Part 1 (1/2)

Erasa

PREFACE

_by GN Clark, Provost of Oriel College, Oxford_

Ratherof alternate cloud and sunshi+ne, I acted as guide to Johan Huizinga, the author of this book, when he was on a visit to Oxford As it was not his first stay in the city, and he knew the principal buildings already, we looked at some of the less famous Even with a man ell known all over the world as a writer, I expected that these two or three hours would be much like the others I had spent in the same capacity with other visitors; but this proved to be a day to res, the intentions of their founders and builders; but that was to be expected from an historian who had written upon the history of universities and learning What surprised and delightedeye He told me which of the decorative _motifs_ on the Tower of the Four Orders were usual at the time when it was built, and which were less common At All Souls he pointed out the seldom appreciated merits of Hawksmoor's twin towers His eye was not merely informed but sensitive I re, and as alked and talked I felt the influence of a strong, quiet personality deep down in which an artist's perceptiveness was fused with a deterreat success and reputation came suddenly when he was over forty Until that ti, not so much slowly as secretly His friends knew that he was unique, but neither he nor they foresahat direction his studies would take He was born in 1872 in Groningen, the most northerly of the chief towns of the Netherlands, and there he went to school and to the University He studied Dutch history and literature and also Oriental languages and uist and he steadily accuy nor a universal scholar Science and current affairs scarcely interested hiination seemed to satisfy him more than research Until he was over thirty he was a schoolmaster at Haarlem, a teacher of history; but it was still uncertain whether European or Oriental studies would clai up school-teaching he lectured in the University of Amsterdam on Sanskrit, and it was almost an accident that he became professor of history in the University of his native town All through his life it was characteristic of him that after a spell of creative work, when he had finished a book, he would turn aside froe into some other subject or period, so that the books and articles in the eight volumes of his collected works (with one e As time went on he examined aspects of history which at first he had passed over, and he acquired a clear insight into the political and economic life of the past It has been well said of him that he never beca the ten years that he spent as professor at Groningen, he found hi faether into a unity His sensitiveness to style and beauty came to terms with his conscientious scholarshi+p He was rooted in the traditional freedoms of his national and academic environment, but his curiosity, like the historical adventures of his people and his profession, was not limited by time or space or prejudice He came more and more definitely to find his central the that men have created in an endless variety of forms, but always in order to raise the level of their lives

While this interior fulfila to his best, the world about hied completely In 1914, Holland became a neutral country surrounded by nations at war In 1914, also, his wife died, and it was as a lonely er that he was appointed in the next year to the chair of general history at Leyden, which he was to hold for the rest of his academic life Yet the year after the end of the war saw the publication of hishistorical writers and was translated as _The Waning of the Middle Ages_ This is a study of the forht in France and the Netherlands in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the last phase of one of the great European eras of civilization In England, where the Middle Ages had been idealized for generations, sohts did not seearded the Renaissance andof a better world; but in England and America, which had been drawn, unlike Holland, into the vortex of war, it had the poignancy of a recall to the standards of reasonableness It will long maintain its place as a historical book and as a work of literature

The shorter book on Erasreat work It was first published in 1924 and so belongs to the same best period of the author Its subject is the central intellectual figure of the next generation after the period which Huizinga called the waning, or rather the autues; but Erases, aof what he wrote about Erasht also have been written about himself, or at least about his own response to the transformation of the world that he had known

This is not the place for an analysis of that questioning and illua's work as a whole; but there is roonized as one of the intellectual leaders of his country, and a second ht back his private happiness; but the shadoere darkening over the western world Froan to reveal itself in Gerainst it with perfect simplicity and calm After the invasion of Holland he addressed these ues: 'When it co our University and the freedo in the Netherlands, wefor that: our possessions, our freedom, and even our lives' The Gera, now an old e; then they banished him to open arrest in a remote parish in the eastern part of the country Even in these conditions he still wrote, and wrote well In the last winter of the war the liberating armies approached and he suffered the hardshi+ps of the civilian population in a theatre of war; but his spirit was unbroken He died on 1 February 1945, a feeeks before his country was set free

G N CLARK

Oriel College, Oxford

April 1952

ERASMUS

_and the Age of Reformation_

CHAPTER I

CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH

1466-88

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 of _Devotio moderna_: brethren of the Common Life and Windesheim monasteries--Erasmus's birth: 1466--His relations and name--At school at Gouda, Deventer and Bois-le-Duc--He takes the vows: probably in 1488

When Erasmus was born Holland had for about twenty years forundy had succeeded in uniting under their dominion--that coundy, Artois, Hainault, Namur; half Dutch like Flanders, Brabant, Zealand, Holland The appellation 'Holland' was, as yet, strictly limited to the county of that name (the present provinces of North and South Holland), hich Zealand, too, had long since been united The reether with those last doundian doh the dukes had cast their eyes on them In the bishopric of Utrecht, whose power extended to the regions on the far side of the river Ysel, Burgundian influence had already begun to make itself manifest The projected conquest of Friesland was a political inheritance of the counts of Holland, who preceded the Burgundians The duchy of Guelders, alone, still preserved its independence inviolate, beingGerman territories, and consequently with the Ean to be regarded collectively under the name of 'Low Countries by the Sea'--had in most respects the character of outskirts The authority of the Gerinary Holland and Zealand hardly shared the dawning sense of a national Ger looked to France indynasty, that of Hainault, had ruled Holland Even the house of Bavaria that succeeded it about the middle of the fourteenth century had not restored closer contact with the Empire, but had itself, on the contrary, early become Gallicized, attracted as it was by Paris and soon twined about by the tentacles of Burgundy to which it becae

The northern half of the Low Countries were 'outskirts' also in ecclesiastical and cultural ht over rather late to the cause of Christianity (the end of the eighth century), they had, as borderlands, rele bishop: the bishop of Utrecht The anization ider here than elsewhere They had no university Paris reundian dukes had founded the university of Louvain in 1425, the centre of doctrine and science for the northern Netherlands From the point of view of the wealthy towns of Flanders and Brabant, now the heart of the Burgundian possessions, Holland and Zealand formed a wretched little country of boatundy attempted to invest with new splendour, had butthe nobles of Holland The Dutch had not enriched courtly literature, in which Flanders and Brabant zealously strove to follow the French exa