Chapter XI (2)

The most important work of the Freiburg period was the great treatise on the Christian minister, to which Erasmus gave the title of _Ecclesiastes_, or The Gospel Preacher (_concionator evangelicus_). In its printed form the _Ecclesiastes_ fills over one hundred and sixty folio pages and would make more than two volumes as large as this present one. Of all the evils in the existing church system, none had been more evident since the height of the Middle Ages than the neglect of preaching. The very first effort of the organised Lutheran party had been to restore the right balance between the sacramental and the moral aspects of church administration by emphasising the preaching and diminishing the importance of all sacramental observances. And this is precisely the position of Erasmus. He begins with a careful definition of the Church (_ecclesia_) as the assembly (_concio_) of Christians. Christ is the great preacher and every other _ecclesiastes_ is only his representative and herald. The highest function of the preacher is that of teaching. At first the bishops were the sole teachers; now the teaching has passed to priests and monks, though it is a function far surpassing the dignity of kings.

As a model of the complete bishop Erasmus gives a very beautiful description of Warham, dwelling especially upon his great efficiency in a vast variety of duties, an efficiency made possible only by the strictest frugality of life and the rigid exclusion of all luxury and idle amusement.

This brief notice of the _Ecclesiastes_ concludes our review of the writings of Erasmus, and this seems the fitting place to note what was the final judgment upon them of that Church to which he declared himself devoted and from whose teachings he insisted he had never departed by so much as a hair's breadth. It was not until the wave of the Catholic Reaction had begun to rise into a furious torrent that a definite policy of disapproval of Erasmus on the part of the Roman authorities took the place of the former leniency. Lists of books the reading of which was prohibited to good Christians were published in many parts of Europe by sovereigns, universities, inquisitors, or commissions from 1524 on.[194] Such lists were generally called "Catalogues." The papacy as such took no part in this process until the time of the Council of Trent. The earliest papal list or "Index" was published by Paul IV. in 1559. It was arranged in three classes, the first containing the names of authors who were, as it were, heretics by intention (_ex professo_), and all of whose writings were condemned, no matter whether they had any reference to religion or not. In the second class were names of authors some of whose writings had been shown to tend towards heresy or the superstitions of magic, etc. The third class comprised the titles of books, generally by anonymous writers, which contained specially dangerous doctrines.

[194] F. H. Reusch, _Der Index der verbotenen Bücher_, 1883, i.,
347-355.

In this first papal Index Erasmus takes a place of extraordinary prominence. Not only was he placed in the first class, but a special clause was added to his name: "with all his commentaries, notes, _scholia_, dialogues, letters, censures, translations, books, and writings, even when they contain nothing against religion or about religion." The Index of Paul IV. was, however, by no means generally accepted by the people of Europe. In many countries it was flatly rejected. The Council of Trent at its final session (1562-1563) took up the matter and appointed a commission to revise the harshest clauses. The result of this revision appears in the Index of Pius IV. in 1564. There Erasmus has been dropped from the first class and in the second appear only a few of his most doubtful works, the Colloquies, Praise of Folly, Christian Marriage, and one or two others. In 1590 Sixtus V. replaced him in the first class, and in 1596 Clement VIII. restored him again to the conditions of the Index of Trent.

Thus the fate of Erasmus after death was very much what it had been in his life. As honest Duke Frederick had said: "One never knows how to take him." The highest authority could not quite determine whether he was a thorough-going heretic or only heretical "north-north-west."

In the month of August, 1535, after a residence of six busy years at Freiburg, Erasmus returned to Basel. Once more, and for the last time, he has to account for a change of residence. At Freiburg he had been continually complaining of the place, his quarters, and the people; yet he says he had no fixed intention of leaving there permanently. He had been giving matter to the press during these six years without any special difficulty, but suddenly he discovers that his _Ecclesiastes_ cannot be properly printed at Basel without his presence. He has suffered so much, he writes to the bishop of Cracow,[195] that he prefers to try a change of air even at the risk of death. He was carried in a covered carriage, "made for women," to Basel, "a healthful and pleasant city, whose hospitality I have enjoyed for many years. There, in expectation of my coming, a room suited to my needs had been prepared by my friends."

[195] iii.², 1511-C.

It is marvellous how the permanent instincts of his life assert themselves to the last. In October, 1535, he writes to a magistrate of Besançon:

"Almost incredible as it seems, I have left my nest and flown
hither, meaning to fly to you when I shall have recovered my
strength. The wintry September has compelled me to cast anchor
here and so we shall have to wait for the swallows. The pope
wants to gold-plate me whether I will or no, and has offered me
the provostship of Deventer now that the harpies are all got rid
of. But I am determined, though ten provostships were offered
me, not to take one of them.... Shall I, a dying man, accept
burdens which I have always refused?"

Just as he arrived at Basel he had written:

"What has happened in England to Fisher and More, a pair of men,
than whom England never had a better or a holier, you will learn
from the fragment of a letter which I send you. In More I seem
myself to have perished, so completely was there, as Pythagoras
has it, but one soul to both of us. Such are the tides of human
life!"

It is pleasant to believe that the last days of Erasmus were cheered by the thought that his protestations of fidelity to the Roman institution were not wholly unrewarded, though, as he says, there were still men at Rome who were doing their best to blacken his fame. He had welcomed the election of Paul III. in much the same language as he had employed in regard to Leo X., Hadrian VI., and Clement VII. He wrote to him at once, but we have, unfortunately, only the brief reply of the pope. It is a very amiable and appreciative note, recognising the value of Erasmus' services and expressing entire confidence in their continuance. It is quite in harmony with his whole career that these congratulations of the pope should have come to him in Basel, now thoroughly converted into a Protestant community, and in the midst of friends the most tried and true he had ever had, all of them Protestants, but all willing to forget differences in their common regard for the dying scholar.

We are not well informed as to the end of Erasmus' life. The last letter in the collection of Le Clerc, perhaps the last he ever wrote, is to his old friend Goclenius at Louvain, under date of June 28, 1536. He is among faithful friends, better friends than he had at Freiburg, "but on account of differences in doctrine I would rather end my life elsewhere. Would that Brabant were nearer!" Again he repeats his declaration that he came to Basel only for a change of air and was intending to go elsewhere as soon as he felt better. The ruling passion was strong upon him even to his death.

The story of his last days comes to us through the excellent Beatus Rhenanus, his devoted friend and admirer. The winter brought on a terrible attack of gout, succeeded in the early summer by a continuous dysentery which proved incurable. In spite of pain and weakness he never lost a moment's opportunity of work, the witness whereof is the treatise _De Puritate Ecclesiæ_ and the edition of Origen. He was in the house of the son of his old friend Froben, the intimates of his earlier residence were all about him, and evidently were glad and proud to have him again in their midst.

We have no suggestion, in the eleven months of his stay at Basel, of any personal dealings with the Roman clergy, nor of the presence of any minister of religion at his death-bed. He had lived a cosmopolitan of the earth; he died, so far as we know, a cosmopolitan of the world to come--a Christian man trusting for his future to the simple faith in right doing and straight thinking which had really been his creed through life. His death occurred on the 12th of July, 1536. Protestant Basel claimed as her own the man who had turned his back on her when she was working through her own religious problem, but who had after all been drawn to her again by the subtle ties of a sympathy he could not or would not openly acknowledge.

"How great was the public grief," says Beatus, "was shown by the
throng of people to take their last look at the departed. He was
borne on the shoulders of students to the cathedral and there
near the steps which lead up to the choir, on the left side of
the church, by the chapel of the Blessed Virgin, was honourably
laid to rest. In the funeral procession walked the chief
magistrate and many members of the council. Of the professors
and students of the University not one was absent."

The impression of Beatus' narration is confirmed by a letter[196] of the Leipzig physician, Heinrich Stromer, written immediately after the death of Erasmus to George Spalatin. He adds:

[196] Adalbert Horawitz, _Erasmiana_; in Sitzungsberichte der
Wiener Akademie der Wissenschaften, xcv., 608.

"The great scholar was completely absorbed in restoring the
Greek text of Origen, so that though his illness was extremely
painful, he would not give up till death itself wrested the pen
from his hand. His last words on earth, spoken in the midst of
his heavy groaning, were these: 'Oh, Jesus Christ, Son of God,
have mercy upon me! I will sing of the mercy of God and of his
judgment.' And therein you can see the truly Christian spirit of
the man."

The last will of Erasmus, made in due form on the 12th of February, 1536, shows him to have been possessed of a comfortable property. He appoints Boniface Amerbach general executor of all his estate. He gives substantial legacies to several friends and servants, provides for the sale of his library to John à Lasco, and finally directs his executor to give the remainder to poor and infirm persons, especially to provide dowries for poor girls and to help young men of good promise.

Expressions of grief and reverence for the great scholar came from the men of all parties who could think of him as the prince of learning and the advocate of right living. Only those who could not forgive him his refusal to enter the ranks of any party failed to do honour to his memory.

* * * * *

Let us ask once more in conclusion what was, precisely, the contribution of this man to the work of the Reformation. If by "Reformation" we mean only the work which Luther believed himself to be doing, we must limit our answer to the somewhat scanty acknowledgment he was ready to make of his indebtedness to Erasmus as a scholar. But we have learned that Luther's own conception of the Reformation movement was a very narrow and inadequate one. He believed it to be limited to a purely religious revival on the basis of a true understanding of Scripture. In reality it was the whole great revolt of the human mind against arbitrary and conventional limitations, and it is only when we study it in this light that we can measure the influence of Erasmus upon it. First and most important was his insistence, begun in the Enchiridion and continued even through the _Ecclesiastes_, upon the principle of a sound, sane, reasonable individual judgment, not in opposition to the prevailing authority of tradition, but in interpretation of it. To be sure this was no absolutely new thing in the world. It had been before men's minds since the days of Petrarch, but it had never before found so many-sided and so consistent an expression in the North. It had taken three generations since Petrarch for the slower mind of the northern peoples to ripen to the point of receiving this idea. They took it now from Erasmus with enthusiasm. It came to them in his satire in such form that the humblest reader could understand it. It spoke to them in his serious treatises in language which appealed to the scholar at once by its literary finish and by its enormous learning and seriousness. The private judgment of the individual is really, no matter how concealed, the tribunal to which the reader is continually referred.

Closely akin to this is the appeal, the other distinguishing mark of the Renaissance man, to the essential rightness of what is natural. The mediæval ideal of morals had been that whatever was natural was essentially wrong. It could be right only in so far as it was given a formal guarantee by some recognised authority. Erasmus represents human life throughout as being, of its very nature, in harmony with the eternal law of morality. Especially family life in all its forms, the natural and mutual duties of man and wife, the tender love and care of children, the honourable uses of wealth in the service of the state and of religion, the obligations of friendship, the natural piety of the simple child of God, the dignity and responsibility of rulers as the agents of a divine order among men, the supreme duty of peace,--these are the constantly recurring subjects of his well-trained pen. Even in his literary ideals the same general principle of naturalness prevails. Style is an instrument to be cultivated; it has a charm of its own worth the careful attention of the scholar; but, after all, style is only a means of conveying thought, and the object of it is to carry the highest thought in the clearest and most direct fashion.

Now one may well ask: How is all this nobility and elevation of purpose to be reconciled with the obvious personal limitations of Erasmus' character? How does this profound interest in the welfare of human society go with a self-centred, nervous dread of criticism which rises at times to the hysterical point? How account for the fear that the very ideas he seems most to cherish might be spread abroad among the very people for whom they seem especially intended? How explain the elaborate contradictions in his own accounts of the motives that led to his most open actions? Such a personality, we are tempted to say, is beneath our honest contempt. It is the very negation of all the ideals of which the man tried to pose as the champion.

The answer to this difficulty is that we find ourselves here before the perpetual mystery of genius. Erasmus partially solved the problem for us when he declared that while he was at work a certain demon seemed to take possession of him and to carry him on without his will. His pen seemed to have a volition of its own and to obey the training of his years of practice by a certain instinct. Just as his powerful will compelled his frail and suffering body to do the bidding of his unconquerable spirit, so the literary impulse carried him on to utterances far beyond the capacity of his personality to realise in action. If Erasmus could have lived up to himself, he would have been the greatest of men. Let us in our judgment of him beware lest we make superhuman demands upon him. It is as idle as it is unjust to ask that Erasmus should be both Erasmus and Luther at once. Our narrative has not sought to cover up or to disguise the repellent aspects of his outward attitude towards the Reformation. May it on the other hand avoid the error of obscuring his immense service to the cause with which his nature forbade him outwardly to identify himself.

INDEX

A

Adages, first edition, 88-91;
Aldine edition, 136

Adrian, Hebrew teacher, 266, 267

Adrian VI., pope, 403

Agricola, Rudolf, 7

Albert of Mainz, 291;
letter to, 309-318

Aldus Manutius, 125;
correspondence with Erasmus, 134-137;
his printing-office, 138

Aleander, Girolamo, at Venice, 143;
at Louvain, 349

Alexander of Scotland, Archbishop of St. Andrews, 144, 146;
death, 153

Algerus, treatise on the Eucharist, 410

Amerbach, Boniface, executor, 460

Amerbach, the brothers, 236

Ammonius, Andreas, correspondence with Erasmus, 187-192, 262, 263

Andrelinus, Faustus, 41;
letter from Erasmus, 80;
writes a preface to the Adages, 93

_Apophthegmata_, 451

Aquinas, Thomas, Erasmus' and Colet's views of, 72

d'Asola, Andreas, 138-140

d'Asola, Francesco, 139, 141

Atensis, John, 264

Augsburg Confession, 401

Augsburg, Diet at, 444-448

Augustinianism, 278, 283-285, 380-383

Augustinus, pupil of Erasmus, 93

B

Badius, publisher at Paris, 134

Basel, residence in, 232-240, 347, 441-443, 456 _sqq._

Battus, James, 48;
correspondence with Erasmus, 48-58;
death, 61

Beatus Rhenanus, 239;
letter to, 241-246

Bedda, Natalis, 428

Berquin, Louis de, 428-432

Berlin, St., abbot of, 223

Besançon, letter to magistrate of, 456

Bois-le-Duc ('s Hertogenbosch), school at, 8

Bologna, visit to, 130-135

Botzheim, John, canon of Constance, letter to (_catalogus
lucubrationum_), 126;
visit to, 352, 356

Brethren of the Common Life, 8

Budæus, William, letter from, 248;
letter to, 251, 427

Busleiden, Jerome, founder of the College of the Three Languages, 265

C

Cambrai, bishop of and residence in, 6, 33, 41

Cambridge, life at, 193-195

Caminga, Haio, 443

Campeggio, Cardinal, letters to, 302, 405

Carteromachos, Scipio, 148

Charles I. of Spain (V. of Germany), makes Erasmus
a councillor, 253, 262;
elected emperor, 343-345;
holds the Diet at Worms, 345, 346

_Ciceronianus_, treatise on rhetoric, selection from, 149-151

Cinicampius (Eschenfeld), 243;
letter from Erasmus, 246, 247

Clement VII., pope, letter to, 404

Clyston, attendant of Erasmus' pupils, 125, 127, 136

Colet, John, 64, 65;
teacher at Oxford, 68;
founder of St. Paul's school, 70;
his character, 71-75;
invites Erasmus to teach at Oxford, 82-86;
correspondence of 1511(?)-1512, 195-200;
present at Canterbury "pilgrimage," 217

Collége Montaigu, 34-39

Comparison of the Virgin and the Martyr, 436, 437

_Compendium Vitæ_, 4

Complutensian Polyglot, 201

Constance, visit at, 352

Cop, William, 250

_Copia verborum et rerum_, dedication, 197;
analysis of, 208-214

Cornelius, companion of Erasmus at Steyn, 14

D

Dante, _De Monarchia_, 274

_De contemptu mundi_, treatise, 20-22, 28

Deventer, school at, 5-7

_Diversoria_, colloquy describing inns, 127, 226-231

Dorpius, Martin, criticises the Praise of Folly, 176, 264

Dürer, Albert, diary of, 333, 334

E

_Ecclesiastes_, 453, 454

Egmund, Carmelite at Louvain, 322, 428

_Enchiridion militis Christiani_, origin, 96, 97;
analysis of, 98-111;
preface to second edition, 111-115;
its teaching, 286

England, life in, 62-86, 179 _sqq._

_Epistolæ obscurorum virorum_, 279, 363

Eppendorf, Henry, 352

Erasmus, nationality, 1-3;
birth, 3;
at Gouda, 5;
at Utrecht, 5;
at Deventer, 5-8;
at 's Hertogenbosch, 8, 9;
at Steyn, 15-23;
with the bishop of Cambrai, 26;
ordained priest, 33, n.;
at Paris, 33-40;
return to Cambrai, 41;
troubles at Paris, 42-47;
correspondence with Battus, 48-58;
visit to Tournehens, 54;
at Louvain, 61;
in England, 62-86;
at Orleans, 92;
views on war, 118, 128;
goes to Italy, 125;
Doctor's degree, 128;
in Bologna, 130-135;
life at Venice, 137-143;
at Padua, 144;
at Siena, 146;
at Rome, 146-156;
English residence (1509-1514), 179-217;
correspondence with Ammonius, 187-192;
"Professor" at Cambridge, 193-195;
literary work in England, 197-217;
letter to Servatius, 218-224;
journeys, 226-231, 241-246;
at Basel, 232-240;
called to Ingolstadt and elsewhere, 247;
offered a bishopric, 248;
called to Paris, 248-253;
made councillor of Charles V., 253-255;
settles at Louvain, 264;
his view of the Reform, 285-288;
view of indulgences, 292;
letter to Wolsey, 298-301;
to Campeggio, 302;
to Leo X., 303-307;
to Albert of Mainz, 309-319;
to Hoogstraaten, 326-329;
removal to Basel, 347;
letter to Laurinus, 347-361;
visit to Constance, 352;
contest with Hutten, 362-378;
the free-will controversy, 383-401;
the Eucharist controversy, 407-418;
relations with Berquin, 428-432;
life at Basel, 441-443;
goes to Freiburg in Breisgau, 444;
relation to Augsburg Diet, 444-448;
buys a house, 449;
his place in the Index, 454, 455;
return to Basel, 456;
death, 457-459;
last will, 460;
final estimate of, 460-463

Ernest of Bavaria, invites Erasmus to Ingolstadt, 247

Eschenfeld (Cinicampius), 243;
letter from Erasmus, 246, 247

Eucharist, history of, 407;
Luther's view, 407-409;
Erasmus on, 409-418

_Expostulatio cum Erasmo_ of Hutten, 366-372

F

Familiar Colloquies, 420-423;
attacked by the Sorbonne and by Luther, 424;
condemned at Paris and in England, 433

Ferdinand of Spain, 119

Fisher, Robert, 63

Francis I., King of France, calls Erasmus to Paris, 248-253

_Fratres Collationarii_, 10

Frederic the Wise, Elector of Saxony, letter to, 325;
interview with, 326;
imperial candidate, 344

Free will, the problem of, 381-384;
essay on, 384, 387-397;
Luther on, 398-401

Freiburg in Breisgau, residence at, 441-456

Froben, John, first acquaintance with Erasmus, 232;
character, 233-235

Froben, John Erasmius, 421

G

Gaguinus, 41

Gerard, father of Erasmus, 4

Gerhardt of Nymwegen, 428

Goclenius, Conrad, letters to, 4, 267, 458

Gouda, life at, 5

Grey, Thomas, 43

Grimani, Cardinal, 151;
receives Erasmus, 154-156;
letter to, 224

Grocyn, William, 64, 81

Groot, Gerard, 8

Grunnius, Lambertus, letter to, xiv, 4, 11, 19, 21, 130;
reply of, 132

H

Hedio, Caspar, letter to, 379

Hegius, Alexander, 6

Hermann, William, 23, 47

's Hertogenbosch (Bois-le-Duc), school at, 8

Hoogstraaten, Jacob, letter to, 326-329

Hutten, Ulrich von, 361-363;
controversy with Erasmus, 363-378;
letter from, 364;
the _Expostulatio_, 366-372;
Erasmus' _Spongia_, 372-378

I

"Index," papal, 454, 455

Indulgences, Luther's Theses on, 289-291;
Erasmus on, 292, 293

Inghirami, Tommaso, 149

Ingolstadt, call to, 247

Institution of Christian Marriage, 433-435

_Institutio Principis Christiani_, 255-262;
its teaching, 286

Italy, life in, 125 _sqq._

Ἰχθυοφαγία, colloquy of Erasmus, 35-40

J

Jerome, St., edition of, 68, 205

Joanna of Spain, 119

K

à Kempis, Thomas, 8

L

Lascaris, Johannes, 143;
letter to, 265

à Lasco, John, letter to, 417, 418

Laurinus, Marcus, letters to, 254, 347-361

Lee, Edward, 427

Leo X., dedication of New Testament to, 271;
letter to, 302

Linacre, Thomas, 64, 81, 199

Louvain, life at, 61, 264

Ludwig the Bavarian, emperor, 276

Luther, Martin, called to Wittenberg, 280;
his early development, 280-283;
Theses, 289-291;
letter from, 294;
letter to, 295-297;
his views disclaimed, 298 _sqq._;
Leipzig Disputation, 307, 337;
burns the papal bull and canon law, 337;
writings of 1520, 338;
confronts the radical party, 339-341;
at Worms, 345, 346;
letter on free will, 384-386;
treatise, _de servo arbitrio_, 398-401

Luther and Erasmus compared, 282, 283

M

Macchiavelli, Niccolo, _Il Principe_, 256

Manius, Peter, letter to, 1

Marburg Conference, 408

Margaret, mother of Erasmus, 4

Margaret of Austria, regent of the Netherlands, 405

Maximilian of Germany, 119

Melanchthon, Philip, called to Wittenberg, 280;
letter to, 325

More, Thomas, 64;
first meeting with Erasmus, 77, 78;
introduces Erasmus to the royal children, 79;
Utopia, 257

Mountjoy, Lord, pupil of Erasmus, 43;
invites him to England, 62;
second invitation (1509), 179-183

Münzer, Thomas, 340, 362, 398

Musurus, Marcus, 143, 144

N

Neuenaar, Count of, 244

New Testament, Greek, editing begun in England, 200-204;
dedicated to Pope Leo X., 271;
third edition, 351

O

_Opulentia sordida_, colloquy on life at Venice, 138-142

Orleans, life at, 92

P

Pace, Richard, at Ferrara, 145

Padua, life at, 144

Paraphrases of the New Testament, 424-426

Paris, university organisation, 34;
life in, 33-40, 42-47, 248-253

Parvus, William (Guillaume Petit), 248, 249

Paul III., pope, correspondence with, 457

Paul IV., pope, Index of, 454, 455

Pelicanus, Conrad, letters to, 416, 417

Philip of Burgundy, panegyric on, 116-121

Pirkheimer, Bilibaldus, letters to, 413, 414

Pius IV., pope, Index of, 455

Poncher, Stephen, Bishop of Paris, 250, 253

Popes, humanistic, 273

_Præparatio ad Mortem_, 452, 453

Praise of Folly, motive of, 158;
analysis of, 159-175;
apology to Dorpius, 176-178

R

Raphael, Cardinal of St. George, 226

Religious Pilgrimage, the, 215, 216

Reuchlin, John, 236-239, 310, 320

Rhenanus, _see_ Beatus

Riario, Raffaelle, cardinal, 151

Rome, life in, 150-156

S

Scaliger, Julius Cæsar, criticises Erasmus, 137, 235

"_Senex ille_," 42-46

Schmalkalden, League of, 445

Servatius, companion of Erasmus at Steyn, 23;
prior of Steyn, letter from Erasmus, 218-224

Siena, visit to, 146

Sintheim, John, 6

Sorbonne, the, attacks the Colloquies, 424, and the Paraphrases, 432

"Spirit," the, 388, 389;
Luther on, 399

_Spongia adversus aspergines Hutteni_, 372-378

Standonch, John, 35

Steyn, monastery at, 14-20;
life at, 15-23

Stromer, Heinrich, letter to Spalatin, 459

Stunica, James Lopez, 355, 404, 427

T

The True Way of Prayer, 437-440

Tournehens, visit to, 54

Tunstall, Cuthbert, 263, 264

U

Utopia of Thomas More, 257, 261

Utrecht, life at, 5

V

Valla, Laurentius, 204

Veere, Anna, Marchioness of, 48;
visit of Erasmus to, 54;
letter to, 59, 60;
marriage of, 61

Venice, life at, 137-143

Volzius, letter to, 111-115

W

Warham, William, Archbishop of Canterbury, joins in calling
Erasmus to England, 183;
gives him the "living" of Aldington, 184-186;
character, 226, 454

Wessel, John, 8

Winckel, Peter, uncle and guardian of Erasmus, 5, 7, 9

Wittenberg University founded, 280

Wittenherus, Nicholas, prior of Steyn, 222

Wolsey, Thomas, letter to, 298

Worms, Diet at, 345, 346;
Edict of, 346

Transcriber's note

Obvious printer errors have been silently corrected. Original
spelling was kept. Variant spellings were made consistent when a
predominant usage was found.

Illustrations have been slightly moved so that they do not break
up paragraphs while remaining close to the text they illustrate.

Chapter headings and illustration captions have been harmonized
and made consistent so that the same expressions appear both in
text and in the lists of Contents and of Illustrations.

The following emendations were made:

Page 12: "text" replaced by "pretext" (this gives Erasmus a
pretext for an assault).
Page 39: "Icthyophagia" replaced by "Ichthyophagia" (he borrowed
his illustration directly from the _Ichthyophagia_).
Page 54: "noir" replaced by "noire" (a reference to his _bête
noire_).
Page 91: Footnote label [51]: location conjectured, not found
in the original.
Page 94, note 53: "p. 486-99" replaced by "p. 48 & _ff._" (See
p. 48 & _ff._)
Page 195, note 91: "p. 50 8 _ff._" replaced by "p. 50 & _ff._"
(by Mr. Mullinger in his History of the University of
Cambridge, p. 50 & _ff._)

End of Project Gutenberg's Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, by Ephraim Emerton