Durant W. The Reformation. A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin: 1300-1564

to scholarship. He retold the story of the New Testament in

Paraphrases (1517). Such tasks required frequent stays in Basel, but

a new attachment fixed his residence near the royal court at Brussels.

Charles was at this time only King of Castile and ruler of the

Netherlands, not yet Emperor Charles V. He was only fifteen, but his

keen mind already ranged over diverse interests, and he was readily

persuaded that his court might enhance its luster if he included the

outstanding writer of the age among his privy councilors. It was so

ordered; and on returning from Basel (1516) Erasmus accepted the

honorary position at a modest salary. He was offered a canonry at

Courtrai, with the promise of a bishopric; he refused it, remarking to

a friend, "There's a dream to amuse you." `061442 He received and

rejected invitations to teach at the universities of Leipzig and

Ingolstadt. Francis I tried to detach him from Charles with a

flattering request that he join the court of France; Erasmus said no

with flowered courtesy.

Meanwhile Leo. X had sent to London the solicited dispensations.

In March 1517, Erasmus crossed to London, and received the papal

letters freeing him from his monastic obligations and the disabilities

of bastardy. To the formal documents Leo added a personal note:

-

Beloved son, health and apostolic benediction. The good favor of

your life and character, your rare erudition and high merits,

witnessed not only by the monuments of your studies, which are

everywhere celebrated, but also by the general vote of the most

learned men, and commended to us finally by the letters of two most

illustrious princes, the King of England and the Catholic King [of

France], give us reason to distinguish you with special and singular

favor. We have therefore willingly granted your request, being ready

to declare more abundantly our affection for you when you shall either

yourself minister occasion, or accident shall furnish it, deeming it

right that your holy industry, assiduously exerted for the public

advantage, should be encouraged to higher endeavors by adequate

rewards. `061443

-

Perhaps it was a judicious bribe to good behavior, perhaps an honest

gesture from a tolerant and humanist court; in any case Erasmus

never forgot this papal courtesy, and would always find it hard to

break from a Church that had so patiently borne the sting of his

critique.

V. THE PHILOSOPHER

-

Returning to Brussels, he found himself further seduced to caution

by cordial welcome at the royal court. He took his privy councilorship

seriously, forgetting that brilliant authors are rarely equipped for

statesmanship. In the busy year 1516 he composed in haste an

Institutio principis Christiani ( Education of a Christian Prince ),

rich in pre-Machiavellian platitudes of how a king should behave. In

the dedication to Charles he wrote with bold directness: "You owe it

to Providence that your realm has been acquired without injury to any;

your wisdom will be best shown if you can keep it in peace and

tranquillity." `061444 Like most philosophers, Erasmus reckoned

monarchy the least evil form of government; he feared the people as

a "fickle, many-headed monster," deprecated the popular discussion

of laws and politics, and judged the chaos of revolution worse than

the tyranny of kings. `061445 But he counseled his Christian prince to

guard against the concentration of wealth. Taxes should fall only upon

luxuries. There should be fewer monasteries, more schools. Above

all, there should be no war among Christian states- nor even against

the Turks. "We shall better overcome the Turks by the piety of our

lives than by arms; the empire of Christianity will thus be defended

by the same means by which it was originally established." `061446

"What does war beget except war?- but civility invites civility,

justice invites justice." `061447

As Charles and Francis edged toward hostilities, Erasmus made appeal

after appeal for peace. He complimented the French King on a passing

mood of conciliation, and asked how anyone could think of waging war

with France, "the purest and most flourishing part of

Christendom." `061448 In Querela pacis ( The Complaint of Peace,

1517) he reached his peak of passionate eloquence:

-

I pass silently over the tragedies of ancient wars. I will stress

only those which have taken place in the course of these last years.

Where is the land or sea where people have not fought in the most

cruel manner? Where is the river that has not been dyed with human

blood... with Christian blood? O supreme shame! They behave more

cruelly in battle than non-Christians, more savagely than wild

beasts.... All [these wars] were undertaken at the caprice of princes,

to the great detriment of the people, whom these conflicts in no way

concerned.... Bishops, cardinals, popes who are vicars of Christ- none

among them is ashamed to start the war that Jesus so execrated. What

is there in common between the helmet and the miter?... Bishops, how

dare you, who hold the place of the Apostles, teach people things that

touch on war at the same time that you teach the precepts of the

Apostles?... There is no peace, even unjust, which is not

preferable to the most just of Wars. `061449

-

Princes and generals may profit from war, but the masses bear the

tragedies and the costs. `061450 It may sometimes be necessary to

fight a war of self-defense, but even in such cases it may be wiser to

buy off the enemy than to wage war. `061451 Let the kings submit their

disputes to the pope. This would have been impracticable under

Julius II, himself a warrior; but Leo X, "a learned, honest, and pious

pontiff," might arbitrate with justice, and preside effectively over

an international court. `061452 Erasmus called nationalism a curse

to humanity, and challenged statesmen to forge a universal state. "I

wish," he said, "to be called a citizen of the world." `061453 He

forgave Bude for loving France, but "in my opinion it is more

philosophical to put our relations with things and men on such a

footing as to treat the world as the common country of us

all." `061454 Erasmus was the least national spirit in the rising

nationalism of the Reformation age. "The most sublime thing," he

wrote, "is to deserve well of the human race." `061455

We must not look to Erasmus for any realistic conception of human

nature, or of the causes of war, or of the behavior of states. He

never faced the problem that Machiavelli was dealing with in those

same years- whether a state can survive if it practices the morality

that it preaches to its citizens. The function of Erasmus was to cut

dead branches from the tree of life rather than to construct a

positive and consistent philosophy. He was not even sure that he was a

Christian. He frequently professed to accept the Apostles' Creed;

yet he must have doubted hell, for he wrote that "they are not as

impious who deny the existence of God as are those who picture Him

as inexorable." `061456 He could hardly have believed in the divine

authorship of the Old Testament, for he averred his willingness to

"see the whole Old Testament abolished" if that would quiet the furore

raised over Reuchlin. `061457 He smiled at the traditions that Minos

and Numa persuaded their peoples to obey uncongenial legislation by

fathering it upon the gods, `061458 and probably suspected Moses of

similar statesmanship. He expressed surprise that More was satisfied

with the arguments for personal immortality. `061459 He thought of the

Eucharist as a symbol rather than a miracle; `061460 he obviously

doubted the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Virgin Birth; and More

had to defend him from a correspondent who declared that Erasmus had

privately confessed his unbelief. `061461 He called in question one

after another of the Christian usages of his time- indulgences,

fasting, pilgrimages, auricular confession, monasticism, clerical

celibacy, relic worship, prayers to the saints, the burning of

heretics. He gave allegorical or rational explanations of many

Biblical passages; he compared the story of Adam and Eve with that

of Prometheus, and advised "the least literal" interpretation of the

Scriptures. `061462 He resolved the pains of hell into "the

perpetual anguish of mind that accompanies habitual sin." `061463 He

did not broadcast his doubts among the people, for he had no

comforting or deterrent myths to offer in place of the old ones.

"Piety," he wrote, "requires that we should sometimes conceal truth,

that we should take care not to show it always, as if it did not

matter when, where, or to whom we show it.... Perhaps we must admit

with Plato that lies are useful to the people." `061464

Despite this strong bent toward rationalism, Erasmus remained

externally orthodox. He never lost his affection for Christ, for the

Gospels, and for the symbolic ceremonies with which the Church

promoted piety. He made a character in the Colloquies say: "If

anything is in common use with Christians that is not repugnant to the

Holy Scriptures, I observe it for this reason, that I may not offend

other people." `061465 He dreamed of replacing theology with "the

philosophy of Christ," and strove to harmonize this with the thought

of the greater pagans. He applied to Plato, Cicero, and Seneca the

phrase, "divinely inspired"; `061466 he would not admit that such

men were excluded from salvation; and he could "scarce forbear"

praying to "Saint Socrates." He asked the Church to reduce the

essential dogmas of Christianity to as "few as possible, leaving

opinion free on the rest." `061467 He did not advocate the full

tolerance of all opinions (who does?), but he favored a lenient

attitude toward religious heresy. His ideal of religion was the

imitation of Christ; we must admit, however, that his own practice was

less than evangelical.

VI. THE MAN

-

How, actually, did he live? At this time (1517) he resided for the

most part in Flanders- at Brussels, Antwerp, and Louvain. He dwelt

in celibate privacy with one servant, but often accepted the

hospitality of the prosperous, who courted his company as a social

distinction and an intellectual feast. His tastes were fastidious; his

nerves and feelings were refined to the point of frequent suffering

from the vigorous vulgarities of life. He drank wine abundantly, and

prided himself on his ability to carry it steadily. It may have been

part cause of the gout and stones that galled him, but he thought it

relieved his pain by dilating his arteries. In 1514, aged forty-five

or forty-eight, he described himself as "a gray-headed invalid...

who must drink nothing but wine," and must "be nice in what he

eats." `061468 Fasting disagreed with him, and he fumed against

fish; perhaps his bile colored his theology. He slept poorly, like

most people whose busy brains recognize no curfew. He consoled himself

with friends and books. "I seem deprived of myself when I am shut

out from my usual habits of study.... My home is where I have my

library." `061469

It was partly to buy books that he solicited money with all the

assiduity of a parish priest. He received regular pensions from

Mountjoy and Warham, substantial gifts like the 300 florins

($7,500?) from Jean le Sauvage, Chancellor of Burgundy, and

royalties exceeding those earned by any other author of his time. He

disclaimed any love of money. he sought it because, as a man without

moorings, he feared the insecurity of a lonely old age. Meanwhile he

continued to refuse lucrative posts that would have extended his

income at the cost of his freedom.

His appearance was at first unimpressive. He was short, thin,

pale, weak in voice and constitution. He impressed by his sensitive

hands, his long, sharp nose, his blue-gray eyes flashing with wit, and

his speech- the conversation of the richest and quickest mind of

that brilliant age. The greatest artists among his northern

contemporaries were eager to paint his portrait, and he consented to

sit for them because such portraits were welcomed as gifts by his

friends. Quentin Massys pictured him in 1517- absorbed in writing,

bundled in a heavy coat as protection against the chilly rooms of

those centuries; this was presented to More. Durer made a charcoal

drawing of Erasmus in 1520, and a remarkable engraving in 1526; here

the German touch gave the "good European" a thoroughly Dutch

physiognomy; "if I look like that," said the sitter, "I am a great

knave." `061470 Holbein surpassed all these efforts in the many

portraits that he made of Erasmus. One is in Turin, another in

England, a third in Basel, the best in the Louvre- all masterly

performances by the greatest portrait painter in the north. Here the

scholar has become a philosopher, quiet, meditative, somewhat

melancholy, reluctantly resigned to the careless neutrality of

nature and the mortality of genius. "What our lot brings must be

borne," he wrote in 1517, "and I have composed my mind for every

event"- `061471 a Stoic ataraxia that he never really achieved.

"He loves glory," he said of an ambitious youth, "but he does not know

what a weight glory is"; `061472 yet Erasmus, like many a noble

soul, labored night and day to win that incubus.

His faults leaped to the eye; his virtues were secrets known only to

his intimates. He could beg shamelessly, but he could also give, and

many a rising spirit expanded in the warmth of his praise. When

Reuchlin was assailed by Pfefferkorn, Erasmus wrote to his friends

among the cardinals at Rome, and helped to win protection for the

harassed Hebraist. He lacked modesty and gratitude, which came hard to

one courted by popes and kings. He was impatient and resentful of

criticism, `061473 and sometimes answered it in the abusive manner

of that polemic age. He shared the anti-Semitism of even the

scholars of the Renaissance. His interests were as narrow as they were

intense: he loved literature when it clothed philosophy, and

philosophy when it left logic for life, but he almost ignored science,

scenery, music, and art. He smiled at the systems of astronomy that

then strutted the stage, and the stars smiled with him. In all his

multitudinous correspondence there is no appreciation of the Alps,

or the architecture of Oxford and Cambridge, or the painting of

Raphael or the sculpture of Michelangelo, who were working for

Julius II when Erasmus was in Rome (1509); and the lusty singing of

the Reformed congregations would later offend his educated ears. His

sense of humor was usually subtle and refined, occasionally

Rabelaisian, often sarcastic, once inhuman, as when he wrote to a

friend, on hearing that some heretics had been burned, "I would pity

them the less if they raise the price of fuel now that winter is

coming on." `061474 He had not only the natural egoism or

selfishness of all men, but also that secret and cherished egotism, or

self-conceit, without which the writer or artist would be crushed in

the ruthless rush of an indifferent world. He loved flattery, and

agreed with it despite frequent disclaimers. "Good judges," he told

a friend, "say that I write better than any other man living." `061475

It was true, though only in Latin. He wrote bad French, spoke a

little Dutch and English, "tasted Hebrew only with the tip of the

tongue," `061476 and knew Greek imperfectly; but he mastered Latin

thoroughly, and handled it as a living tongue applicable to the most

un-Latin nuances and trivia of his time. A century newly enamored of

the classics forgave most of his faults for the lively brilliance of

his style, the novel charm of his understatements, the bright dagger

of his irony. His letters rival Cicero's in elegance and urbanity,

surpass them in vivacity and wit. Moreover, his Latin was his own, not

imitatively Ciceronian; it was a living, forceful, flexible speech,

not an echo 1,500 years old. His letters, like Petrarch's, were

coveted by scholars and princes only next to the stimulus of his

conversation. He tells us, perhaps with some literary license, that he

received twenty letters a day and wrote forty. `061477 Several volumes

of them were published in his lifetime, carefully edited by their

author so conscious of posterity. Leo X, Adrian VI, Queen Marguerite

of Navarre, King Sigismund I of Poland, Henry VIII, More, Colet,

Pirkheimer, were among his correspondents. The modest More wrote: "I

cannot get rid of a prurient feeling of vanity... when it occurs to my

mind that I shall be commended to a distant posterity by the

friendship of Erasmus." `061478

No other contemporary writer equaled his fame, unless we think of

Luther as a writer. One Oxford bookseller reported in 1520 that a

third of all his sales were of works by Erasmus. He had many

enemies, especially among the theologians of Louvain, but he had

disciples in a dozen universities, and humanists throughout Europe

hailed him as their exemplar and chief. In the field of literature

he was the Renaissance and humanism embodied- their cult of the

classics and a polished Latin style, their gentlemen's agreement not

to break with the Church, and not to disturb the inevitable

mythology of the masses, provided the Church winked at the

intellectual freedom of the educated classes and permitted an orderly,

internal reform of ecclesiastical abuses and absurdities. Erasmus,

like all humanists, was heartened by the elevation of Leo X to the

papacy; their dream had come true- a humanist, a scholar, and a

gentleman, the living unification of the Renaissance and Christianity,

had mounted the greatest of thrones. Surely now a peaceful cleansing

of the Church would come; education would spread; the people would

keep their lovely ritual and consolatory faith, but the human mind

would be free. `061479

Almost to the brink of Luther Erasmus kept that hope. But on

September 9, 1517, he wrote from Antwerp to Thomas, Cardinal of

York, an ominous line: "In this part of the world I am afraid a

great revolution is impending." `061480 In less than two months it

came.

CHAPTER XV: Germany on the Eve of Luther: 1453-1517

I. THE AGE OF THE FUGGERS

-

IN the final half-century before the Reformation all classes in

Germany prospered except the knights. Probably it was the rising

status of the peasants that sharpened their resentment against

surviving disabilities. A few were bondsmen, a minority were

proprietors, the great majority were tenant farmers paying rent to

feudal lords in produce, services, or money. The tenants complained of

the lord's exactions; of the twelve- in some cases sixty- days of

labor which custom required them to give him yearly; of his withdrawal

of land from the Allgemeine or commons in which tradition had

allowed them to fish, cut timber, and pasture their animals; of the

damage done to crops by the lord's huntsmen and hounds; of biased

administration of justice in the local courts which the landlords

controlled; and of the death tax laid upon the tenant family when

the passing of its head interrupted the care of the land. Peasant

proprietors raged at the usurious rates they had to pay for loans to

move their crops, and at the quick foreclosure of farms by clever

money lenders who had made loans to owners obviously unable to

repay. All classes of tillers grudged the annual tithe levied by the

Church on their harvests and broods.

These discontents ignited agrarian revolts sporadically throughout

the fifteenth century. In 1431 the peasants around Worms rose in

futile rebellion. They chose as their standard a farmer's shoe-

actually a boot laced from ankle to knee; they stuck it on poles or

painted its likeness on flags; and Bundschuh - the Bond of the

Shoe- became the favorite title of rebel rural bands in the age of

Luther. In 1476 a cowherd, Hans Bohm, announced that the Mother of God

had revealed to him that the Kingdom of Heaven on earth was at hand.

There should be no more emperors, popes, princes, or feudal lords; all

men were to be brothers, all women sisters; all were to share alike in

the fruits of the earth; lands, woods, waters, pastures, were to be

common and free. Thousands of peasants came to hear Hans; a priest

joined him; the bishop of Wurzburg smiled tolerantly. But when Hans

told his followers to bring to the next meeting all the weapons they

could muster, the bishop had him arrested; the bishop's soldiers fired

into the crowd that tried to save him; and the movement collapsed.

In 1491 the peasants on the domain of the abbot of Kempten in Alsace

attacked his monastery, alleging that they were being forced into

serfdom by forged documents; the Emperor Frederick III effected a

compromise. Two years later the feudatories of the bishop of

Strasbourg proclaimed a Bundschuh; they demanded an end to feudal

dues and ecclesiastical tithes, the abolition of all debts, and the

death of all Jews. They planned to seize the town of Schlettstadt,

whence they hoped to spread their power through Alsace. The

authorities got wind of the plot, seized the leaders, tortured and

hanged them, and frightened the rest into temporary submission. In

1502 the peasants of the bishop of Speyer formed a Bundschuh of

7,000 men pledged to end feudalism, to "hunt out and kill all

priests and monks," and to restore what they believed to have been the

communism of their ancestors. A peasant revealed the scheme in the

confessional; ecclesiastics and nobles joined in circumventing it; the

main conspirators were tortured and hanged. `06151

In 1512 Joss Fritz secretly organized a similar movement near

Freiburg-im-Breisgau; God, the pope, and the emperor were to be

spared, but all feudal ownership and dues were to be abolished. A

peasant who had been constrained to join this Bund exposed it to his

confessor; the authorities arrested and tortured the leaders; the

revolt aborted, but Joss Fritz lived to join in the Peasants' Revolt

of 1525. In 1517 a league of 90,000 peasants in Styria and Carinthia

undertook to end feudalism there: for three months their bands

attacked castles and slew lords; finally Emperor Maximilian, who

sympathized with their cause but rebuked their violence, sent

against them a small force of soldiery, which subdued them into sullen

peace. But the stage was set for the Peasants' War, and the Anabaptist

communism, of Reformation Germany.

Meanwhile a more matter-of-fact revolution was proceeding in

German industry and commerce. Most industry was still handicraft,

but it was increasingly controlled by entrepreneurs who provided

material and capital, and bought and sold the finished product. The

mining industry was making rapid progress; great profits were drawn

from mining silver, copper, and gold; gold and silver bullion now

became a favorite means of storing wealth; and the royalties paid

for mining rights to territorial princes- especially to the elector of

Saxony who protected Luther- `06152 enabled some of them to resist

both pope and emperor. Reliable silver coins were minted, currency

multiplied, the passage to a money economy was almost complete. Silver

plate became a common possession in the middle and upper classes; some

families displayed tables or chairs of solid silver; monstrances,

chalices, reliquaries, even statues, of silver or gold accumulated

Durant W. The Reformation. A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin: 1300-1564

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