Erasmus and the Age of Reformation

Conclusion--Erasmus and the spirit of the sixteenth century--His weak points--A thorough idealist and yet a moderate mind--The enlightener of a century--He anticipates tendencie...

On the way to success and satisfaction--His Prior calls him back to Steyn--He refuses to comply--First journey to Basle: 1514-16--Cordial welcome in Germany--Johannes Froben--Ed...

Erasmus's character: Need of purity and cleanliness-- Delicacy--Dislike of contention, need of concord and friendship--Aversion to disturbance of any kind--Too much concerned ab...

First stay in England: 1499-1500--Oxford: John Colet--Erasmus's aspirations directed towards divinity--He is as yet mainly a literate--Fisher and More--Mishap at Dover when leav...

_Moriae Encomium, The Praise of Folly_: 1509, as a work of art--Folly, the motor of all life: Indispensable, salutary, cause and support of states and of heroism--Folly keeps th...

Erasmus as an Augustinian canon at Steyn--His friends--Letters to Servatius--Humanism in the monasteries: Latin poetry-- Aversion to cloister-life--He leaves Steyn to enter the...

Erasmus turns against the excesses of humanism: its paganism and pedantic classicism--_Ciceronianus_: 1528--It brings him new enemies--The Reformation carried through at Basle--...

The year 1519 brought the struggle attending the election of an emperor, after old Maximilian had died in January, and the attempt of the curia to regain ground with lenity. Ger...

Basle his dwelling-place for nearly eight years: 1521-9--Political thought of Erasmus--Concord and peace--Anti-war writings--Opinions concerning princes and government--New edit...

Religious and political contrasts grow sharper--The coming strife in Germany still suspended--Erasmus finishes his _Ecclesiastes_--Death of Fisher and More--Erasmus back at Basl...

The University of Paris--Traditions and schools of Philosophy and Theology--The College of Montaigu--Erasmus's dislike of scholasticism--Relations with the humanist, Robert Gagu...

Erasmus's mind: Ethical and aesthetic tendencies, aversion to all that is unreasonable, silly and cumbrous--His vision of antiquity pervaded by Christian faith--Renascence of go...

Erasmus at Louvain, 1517--He expects the renovation of the Church as the fruit of good learning--Controversy with Lefèvre d'Étaples--Second journey to Basle, 1518--He revises th...

The Low Countries in the fifteenth century--The Burgundian power--Connections with the German Empire and with France--The northern Netherlands outskirts in every sense--Movement...

The lean years continued with Erasmus. His livelihood remained uncertain, and he had no fixed abode. It is remarkable that, in spite of his precarious means of support, his move...

Erasmus's mind: Intellectual tendencies--The world encumbered by beliefs and forms--Truth must be simple--Back to the pure sources--Holy Scripture in the original languages--Bib...

Meanwhile renown came to Erasmus as the fruit of those literary studies which, as he said, had ceased to be dear to him. In 1500 that work appeared which Erasmus had written aft...

Third stay in England: 1509-14--No information about two years of Erasmus's life: 1509 summer, till 1511 spring--Poverty-- Erasmus at Cambridge--Relations with Badius, the Paris...

Circumstances continued to remain unfavourable for Erasmus. 'This year fortune has truly been raging violently against me,' he writes in the autumn of 1502. In the spring his go...

Erasmus in Italy: 1506-9--He takes his degree at Turin--Bologna and Pope Julius II--Erasmus in Venice with Aldus: 1507-8--The art of printing--Alexander Stewart--To Rome: 1509--...

Erasmus persuaded to write against Luther--_De Libero Arbitrio_: 1524--Luther's answer: _De Servo Arbitrio_--Erasmus's indefiniteness contrasted with Luther's extreme rigour--Er...

of his letters, the moderating and purifying influence of his mind throughout all the countries of Europe. Scholars, high church dignitaries, nobles, students, and civil magistr...

Beginning of the relations between Erasmus and Luther-- Archbishop Albert of Mayence, 1517--Progress of the Reformation--Luther tries to bring about a _rapprochement_ with Erasm...