Erasmus

• Erasmus & Sir Thomas More serve as exemplars of the Northern Renaissance.
• Both despised scholastic Philosophy & were both witty, humorous & highly skilled writers.
• Erasmus (1466-1536) was born in Rotterdam & his father was a priest.
• His parents died before he was grown up, so his guardians forced him into becoming Monk at the monastery of Steyr.
• One of his guardians was a schoolmaster.
• In 1493, he became a Secretary to the bishop of Cambrai, who was Chancellor of the Golden Fleece. which gave him the opportunity to leave the Monastery to travel.
• He was an highly accomplished Latinist who admired the work of Lorenzo Valla, because of his book on the elegance of the Latin language.
• For a short time he studied at the University of Paris, but left because he didn't find anything to profit himself.
• Erasmus hated the scholastic, whom he thought to be superannuated & antiquated. He didn't really like any Philosophy, not even Plato or Aristotle.
• In 1499 he made his first visit to England.whilst in England he made friends with Colet & More. He then left England in the beginning of 1500.
•  He then set to work to learn Greek, then in 1506 he went to Italy but found that the Italians had nothing to teach him.
• He tried to learn Hebrew, but eventually gave it up.
• The only book by Erasmus that is still read, is called The praise of folly. He wrote it quickly in London, at the house of Sir Thomas More, to whom the book was dedicated to. In the book Popes, Cardinals & Bishops are fiercely ridiculed. He claims that they are 'brainsick fools', who have very little religion in them, yet are 'highly in love with themselves, & found admires or their own happiness'.
• On his second visit to England, he stayed for five years (1509-1514). Partly in London & partly in Cambridge.
• He wrote a book called Enchiridion Militis Christiani, to give advice to illiterate soldiers: they were to read the bible, but also Plato, Ambrose, Jerome & Augustine.
• He wrote a very successful book called Colloquies, to teach people how to talk in Latin about every-day matters, such as a game of bowls. This was very useful because Latin was the only international language & throughout western Europe, Latin may have been the only language that two students could use to converse.
• After the reformation Erasmus first lived in Louvain, then in Basel.
• In 1518 he published a satire called Julius exclusus, describing the failure of Julius II to go to heaven.

• From 1524 until his death he became increasingly unimportant. He lived to long into an age of new virtues & new vices-heroism & intolerance, neither of which he could acquire.