, which I find very difficult: indeed to my surprise it
costs me more effort than Greek did. However, I shall go on
with it as I have begun: also because I like to have something
new on hand, and much as I like Greek, its novelty has somewhat
worn off. I have made up my mind to devote my old age, if I
ever reach it, to theology. You know how I detest the
barbarisms of those who fill the schools. On their side they
are indignant with me for daring to question their decisions;
but this will not deter me.

'My greetings to your host, Master Richard (Paffraet), and his
wife.

'Worms, in great haste, on the third day of the week: as I have
determined to call it, instead of our unclassical Feria
secunda, tertia, &c., or the heathen names, Monday, Mars' day,
Mercury's day, Jove's day.'

[7] Scholastici, vt nos dicimus, artium.

We may notice the anticipation of the Quakers, who in a similar way
would only speak of first day and sixth month.

6. HEGIUS TO WESSEL; from Deventer .

'I am sending you the Homilies of John Chrysostom, and hope
you will enjoy reading them. His golden words have always been
more acceptable to you than the precious metal itself from the
mint.

'I have been, as you know, at Cusanus' library, and found there
many Hebrew books which were quite unknown to me; also a few
Greek. I remember the names of the following: Epiphanius
against heresies, a very big book; Dionysius on the Hierarchy;
Athanasius against Arius; Climacus.

'These I left behind there, but I brought away with me: Basil
on the Hexaemeron and some of his homilies on the Psalms; the
Epistles of Paul and the Acts of the Apostles; Plutarch's Lives
of Romans and Greeks, and his Symposium; some writings on
grammar and mathematics; some poems on the Christian religion,
written, I think, by Gregory Nazianzen; some prayers, in Latin
and Greek.

'If there are any of these you lack, let me know and they shall
come to you: for everything I have is at your disposal. If you
could spare the Gospels in Greek, I should be grateful for the
loan of it. You enquire what books we are using in the school.
I have followed your advice; for literature which is dangerous
to morality is most injurious.'

The library mentioned above was that of Nicholas Krebs (d. 1464), the
famous Cardinal who took part in the Council of Basle and was the
patron of Poggio. Cues on the Moselle was his birthplace, and gave him
his name Cusanus. In his later years he founded a hostel, the Bursa
Cusana, at Deventer, where he had been at school, and at Cues built a
hospital for aged men and women, with a grassy quadrangle and a chapel
of delicate Gothic; and there in a vaulted chamber supported by a
central column he deposited the manuscripts, mainly theological but
with some admixture of the classics, which he had gathered in the
course of his busy life.

In 1496 we hear of another visit to it; when Dalberg, who was a prince
of humanists, led thither Reuchlin and a party of friends on a voyage
of discovery. Their course was from Worms to Oppenheim, where his
mother was still living: by boat to Coblenz and up the Moselle to
Cues: then over the hills to Dalburg, his ancestral home, and finally
to the abbey of Sponheim, near Kreuznach, where they admired the rich
collection of manuscripts in five languages formed by the learned
historian Trithemius, who was then Abbot. Whether this gay party of
pleasure also carried off any treasures from Cues is not recorded.

But lest this view of the Adwert Academy should appear too uniformly
roseate, we will turn to the tradition of Reyner Praedinius (1510-59),
who was Rector of the town school at Groningen, and whose fame
attracted students thither from Italy, Spain, and Poland. He had in
his possession several manuscripts of Wessel's writings, some of them
unpublished; and he had been intimate with men who had known both
Wessel and Agricola. One of these--very likely Goswin of Halen--as a
boy had often served at table, when the two scholars were dining; and
had afterwards shown them the way home with a lantern. He used to say
that he had frequently pulled off Agricola's boots, when he came home
the worse for his potations; but that no one had ever seen Wessel
under the influence of wine. Wessel, indeed, lived to a green old age,
but killed himself by working too hard.

II

SCHOOLS

Erasmus was born at Rotterdam on the vigil of SS. Simon and Jude, 27
October: probably in 1466, but his utterances on the subject are
ambiguous. Around his parentage he wove a web of romance, from which
only one fact emerges clearly--that his father was at some time a
priest. Current gossip said that he was parish priest of Gouda; a
little town near Rotterdam, with a big church, which in the sixteenth
century its inhabitants were wealthy enough to adorn with some fine
stained glass. There in the town school, under a master who was
afterwards one of the guardians of his scanty patrimony, Erasmus'
schooldays began, and he made acquaintance with the Latin grammar of
Donatus. After an interval as chorister at Utrecht, he was sent by his
parents to the school at Deventer, which, with that of the
neighbouring and rival town of Zwolle, enjoyed pre-eminence among the
schools of the Netherlands at that date. It was connected with the
principal church of the town, St. Lebuin's; and doubtless among those
aisles and chapels, listening perhaps to the merry bells, whose chimes
still proclaim the quarters far and wide, he caught the first breath
of that new hope to which he was to devote his whole life. The school
was controlled by the canons of St. Lebuin, who appointed the head
master; but, as at Zwolle, some of the teachers were drawn from that
sober and learned order, the Brethren of the Common Life, whose parent
house was at Deventer.

Of Erasmus' life in the school we have little knowledge. He tells us
that he was there in 1475, when preachers came from Rome announcing
the jubilee which Sixtus IV had so conveniently found possible to hold
after only twenty-five years. From one of his letters we can picture
him wandering by the river side among the barges, and marking the slow
growth of the bridge of boats which it took the town of Deventer
several years to throw across the rapid Yssel. He probably entered the
lowest class, the eighth, and by 1484, when at the age of eighteen he
left in consequence of the outbreak of plague mentioned in Hegius'
letter to Agricola, he had not made his way above the third; thus
giving little indication of his future fame. An explanation may
perhaps be found by supposing that his time in the choir at Utrecht
was an interlude in the Deventer period; but in any case the school in
his time was still 'barbarous', to use his own word, that is, it was
still modelled on the requirements of the scholastic courses, the
_literae inamoenae_, which from his earliest years he abhorred.
Zinthius (or Synthius), who was one of the Brethren, and Hegius
'brought a breath of something better', he tells us: but both of them
taught only in the higher forms, and Hegius he only heard during his
last year, on the festivals when the head master lectured to the whole
school together.

A few years later the school numbered 2200 boys. It is difficult to us
to imagine such a throng gathered round one man. There were only eight
forms, which must therefore have had on an average 275 in each; and
even if subdivided into parallel classes, they must still have been
uncomfortably large to our modern ideas. On the title-pages of early
school-books are sometimes found woodcuts which represent the children
sitting, like the Indian schoolboy to-day, in crowds about their
master, taking only the barest amount of space, and content with the
steps of his desk or even the floor. Some idea of the character of the
teaching may be derived from the experiences of Thomas Platter
(1499-1582) at Breslau about thirty years later. 'In the school at St.
Elizabeth', he says, 'nine B.A.'s read lectures at the same hour and
in the same room. Greek had not yet penetrated into that part of the
world. No one had any printed books except the praeceptor, who had a
Terence.[8] What was read had first to be dictated, then pointed, then
construed, and at last explained.'[9] It was a wearisome business for
all concerned. The reading of a few lines of text, the punctuation,
the elaborate glosses full of wellnigh incomprehensible
abbreviations; all dictated slowly enough for a class of a hundred or
more to take down every word. Lessons in those days were indeed
readings. For a clever boy who was capable of going forward quickly,
they must have been great waste of time.

[8] It is worth remarking that in the fifteenth century Terence
was regarded as a prose author, no attempt having been made
to determine his metres. As late as 1516 an edition was
printed in Paris in prose.
[9] Here, and later on, I follow Mrs. Finn's translation, 1839.

At Deventer Erasmus began with elementary accidence. The books which
he first mentions, _Pater meus,_ a series of declensions, and
_Tempora_, the tenses, that is the conjugations of the verb, were
probably local productions of a simple nature which never found their
way into print. From this he proceeded to the versified Latin grammars
which mediaeval authorities on education had invented to supersede the
prose of Priscian and Donatus; metre being more adapted to the
learning by heart then so much in fashion. 'Praelegebatur Ebrardus et
Joannes de Garlandia', he says: a line or two was read out by the
master and then the commentary was dictated--the boys writing down as
much as they could catch. Let us see the kind of thing. Here are some
extracts from the _Textus Equiuocorum_ of John Garland, an Englishman
who taught at Toulouse in the thirteenth century.

Latrat et amittit, humilis, vilis, negat, heret:
Est celeste Canis sidus, in amne natat.

'Firstly it is a thing that barks': three verses of quotation follow.

'Secondly it loses; canis being the name for the worst throw with the
dice': one verse of quotation.

'Thirdly it is something humble: David to Saul, "After whom is the
King of Israel come out? after a dead dog? after a flea?"

Fourthly it is something contemptible: Goliath to David, "Am I a dog
that thou comest to me with staves?"

Fifthly it denies, like an apostate: "A dog returned to its vomit."

Sixthly it adheres.' But here the interpreter goes astray under the
preoccupation of the times: 'heret significat hereticum et infidelem;
hence "It is not good to take the children's bread and cast it unto
dogs, that is to heretics and infidels."

Seventhly it is a star; hence are named the dog days, in which that
star has dominion.

Eighthly it swims in the sea; the dog fish.'

The qualities of the dog are also expressed in this verse: 'Latrat in
ede canis, nat in equore, fulget in astris. Et venit canis
originaliter a cano--is.' So Garland, or his commentator, abridged.

Of sal he says:

Est sal prelatus, equor, sapientia, mimus,
Sal pultes condit, sal est cibus et reprehendit.

Here again there is a full commentary; but the only interpretation
that we need notice is the first, 'Salt denotes a prelate of the
Church; for it is said in the Gospels, Ye are the salt of the earth.'
When he composed these lines, Garland must surely have had his eye on
ecclesiastical preferment.

Another line is interesting, as illustrating the confusion between c
and t in mediaeval manuscripts:

Est katonque malum, katademon nascitur inde.

The commentary runs: 'Kathon est idem quod malum. Inde dicitur
kathodemon, i.e. spiritus malignus seu dyabolus, et venit a kathon,
i.e. malum, et demon, sciens, quasi mala sciens.' You will notice also
the inconstancy of h, and the indifference to orthography which allows
the same word to appear as katademon in the text and kathodemon in the
commentary.

Garland's _Textus_ is mostly Latin; but in the last composition of his
life, the forty-two distiches entitled _Cornutus_, 'one on the horns
of a dilemma', he is mainly occupied with Greek words adopted into
Latin: using of course Latin characters. Some specimens will show the
mediaeval standards of Greek: I quote from the text and commentary
edited in 1481 by John Drolshagen, who was master of the sixth class
at Zwolle.

Kyria chere geram cuius ph[=i]lantr[)o]pos est bar, Per te doxa
theos nect[=e]n [)e]t [)v]r[=a]n[)i]c[)i]s ymas.

In the commentary we are told that Kyria means the Virgin: but we are
to be careful not to write it with two r's, for kirrios means a pig (I
suppose [Greek: choiros]), and it would never do to say Kirrieleyson.
Chere is of course [Greek: chaire], salue. Geran (geram in the text)
is interpreted sanctus, and seems from a lengthy discussion of it to
be connected with [Greek: geron] and [Greek: ieros].[10] Philantropos
(notice the quantities) is Christ, the Saviour. 'Bar Grece est filius
Latine.' 'Necten in Greco est venire Latine: vnde dicit Pristianus in
primo minoris, antropos necten, i.e. homo venit.' (For this remarkable
form I can only suggest [Greek: enthein] or [Greek: hekein]: -en is
probably the infinitive; ne might arise from en; and ct, through tt,
from th.) Ymas is explained as nobis, not vobis. The construction of
the distich is then given: 'Hail, sacred queen, whose son is the lover
of men; through thee divine and heavenly glory comes to us.'

Again:

'Clauiculis firmis theos antropos impos et ir mis
Figor ob infirmi cosmos delicta, patir mi.'

Impos = in pedibus. Ir = a hand (probably [Greek: cheir],
transliterated into hir, and h dropped) and mis is explained as = mei,
according to the form which occurs in Plautus and early Latin. The
lines are an address from Christ to God, and are interpreted: 'O my
father, I God and man am fastened with hard nails in my feet and hands
(upon the cross) for the sins of a weak world.'

Another work dictated to Erasmus at Deventer was the metrical grammar
of Eberhard of Bethune in Artois, composed in the twelfth century. Its
name, _Graecismus_, was based upon a chapter, the eighth, devoted to
the elementary study of Greek--a feature which constituted an advance
on the current grammars of the age. A few extracts will show the
character of the assistance it offered to the would-be Greek scholar.

[10] Cf. Gerasmus and Hierasmus as variations of the name
Herasmus or Erasmus.

Quod sententia sit b[)o]l[)e] comprobat amphibol[=i]a,
Quodque fides br[)o]g[)e] sit comprobat Allobroga.

The gloss explains the second line thus: 'Dicitur ab alleos quod est
alienum, et broge quod est fides, quasi alienus a fide'; and thus we
learn that the Allobroges were a Burgundian people who were always
breaking faith with the Romans.

Constat apud Grecos quod tertia littera cima est,
Est quoque dulce c[)i]m[=e]n, inde c[)i]m[=e]t[)e]rium;
Est [)v]n[)i]uersal[=e] c[)a]t[)a], fitque c[)a]tholicus inde, ...
C[=a]ta breuis pariter, c[=a]talogus venit hinc.
Die decas esse decem, designans inde decanum ...
Delon obscurum, Delius inde venit.
Ductio sit gogos, hinc isagoga venit.
Estque geneth mulier, inde gen[=e]th[=e][=u]m.

Here the confusion of c with t begins the misleading; which is carried
further by the gloss, 'Genetheum: locus subterraneus vbi habitant
mulieres ad laborandum, et dicitur a geneth quod est mulier, et thesis
positio, quia ibi ponebantur mulieres ad laborandum'; or 'Genetheum:
absconsio subterranea mulierum'.

Estque decem gintos, dicas hinc esse viginti,
Vt pentecoste, coste valebit idem.

Pos quoque pes tibi sit, compos tibi comprobat illud,
Atque p[)e]dos puer est, hinc pedagogus erit.
Dic zoen animam, die ind[=e] z[=o][)e]c[)a]isychen.

This last word appears in eleven different forms in the manuscripts.
The gloss interprets it plainly as 'vita mea et anima mea'; but
without this aid it must have been unintelligible to most readers,
especially in such forms as zoychaysichen, zoycazyche, zoichasichen,
zoyasichem.

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