The Age of Erasmus by P. S. Allen

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In the course of his numerous writings Butzbach gives sketches of
many of the inmates of Laach. The senior brother at the time of his
arrival was Jacob of Breden in Westphalia, a man of strong character
and force of will. As a boy, when at school at Cleves, he was laughed
at for his provincial accent; and therefore determined henceforward to
speak nothing but Latin, with the result that he acquired a complete
mastery of it. He had at first joined the Brethren of the Common Life
at Zwolle, then became a Benedictine in St. Martin's at Cologne, and
came to Laach to introduce the Bursfeld reforms. So tender-hearted was
he that he would not kill even the insects which worried him, but
would catch them and throw them out of window. John of Andernach is
mentioned as having appeared to the brethren after his death; and he
and Godfrey of Cologne are praised for their skill in astronomy. We
hear of various activities among the monks. One is good at writing,
another at dictating and correcting, another has taste in painting
flowers and illuminating. Henry of Coblenz combined the offices of
precentor, master of the robes, gardener, glazier and barber; and also
unofficial counsellor to the young, who frequently turned to him for
sympathy. Antony of St. Hubert, besides the care of the refectory, was
bee-master and hive-maker; and a great preacher in German, though he
had come to Laach knowing only his native French. At the end of the
list came the lay-brothers and the pensioners (donati), one of whom
was nearly 100.

Shortly after his ordination Butzbach was appointed master of the
novices, to superintend their education--which included learning the
Psalter by heart--until the time of their profession. He protested his
unfitness, but the Abbot held him to it nevertheless. The standard of
his pupils was low: many of them, though they came as Bachelors and
Masters of Arts from the universities, he judged not so good as boys
in the sixth form at Deventer. But he found lecturing in Latin
difficult; and so to make up his deficiencies he set himself to read
all the Latin classics and Fathers that he could find. One day two
young kinsmen of the Abbot were at dinner. They had been at Deventer
and then at Paris, and were full of their studies. Butzbach as
novice-master represented the humanities, and was called upon for a
poem. Readiness was not his strong point; as a preacher he never could
overcome his nervousness. He asked leave to retire to his cell, and
there in solitude wrung out some verses of compliment; which found
such favour that, to his regret, he was often called upon again.

In 1507, when only thirty, he was made Prior, and thus became
responsible for much of the management of the abbey. In spite of this
he kept up his studies; but only at the cost of great physical
efforts, robbing himself of sleep and working through long hours of
the night. To this period, 1507-9, belongs his most considerable
undertaking, an _Auctarium de scriptoribus ecclesiasticis_, which had
its origin in his admiration for Trithemius. In his Johannisberg days,
as we have seen, he had met the great historian-abbot, though in a
humble capacity. His own Abbot shared with Trithemius the duty of
making the triennial visitations of the Benedictine houses in that
district; and Butzbach, as the Abbot's servant, often rode with them.
Trithemius noticed the young lay-brother who seemed so interested in
study, and occasionally gave him a word of encouragement. Indeed it
was the story of Trithemius' life--repeated with wonder by many
lips--which had spurred Butzbach on to go to Deventer: how as a boy he
had worked with his stepfather in the mill at Trittenheim, and at
twenty-one was still labouring with his hands. One day he was carting
material for a new pilgrimage-church on the hill, when the call came
to him. He returned home, put up his horse and wagon, and without a
word to any one walked off to Niederwesel to begin learning grammar
amongst the little boys; and yet in a short time he had risen to be
Abbot, and had won a wide reputation.

At Laach Butzbach for the first time set eyes on Trithemius' works.
One of these was a _Liber de scriptoribus ecclesiasticis_, printed by
John Amorbach at Basle in 1494--a sort of theological _Who's Who_,
giving the names of authors ancient and modern with lists of their
writings. Butzbach continued it with an _Auctarium_, into which he
hooked almost every writer he could find, whether ecclesiastical or
not. It is a large book, still remaining in manuscript at Bonn, as it
was written out for him by two very inefficient novices. The date of
its composition is abundantly indicated by the notes with which he
terminates his notices of living authors: 'Viuit adhuc anno quo hec
scribimus 158' or 159.[13] Such a compilation, in so far as it deals
with contemporary writers, might have had considerable value; but
unfortunately, like some of Trithemius' work, it is an uncritical
performance and contains ridiculous blunders, which impair the credit
of its statements when they cannot be checked. Industry and devotion
to learning are not the sole qualifications for a scholar.

[13] = 1509. By a reverse process Bruno Amorbach writes 10507
for 1507.

But it was not altogether a happy time for Butzbach, even though he
was honoured by correspondence with Trithemius. There were few among
the monks who actually sympathized with his studies; and from a
certain section they brought him actual persecution. When, as Prior,
he emphasized before the brethren the section in Benedict's rule which
enjoins to study, they mocked at him. 'No learning, no doubts' said
one. 'Much learning doth make thee mad' said another. 'Knowledge
puffeth up' said a third; and heeded not his gentle reply, 'but love
edifieth'. They protested against his allowing the novices to read
Latin poetry. They appealed to the Visitor and got the supplies of
money for the library cut off; even what he earned himself by saying
masses for the dead was no longer allowed to be appropriated to him
for the purchase of books. Finally when the visitation came round in
1509, they delated him for spending too much time on writing, to the
neglect of the business of the monastery. But here they overreached
themselves. The Visitors called for his books, opened them and saw
that they were good--possibly they found their own names among the
ecclesiastical writers. The Prior was acquitted, and the mouths of his
enemies were stopped.

One cause of dissension in monasteries at this period was the
existence of an unreformed element among the monks; though in
Butzbach's time it had probably disappeared at Laach. Ever since the
Oriental practice of monasticism spread into the West, Christendom has
seen a continual series of endeavours towards better and purer ideals
of human life. Of all the monastic orders the Benedictine (520) was
the oldest and the most widely spread. But time had relaxed the
strictness of its observance; and indeed some of the younger orders,
such as the Cluniac (910) and the Cistercian (1098), had their origins
in efforts after a more godly life than what was then offered under
the Benedictine rule, the strictness of which they sought to restore.
In the fifteenth century reform of the monasteries was once more in
the air.[14] In 1422 a chapter of the Benedictine houses in the
provinces of Treves and Cologne met at Treves to discuss the question,
which had been raised again at the Council of Constance, and to
consider various schemes. The Abbot of St. Matthias' at Treves, John
Rode, learning of the stricter code practised in St. James' at Liege
since the thirteenth century, introduced it into his house; borrowing
four monks from St. James' to help him in the process. A few years
later John Dederoth of Minden, Abbot of Bursfeld near Goettingen, after
examining the new practice at Treves, decided to follow Rode's
example, and carried off four brethren from St. Matthias' to Bursfeld.
His influence led a number of neighbouring Benedictine houses to adopt
the new rule; and very soon a Bursfeld Union or Congregation was
formed of monasteries which had embraced what Butzbach calls 'our
reformation', with annual chapters and triennial visitations.

[14] At this point and again later about Chezal-Benoit I have
made much use of Dom Berliere's _Melanges d'histoire
benedictine_, 3^e serie, 1901.

By the end of the fifteenth century there were more than a hundred
constituents of the Congregation. The usual method of introducing the
new practice was, as Rode and Dederoth had done, to borrow a number of
monks from a house already reformed, who either settled in the new
house or returned home when their work was done. As may be supposed,
the reforms were not everywhere welcomed. A zealous Abbot or Prior
returning with his band of foreigners was often met by opposition and
even forcible resistance. When Jacob of Breden, Butzbach's 'senior
brother', came in 1471 with seven others from St. Martin's at Cologne
to renew a right spirit in Laach, a number of the older monks resented
it, especially when he was made Prior for the purpose. One cannot but
sympathize with them. Jacob was only thirty-two, and it is a delicate
matter setting one's elders in the right way. At length the seniors
became exasperated and took to violence. Not content with belabouring
him in his cell, they attacked him one night with swords, and he only
escaped by leaping out of the dormitory window. The rest of his
company were ejected, and for three years found shelter in St.
Matthias' at Treves, the parent house of the new rule; and it was not
till 1474 that the Archbishop, with the Pope's permission and the
co-operation of the civil official of the district, forced his way
into Laach and turned out the recalcitrants.

But this movement for reform was not confined to Germany nor to the
Benedictines. In the beginning of the fifteenth century the house of
Augustinian canons at Windesheim near Zwolle instituted for itself a
new and stricter set of statutes, and soon gathered round it nearly a
hundred houses of both sexes, forming the Windesheim Congregation:
besides which, other monasteries bound themselves into smaller bodies
to observe the new statutes. Thus, for instance, Erasmus' convent at
Steyn was a member of the Chapter of Sion, with only a few others; two
of which were St. Mary's at Sion, near Delft, to which his brother
Peter belonged, and St. Michael's at Hem, near Schoonhoven. The fame
of Windesheim spread into France. In two successive years--1496,
7--parties were invited thence to reform French Benedictine houses.
The first, headed by John Mauburn of Brussels, was brought in by the
Abbot of St. Severinus' at Chateau-Landon near Fontainebleau. It was
completely successful and Chateau-Landon was made the head of a new
Chapter: after which Mauburn proceeded to reform the Abbey of Livry, a
few miles to the north-east of Paris. The second mission, though
promoted by influential men in Paris, had less result. St. Victor's,
the Benedictine Abbey which the Bishop of Paris wished to reform, was
one of the most important in his diocese; and its inmates were averse
from the proposed changes. For nine months the mission from Windesheim
sat in Paris, expounding, demonstrating, hoping to persuade. One of
the party, Cornelius Gerard of Gouda, an intimate friend of Erasmus'
youth, enjoyed himself greatly among the manuscripts in the abbey
library; but that was all. In August 1498 they went home, leaving St.
Victor's as they had found it.

The strenuous endeavours made at this time towards monastic reform
from within may be illustrated from the lives of Guy Jouveneaux
(Juuenalis) and the brothers Fernand. Jouveneaux was a scholar of
eminence and professor in the University of Paris. Charles Fernand was
a native of Bruges, who, in spite of defective eyesight, which made it
necessary for him regularly to employ a reader, had studied in Italy,
had been Rector of Paris University, 1485-6, and had attained to
considerable skill in both classical learning and music. John Fernand,
the younger brother, also excelled in both these branches of study.
Symphorien Champier, the Lyons physician, speaks of him with
Jouveneaux as his teacher in Paris. Charles VIII made him chief
musician of the royal chapel.

In 1479 Peter du Mas became Abbot of the Benedictine house at Chezal
Benoit, which lay in the forests, ten miles to the South of Bourges.
His first care was to restore the buildings, which had been partially
destroyed during the English wars earlier in the century. When that
was achieved, he set himself to reform the conditions of religious
observance, and for that purpose invited a band of monks from Cluny.
His policy was continued by his successor, Martin Fumeus, 1492-1500,
and a bull was obtained from Alexander VI in 1494 permitting the
foundation of a Congregatio Casalina, which was joined by a large
number of Benedictine houses in the neighbourhood: St. Sulpice, St.
Laurence and St. Menulphus at Bourges, St. Vincent at Le Mans, St.
Martin at Seez, St. Mary's at Nevers, and even by more distant
foundations, St. Peter's at Lyons and the great Abbey of St. Germain
des Pres at Paris. One point of the new practice, that Abbots should
be elected for only three years at a time, struck at the prevailing
abuse by which members of powerful families, non-resident and often
children, were intruded into rich benefices, to the great detriment of
their charges.[15] Consideration was also had of the rule adopted at
St. Justina's at Padua, the centre of reform in Northern Italy; and
thus it was not till 1516 that the new ordinances were finally
sanctioned by Leo X.

[15] Thus the family of d'Illiers at this time almost monopolized the
see of Chartres; members of it holding the bishopric consecutively for
fifty years, the deanery for a hundred, the arch-deaconry and the rich
abbey of Bona Vallis also for fifty.

About 1490, Jouveneaux, fired with enthusiasm by the success of du
Mas' reforms at Chezal Benoit, determined to quit his professor's
chair at Paris and take upon him the vows and the life of a monk under
du Mas' rule; and subsequently he was the means of bringing into the
Congregation the Abbey of St. Sulpice at Bourges, being invited
thither by John Labat, the Abbot, to introduce the new rule, and
himself succeeding to the abbacy for a triennial period. A year or two
after his retirement from the world, he was followed to Chezal Benoit
by Charles Fernand, who subsequently went on to St. Vincent's at Le
Mans. John Fernand also ended his days at St. Sulpice in Bourges.

Charles Fernand is a personality who deserves more attention than he
has received. Whilst he was in the world he enjoyed considerable
esteem amongst the learned. He was a friend of Gaguin, and published a
commentary on Gaguin's poem on the Immaculate Conception; he also
dedicated to Gaguin a small volume of Familiar Letters. But his most
important literary work was done in the retirement of his cell: a
volume of Monastic Conversations, composed at sundry times, and
published in 1516; a treatise on Tranquillity (1512), in which he
gives an account of the motives which led him to take the monastic
habit; and a Mirror of the Monastic Life (1515), dwelling at length on
the ideals that should be held before the eyes of novices and animate
their lives when they were professed. Unfortunately his style is so
excessively elegant, with wide intervals between words closely
connected in sense, that he is difficult to read; and hence, perhaps,
in some measure the neglect which has been meted out to him.

Of his four Monastic Conversations the first and the last are
concerned with the question whether monks should be allowed to read
the books of the Gentiles, that is to say, the classics. He handles
his theme sensibly and liberally. Piety, of course, is to come before
eloquence, and there is to be choice of books. Anything of loose
tendency is to be forbidden, but he would encourage the reading of
Cicero, Seneca, and Aristotle's Ethics. The last was only accessible
to himself, he says regretfully, in Latin, because he knew no Greek--a
loss which he greatly deplores, desiring to read the Greek Fathers.
The third conversation is about the Benedictine rule, directed to the
lawless monks who contended that they were only bound by the customs
of the particular monastery they had entered, and not by the general
ordinances of their founder. He combats at length the contention that
the world has grown old, and that latter-day men cannot be expected to
undergo the rigorous fasts and penances achieved by St. Antony and St.
Benedict. He is quite alive to the weakness of the age, to the need
for improvement in the monasteries; and the word Reformer is applied
with praise to the leaders of the movement. This was before the days
of Luther, though only just before.

Incidentally, an argument is reported between a Christian and an
agnostic. After their diverse opinions have been rehearsed, the
Christian concludes with what is meant to be a crushing
reply--certainly it silences his opponent: 'On your own theory you
don't know what will happen after death. On mine you will prosper, if
you believe; if not, you will go to hell. Therefore safety lies in
believing mine.'

There are one or two glimpses of the life of the monks. At the end of
one conversation, the other brother hears the bell ringing for prayers
and runs off to chapel; Fernand, being old and lame, will be forgiven
if he is a little late, and not fined of his dinner. In other ways
consideration was shown to him, and he was often sent to dine in the
infirmary, not being expected with his toothless jaws to munch the dry
crusts set before the rest of the house. This, it seems, was a custom
which had been learnt from St. Justina's at Padua, to put out the
stale crusts first, before the new bread, to break appetite upon: just
as in the old Quaker schools a hundred years ago, children were set
down to suet-pudding, and then broth, before the joint appeared; the
order being, 'No ball, no broth; no broth, no beef'.

We are in a position to view from the inside another Benedictine house
at this period, that of Ottobeuren, near Memmingen, which lies about
mid-way between Augsburg and the east end of the Lake of Constance.
The source of our information is the correspondence of one of the
brothers, Nicholas Ellenbog (or Cubitus); 890 letters copied out in
his own hand, and only 80 of these printed. It is not so continuous a
narrative as Butzbach's, but the picture that it gives is rather more
pleasing.

Nicholas' father was Ulrich Ellenbog, a physician of Memmingen, who
graduated as Doctor of Medicine from Pavia in 1459, and became first
Reader in Medicine at Ingolstadt. The letters introduce us to most of
his children. One son, Onofrius, went for a soldier, became attached
to Maximilian's train, and received a knighthood; another, Ulrich,
became M.D. at Siena, but died immediately afterwards; another, John,
became a parish priest. Of the daughters three remained in the world;
one, Elizabeth, married; another, Cunigunde, died of plague caught in
nursing some nuns. The fourth daughter, Barbara, at the age of nine
entered the convent of Heppach, and lived there forty-one years,
rising to be Prioress and then Abbess. We shall hear of her again.

Nicholas Ellenbog, 1480 or 1481-1543, was the third son. After five
years at Heidelberg, 1497-1502, in which he met Wimpfeling and was
fellow-student, though a year senior, to Oecolampadius, he went off to
Cracow, the Polish university, which was then so flourishing as to
attract students from the west. Schurer, for example, the Strasburg
printer, was M.A. of Cracow in 1494; and some idea of the condition of
learning there may be gained from a book-seller's letter to Aldus from
Cracow, December 1505, ordering 100 copies of Constantine Lascaris'
Greek grammar. For some months Ellenbog heard lectures there on
astronomy, which remained a favourite subject with him throughout his
life. Then an impulse came to him to follow his father's footsteps in
medicine, and at the advice of friends he went back across half Europe
to Montpellier, which from its earliest days had been famous for its
medical faculty. In the long vacation of 1502 he spent two months with
a friend in the chateau of a nobleman among the Gascon hills, and on
their return journey they stayed for a fortnight in a house of
Dominican nuns. The sisters were strict in their observances, and gave
a good pattern of the unworldly life, which attracted Ellenbog
strongly. In 1503 he went home for the long vacation to Memmingen. On
the way he was taken by the plague, and with difficulty dragged
himself in to Ravensburg. For three months he lay ill, and death came
very close. As its unearthly glow irradiated the world around him,
reversing its light and shade, the visions of the nunnery recurred. He
vowed that if his life were still his to give, it should be given to
God's service; and on recovering he entered Ottobeuren.

In his noviciate year he was under the guidance of a kind and
sympathetic novice-master, who allowed him to study quietly in his
cell to his heart's content; and during this period he composed what
he calls an epitome or breviary of Plato. Its precise character he
does not specify, but its second title suggests that it may have been
a collection of extracts from Plato: not from the Greek, for he had
little acquaintance with that yet, but presumably from such of Plato's
works as had been translated into Latin. On Ascension Day, 1504, which
appears from other indications to mean 15 August, he made his
profession, and in September 1505 he went to Augsburg to be ordained
as sub-deacon. Writing to a friend to give such news as he had
gathered on this outing, he tells a story to convict himself of hasty
judgement. During the ordination service he noticed that one of the
candidates, a bold-eyed fellow who had been at several universities,
and had been Rector at Siena, let his gaze wander over the ladies who
had come to see the ceremony, instead of keeping it fixed on the
altar. Ellenbog censured him in his mind, but later he noticed that as
the man kneeled before the bishop with folded hands to receive
unction, his eyes were filled with tears of repentance--others perhaps
would have called it merely emotion.

On his way back to Ottobeuren, Ellenbog arrived at a village, where he
had counted on a night's rest, only to find it crowded with a
wedding-party; the followers of the bridegroom, who were escorting him
to the marriage on the morrow, a Sunday. It was with great difficulty
that he found shelter, in the house of a cobbler, who let him sleep
with his family in the straw; but it was so uncomfortable that before
dawn he crept out and started on his way under the moon. In the half
light he missed the road and found himself at the bride's castle;
where he learnt that her sister was just dead and the wedding
postponed. As he passed in that evening through the abbey-gate, there
was thankfulness in his heart that he was back out of the world and
its petty disappointments.

On Low Sunday, 1506, he was ordained priest at Ottobeuren, and
celebrated his first mass. Some of his letters are to friends inviting
them to be present, and adjuring them to come empty-handed, without
the customary gifts. In these early years there was ample leisure for
study. In 1505 he began Greek, and in 1508 Hebrew. He speaks of
reading Aeneas Sylvius, Pico della Mirandola, Cyprian, Diogenes
Laertius, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Dionysius the Areopagite. He went on
with his astronomy, and cast horoscopes for his friends. Binding books
was one of his occupations; and in 1509, when a press was set up in
the monastery, he lent a hand in the printing. He was very fortunate
in his abbot, Leonard Widemann, who had been Steward when he entered
Ottobeuren, but was elected Abbot in 1508, and outlived him by three
years, dying in 1546. Widemann called upon him for service.
Immediately on election he made him Prior--at 28--and only released
him from this office after four years, to make him, though infinitely
reluctant, serve ten years more as Steward.

But if the Abbot knew how to exact compliance, he knew also how to
reward. He gave Ellenbog every assistance in his studies, allowed him
to write hither and thither for books, made continual efforts to
procure him first a Hebrew and then a Greek Bible, wrote to Reuchlin
to find him a converted Jew as Hebrew teacher, and in 1516 built him a
new library; for which Ellenbog writes to a friend asking for verses
to put under the paintings of the Doctors of the Church, which are to
adorn the walls. As results of his studies we hear of him correcting
the abbey service-books, where for _stauros_, a scribe with no Greek
had written _scayros_, and explaining to the Abbot mistaken
interpretations in the passages read aloud in the refectory during
meals. One of these, in a book written by some one who had recently
been canonized--some mediaeval doctor--illustrates the learning of the
day; deriving [Greek: gastrimargia], gluttony, from _castrum_ and
_mergo_, 'quod gula mergat castrum mentis,' because gluttony drowns
the seat of reason.

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