In their neglect of the classics the Schoolmen had a powerful ally. For obvious reasons the early and the mediaeval Church felt that much of classical literature was injurious to the minds of the young, and in consequence discouraged the use of it in schools. The classics were allowed to perish, and their place was taken by Christian poets such as Prudentius or Juvencus, by moralizations of Aesop, patchwork compositions known as 'centos' on Scriptural themes, and the like. The scholars, therefore, who went to Italy and came home to the North carrying the new enthusiasm, had strenuous opposition to encounter. The Schoolmen considered them impertinent, the Church counted them immoral. To us who know which way the conflict ended, the savage blows delivered by the humanists seem mere brutality; they lash their fallen foes with what appears inhuman ferocity. But the truth is that the struggle was not finished until well into the sixteenth century. Biel of Tubingen, 'the last of the Schoolmen', lived till 1495. Between 1501 and 1515 a single printer, Wolff of Basle, produced five massive volumes of the Summae of mediaeval Doctors. Through the greater part, therefore, of Erasmus' life the upholders of the old systems and ideals, firmly entrenched by virtue of possession, succeeded in maintaining their supremacy in the schools.

Between the two periods of the revival of learning, the Italian and the Transalpine, a marked line is drawn by the invention of printing, c. 1455: when the one movement had run half its course, the other scarcely begun. The achievements of the press in the diffusion of knowledge are often extolled; and some of the resulting good and evil is not hard to see. But the paramount service rendered to learning by the printer's art was that it made possible a standard of critical accuracy which was so much higher than what was known before as to be almost a new creation. When books were manuscripts, laboriously written out one at a time, there could be no security of identity between original and copy; and even when a number of copies were made from the same original, there was a practical certainty that there would be no absolute uniformity among them. Mistakes were bound to occur; not always at the same point, but here in one manuscript, there in another. Or again, when two unrelated copies of the same book were brought together, there was an antecedent probability that examination would reveal differences: so that in general it was impossible to feel that a fellow-scholar working on the same author was using the same text.

Even with writers of one's own day uniformity was hardly to be attained. Not uncommonly, as a mark of attention, an author revised manuscript copies of his works, which were to be presented to friends; and besides correcting the copyists' errors, might add or cut out or alter passages according to his later judgement. Subsequent copies would doubtless follow his revision, and then the process might be repeated; with the result that a reader could not tell to what stage in the evolution of a work the text before him might belong: whether it represented the earliest form of composition or the final form reached perhaps many years afterwards. To understand the conditions under which mediaeval scholars worked, it is of the utmost importance to realize this state of uncertainty and flux.

Not that in manuscript days there was indifference to accuracy. Serious scholars and copyists laid great stress upon it. With insistent fervour they implored one another to be careful, and to collate what had been copied. But there are limits to human powers. Collation is a dull business; and unless done with minute attention, cannot be expected to yield perfect correctness. When a man has copied a work of any length, it is hard for him to collate it with the original slowly. Physically, of course, he easily might: but the spirit is weak, and, weary of the ground already traversed once, urges him to hurry forward, with the inevitable result.

With a manuscript, too, the possible reward might well seem scarcely worth the labour; for how could any permanence be ensured for critical work? A scholar might expend his efforts over a corrupt author, might compare his own manuscript with others far and near, and at length arrive at a text really more correct. And yet what hope had he that his labour was not lost? His manuscript would pass at his death into other hands and might easily be overlooked and even perish. Like a child's castle built upon the sand, his work would be overwhelmed by the rising tide of oblivion. Such conditions are disheartening.

Thus mediaeval standards of accuracy were of necessity low. In default of good instruments we content ourselves with those we have. To draw a line straight we use a ruler; but if one is not to be had, the edge of a book or a table may supply its place. In the last resort we draw roughly by hand, but with no illusions as to our success. So it was with the scholar of the Middle Ages. His instruments were imperfect; and he acquiesced in the best standards he could get: realizing no doubt their defects, but knowing no better way.

But with printing the position was at once changed. When the type had been set up, it was possible to strike off a thousand copies of a book, each of which was identical with all the rest. It became worth while to spend abundant pains over seeking a good text and correcting the proofs—though this latter point was not perceived at first—when there was the assured prospect of such uniformity to follow. One edition could be distinguished from another by the dates on title-page and colophon; and work once done was done for all time, if enough copies of a book were taken off. This necessarily produced a great change in methods of study. Instead of a single manuscript, in places perhaps hopelessly entangled, and always at the mercy of another manuscript of equal or greater authority that might appear from the blue with different readings, the scholar received a text which represented a recension of, it may be, several manuscripts, and whose roughnesses had been smoothed out by the care of editors more or less competent.

The precious volumes to which modern book-lovers reverently give the title of 'Editio princeps', had almost as great honour in their own day, before the credit of priority and antiquity had come to them; for in them men saw the creation of a series of 'standard texts', norms to which, until they were superseded, all future work upon the same ground could be referred. As a result, too, of the improved correctness of the texts, instead of being satisfied with the general sense of an author, men were able to base edifices of precise argument upon the verbal meaning of passages, in some confidence that their structures would not be overset.

But the new invention was not universally acclaimed. Trithemius with his conservative mind quickly detected some weaknesses; and in 1492 he composed a treatise 'In praise of scribes', in vain attempt to arrest the flowing tide. 'Let no one say, "Why should I trouble to write books, when they are appearing continually in such numbers? for a moderate sum one can acquire a large library." What a difference between the results achieved! A manuscript written on parchment will last a thousand years: books printed on paper will scarcely live two hundred. Besides, there will always be something to copy: not everything can be printed. Even if it could, a true scribe ought not to give up. His pen can perpetuate good works which otherwise would soon perish. He must not be amazed by the present abundance that he sees, but should look forward to the needs of the future. Though we had thousands of volumes, we must not cease writing; for printed books are never so good. Indeed they usually pay little heed to ornament and orthography.' It is noticeable that only in this last point does Trithemius claim for manuscripts superior accuracy. In the matter of permanence we may wonder what he would have thought of modern paper.

The first advance, then, rendered possible by the invention of printing was to more uniform and better texts: the next step forward was no less important. To scholars content with the general sense of a work, a translation might be as acceptable as the original. Improved standards of accuracy led men to perceive that an author must be studied in his own tongue: in order that no shade of meaning might be lost. Here again the two periods are easily distinguished. Nicholas V set his scholars, Poggio and Valla, to translate the Greeks, Herodotus and Thucydides, Aristotle and Diodorus. The feature of the later epoch is the number of Greek editions which came out to supplant the versions in common use. The credit for this advance in critical scholarship must be given to Aldus for his Greek Aristotle, which appeared in 1495-9; and he subsequently led the way with numerous texts of the Greek classics. At the same time he proposed to apply the same principle to Biblical study. As early as 1499 Grocin in a letter alludes to Aldus' scheme of printing the whole Bible in the original 'three languages', Hebrew, Greek and Latin; and a specimen was actually put forth in 1501.

In this matter precedence might seem to lie with the Jewish printers, who produced the Psalms in Hebrew in 1477, and the Old Testament complete in 1488; but as the Jews never at any period ceased to read their Scriptures in Hebrew, there was no question of recovery of an original. Aldus did not live to carry his scheme out; and it was left to Ximenes and the band of scholars that he gathered at Alcala, to produce the first edition of the Bible complete in the original tongues, the Complutensian Polyglott, containing the Hebrew side by side with the Septuagint and the Vulgate, and for the Pentateuch a Syriac paraphrase. The New Testament in this great enterprise was finished in 1514, and the whole work was ready by 1517, shortly before Ximenes' death. But as publication was delayed till 1522, the actual priority rests with Erasmus, whose New Testament in Greek with a Latin translation by himself appeared, as we have seen, in 1516.

Thus by an accident Germany gained the credit of being the first to assert this new principle, the importance of studying texts in the original, in the field where resistance is most resolute and victory is hardly won. And now it was about to enter upon a still greater contest. Erasmus' New Testament encountered hostile criticism in many quarters: conservative theologians made common cause with the friars in condemning it. But at the very centre of the religion they professed, the book was blessed by the chief priests. The Pope accepted the dedication, and bishops wished they could read the Greek. Far otherwise was it with the impending struggle of the Reformation: there the cleavage of sides followed very different lines. Into that wide field we cannot now expatiate; but it is important to notice an element which the German Renaissance contributed to the Reformation, and which played a considerable part in both movements—the accentuation of German national feeling.

At the middle of the fifteenth century Italy enjoyed undisputed pre-eminence in the world of learning. The sudden splendour into which the Renaissance had blazed up on Italian soil drew men's eyes thither more than ever; and to its ancient universities students from the North swarmed like bees. To graduate in Italy, to hear its famous doctors, perhaps even to learn from one of the native Greeks brought over out of the East, became first the ambition, and then the indispensable requirement of every Northern scholar who could afford it; and few of Erasmus' friends and colleagues had not at some time or other made the pilgrimage to Italy. Consequence and success brought the usual Nemesis. The Italian hubris expressed itself in the familiar Greek distinction between barbarian and home-born; and the many nations from beyond the Alps found themselves united in a common bond which they were not eager to share. We have seen the kind of gibe with which Agricola's eloquence was greeted at Pavia. The more such insults are deserved, the more they sting. We may be sure that in many cases they were not forgotten. Celtis returning from Italy to Ingolstadt in 1492 delivered his soul in an inaugural oration: 'The ancient hatred between us can never be dissolved. But for the Alps we should be eternally at war.' In other countries the feeling, though less acute, was much the same. Thus in 1517 spoke Stephen Poncher, bishop of Paris, after his first meeting with Erasmus: 'Italy has no one to compare with him in literary gifts. In our own day Hermolaus and Politian have rescued Latin from barbarism; and their services can never be forgotten. When I was there, too, I met a number of men of rare ability and learning. But with all respect to the Italians, I must say that Erasmus eclipses every one, Transalpine and Cisalpine alike.'

Of the foreign 'nations' at the universities of Italy none was more numerous than the German, a title which embraced many nationalities of the North: not merely German-speaking races such as the Swiss and Flemish and Dutch, but all who could by any stretch of imagination be represented as descendants of the Goths; Swedes and Danes, Hungarians and Bohemians, Lithuanians and Bulgars and Poles. That they went in such numbers is not surprising. The prestige of Italian teaching was great and well-established, whereas their own universities were few and scarcely more than nascent; indeed, when the Council of Vienne had ordained the teaching of Greek and other missionary languages in 1311, its injunctions went to France and Italy and England and Spain: but Germany had no university to which a missive could be directed. From Southern Germany, too, and Switzerland and Austria, the distance was small, notwithstanding the obvious Alps and the difficulties of the passes. Even Celtis, in spite of his denunciations, sent on his best pupils to Italy. So there were many who brought home with them to the North recollections of lofty condescension and of ill-disguised contempt for the foreigner: insults that they burned to repay.

Italy might vaunt the glories of ancient Rome; but Germany also had deeds to be proud of. Rome might have founded the World-empire; but Charlemagne had conquered the dominions of the Caesars and made the Empire Germanic. Classic antiquity, too, could not be denied to the land and people whom Tacitus had described; and Germans were not slow to claim the virtues found among them by the Roman historian. Arminius became the national hero. German faith and honour, German simplicity, German sincerity and candour—these are insisted upon by the Transalpine humanists with a vehemence which suggests that while priding themselves on the possession of such qualities, they marked the lack of them in others. We may recall Ascham's horror of the Englishman Italianated. Not that Germans could not make friends in Italy. Scheurl loved his time at Bologna, and was eager to fight for the Bentivogli against Julius II. Erasmus was made much of by the Aldine Academy at Venice; and ten years later Hutten was charmed with his reception there. But with many, conscious of their own defects[40] and of the reality of Italian superiority, the charge of barbarism must have rankled. To Luther in 1518 Italian is synonymous with supercilious.

[40] Thus a worthy abbot in the Inn valley, writing to Erasmus in 1523, manages to achieve a Latin letter, but apologizes for only being able to write in German characters.

The rising German feeling expresses itself on all sides in the letters of the humanists. A young Frieslander, studying at Oxford in 1499, writes to a fellow-countryman there: 'Your verses have shown me what I never could have believed, that German talents are no whit inferior to Italian.' Hutten in 1516 writes of Reuchlin and Erasmus as 'the two eyes of Germany, whom we must sedulously cherish; for it is through them that our nation is ceasing to be barbarous'. Beatus Rhenanus, in editing the poems of Janus Pannonius (d. 1472), says in his preface, 1518: 'Janus and Erasmus, Germans though they are and moderns, give me as much satisfaction to read as do Politian and Hermolaus, or even Virgil and Cicero.' Erasmus in 1518 writes to thank a canon of Mainz who had entertained him at supper. After compliments on his host's charming manners, his erudition free from superciliousness—if he could have known Gibbon, he surely must have used those immortal words of praise, 'a modest and learned ignorance'—and his wit and elegance of speech, he goes on: 'One might have been listening to a Roman. Now let the Italians go and taunt Germans with barbarism, if they dare!' In 1519 a canon of Brixen in Tirol writes to Beatus: 'Would to God that Germany had more men like you, to make her famous, and stand up against those Italians, who give themselves such airs about their learning; though men of credit now think that the helm has been snatched from their hands by Erasmus.' This is how Zwingli writes in 1521 of an Italian who had attacked Luther and charged him with ignorance: 'But we must make allowances for Italian conceit. In their heads is always running the refrain, "Heaven and earth can show none like to us". They cannot bear to see Germany outstripping them in learning.' Rarely a different note is heard, evoked by rivalry perhaps or the desire to encourage. Locher from Freiburg could call Leipzig barbarous. Erasmus wrote to an Erfurt schoolmaster that he was glad to see Germany softening under the influence of good learning and putting off her wild woodland ways. But these are exceptions: towards insolence from the South an unbroken front was preserved.

In another direction the strong national feeling manifested itself; in the study of German antiquity and the composition of histories.[41] Maximilian, dipping his hands in literature, stimulated the archaeological researches of Peutinger, patronized Trithemius and Pirckheimer, and even instituted a royal historian, Stabius. Celtis the versatile projected an elaborate Germania illustrata on the model of Flavio Biondo's work for Rome; and his description of Nuremberg was designed to be the first instalment. As he conceived it, the work was never carried out; but essays of varying importance on this theme were produced by Cochlaeus, Pirckheimer, Aventinus and Munster. The most ardent to extol Germany was Wimpfeling of Schlettstadt, a man of serious temperament, who was prone to rush into controversy in defence of the causes that he had at heart. His education had all been got in Germany, and he was proud of his country. His first effort to increase its praise was to instigate Trithemius to put together a 'Catalogue of the illustrious men who adorn Germany with their talents and writings'. The author's preface (8 Feb. 1491) reveals unmistakably the animosity towards Italy: 'Some people contemn our country as barren, and maintain that few men of genius have flourished in it; hoping by disparagement of others to swell their own praise. With all the resources of their eloquence they trick out the slender achievements of their own countrymen; but jealousy blinds them to the great virtues of the Germans, the mighty deeds and brilliant intellects, the loyalty, enthusiasm and devotion of this great nation. If they find in the classics any credit given to us for valour or learning, they quickly hide it up; and in order to trumpet their own excellences, they omit ours altogether. That is how Pliny's narrative of the German wars was lost, and how so many histories of our people have disappeared.'

[41] Cf. A. Horawitz in Sybel's Historische Zeitschrift, xxv. (1871), 66-101; and P. Joachimsen, Geschichtsauffassung und Geschichtschreibung in Deutschland unter dem Einfluss des Humanismus, pt. 1, 1910.

The book was sent to Wimpfeling, who collected a few more names and added a preface of his own (17 Sept. 1492) in the same strain. 'People who think that Germany is still as barbarous as it was in the days of Caesar should read what Jerome has to say about it. The abundance of old books in existence shows that Germany had many learned men in the past; who have left carefully written manuscripts on oratory, poetry, natural philosophy, theology and all kinds of erudition. All down the Rhine you will find the walls and roofs of monasteries adorned with elegant epigrams which testify to German taste of old. To-day there are Germans who can translate the Greek classics into Latin; and if their style is not pure Ciceronian, let our detractors remember that styles change with the times. Mankind is always discontented, and prefers the old to the modern. I can quite understand that our German philosophers adapted their style to their audiences and their lofty subjects. So foreign critics had better let this provocative talk alone for ever.'

A few years later Wimpfeling edited a fourteenth-century treatise by Lupold of Bebenburg entitled 'The zeal and fervour of the ancient German princes towards the Christian religion and the servants of God'; the intention of which clearly fell in with his desire. In his preface, addressed to Dalberg, Agricola's patron, he tells a story which explains a peculiarity occasionally found in mediaeval manuscripts; of being written in sections by several different hands. Some years before, the Patriarch of Aquileia was passing through Spires. To divert the enforced leisure of a halt upon a journey, he prowled round the libraries of the town; and in one discovered this treatise of Lupold, which pleased him greatly. As he was to be off again next morning, there was no time to have it copied, at least by one hand: so the manuscript was cut up and distributed among a number of scribes, and in the space of a night the desired copy was ready. Subsequently Wimpfeling heard of the incident from one of the brethren in the monastery, and obtained the original manuscript to publish. When such things could happen, no wonder that some manuscripts are imperfect and others have disappeared.

Wimpfeling's next endeavour to assert the glories of Germany was completed in 1502; but did not appear till 1505. It was based upon the work of a friend, Sebastian Murrho of Colmar (d. 1494). The title, Defensio Germaniae or Epithoma Germanorum, sufficiently explains its purpose. After a brief account of Germany in Roman times—his hero being not Arminius, but 'the first German king, Arioviscus, who fought with Julius Caesar',—and fuller records of the Germanic Emperors since Charlemagne, Wimpfeling comes to the praise of his own days; the men of learning, the famous soldiers, the architects who could build the great tower of Strasburg, the painters, the inventors of printing and of that terrible engine the bombard. But nearest to his heart lay a question debated then as now: to whom should rightfully belong the western part of the Rhine valley, between the river and the Vosges? It was there that his home lay, Schlettstadt, one of the fairest cities of the plain. With all the 'zeal and fervour of the ancient German princes' he sets out to prove that it must be German: 'where are there any traces' he cries 'of the French language? There are no books in French, no monuments, no letters, no epitaphs, no deeds or documents. For seven or eight centuries there is nothing but Latin or German.' The cathedral of Spires, the fine monastery of St. Fides in his native town, supply him with a further argument: would the good Dukes of Swabia have lavished so much money, the substance of their fathers, upon Gallic soil, to pour it out among the French? With such arguments he convinced himself and others. Almost at the same time Peutinger put out a little volume of 'Conversations about the wonderful antiquities of Germany'; supporting Wimpfeling with further evidence and concluding satisfactorily that French had never ruled over Germans.

A work of very different calibre which appeared about this time was the Germaniae Exegesis of Francis Fritz, who Latinized his name into Irenicus. Wimpfeling was growing grey when he had made his defence of Germany: the new champion was a young man of 23, who had scarcely emerged from his degree. The book was published in 1518; printed at Hagenau by Anshelm at the cost of John Koberger, the great Nuremberg printer, and fostered by Pirckheimer. In his later years Irenicus became a Lutheran and displayed some dignity in refusing to sacrifice his convictions to worldly interests; but at this time he was enthusiastic and heady, and as a result his work is an uncritical jumble. 'Puerile and silly' Erasmus called it, when he saw some of the proof-sheets at Spires in 1518. 'A most unfortunate book', wrote Beatus Rhenanus in 1525, 'without style and without judgement.' To Aventinus in 1531 it was 'an impudent compilation from Stabius and Trithemius, by a poor creature of the most despicable intelligence'. But even a bad book can be a measure of the time, showing the ideas current and the catchwords that were thought likely to attract the reading public. It is much larger than Wimpfeling's Defence, and even more miscellaneous; ranging over many aspects of Germany ancient and modern. To us in the present inquiry its interest lies in the frequency with which the excellence of Germany is asserted against Italian sneers. The following specimen will illustrate this point, and also explain Erasmus' epithets. In the chapter on the German language (ii. 30) Irenicus is throughout engaged in refuting the charge of German barbarism. 'It may be true', he says, 'that German is not so much declined as Latin: but complexity does not necessarily bring refinement. Germany is as rich in dialects as Italy, and to speak German well merits high praise. Italian may be directly descended from Latin; but German too has a considerable element of Latin and Greek words. Guarino and Petrarch have written poetry in their vernaculars, and so the Italians boast that their language is more suited to poetry. But more than 1000 years ago Ovid wrote a book of German poetry[42]; and Trebeta, son of Semiramis, is known to have been the first person to compose in German.'

[42] Ovid, Pont. 4. 13. 19: Getico sermone.

In spite of such stuff, Pirckheimer, who saw the book in manuscript, was delighted with it. 'You have achieved what many have wished but few could have carried out. Every German must be obliged to you for the lustre you have brought to the Fatherland.' After stating that he had arranged with Koberger for the printing, he points out details which might be improved: more stress might be laid on the connexion of the Germans with the Goths, 'which the dregs of the Goths and Lombards—by which I mean the Italians—try to snatch from us'; and the universal conquests of the Goths might be more fully treated. Finally he suggests that before publication the work should be submitted to Stabius: 'the book deserves learned readers, and I should wish it to be as perfect as possible.'[43]

[43] The letter is printed in Pirckheimer's Opera, 1610, p. 313: but is addressed wrongly, to Beatus Rhenanus.

This brief survey may close with a far more considerable work, the Res Germanicae of Beatus Rhenanus, published in 1531; from which we have made some extracts above. The book is sober and serious, and the subject-matter is handled scientifically; but in his preface Beatus is careful to point out that German history is as important as Roman, modern as much worth studying as ancient.

Such was the soil into which fell the seed that Luther went forth to sow. When Tetzel came marching into German towns, with the Pope's Bull borne before him on a cushion, and brandishing indulgences for the living and the dead, when the coins were tinkling in the box, and the souls, released by contract, were flying off out of purgatory, the religious sense of thinking men was outraged by this travesty of the Day of Judgement; but scarcely less were they angered to see the tinkling coins, honest German money, flying off as rapidly as the souls, to build palaces for the supercilious Italians. In the great struggle of the Reformation the main issue was of course religious; but even its leader could feel added bitterness in the knowledge that this shocking traffic was ordained from Italy to benefit an Italian Pope. If the sympathies of educated Germany had not already been strongly moved in the same direction, it is conceivable that Luther's intrepid protest might have lacked the support which carried it to success.



XI

ERASMUS AND THE BOHEMIAN BRETHREN

(A paper read before the third International Historical Congress, in London, April 1913.)

Whatever may still be the troubles of the great, amongst men of learning at any rate visits of ceremony are mercifully no longer in fashion. At first sight one is inclined to find the cause of this in an improved sense of the value of time. Modern inventions have taught first the business man and then the world in general that time is money. Improved communications with time-tables that may be relied upon enable us to arrange our days in such a way as to be at least more busy, if not more useful; and we have acquired a wholesome respect for the time of others. But I do not think we should be right in accounting for the change in this way. At all ages the scholar, looking round him at tasks which exceed the capacity of a lifetime, has been avaricious of the hours—'labuntur anni', 'pereunt et imputantur' ever in his thoughts: and though the world of old moved slower, the man of business has rarely belied his name. A more plausible explanation is that the custom has died of surfeit. As increased facilities of travel made the world smaller, the circle of those that might be visited and saluted by the active grew boundless; so that on both sides limits were desired. Another consideration is that with new facilities came increased opportunities and hopes. To-day we live in the happy consciousness that friends, however distant, may be brought across the world to our doors by the urgencies of business or pleasure; and thus no one knows what the coming year may bring forth. In the sixteenth century men knew that opportunities lost might never recur, and that they must seize or make them as best they might.

At that time visits of ceremony were in great vogue. Officials and scholars alike groaned under them. After a visit to the Court Erasmus writes: 'If Pollio (a disguised name, as he was writing of a man who afterwards became an intimate friend) has been with you, you will understand what I suffered at Brussels; every day hosts of Spanish visitors, besides Italians and Germans.' A little later he apologizes to a correspondent for having given him a chilly welcome: 'just then I had escaped from Brussels, quite worn out with the salutations of these persistent Spaniards.' The custom was widespread. An English graduate, studying for a time at Louvain, congratulates himself on having escaped from it at Cambridge. Clenardus found it thriving at Salamanca; Casaubon complained of it at Montpellier; in Oxford it was even obligatory for intending disputants in the schools to pay formal visits beforehand to their examiners.

In 1517 Erasmus' fame was at its zenith; and in consequence visitors came to him from every side, some to seek counsel, others to adore. His correspondence gives us many instances. In the spring of 1517, when the Cardinal of Gurk attended Maximilian to the Netherlands, his two secretaries, Richard Bartholinus of Perugia and Ursinus Velius, a Silesian, prepared panegyrical verses with which to greet Erasmus if they should have the good fortune to meet him. For some reason Bartholinus alone came, and, presenting both the poems, elicited a complimentary letter in reply. A more distinguished visitor received less attention. In the summer of 1518 Erasmus was at Basle, printing the notes to his second edition of the New Testament. The Bishop of Pistoia, nephew of one of the most influential cardinals, and Papal nuncio in Switzerland, also came to Basle. Wishing to see the great scholar, he asked him to dinner. But Erasmus could not spare the time. He declined, and in his place sent his friends, Beatus Rhenanus and the young Amerbachs. Three times he made excuse; and at length the Nuncio went on foot to seek in Froben's press the scholar who would not come to him. What their conversation was we do not know; but before leaving, the Nuncio ordered a copy of the Amerbach-Froben Jerome to be sent to the binders and equipped with his arms and adornments.

Later in the year the enthusiastic Eobanus of Hesse appeared in Louvain. He had come from Erfurt where he was teaching, and the main purpose of his journey was to see Erasmus. His Hodoeporicon, printed on his return, describes his course in detail. With a young companion, John Werter, also from Erfurt, he entered Louvain in the evening. Next morning early they sent in their 'callow' verses to the great man, and followed shortly themselves. Erasmus came down to greet them at the door with a kindly welcome, and Eobanus describes a banquet to which he invited them, entertaining them with serious talk and light-hearted jest. But it was at no light cost to Erasmus' time: for when his admirers left five days later, he had been cajoled into writing six letters of compliment, two to the travellers themselves and four more to friends at Gotha and Erfurt. But this was not the only cost. Eobanus imbued others of the Erfurt circle with his hero-worship; and next year came two more, Jonas and Schalbe, to trouble Erasmus' leisure, when he was taking a spring holiday at Antwerp, 'by the sea', and to bear off more letters to Erfurt. The spirit that animated these visitors is shown in a letter of John Turzo, bishop of Breslau, a man of Erasmus' own age. In 1518 Ursinus Velius, the disappointed secretary of the Cardinal of Gurk, had become canon of Breslau on Turzo's presentation; and had doubtless talked to his patron of Erasmus' attractive gifts. 'I am most eager to visit you' wrote the Bishop, from Breslau. 'If ever I had heard that you were anywhere within a week's journey from here, I should have rushed over at once: indeed I would have gone as far as Belgium, if only the business of my office allowed. The men of Cadiz who journeyed to Rome to see Livy were not more eager.'

A picture of the interruptions to which Erasmus was exposed is given in a preface written in Froben's name for the new edition of Erasmus' Epigrammata combined with More's and with the Utopia, March 1518. 'Most of these verses' Froben is made to say 'were written not for publication, but to give pleasure to friends; to whom he is always very obliging. When he was here bringing out his New Testament and Jerome, heavens! how he worked! toiling away untiringly day after day. Never was any one more overwhelmed in composition; and yet certain great persons thought themselves entitled to come and waste his time, coaxing out of him a few lines of verse or a little letter. So compliant was he that they made it very difficult for him. To refuse seemed uncivil when they pressed him so. But to write when his mind was intent elsewhere, and not a minute to spare from his labours——! However, he did write, on the spur of the moment, turning aside for a little to the groves of the Muses.'

Some other visitors can be traced in this period. John Alexander Brassicanus, poet laureate, came from Tubingen in September 1520 and saw Erasmus at Antwerp; whence in reply to a letter of self-introduction he bore away a complimentary letter that he afterwards printed, and the sound piece of advice, that if he wished to become learned, he must never think himself so. More distinguished was Ferdinand Columbus, the explorer's natural son and heir, who in October 1520, on one of those journeys on which he gathered his famous library, received at Louvain a copy of Erasmus' Antibarbari, with his name inscribed in it by the author. A visitor to whom we must pay more heed was John Draco, one of the Erfurt circle, who in July 1520 came to pay homage at Louvain.

In the autumn of 1518 the agent of a Leipzig bookseller trading to Prague received a letter to carry back with him and forward on to Erasmus at Louvain. The writer was a certain Jan Slechta, a Bohemian country gentleman, who was living at Kosteletz on the upper waters of the Elbe, a few miles to the North-east of Prague. He was a man of education and position. After taking his M.A. at Prague in 1484, he had served for sixteen years as a secretary to King Ladislas of Bohemia and Hungary; but about 1507, disgusted with the turmoils of court life in that very troubled time, he had retired to his home, to give his later years to the education of his son and the personal management of his estates. The world of affairs had not extinguished his love of learning. He was an intimate friend of Bohuslaus of Hassenstein, scholar and traveller, and corresponded with him in elegant Latin. Attracted by the reputation for eloquence won by the notorious Hieronymus Balbus, he had persuaded him c. 1499 to come and teach in Prague—a step which in view of Balbus' bad life he afterwards deeply regretted. He was also the author of a dialogue on the relations of body and soul, entitled Microcosmus; which with characteristic modesty he kept for more than twenty years known only to his intimate friends—indeed it was only in the last year of his life that he composed a dedication for it, and it seems never to have been printed.

The tone of Slechta's thoughts in his later years was grave and serious; as well it might be. The two kingdoms, then but loosely united, were torn with internal factions and racial jealousies; while in church towers and over city gates the bells hung ready to proclaim to the countryside the advent of that ever-present menace, the Turk. In the priesthood men could mark much that was amiss; and the seamless robe of Christ was rent with schism, the candle that Hus and Jerome had lighted a century before, still burning clearly among less sober heresies, which drew down on it, as upon themselves, spasmodic outbursts of retributive violence. Uneasy sat the crown on Ladislas' head; and when Death, coming as a friend, took it from him in 1516, it was only to thrust this sad office upon a ten-year-old boy, who after ten more years of childish government was miserably to perish at Mohacz. No wonder that Slechta and his friends looked anxiously upon the future. 'The times of Hus and Wycliffe which our grandfathers detested, seem golden beside our own' wrote Bohuslaus to Geiler of Kaisersberg—a member of that grave circle of Strasburg humanists, with which, it may be noted in passing, our Bohemians had much in common. The letters of Slechta contain two disquisitions, one on the frailties of a celibate clergy, the other on the duties of a parish priest; advocating reforms by which he hoped to check the continuous growth of 'those unutterable heretics, the Pyghards': by whom he meant the Bohemian Brethren.

What moved Slechta to correspond with Erasmus we do not know; possibly a slighting reference in one of the latter's printed letters to 'those schismatic Bohemians, who have infected most of Europe'. Slechta's letter is unhappily lost; but from Erasmus' reply, dated 23 April 1519 from Louvain, its general tenor may be gathered. It began, of course, with eulogies of Erasmus and his work; and then, after some account of the writer's life and fortunes, it proceeded to assure him that there were persons in Bohemia who were not merely interested in good learning but prepared to advance it. Finally it invited him to come to Prague. Erasmus' answer to his unknown correspondent was courteous, but firmly declined the invitation. 'What I can do at Prague I do not see. It is considerate of you to offer me an escort for my journey; but I confess I do not like regions where such company is necessary. In this country one can go about wherever one likes, alone. I am sure that, as you say, I should find among you plenty of learned and pious men, who are not contaminated with the errors of schism. But how is it that this division is suffered to remain? Better unity with some hardship than to hold one's own at the cost of discord. I fear it is money that stands in the way. Paul suffered the loss of all things that he might win Christ. The world is full of cardinals and princes and bishops; if only one of these would take up this matter in a truly Christian spirit! If Paul were on the Pope's throne, I am sure he would allow not only his revenues but his authority to be diminished, if his loss would purchase unity.' Erasmus concludes cordially: 'If we cannot meet, at any rate we can write. I will walk and talk with you sometimes beside your Elbe, you shall come and dwell with me in Brabant. Friendship can flourish without actual contact.'

This letter was handed to Slechta on 11 September, four and a half months after it was written. Nearly a year had elapsed since his letter had been dispatched and he had given up hopes of a reply: so that these amiable and encouraging words were the more welcome, and he at once proceeded to act upon them. Within a month he had composed a letter of some elegance, in which while subscribing to Erasmus' prayers for unity, he pointed out the difficulties of the task. To the remarks about coming to Prague he rejoined regretfully: 'I can quite see that there is nothing for you to do here. There are many of us who would have been glad of your coming; but I understand that we must hope to see you at another time and elsewhere. That travellers in our country need an escort you would not wonder if you could see how the roads run, among lofty mountains shrouded in impenetrable forests. These give cover to hordes of brigands, who prey upon travellers and merchants, robbing and killing indifferently. Almost every month there are punitive raids made from the towns, and brigands are captured and put to death. But the pest seems ineradicable.'

Slechta then proceeds to the religious troubles, and after expressing general agreement with Erasmus, describes the three main parties into which the life of Bohemia and Moravia was cloven. First the orthodox Romanists, loyal to the Church and in unity with Germany and the rest of Christendom; finding their adherents amongst the upper classes, together with some of the King's cities and the monasteries, many of which, though once rich, had now fallen into decay. Secondly, the Utraquists, otherwise orthodox but practising communion in both kinds, and at their services reading the Epistle and Gospel in the vernacular: with some supporters among the nobility, a good many gentry, and nearly thirty royal cities. After tracing their history from the Council of Basle and briefly stating their views, he adds that no one in the kingdom is able to propound a solution of the difficulties existing. Thirdly, the Bohemian Brethren, whom he styles Pyghards. This name, from the opprobrious sense in which it is generally used, is now thought to be derived from the Beghards, a mediaeval sect whose vagaries drew down upon it frequent persecution; but Slechta traces it to a foreign vagabond who came from Picardy in 1422 and infected with his pestilent doctrines the army of John Ziska, the Taborite, an army of those that were in distress, in debt, in discontent.

This sect, Slechta tells us, lasted continuously down to the times of the late King Ladislas (d. 1516), and indeed increased considerably under him; for his thoughts were much occupied with Hungary, and he was content if Bohemia could be maintained in an outward appearance of peace. Then follows a description of their opinions. 'The Pope and all his officials they regard as Antichrist. They choose their own bishops, rude unlettered laymen, with wives and families. They salute one another as Brother and Sister; and recognize no authority but the Bible. Their priests celebrate mass without vestments, use leavened bread and only the Lord's Prayer. Transubstantiation they deny, and the worship of the host they regard as idolatry. Vows to the saints, prayers for the dead, and confession to priests they ridicule; and they keep no holy days but Sundays, Christmas, Easter and Whitsun.' 'I will not waste your time with more of these pernicious views. My feeling is that if the two first-named parties could only be reconciled, this nefarious sect might, with the aid of the King, be exterminated or at any rate reduced to a better state of faith and religion.'

The roads in Bohemia might be dangerous, but the distance to Louvain was not so great as it had seemed at first; for Erasmus' reply is dated 1 Nov. 1519, only three weeks after Slechta's letter. He begins again with the roads. 'Prevention is better than punishment. It would be wiser if, instead of these avenging raids, the more frequented roads could be cleared of forest on either side, and held by block-houses and armed posts at intervals. Indeed it is somewhat discreditable that the great towns and princes of Germany cannot achieve what the Swiss do by co-operation and local action.' He then turns to the religious dissensions, and in his passion for concord exclaims that it would be better that a nation should be united in error than so numerously divided: experience shows that there is no opinion so wild but that some one will be found to embrace it. Of the orthodox party he has nothing to say beyond extolling the system by which the Pope might act as judge and father of all, and as supreme court of appeal. To the Utraquists he would counsel conformity to the practice of the majority; although unable to understand why the Church should have allowed a practice instituted by Christ to fall into disuse.

Then he comes to the Brethren, and after admitting that they have strayed further than the Utraquists from the rule of Christian life, he continues: 'If they go on still in their wickedness, they must be restrained; but this is not the duty of any one who likes, nor must violence be used, lest the innocent suffer with the guilty. Their practice of electing their own priests and bishops has authority in antiquity; but it certainly is unfortunate if their choice falls on men bad as well as unlearned. With the titles of Brother and Sister I see no fault to find: it is a pity they are not more widely used among Christians. To prefer God's word in the Bible to the judgements of Doctors is sound: though to reject the latter altogether is as uniform an error as to embrace them to the exclusion of everything else. To celebrate the mass in everyday dress is not contrary to the truth; but it is a pity to abandon customs sanctioned by use and authority: though perhaps the Pope might be persuaded to concede to them the use of their own rites, as he does to the Greeks and the Milanese. The Lord's Prayer is, of course, part of our own use; and though it seems narrow to confine themselves to this, I doubt whether they do worse than those who weave in long strings of intercession from any source. Their opinions about the sacraments are certainly impious; but at any rate they are under no temptation to exploit these holy mysteries for the sake of gain or futile glory or tyrannous imposition. I do not see why they should reject vigils and fasts in moderation; but these are matters for encouragement rather than positive command. About festivals they seem to follow the usage current in the days of Jerome: better, I think, than the modern calendar, full of saints-days which end in riot and carouse, and on which the honest journeyman is forbidden to work for his children's bread.' As Slechta read these words, he must surely have felt as did Balak, the son of Zippor, when he listened to the seer from Mesopotamia taking up his parable upon Israel in the plains of Moab. The man whose eyes were open, had blessed the Brethren instead of cursing them; and literary Europe might well follow his lead.

The history of the Bohemian Brethren is of exceptional interest, affording an example of a community professing a plain, simple faith and ruling their lives by modest conceptions of ordinary goodness, who, guided by leaders almost unknown to the world, through the trials of good and evil repute, through tribulation and prosperity, kept serenely upon the path they had marked out for themselves, living and growing into one of the most flourishing and devoted missionary bodies of the present day. As is natural under such conditions, their origin is not free from obscurity. Men connected them with the Waldensians of Southern France, or traced them, as we have seen, to a leader from Picardy. Through the fifteenth century they grew steadily in strength and unity, sheltered by the toleration which Rome unwillingly granted to the Utraquists as a result of the Compacts of Basle; and as compared with other dissentient bodies their name was singularly free from gross imputations. Throughout that age such imputations were freely made and believed against heretics. This was not unreasonable. In the low state of public and private morals faith was regarded as an indispensable bulwark to conduct, the faith which taught indeed that a man should love God and his neighbour, but stablished him into practising what he professed, by lurid pictures of the fate awaiting him if he did not. Without this bulwark it was not thought possible that a man could lead a godly, righteous and sober life; and so he was considered capable of every form of vice, if he ventured to doubt the truth of those opinions on which the Church had set its seal, in realms into which it now seems that human knowledge cannot penetrate.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century fresh attempts were being made to win back the Brethren to orthodoxy; and in this work the ardour of the Dominicans burned bright. In 1500 one of them, Henry Institor, a Doctor of Theology, procured from Alexander VI bulls which recognized him as 'Inquisitor into heresy throughout Germany and Bohemia', and empowered him to collect heretical books and send them to the Bishop of Olmutz, the chief see of Moravia, to be burned; also to join to himself two or three other Masters of Theology and preach against the heretics. These bulls are printed at the head of a great volume written by Institor, with the title 'A shield for the faith of the Holy Roman Church against the heresy of the Waldensians or Pickards, who on all sides are infecting with virulent contagion certain races in Germany and Bohemia, to hatred of the clergy and enervation of the ecclesiastical power'. In 1501 the volume appeared at Olmutz, with an enumeration of thirty-six erroneous articles in which the Pickards denied the authority of the Church; followed of course by a vigorous refutation. At the same time one of their own countrymen, Augustine Kasenbrot of Olmutz was writing a series of open letters on the Brethren and their views.

But the most succinct account of the position is contained in an attack made upon them by a learned and fair-minded Dominican, Jacobus Lilienstayn. His book, 'a Treatise against the erroneous Waldensian Brethren, commonly known as the Pickards, without rule, without law, and without obedience, of whom there are many in Moravia, more than in Bohemia', was composed in 1505 and is dedicated to the Dean of Prague. It begins by setting forth five general and twelve special errors of the Waldensians. The former are as follows:

1. They call the Gospels, the Epistles and the Acts, together with the Old Testament where it agrees with the New, 'the Law of Christ'; and they attack and deride the Doctors of the Church.

2. They say the Pope has no more power in administering the sacraments of the Church, and in other ecclesiastical matters, than a simple priest has.

3. They say that in the practice of the Church nothing is to be added to what Christ and the Apostles taught and did.

4. They hold the pure text of the Gospel without any gloss.

5. They allege that the Church is in error, and that they themselves are the brethren of Christ and the true imitators of the Apostles.

Amongst the special errors are denials of the validity of indulgences and of the efficacy of masses for the dead; and the general simplicity of their conduct is shown in their practices at birth and death, baptism requiring only pure water, not holy oil and the chrism, and extreme unction banished from the death-bed.

Finally the good Dominican gives a brief account of the life of these Brethren 'without obedience'. In his preface he expresses his difficulty in gathering the truth about them: 'for they are as inconstant as the moon, and the practices alleged against them in the past are denied by them to-day.' But he concludes honestly that though their faith is 'abhominable' to true Christians, their life is good enough. His good sense is further shown by his refusal to accept an absurd story about their method of choosing their leaders. 'When one of these is to be chosen', so ran the tale, 'the community meets together. And as they sit in silence, the windows being open, a great fly enters and buzzes over them, settling at length on the head of one; who is then set apart for a season. And when he is brought back, he is found to be learned in Latin and theology and whatever else is necessary, though he were rude and ignorant before.' This Lilienstayn finds clearly false: the simple life of the Brethren he illustrates by their practice. 'They have Bibles in Bohemian, which they read. Their women wear veils, and no colours, only black, white and grey. They all labour with their hands.' Thus their life to him was 'good enough'. It may remind us in many points of the Quakers.

The attacks upon them led the Brethren to reply. In 1507 they composed an Apologia addressed to the King, to show that they were not without rule, without law and without obedience, and to defend the manner of their life. This was printed at Nuremberg in 1507, and again in 1518; but of the original editions I have not been able to see a copy. The attacks continued. In 1512 another ponderous volume appeared, composed by Jacob Ziegler, the well-known Bavarian scientist, to demonstrate the falsity of their opinions. What finally impelled the Brethren to court countenance from Erasmus is not clear; possibly the cool reception the Utraquists had had from Luther the year before, with the rather contemptuous suggestion that their style and opinions were more like Erasmus' than his own. The episode has escaped Erasmus' biographers; and I cannot find any mention of it except an allusion in one of his letters, and a description in a treatise on the Brethren by Joachim Camerarius the elder (1500-1574). Camerarius' book was not published till 1605; but we can perhaps trace the source of his information. From 1518 onwards he spent some years at Erfurt. In January 1521 Erasmus describes the visit of the Brethren's envoys as having occurred six months before; at Antwerp, according to Camerarius, where he may be traced in June 1520. If we recall that it was in July that Draco came from Erfurt to pay his visit of homage, it seems quite likely that on his return he may have given to Camerarius the detailed record which the latter has preserved.

By that time Erasmus' name was well known in Central Europe. 'Both from Hungary and Bohemia' he says in 1518 'bishops and men of position write to thank me for my New Testament.' Apart from the learned world there were others, too, who must have known him; for a Bohemian translation had just appeared of the new preface to his Enchiridion, a preface in which he had written with an almost Lutheran freedom about abuses in the Church, and had extolled the life of simple Christianity. This was a book to appeal at once to the Brethren. Another of his works which may have had its effect in attracting them was the Julius Exclusus. This exquisitely witty satire dealt freely with the Pope and his office, the Pope whom the Brethren accounted no more than a simple priest; and though its licence was too bold for Erasmus ever to admit its authorship—indeed, as we have seen, he consistently denied it—, it was attributed to him on all sides, in company with others, his secret being on the whole well kept. The Julius was translated into Bohemian, somewhere about this time: but from the nature of it, a kind of book to which publishers as well as authors were loath to put their names, it cannot be definitely placed. So it was, too, with the Moria, which had been translated by Gregory Hruby Gelenski, father of the scholar, Sigismund Gelenius; but of which no contemporary edition survives.

If the Brethren had seen Erasmus' final letter to Slechta, they might well have been encouraged to hope much from him. But of this there is no indication. Slechta was hardly likely to communicate it to them; and though such documents often leaked out against the owner's will, its first appearance in print was in 1521, in Erasmus' Epistolae ad diuersos. I cannot find any translation into a vernacular except a German version by John Froben of Andernach which appeared at Nuremberg in 1531.

Whatever was the motive attraction, the Brethren sent as their envoys, so Camerarius tells us, Nicholas Claudianus, a learned physician, and Laurence Voticius (Woticky), a man of many accomplishments, who died at a good age in 1565—a date, which, if it be not a later interpolation, is an indication as to when Camerarius composed his narrative.[44] They brought with them a copy of their Apologia, printed at Nuremberg in 1511—a date which appears to be wrong—and presented it to Erasmus at Antwerp with the request that he would read it through and see if there was anything in it that he would wish to have changed. If that were so, they would readily defer to his criticisms; but if, as they hoped, he approved of what they said, it would be a help and consolation to them if he would express that opinion.

[44] L. Camerarius, in his preface, 1 Jan. 1605, describes the book as composed 'more than thirty years ago'.

He took the book and said he would be glad to read it; but when after a few days they came for his answer, he told them he had been too busy to do more than glance through it: so far as he had gone, he found no error and nothing that he would wish to alter. He declined, however, to bear testimony about it, as this would bring them no help, and only danger to himself. 'You must not think', he said, 'that any words of mine will bring you support; indeed, my own influence, such as it is, requires the backing of others. If it is true that my writings are of any value to divine and useful learning, it seems to me unwise to jeopardize their influence by proclaiming publicly the agreement between us: such actions might lead to their being condemned and torn from the hands of the public. Forgive me for this caution, you will perhaps call it fear: and be assured that I wish you well and will most gladly help you in other matters.' The envoys were disappointed, Camerarius records, but took his refusal in good part: for they relied not on the judgements of men to be the foundation of their heavenly edifice of truth. The good sense of his words no doubt appealed to them; for the Brethren were above all things moderate men, averse from violence, convinced perhaps by their own experience that a display of courage is unwise when it provokes opposition and raises obstacles to progress.

The matter was not, however, allowed to rest. In the same year an appeal on behalf of the Brethren was made to Erasmus from another quarter. One of the features of their movement had been the number of the nobility who had become sympathizers, if not actual members of the community. One of these was Artlebus of Boskowitz, a kinsman perhaps of that 'nobilis virgo, Martha de Boskowitz' whom the Brethren in addressing the King had adduced as one of their supporters. From the castle of Znaim, his official residence as Supreme Captain of Moravia, Artlebus wrote, telling Erasmus of the steady growth of the Brethren, and of the futility of all attempts to withstand their doctrines by argument; and sending him a copy of their Rule, with the request that he would read it and frame thereupon a standard of Christian piety, which all men, including the Brethren, might follow. He turned then to praise Luther for the courageous fight he was making, and urged Erasmus to join with him in sowing the seed of the Gospel.

Erasmus' reply, dated 28 Jan. 1521 from Louvain, has no address but 'N. viro praepotenti'; and in consequence its connexion with Artlebus of Boskowitz has escaped notice. As was to be expected, he declined the proposal that he should set up a standard of Christian observance. He might criticize with all freedom the practices of monks and clergy and speak straightly of Papal iniquities: but the standard of the Church was still the life of Christ, and he would not arrogate to himself the right to draw the picture of this anew. He took the opportunity to lament, as he had done to Slechta, the discord prevailing in Bohemia, and to urge that a serious attempt should be made to reconcile the Brethren to the Church. But since his correspondence with Slechta the world had gone forward. Luther had burned the Pope's bull at Wittenberg, and Aleander at Worms was pressing the Diet to annihilate him. Erasmus has less to say to Artlebus in favour of the Brethren than he had said to Slechta: indeed, after the appeal for moderation, he goes no further than to condemn the attitude of the opponents of the Papacy, doubtless intending to include among them the Brethren. About Luther he would give no decided opinion. 'It is absurd how men condemn Luther's books without reading them. Some parts of Luther's writings are good; but parts are not, and over these I skip. If Luther stands by the Catholic Church, I will gladly join him.' Artlebus' reply is not extant; but a sentence in a letter of Erasmus to Wolsey a year later shows that the 'Bohemian Captain' was greatly vexed by the failure of his overtures.

This is the last trace of Erasmus' correspondence with Bohemia. But, uncompromising as he had been in his refusal to both appeals, his influence there was only just at its commencement, if we may judge by the list of his works translated into Bohemian, which the Ghent bibliography has brought to light. The translation of his preface to the Enchiridion was followed by his version of the Saturnalia of Lucian (first published in 1517) in 1520; the Precatio dominica (1523) in 1526; his version of the New Testament in 1533; some of the Colloquies in 1534; the De Ciuilitate (1530) in 1537; the Paraphrase on St. Matthew (1522) and the De puritate Ecclesiae (1536) in 1542; the De immensa Dei misericordia (1524) in 1558 and 1573; the Apophthegmata Graeciae sapientum (1514) in 12 editions between 1558 and 1599; the De praeparatione ad mortem (1534) in 1564 and 1786; and the Vidua Christiana (1529) in 1595. The envoys of the Brethren were perhaps wise enough to see that they had much to learn from the man who was courageous enough to preach caution and to let himself appear afraid.

* * * * *



INDEX

Aberdeen University, 103-4.

accuracy, new standards of, 258-61.

Adrian VI, 107.

Agricola, R., 14-21, 25-9, 31, 32, 63.

Agrippa, H.C., 143.

Aldus, 126, 128, 129, 135-6, 151, 253, 262-3.

Aleander, 112, 136, 209, 297.

Alexander of Ville-Dieu, 41.

alphabetical principle, 43, 47-9.

America, 92.

Amorbach: Ba., 147-9; Bo., 147-9, 151, 164, 193, 278; Br., 147-51; J., 77, 146-51.

Andreas, B., 129.

Andrelinus, Faustus, 113, 186.

Aquinas, 12, 255.

Arnold of Hildesheim, 24.

Arthurian legend, 93.

Artlebus of Boskowitz, 296-8.

Ascham, 156, 208, 256, 266.

Asperen, destruction of, 172.

astrology, 216-18.

Augustinian Canons, reformed, 81; house at Oxford, 117.

Balbi, J., 43 seq., 49.

Balbus, H., 186, 281.

Bartholomew of Cologne, 63-5.

Basle, 146.

Batt, J., 115-16, 130.

Beatus Rhenanus, 154-8, 164, 278; his Res Germanicae, 146, 156, 275; extracts from his letters, 195, 210, 267, 268, 273.

Beheim, J., of Niklashausen, 220.

Benedictines, at Neuss, 70; at Ottobeuren, 86 seq.; at Oxford, 124; reformed, 61-2, 79-85.

Bergen, Ant. of, abbot of St. Omer, 165, 176, 205.

Bergen, Henry of, bp. of Cambray, 68, 102, 104, 176, 204.

Bessel, B., 113.

Black Band, 170-5.

Bohuslaus of Hassenstein, 281-2.

Bondius, J., 92.

books, supervision of, by others, 155, 159-61, 187.

Boys, H., 103.

Brassicanus, J.A., 280.

Breslau, 35, 58, 279.

Brethren of the Common Life, 69, 75; as teachers, 9, 25-6, 34, 61, 66.

Briard, J., 108.

Budaeus, 122, 135, 210, 218.

Bursfeld reforms, 75, 80.

Burgundy, David of, bp. of Utrecht, II; Philip of, bp. of Utrecht, 166.

Butzbach, 21, 56-62, 68-79, 113, 201.

Camerarius, J., 52, 293, 295.

Canterbury; Christchurch, 123-4; pilgrimages to, 209, 228-9.

Catholicon, 43-6.

Celtis, C., 265, 266, 269.

Chateau-Landon, 81-2.

Chezal-Benoit, 83-4.

child-marriage, 116.

Colet, 117, 127, 128, 130, 138, 141-3, 175, 203, 229.

Columbus, F., 280.

Complutensian Polyglott, 263.

Compostella, 231-2.

Cono, J., 147, 151.

Copernicus, N., 211.

Cracow University, 87.

Crete, labyrinth of Minos in, 92.

Cues, library at, 30-1.

Cusanus, N., 30.

Dalaber, A., 217.

Dalberg, John of, bp. of Worms, 19, 20, 31, 271.

Dederoth, J., 80.

Deventer school, 21, 30, 33-6, 39, 60-4, 69, 76; plague at, 27, 34; printers, 63.

Dominicans, 43, 52, 88, 146, 147, 238, 249, 290, 291.

'doole', 192.

Draco, J., 281, 293.

Drolshagen, J., 38.

Ebrardus, 36, 39-41.

Eck, J., 92.

Ellenbog: B., 87, 95-6, 99; J., 87, 96-7, 99; N., 87-101, 209, 210; U., 87, 92, 94-5, 201; U. jun., 87, 94.

Emmanuel of Constantinople, 122.

Eobanus of Hesse, 278-9.

Erasmus, form of name, 39 n.; early life, 11; at school, 21, 11; at Steyn, 66-8; in Paris, 102-5, 114-15, 139-41; in England, 116-17, 130; at Oxford, 117, 128; at Cambridge, 120, 134,137-44; in Italy, 135-7; rumour of death, 145; at Basle, 158-64; death, 164; labours for peace, 164-6; indifferent to Nature, 207-9; uses astrological mug, 218; pilgrimage to Canterbury, 229; appreciations of, 265, 267-8; visitors to, 277-81; relations with the Bohemians, xi.

WORKS. Adagia, 135-7, 144, 158, 165; Antibarbari, 281; compositions in Paris, 115; early poems, 103-4, 132; editions of the Fathers, 163; Enchiridion, 293; Epigrammata, 280; Jerome, 138-40, 158, 280; Julius Exclusus, 184-9, 294; Moriae Encomium, 46, 143, 187, 294; New Testament, 11, 140, 158, 160-2, 263-4, 280; Paraphrases, 197; Querla Pacis, 166; Seneca, 144, 158-9; translations into Bohemian from, 293-4, 298.

Fabri, F., 238-51.

families, length of, 202-4.

Fernand, C., 82, 84-6, 92, 177; J., 82, 84.

Franciscans, 92, 144, 147; at Jerusalem, 238, 245.

Frankfort, book-fairs at, 149, 153.

Froben, J., 151-3, 158.

Gaguin, 84, 102-3, 175.

Garland, J., 36-9.

Gebwiler, H., 26 n.

Geldenhauer, G., 15, 16, 17, 18, 21.

Gerard, Cornelius, 82, 165.

Germany, national feeling in, 264-75; historical studies in, 268-75.

Goswin of Halen, 14, 31-2.

Greek, study of, 10, 11, 12, 16, 18, 27-30, 38-41, 43-8, 85, 88, 90, 91, 117, 120, 126, 127, 134, 137, 150, 151, 262-3; manuscripts, 11, 18, 30, 31, 147, 160-1.

Grocin, W., 126-9, 263.

grossness, 205-6.

Grynaeus, S., 160.

Gueldres, 61, 165, 170-3.

Hebrew, study of, 11, 12, 29, 30, 47, 54, 90, 91, 92, 100, 117, 147, 151, 263.

Hegius, 16, 21, 25-30, 34-5, 41-2, 60, 61, 63, 69.

Heidelberg University, 11, 20, 28, 87, 97.

Helinand, 53.

Henry VIII, scholarship of, 184.

Herman, W., 21, 104, 165.

Hermonymus of Sparta, 122, 134.

Huguitio, 45.

humanists, attitude towards mediaeval romance, 93; feeling towards Nature, 207-10.

Hungarian acrobats, 92.

Hus, 58, 179, 282.

Hyrde, R., 198.

India, religious condition of, 93.

interpretations, 114.

Irenicus, F., 272-4.

Jacobus of Breda, 63.

Johannisberg, Abbey of, 59, 60, 72, 74, 76.

Jouveneaux, G., 82, 84.

Kempis, Thomas a, 10.

Koberger, A., 203-4.

Kortenhorff, Gutta, 61.

Kratzer, N., 142, 197.

Kunig, H., 231-2.

Laach, 68, 73-81.

Langen, R., 21, 23.

Lascaris, C., 88, 150.

Latimer, W., 126-8.

Lily, W., 126, 129.

Limburg, burning of, 99.

Linacre, 41, 126, 129, 187, 218, 253.

Lollhard, 60.

London, scholars in, 128, 130.

Louvain University, 15, 107-8.

Loyola, 245.

Luther, 212, 267, 268, 275, 293; at Worms, 179; Erasmus' attitude towards, 186, 298; love of nature, 210.

Mammotrectus, 53-5.

manuscripts, free lending of, 30, 136, 140-2, 160; free access to, 82, 271.

Marchesinus, J., 53.

Mary, Princess, 193, 197, 198.

Mas, P. du, 83.

Mauburn, J., 81-2.

medicine, practice of, 218-19.

Meghen, P., 141-2.

Melanchthon, 212.

Merton College, Oxford, ejection of Warden, 176.

Milanese rite, 288.

morals, 204-5.

More, T., 127, 129, 143, 197-8, 205, 229; Utopia, 187, 188, 201; matrimonial relations, 194-5; love of Nature, 209.

Mormann, F., 25-6.

news, dissemination of, 214-16.

Oda Jargis, 9, 200.

Oporinus, J., 193.

Ostendorp, 12, 69.

Ottobeuren, 86-101.

Paffraet, R., 29, 63.

Papias, 46-8, 49.

Paris University, 10; lectures at, 104, 112; life in, 112-15, 145, 148-51; Montaigu College, 102; College de la Marche, 112, 210.

Parr, Katherine, 192.

Paston, Sir John, 194, 205.

Pavia University, 16.

Peasants' Revolt, 99-101.

Pellican, C., 92, 147.

Peter, name of, 71.

Platter, T., 35, 58-9, 154.

Poncher, S., 265.

Praedinius, R., 31.

Prague University, 281.

press, early productions of, 254.

prisoners, redemption of, 175.

proofs, correction of, 159, 187.

Quakers, 29, 86, 292.

quodlibetical disputations, 105-11.

Reading Abbey, 123.

Rees, Henry of, 8, 12.

Reisch, G., 99, 147.

remarriage, 192-5.

Reuchlin, 31, 91, 122, 147, 195, 267.

Rode, J., 80.

Roper, M., 195, 198.

Rychard, W., 219.

St. Patrick's cave, 92, 226.

Santiago de Compostella, 229, 231-2.

Sapidus, J., 147, 206.

Schinner, M., 219.

Schlettstadt, 147, 154, 156-8, 206, 272.

schools, books used in, 62-5, 257; numbers of, 154.

Selling, W., 123, 141.

Serbopoulos, J., 123.

Shirwood, J., 124-6.

Sion, near Delft, 66, 81.

Sixtus IV, 10, 11, 34, 122.

Slechta, J., 281-8.

Souillac, 177.

spelling, uncertainty in, 49-52.

Spires, libraries at, 18, 271.

Sprenger, 46.

Standonck, J., 102, 145.

Synthius, v. Zinthius.

Thomas of Illyria, 219-20.

Tournay, dispute over bishopric, 177.

Trithemius, 31, 59, 76-8, 214, 269, 273; 'In praise of scribes', 261-2.

Trivet, Nic., 50.

Turzo, J., 279.

Urswick, C., 142.

Utraquists, 285, 287, 289, 293.

Valla, L., 23, 24, 27, 28, 115, 140-1, 262.

Vaudois, 289; crusade against, 180-1.

Veere, Lady of, 115, 131.

Vienne, Council of, 118, 266.

Vincent of Beauvais, 52.

visits of ceremony, 276-81.

Vrye, A., 22-5, 197, 201-2.

Vrye, J., 22.

Wesley, J., 13.

Wessel, 9-13, 29-32, 200.

Wimpfeling, 87, 269.

Windesheim, 81.

women, seclusion of, 196; education of, 196-200; position of, 200-2.

Ximenes, 263.

Zinthius, 34, 41-2, 63.

Zwingli, 204, 268.

Zwolle, 9, 10, 33, 34, 38.

* * * * *

Transcriber's Note:

text represents text that was italicised in original. x represents letter 'x' with macron. x represents letter 'x' with crescent. [Greek: xxx] contains transliteration of Greek in original.

THE END