Travels
Erasmus travelled widely and regularly, for reasons of poverty, "escape" from his Stein canonry (to Cambrai), education (to Paris, Turin), escape from the sweating sickness plague (to Orléans), employment (to England), searching libraries for manuscripts, writing (Brabant), royal counsel (Cologne), patronage, tutoring and chaperoning (North Italy), networking (Rome), seeing books through printing in person (Paris, Venice, Louvain, Basel), and avoiding the persecution of religious fanatics (to Freiburg). He enjoyed horseback riding.
In 1495 with Bishop Henry's consent and a stipend, Erasmus went on to study at the University of Paris in the Collège de Montaigu, a centre of reforming zeal, under the direction of the ascetic Jan Standonck, of whose rigors he complained. The university was then the chief seat of Scholastic learning but already coming under the influence of Renaissance humanism. For instance, Erasmus became an intimate friend of an Italian humanist Publio Fausto Andrelini, poet and "professor of humanity" in Paris, and part of the "rhetorical-grammatical-poetical nexus" flourishing there.
His health failed in the first year. After returning to Bergen and Stein to recuperate, Erasmus returned to Paris, and rented a room at the English boarding house (whose propriétaire tolerated his tardy or partial payments) where he tutored wealthy boarders, notably Thomas Grey (future Marquess of Dorset, and grandfather of Lady Jane Grey.)
During this time, Erasmus developed a deep aversion to exclusive or excessive Aristotelianism and Scholasticism and started finding work as a tutor/chaperone to visiting English and Scottish aristocrats, most importantly in his life William Blount, 4th Baron Mountjoy. There is no record of him graduating.
Erasmus stayed in England at least three times. In between he had periods studying in Paris, Orléans, Leuven and other cities.
In 1499 he was invited to England by Blount, who offered to accompany him on his trip to England.
His six months in England was fruitful in the making of lifelong friendships with the leaders of English thought in the days of King Henry VIII. He reported gaining new skills important in his future: becoming "a better horse-man, and a tolerable courtier."
During his first visit to England in 1499, he stayed for two months at the University of Oxford, at St Mary's College, the college for Augustinian canons, where he befriended the leading Greek scholars Thomas Linacre, William Grocyn and William Lily.
Erasmus was particularly impressed by the Bible teaching of the humanist John Colet, who pursued a preaching style more akin to the church fathers than the Scholastics. Through the influence of Colet, his interests turned abruptly towards the evangelical and patristic theology and biblical philology that occupied the second half of his life. Other distinctive features of Colet's thought that may have influenced Erasmus are his pacifism, reform-mindedness, anti-Scholasticism and pastoral esteem for the sacrament of Confession. This prompted Erasmus, upon his return from England to Paris, to intensively study the Greek language, which would enable him to study patristic exegesis and the New Testament texts on a more profound level.
Erasmus also became fast friends with Thomas More, a young law student considering becoming a monk, whose thought (e.g., on conscience and equity) had been influenced by 14th century French theologian Jean Gerson, and whose intellect had been developed by his powerful patron Cardinal John Morton (d. 1500) who had famously attempted reforms of English monasteries.
Erasmus left London with a full purse from his generous friends, to allow him to complete his studies. However, he had been provided with bad legal advice by his friends: the English customs officials confiscated all the gold and silver, leaving him with nothing except a night fever that lasted several months.
Following his first trip to England, Erasmus returned first to poverty in Paris, where he started to compile the Adagia for his students, then to Orléans to escape the plague, and then to semi-monastic life, scholarly studies and writing in France, notably at the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Bertin at St Omer (1501,1502) where he wrote the initial version of the Enchiridion (Handbook of the Christian Knight). A particular influence was his encounter in 1501 with Jean (Jehan) Vitrier, a radical Franciscan who consolidated Erasmus's thoughts against excessive valorisation of monasticism, ceremonialism and fasting in a kind of conversion experience, and introduced him to Origen.
In 1502, Erasmus went to Brabant, ultimately to the university at Louvain. In 1504 he was hired by the leaders of the Brabantian "Provincial States" to deliver one of his few public speeches, a very long formal panegyric for Philip "the Fair", Duke of Burgundy and later King of Castille: the first half being the conventional extravagant praise, but the second half being a strong treatment of the miseries of war, the need for neutrality and conciliation (with the neighbours France and England), and the excellence of peaceful rulers: that real courage in a leader was not to wage war but to put a bridle on greed, etc.
This was later published as Panegyricus. Erasmus then returned to Paris in 1504.
For Erasmus's second visit, he spent over a year staying at recently married Thomas More's house, now a lawyer and Member of Parliament, honing his translation skills.
Erasmus preferred to live the life of an independent scholar and made a conscious effort to avoid any actions or formal ties that might inhibit his individual freedom. In England Erasmus was approached with prominent offices but he declined them all, until King Henry VII himself offered his support. He was inclined, but eventually did not accept and longed for a stay in Italy.
In 1506 he was able to accompany and tutor the sons of the personal physician of the English King through Italy to Bologna.
His discovery en route at Park Abbey of Lorenzo Valla's New Testament Notes was a major event in his career and prompted Erasmus to study the New Testament using philology.
In 1506 they passed through Turin and he arranged to be awarded the degree of Doctor of Sacred Theology (Sacra Theologia, the highest theological degree, conferring the ius docendi right to teach theology anywhere), from the University of Turin per saltum at age 37 (or 40). Erasmus stayed tutoring in Bologna for a year; in the winter, Erasmus was present when Pope Julius II entered victorious into the conquered Bologna which he had besieged before.
Erasmus travelled on to Venice, working on an expanded version of his Adagia at the Aldine Press of the famous printer Aldus Manutius, advised him which manuscripts to publish, and was an honorary member of the graecophone Aldine "New Academy" (Greek: Neakadêmia (Νεακαδημία)). From Aldus he learned the in-person workflow that made him productive at Froben: making last-minute changes, and immediately checking and correcting printed page proofs as soon as the ink had dried. Aldus wrote that Erasmus could do twice as much work in a given time as any other man he had ever met.
In 1507, according to his letters, he studied advanced Greek in Padua with the Venetian natural philosopher, Giulio Camillo. He found employment tutoring and escorting Scottish nobleman Alexander Stewart, the 24-year-old Archbishop of St Andrews, through Padua, Florence, and Siena, Erasmus made it to Rome in 1509, visiting three times and seeking the acquaintance of some notable librarians and cardinals, but having a less active association with Italian scholars; one notable minor friendship was with Cardinal Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici who later became Pope Leo X and a leading supporter of Erasmus's Biblical program.
In 1509, William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord Mountjoy lured him back to England, now ruled by what was hoped would be a wise and benevolent king (Henry VIII) educated by humanists. Warham and Mountjoy sent Erasmus £10 to cover his expenses on the journey. On his trip over the Alps via Splügen Pass, and down the Rhine toward England, Erasmus began to compose The Praise of Folly.
In 1510, Erasmus arrived at More's bustling house, was confined to bed to recover from his recurrent illness, and wrote The Praise of Folly, which was to be a best-seller. More was at that time the undersheriff of the City of London. His wife Jane died, aged 21, in 1511, and More quickly remarrried.
After his glorious reception in Italy, Erasmus had returned broke and jobless, with strained relations with former friends and benefactors on the continent, and he regretted leaving Italy, despite being horrified by papal warfare. There is a gap in his usually voluminous correspondence: his so-called "two lost years", perhaps due to self-censorship of dangerous or disgruntled opinions; he shared lodgings with his friend Andrea Ammonio (Latin secretary to Mountjoy, and the next year, to Henry VIII, who had been lodging in Thomas More's large and welcoming household but did not get on with the new wife) provided at the London Austin Friars' compound, skipping out after a disagreement with the friars over rent that caused bad blood.
He assisted his friend John Colet by authoring Greek textbooks and securing members of staff for the newly established St Paul's School and was in contact when Colet gave his notorious 1512 Convocation sermon which called for a reformation of ecclesiastical affairs. At Colet's instigation, Erasmus started work on De copia.
In 1511, the University of Cambridge's chancellor, John Fisher, arranged for Erasmus to be (or to study to prepare to be) the Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity, though whether he actually was accepted for it or took it up is contested by historians.
He studied and taught Greek and researched and lectured on Jerome.
Erasmus mainly stayed at Queens' College while lecturing at the university, between 1511 and 1515.
Erasmus's rooms were located in the "I" staircase of Old Court. Despite a chronic shortage of money, he succeeded in mastering Greek by an intensive, day-and-night study of three years, taught by Thomas Linacre, continuously begging in letters that his friends send him books and money for teachers.
Erasmus suffered from poor health and was especially concerned with heating, clean air, ventilation, draughts, fresh food and unspoiled wine: he complained about the draughtiness of English buildings. He complained that Queens' College could not supply him with enough decent wine (wine was the Renaissance medicine for gallstones, from which Erasmus suffered). As Queens' was an unusually humanist-leaning institution in the 16th century, Queens' College Old Library still houses many first editions of Erasmus's publications, many of which were acquired during that period by bequest or purchase, including Erasmus's New Testament translation, which is signed by friend and Polish religious reformer Jan Łaski.
By this time More was a judge on the poorman's equity court (Master of Requests) and a Privy Counsellor.
Concerned by the outbreaks of plague at Cambridge, ill from gallstones, and worried about the advent of war and inflation, Erasmus left Cambridge and then England.
His residence at Leuven, where he lectured at the University, exposed Erasmus to much criticism from those ascetics, academics and clerics hostile to the principles of literary and religious reform to which he was devoting his life. In 1514, en route to Basel, he made the acquaintance of Hermannus Buschius, Ulrich von Hutten and Johann Reuchlin who introduced him to the Hebrew language in Mainz. In 1514, he suffered a fall from his horse and injured his back.
Erasmus may have made several other short visits to England or English territory while living in Brabant. Happily for Erasmus, More and Tunstall were posted in Brussels or Antwerp on government missions around 1516, More for six months, Tunstall for longer. Their circle include Pieter Gillis of Antwerp, in whose house Thomas More's wrote Utopia (1516) with Erasmus's encouragement, Erasmus editing and perhaps even contributing fragments. His old Cambridge friend Richard Sampson was vicar general running the nearby diocese of Tournai, recently under English control and governed by his former pupil William Blount.
In 1516, Erasmus accepted an honorary position as a Councillor to Charles V with an annuity of 200 guilders (over US$100,000), rarely paid, and tutored Charles' brother, the teenage future Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand of Hapsburg.
In 1516, Erasmus published the first edition of his scholarly Latin-Greek New Testament with annotations, his complete works of Jerome, and The Education of a Christian Prince (Institutio principis Christiani) for Charles and Ferdinand.
In 1517, he supported the foundation at the university of the Collegium Trilingue for the study of Hebrew, Latin, and Greek—after the model of Cisneros' College of the Three Languages at the University of Alcalá—financed by his late friend Hieronymus van Busleyden's will. On being asked by Jean Le Sauvage, former Chancellor of Brabant and now Chancellor of Burgundy, Erasmus wrote The Complaint of Peace.
In 1517, his great friend Ammonio died in England of the Sweating Sickness. In 1518, Erasmus was diagnosed with the plague; despite the danger, he was taken in and cared for in the home of his Flemish friend and publisher Dirk Martens in Antwerp for a month and recovered.
By 1518, he reported to Paulus Bombasius that his income was over 300 ducats per year (over US$150,000) without including patronage. By 1522 he reported his annual income as 400 gold florins (over US$200,000).
In 1520 he was present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold with Guillaume Budé, probably his last meetings with Thomas More and William Warham. His friend Richard Pace gave the main sermon to the kings. His friends and former students and old correspondents were the incoming political elite, and he had risen with them.
Following the Edict of Worms, which Martin Luther refused to accept, Erasmus came under attack from the theological faculty because of his neutral stance in the conflict. He subsequently took up residence in the house known as De Swaene in Anderlecht, where he wrote his famous 21 letters and numerous biblical studies. On 28 October, he left Anderlecht in order to avoid the ongoing theological disputes.
From 1514, Erasmus regularly travelled to Basel to coordinate the printing of his books with Froben. He developed a lasting association with the great Basel publisher Johann Froben and later his son Hieronymus Froben (Erasmus's godson) who together published over 200 works with Erasmus, working with expert scholar-correctors who went on to illustrious careers.
His initial interest in Froben's operation was aroused by his discovery of the printer's folio edition of the Adagiorum Chiliades tres (Adagia) (1513). Froben's work was notable for using the new Roman type (rather than blackletter) and Aldine-like Italic and Greek fonts, as well as elegant layouts using borders and fancy capitals; Hans Holbein the Younger cut several woodblock capitals for Erasmus's editions. The printing of many his books was supervised by his Alsatian friend, the Greek scholar Beatus Rhenanus.
In 1521 he settled in Basel. He was weary of the controversies and hostility at Louvain, and feared being dragged further into the Lutheran controversy. He agreed to be the Froben press' literary superintendent writing dedications and prefaces for an annuity and profit share. Apart from Froben's production team, he had his own household with a formidable housekeeper, stable of horses, and up to eight boarders or paid servants who acted as assistants, correctors, amanuenses, dining companions, international couriers, and carers. It was his habit to sit at times by a ground-floor window, to make it easier to see and be seen by strolling humanists for chatting.
In collaboration with Froben and his team, the scope and ambition of Erasmus's Annotations, Erasmus's long-researched project of philological notes of the New Testament along the lines of Valla's Adnotations, had grown to also include a lightly revised Latin Vulgate, then the Greek text, then several edifying essays on methodology, then a highly revised Vulgate—all bundled as his Novum testamentum omne and pirated individually throughout Europe— then finally his amplified Paraphrases.
In 1522, Erasmus's compatriot, former teacher (c. 1502) and friend from the University of Louvain unexpectedly became Pope Adrian VI, after having served as Regent (and/or Grand Inquisitor) of Spain for six years. Like Erasmus and Luther, he had been influenced by the Brethren of the Common Life. He tried to entice Erasmus to Rome. His reforms of the Roman Curia which he hoped would meet the objections of many Lutherans were stymied (partly because the Holy See was broke), though re-worked at the Council of Trent, and he died in 1523.
As the popular and nationalist responses to Luther gathered momentum, the social disorders, which Erasmus dreaded and Luther disassociated himself from, began to appear, including the German Peasants' War (1524–1525), the Anabaptist insurrections in Germany and in the Low Countries, iconoclasm, and the radicalisation of peasants across Europe. If these were the outcomes of reform, Erasmus was thankful that he had kept out of it. Yet he was ever more bitterly accused of having started the whole "tragedy" (as Erasmus dubbed the matter).
In 1523, he provided financial support to the impoverished and disgraced former Latin Secretary of Antwerp Cornelius Grapheus, on his release from the newly introduced Inquisition. In 1525, a former student of Erasmus who had served at Erasmus's father's former church at Woerden, Jan de Bakker (Pistorius) was the first priest to be executed as a heretic in the Netherlands. In 1529, his French translator and friend Louis de Berquin was burnt in Paris, following his condemnation as an anti-Rome heretic by the Sorbonne theologians.
Following sudden, violent, iconoclastic rioting in early 1529 led by Œcolampadius his former assistant, in which elected Catholic councilmen were deposed, the city of Basel definitely adopted the Reformation—finally banning the Catholic Mass on 1 April 1529.
Erasmus, in company with other Basel Catholic priests including Bishop Augustin Mair, left Basel on 13 April 1529 and departed by ship to the Catholic university town of Freiburg im Breisgau to be under the protection of his former student, Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. Erasmus wrote somewhat dramatically to Thomas More of his frail condition at the time: "I preferred to risk my life rather than appear to approve a programme like theirs. There was some hope of a return to moderation."
In Spring early 1530 Erasmus was bedridden for three months with an intensely painful infection, likely carbunculosis, that, unusually for him, left him too ill to work. He declined to attend the Diet of Augsburg to which both the Bishop of Augsburg and the Papal legate Campeggio had invited him, and he expressed doubt on non-theological grounds, to Campeggio and Melanchthon, that reconciliation was then possible: he wrote to Campeggio, "I can discern no way out of this enormous tragedy unless God suddenly appears like a deus ex machina and changes the hearts of men"; and later, "What upsets me is not so much their teaching, especially Luther's, as the fact that, under the pre-text of the gospel, I see a class of men emerging whom I find repugnant from every point of view."
He stayed for two years on the top floor of the Whale House, then following another rent dispute bought and refurbished a house of his own, where he took in scholar/assistants as table-boarders such as Cornelius Grapheus' friend Damião de Góis, some of them fleeing persecution.
Despite increasing frailty Erasmus continued to work productively, notably on a new magnum opus, his manual on preaching Ecclesiastes, and his small book on preparing for death. His boarder for five months, the Portuguese scholar/diplomat Damião de Góis, worked on his lobbying on the plight of the Sámi in Sweden and on the Ethiopian church, and stimulated Erasmus's increasing awareness of foreign missions.
There are no extant letters between More and Erasmus from the start of More's period as Lord Chancellor until his resignation (1529–1532), almost to the day. Erasmus wrote several important non-political works under the surprising patronage of Thomas Bolyn: his Ennaratio triplex in Psalmum XXII or Triple Commentary on Psalm 23 (1529); his catechism to counter Luther Explanatio Symboli or A Playne and Godly Exposition or Declaration of the Commune Crede (1533) which sold out in three hours at the Frankfurt Book Fair; and Praeparatio ad mortem or Preparation for Death (1534), which would be one of Erasmus's most popular and most hijacked works.
