[1] Beatus Rhenanus, Res Germanicae, 1531, pp. 140, 1.
[2] Bruno, satis admirari non possum quid agas vt tot pecunias consumas.
[3] Consumimus omnes de capitali.
[4] Habeo prouidere domui meae.
As you stand on the Piazza dei Signori at Verona, at one side rises the massive red-brick tower of the Scaliger palace, lofty, castellated at its top, with here and there a small window, deep set in the old masonry, and the light that is allowed to pass inwards, grudgingly crossed by bars of rusty iron—a place of defence and perhaps of tyranny, within which life is secure indeed, but grim and sombre. Opposite, in an angle of the square, stands a very different building, the Palazzo del Consiglio. It has only two storeys, but each of these is high and airy; above is a fine chamber, through whose ample windows streams in the sun; below is a pleasant loggia, supported by slender columns. Marble cornices and balustrades give a sense of richness, and the wall-spaces are bright with painting and ornament. The spacious galleries invite to enjoyment, to pace their length in free light-hearted talk, or to stand and watch the life moving below, with the sense of gay predominance that the advantage of height confers.
The two buildings typify most aptly the ages to which they belong: the contrast between them is as the gulf between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Step back in thought to the twelfth century, and we find civilization struggling for its very existence. Few careers were possible. Above all was the soldier, ruthlessly spreading murder and desolation, and expecting no mercy when his own turn came; in the middle were the merchant and the craftsman, relying on strong city walls and union with their fellows, and the lawyer building up a system, and profiting when men fell out; underneath was the peasant, pitiably dependent on others. On all sides was bestial cruelty and reckless ignorance: the overmastering care of life to find shelter and protection. How strong, how luxuriously strong seemed that tower, with so few apertures to admit the enemy and the pursuer! once inside, who would wish to stir abroad? For the man who would think or study there was only one way of life, to become sacrosanct in the direct service of God. The Church, with splendid ideals before it, was exerting itself to crush barbarism, and its forts were garrisoned by men of spirit, whose courage was not that of the destroyer. In the monasteries, if anywhere, was to be found that peace which the world cannot give, the life of contemplation, in which can be felt the hunger and thirst after knowledge.
By the middle of the sixteenth century the scene has changed. Much blood has flowed through the arches of time; and now the conqueror has learnt from the Church to be merciful, from nascent science to be strong. He can spread peace wherever his sword reaches; and fear that of old ruled all under the sun, now can walk only in dark places. Walls no longer bring comfort, and soon they are to be thrown down to make way for the broad streets which will carry the movement outwards; and, most significant change, the country house with 'its gardens and its gallant walks' takes the place of the grange. From the thraldom of terror what an escape, to light, air, freedom, activity! The gates of joy are opened, the private citizen learns to live, to follow choice not necessity, to give the reins to his spirit and take hold on the gifts that Nature spreads before him.
In the pursuit of peace, human progress has lain in the enlargement of the units of government capable of holding together; from villages to towns, from towns to provinces, from provinces to nations. The last step had been the achievement of the Middle Ages, though even by the end of the fifteenth century it was not yet complete: the twentieth century finds us reaching forward to a new advance. We have spoken of Erasmus' efforts to bring back peace from her exile, of the experiences of his youth when Holland had wept for her children. In 1517, when he wrote his 'Complaint of Peace cast forth from all lands', he was a man and one of Charles' councillors; but Holland was still weeping and refusing comfort. She had good reason. The provinces of the Netherlands were disunited, no sway imposed upon them with strength enough first to restrain and then to knit together. On either side of the Zuider Zee lay two bitter enemies: Holland, which had accepted the Burgundian yoke, and Friesland, which after a long struggle against foreign domination, had been reduced by the rule of Saxon governors, Duke Albert and Duke George. To the south was Gueldres, which, under its Duke, Charles of Egmont, had thrown in its lot with France against Burgundy, and was continually instigating the subjugated Frieslanders to rebellion. Then was war in the gates.
This was the kind of thing that happened. In 1516, after a fresh outbreak of the ceaseless struggle, Henry of Nassau, Stadhouder of Holland and Zeeland, ordered that all Gueldrians or Frieslanders who showed their faces in his dominions should be put to death; and some who were resident at the Hague were executed on the charge of sending aid to their compatriots. A raid by the Gueldrians ended in the massacre of Nieuwpoort. Nassau replied by ravaging the country up to the walls of Arnhem, the Gueldres capital.
Duke Charles had terrible forces at command. A body of mercenary troops, known as the Black Band, had been used by George of Saxony for the repression of Friesland in 1514, and since then had been seeking employment wherever they could find it. At the same time, one of the conquered Frieslanders, known as Long Peter, had turned to piracy as an effective way of revenging himself on Holland. Proclaiming himself 'King of the Sea', he seized every ship that came in his way, showing no mercy to Hollanders and holding all others to ransom.
In May 1517, the Duke, violating a truce not yet expired, renewed hostilities. The Black Band, some of whom had strayed as far as Rouen in quest of fighting, flocked back. At the end of June 3000 of them crossed the Zuider Zee in Long Peter's ships and disembarked suddenly at Medemblik, in North Holland. The town was quickly set on fire, and everything destroyed except the citadel; the fleet carrying back the first spoils. Then they marched southwards, burning what they list; and happy were those whose offer of ransom was accepted, to escape with plunder only.
There was no fixed plan. The murderous horde wandered along, turning to right or left as fancy suggested. After burning five country towns, they appeared at Alcmar, the chief town of North Holland, into which the most precious possessions of the neighbourhood had been hurriedly conveyed. By a heavy payment, the burghers purchased immunity from the flames; but for eight days the town was given up to the lust and ferocity of an uncontrolled soldiery, from whose senseless destruction it took thirty years to recover. Egmond, with its great abbey, was pillaged; and then it was Haarlem's turn to suffer. But by this time resistance had been organized. Troops had been called back from garrison work in Friesland, and a strong line drawn in front of Haarlem. Headed off, the Black Band turned suddenly away. Passing Amsterdam and Culemborg, it penetrated down into South Holland, whence it would be easy to pass back into Gueldres. Asperen was its next prey. Three times the citizens beat off the cruel foe: a few more to man their walls, and they might have driven him right away, to overwhelm others less fortunate and less brave.
But it was not to be. At the fourth attempt the marauders were successful, and massacre ensued. Death to the men, worse than death to the women: nor age nor innocence could touch those black hearts. A schoolmaster with his boys fled into a church and hid trembling in the rood-loft. Before long they were discovered. Thirsting for blood, some of the monsters rushed up the steps and tossed the shrieking victims over on to the pikes of their comrades below. When all the butchery was finished, a few helpless and infirm survivors were dragged out of hiding-places. The miserable creatures were driven out of the city and the gates barred in their faces. For a month the Black Band held Asperen as a standing camp, living upon the provisions stored up by the dead. Then Nassau came with troops and drove them forth, pursuing into Gueldres, where he burned '46 good villages' in revenge. The sight of fire blazing to heaven is appalling enough when men are ranged all on one side, and the battle is with the element alone. Our peace-lapped imaginations cannot picture the terror of flames kindled aforethought. As those poor fugitives scattered over the country, cowering into the darkness out of the fire's searching glow, they cannot but have recalled the words: 'Woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days.' At least they could give thanks that their flight was not in the winter.
Meanwhile Long Peter had not been idle. On 14 August he had a great battle with the Hollanders off Hoorn. Eleven ships he took, and cast their crews into the sea: 500 men, save one, a Gueldrian, struggling in the calm summer waters and stretching out their hands to a foe who knew no pity. In September he surrounded a merchant fleet. The Easterlings escaped at heavy ransom; but the crews of three Holland vessels were flung to the waves. Then he carried the war on to the land, to glean what the Black Band had left. With 1200 men he took Hoorn by escalade; plunder-laden and sated, they returned to the sea. Nothing was too small or too helpless for his rapacity. Along the coast they picked up a barge of Enckhuizen. Its only crew, master and mate, were thrown overboard, and Peter's fleet sailed upon its way. We must remember that the provinces engaged in this internecine strife were not widely diverse in race, and that to-day they are peacefully united under one governance.
The winter of 1517-18 was spent by the Black Band in Friesland. Three thousand men who are prepared to take by force what is not given to them, do not lie hungry in the cold. We may be sure that under them the land had no rest. At Easter they began to move southwards in quest of other victims and other employ. But as they halted between Venlo and Roermond, resistance confronted them. Nassau had arrayed by his side the Archbishop of Cologne and the Dukes of Juliers and Cleves: the gates of the cities were closed and the ferry-boats that would have carried them across the Maas had been kept on the other side. Caught in a trap, the freebooters promised to lay down their weapons and disperse. The disarmament proceeded quietly till one of the company-leaders refused to part with a bombard, the new invention, of which he was very proud. A trumpeter, seeing the man hesitate, sounded a warning, and the containing troops stood on the alert. Readiness led to action. Suddenly they fell on the helpless horde, for whom there was no safety but in flight. A thousand were massacred before Nassau and his confederates could check their men.
Erasmus was about to set out from Louvain to Basle, to work at a new edition of the New Testament. Bands such as these were, of course, a peril to travellers. Half exultant, half disgusted, he wrote to More: 'These fellows were stripped before disbandment: so they will have all the more excuse for fresh plundering. This is consideration for the people! They were so hemmed in that not one of them could have escaped: yet the Dukes were for letting them go scot-free. It was mere chance that any of them were killed. Fortunately, a man blew his trumpet: there was at once an uproar, and more than a thousand were cut down. The Archbishop alone was sound. He said that, priest though he was, if the matter were left to him, he would see that such things should never occur again. The people understand the position, but are obliged to acquiesce.' To Colet he exclaimed more bitterly: 'It is cruel! The nobles care more for these ruffians than for their own subjects. The fact is, they count on them to keep the people down.' Let us be thankful that Europe to-day has no experience of such mercenaries.
A sign of the troubles of the times was the existence of the French order of Trinitarians for the redemption of prisoners. This need had been known even when Rome's power was at its height, for Cicero1 specifies the redemption of men captured by pirates as one of the ways in which the generously minded were wont to spend their money. The practice lasted down continuously through the Middle Ages. Gaguin, the historian of France, Erasmus' first patron in Paris, was for many years General of the Trinitarians, and made a journey to Granada to redeem prisoners who had been taken fighting against the Moors. Even in the eighteenth century, church offertories in England were asked and given to loose captives out of prison.
Where the king's peace is not kept and the king's writ does not run, men learn to rely on themselves. Those who protect themselves with strength, discover the efficacy of force, and soon are not content to apply it merely on the defensive. It is not surprising, therefore, to find in Erasmus' day many cases of resort to violence to remedy defective titles. Nowadays we never hear of a defeated candidate for a coveted post trying to obtain by force and right of possession the position which has been given to another. It is unthinkable, for instance, that a Warden of Merton duly elected should have to eject from college some disappointed rival who had possessed himself of the Warden's office and house: as actually happened in 1562. It is, perhaps, not so much that we have become more law-abiding, as that we realize that any such attempt must be fruitless when the strong arm of the State is at hand, ready to assert the rights of the lawful claimant.
In Erasmus' day might was often right. Thus in 1492 the Abbot of St. Bertin's at St. Omer died, and the monks elected in his place a certain James du Val, who was duly consecrated in July 1493. The Bishop of Cambray, however, had had the abbey in his eye for his younger brother Antony, who had been ejected ten years before by the powerful family of Arenberg from the Abbey of St. Trond in Limburg, and meanwhile had been living unemployed at Louvain. The Bishop persuaded the Pope to annul du Val's election and appoint Antony in his place, probably on some technical ground. Armed with this permission he appeared at St. Omer in October 1493 and violently installed his brother; who held the abbey undisturbed till his death nearly forty years later. The Bishop's success with the Pope is the more noteworthy, as for a period of seven years he himself had refused to surrender an abbey near Mons to a papal nominee, who was not strong enough to wrest it from him. Again, during the five years of the English occupation of Tournay, 1513-18, there was a continual struggle between two rival bishops, appointed when the see fell vacant in 1513—Wolsey nominated by Henry VIII and Louis Guillard by the Pope. It goes without saying that Wolsey won; and Guillard did not get in till 1519, the year after the evacuation by the English.
Fernand tells a story of violence at the monastery of Souillac, which was closely connected with his own at Chezal-Benoît. When the Abbot died, a monk of St. Martin's at Tours, who was a native of Souillac, with the aid of a brother who was a court official, got himself put in as abbot before the monks had time to elect. They appealed to the king, but quite in vain; for instead of giving ear to their complaint he sent down a troop of soldiers to support the invading Abbot. It was a grievous time for the poor monks. The garrison did whatever they pleased: imprisoned the faithful servants of the monastery, introduced hunting-dogs and birds, roared out their licentious choruses to the sound of lute and pipe, and gave up the whole day to games of every sort, in which the weaker brethren joined. Those who refused to do so or to violate their vows by eating flesh were insulted; and as they held divine service, coarse laughter and clamour interrupted them. Strict watch was kept upon them, too, lest they should speak or write to any one of their injuries. We need not deplore the passing of such 'good old days'.
It is necessary to realize the certainty which in the sixteenth century men allowed themselves to feel on subjects of the highest importance; for nothing short of this intense conviction is adequate to explain the ferocity with which they treated those over whom they had triumphed in matters of religion. Burning at the stake was the common method of expiation. The fires of Smithfield consumed brave, humble victims, while Erasmus jested over the rising price of wood, In France the Inquisition entrapped many men of literary distinction, Louis de Berquin 1529, John de Caturce 1532, Stephen Dolet 1546; on the charge of heresy or atheism which could only with great difficulty be refuted. To kill a fellow-creature or to watch him put to death would be physically impossible to most of us, in our unruffled lives; where from year's-end to year's-end we hardly even hear a word spoken in anger. In consequence it is difficult for us to understand the indifference with which in the sixteenth century men of the most advanced refinement regarded the sufferings of others. Between rival combatants and claimants for thrones fierce measures are more intelligible; especially in days when stone walls did not a prison make—such a prison, at least, as the prisoner might not some day hope to break. Things had improved somewhat since the Middle Ages. We hear less of the varieties of mutilation, the blinding, loss of nose, hands, breasts, which were the portion of either sex indiscriminately, when the death-penalty had not been fully earned. But it was still fashionable to suspend your adversary in a cage and torture him, or to confine him for years in a dungeon which light and air could never reach. The executions of heretics became public shows, carefully arranged beforehand, and attended by rank and fashion; to whom to show any sign of sensibility would have been disgrace. Impossible it seems to believe. We must remember that the perpetrators of such noble acts had persuaded themselves that they were serving God. They were as confident as Joshua or as Jehu that they knew His will; and they had no hesitation in carrying it out.
If you may take a man's life in God's name, there can be no objection to telling him a lie. The violation of the safe-conduct which brought Hus to Constance was a fine precedent for breaking faith with a heretic. When Luther came to Worms to answer for himself before Emperor and Diet, the Pope's representatives reminded Charles of the principle which had lighted the fires at Constance and ridded the world of a dangerous fellow. Fortunately Charles had German subjects to consider, and the Germans had a reputation for good faith of which they were proud. Let us credit him too with some generosity; he was scarcely 21, and the young find the arguments of expediency difficult. Anyway, Luther with the help of his friends got off safely. The intrigues and subterfuges of diplomatists are still very often revolting to honest men. But there is some excuse for them; they act on behalf of nations, who have to look to themselves for protection and can rarely afford to be generous and aboveboard. But so barefaced a violation of faith to an individual before the eyes of the world would no longer be tolerated, not even in the name of the Lord.
The following example will illustrate the ideas of the age about the treatment of heretics; an example of faith continually broken and of incredible cruelty. In 1545 the Cardinal de Tournon and Baron d'Oppède, the first president of the Parliament of Aix, were moved to extirpate that plague-spot of Southern France, the Vaudois communities of Dauphiné, who went on still in their wickedness and heresy. The intriguers prepared a decree revoking the letters patent of 1544, which had suspended proceedings against the Vaudois; and when the keeper of the seals refused to present it to the king for signature, by unlawful means they presented it through a secretary and unlawfully procured the affixion of the seals. But this was a mere trifle: greater things were to follow.
On 13 April 1545 the Baron entered the Vaudois territory at the head of a body of troops, reinforced by the papal Vice-legate and a fanatical mob of countryfolk. The inhabitants offered little resistance, and soon villages were in flames on every side. At Mérindol the soldiers found only one inhabitant, a poor idiot; all the rest had fled. The Baron ordered him to be shot. Above by the castle some women were discovered hiding in a church; after indescribable outrages they were thrown headlong from the rocks. Cabrières being fortified was prepared to stand a siege; but on a promise of their lives and property the inhabitants opened the gates. Without a moment's hesitation the Baron gave orders to put them all to death. The soldiers refused to break plighted faith; but the mob had no scruples and the ghastly work began. 'A multitude of women and children had fled to the church: the furious horde rushed headlong among them and committed all the crimes of which hell could dream. Other women had hidden themselves in a barn. The Baron caused them to be shut up there and fire set to the four corners. A soldier rushed to save them and opened the door, but the women were driven back into the fire with blows of pikes. Twenty-five women had taken shelter in a cavern at some distance from the town. The Vice-legate caused a great fire to be lighted at the entrance: five years afterwards the bones of the victims were found in the inmost recesses.'2 La Coste had the same fate; the promise made and immediately violated, and then all the terrors of hell. In the course of a few weeks 3000 men and women were massacred, 256 executed, and six or seven hundred sent to the galleys; while children unnumbered were sold as slaves. The offence of these poor people was that they had been seeking in their own fashion to draw nearer to the God of Love.
But public morals ever lag behind private; and in the sixteenth century private standards of truth and honour were not so high as they are now. Here again we may find one main cause in the absence of personal security. In these days of settled government, when thought and speech are free, it is scarcely possible to realize what men's outlook upon life must have been when walls had ears and a man's foes might be those of his own household. In Henry VII's reign England had not had time to forget the Wars of the Roses, and claimants to the throne were still occasionally executed in the Tower. Even under the mighty hand of Henry VIII ministers rose and fell with alarming rapidity. When princes contend, private men do well to hold their peace; lest light utterances be brought up against them so soon as Fortune's wheel has swung to the top those that were underneath. In matters of faith, too, it was supremely necessary to be careful; for unguarded words might arouse suspicions of heresy, to be followed by the frightful penalties with which heresy was extirpated. On great questions, therefore, men must have kept their tongues and thoughts in a strict reserve: candour and openness, those valuable solvents of social humours, can only have been practised by the unwise.
Truth is one of those things in which to him that hath shall be given. It is a common jest in the East that professional witnesses come daily to the law-courts waiting to be hired by either side. The harder truth is to discover, with the less are men content. With many inducements to dissimulation and no great expectations of personal honesty, men are likely to traffic with expediency and to be adept in justifying themselves when they forsake the truth.
Some examples of this may be found in Erasmus' letters. When he was in Italy in 1509, Henry VII died. His English patron, Lord Mountjoy, was intimate with Henry VIII. A few weeks after the accession a letter from Mountjoy reached Erasmus, inviting him to return to England and promising much in the young king's name. The letter was in fact written by Ammonius, an Italian, who afterwards became Latin secretary to the king. He was recognized as one of the best scholars of the day; and there can be no doubt that the letter was his composition. Mountjoy was a sufficiently keen scholar to sit up late at night over his books, and to be chosen as a companion to the young Prince Henry in his studies; but such autograph letters by him as survive show that he wrote with difficulty even in English, and it is impossible to suppose that he would have kept an accomplished Latinist in his employ merely to act as copyist to his effusions. Moreover, Erasmus, writing a few years later, says that he recognized the letter as Ammonius' work, not from the handwriting, which he had forgotten, but from the style. Nevertheless he allowed it to be published in 1519 as his patron's. Of his connivance in the matter there is actual proof; for in 1517 he had the letter copied by one of his servant-pupils into a letter-book, and added the heading himself. What he first wrote was: 'Andreas Ammonius Erasmo Roterodamo S.D.,' but afterwards he scratched out Ammonius' name and wrote in 'Guilhelmus Montioius'. In a sense, of course, he was correct; for the letter was written in Mountjoy's name. But he cannot have been unaware that in an age which valued elegant Latinity so highly, his patron would be gratified by the ascription.
It was no great matter, and did no harm to any one. But it throws some doubt on Erasmus' statement as to the scholarship of Henry VIII. When Henry's book against Luther appeared in 1521, people said that Erasmus had lent him a hand. In denying the insinuation Erasmus avers that Henry was quite capable of doing the work himself, and adds that his own suspicions of Henry's capacity had been dispelled by Mountjoy, who when tutor to the young prince had preserved rough copies of Latin letters written by Henry's own hand; and these he produced to convince the doubter. Erasmus had a double motive in asserting Henry's authorship, to play the courtier and to avoid provoking Luther; and Mountjoy, as we have seen, is not above suspicion. But there is some further evidence in support of them all, prince and patron and scholar. Pace, Colet's successor at St. Paul's, speaks of hearing Henry talk Latin quickly and readily; and Giustinian, the Venetian ambassador, quotes a few remarks made to him by Henry in Latin by way of greeting. Till more evidence is forthcoming, Erasmus must be let off on this count with a Not proven.
Another example of scant regard for truth is his disowning of the Julius Exclusus. This was a witty dialogue, in Erasmus' best style, on the death of Pope Julius II. The Pope is shown arriving at the gate of heaven, accompanied by his Genius, a sort of guardian angel, and amazed to find it locked, with no preparation at all for his reception. His amazement grows when St. Peter at length appears and makes it plain that the gate is not going to be opened, and that there is no room in heaven for Julius with his record of wars and other unchristian deeds; whereupon there is a fine set-to, and each party receives some hard knocks.
That Erasmus was its author there can be no doubt; for there is evidence in two directions of the existence of a copy or copies of it in his handwriting, and we cannot suppose that at that period of his life, when he regularly had one or more servant-pupils in his employ, he would have troubled to copy out with his own hand a work of that length by another. There was nothing very outrageous in the dialogue, nothing much more than there was in the Moria; but it was not the sort of thing for a man to write who was so closely connected as Erasmus was with the Papal see, and who wished to stand well with it in the future. The Julius appeared in print in 1517, of course anonymously, and Erasmus was pleased with its reception; but he soon found that people who were not in the secret were attributing it to him. That would never do; so he set to work to repudiate it. The friends that knew he exhorted to know nothing; the rest he endeavoured to persuade that he was not the author, using many forms of equivocation. He rises to his greatest heights in addressing cardinals. To Campegio, then in London, he writes on 1 May 1519:
'How malicious some people are! Any scandalous book that comes out they at once put down to me. That silly production, Nemo, they said was mine; and people would have believed them, only the author (Hutten) indignantly claimed it as his own. Then those absurd Letters (of the Obscure Men): of course I was thought to have had a hand in them. Finally, they began to say that I was the author of this book of Luther; a person I have hardly ever heard of, certainly I have not read his book. As all these failed, they are trying to fasten on me an anonymous dialogue which appears to make mock of Pope Julius. Five years ago I glanced through it, I can hardly say I read it. Afterwards I found a copy of it in Germany, under various names. Some said it was by a Spaniard, name unknown; others ascribed it to Faustus Andrelinus, others to Hieronymus Balbus. For myself I do not quite know what to think. I have my suspicions; but I haven't yet followed them up to my satisfaction. Certainly whoever wrote it was very foolish;'—that sentence was from his heart!—'but even more to blame is the man who published it. To my surprise some people attribute it to me, merely on the ground of style, when it is nothing like my style, if I am any judge: though it would not be very wonderful if others did write like me, seeing that my books are in all men's hands. I am told that your Reverence is inclined to doubt me: with a few minutes' conversation I am sure I could dispel your suspicions. Let me assure you that books of this kind written by others I have had suppressed: so it is hardly likely that I should have published such a thing myself, or ever wish to publish it.'
Not bad that, from the author of the Julius. A fortnight later he wrote to Wolsey to much the same effect, instancing as books that had been attributed to him Hutten's Nemo and Febris, Mosellanus' Oratio de trium linguarum ratione, Fisher's reply to Faber, and even More's Utopia. As to the Julius he says: 'Plenty of people here will tell you how indignant I was some years ago when I found the book being privately passed about. I glanced through it (I can hardly be said to have read it); and I tried vigorously to get it suppressed. This is the work of the enemies of good learning, to try and fasten this book upon me.' Finally, to clinch his argument, he asseverates with audacious ingenuity: 'I have never written a book, and I never will, to which I will not affix my own name.'
Jortin points out that the only thing which Erasmus specifically denies is the publication of the Julius. As we have seen, an author of consequence in those days rarely troubled to correct his own proof-sheets. Erasmus left his Moria behind in Paris for Richard Croke to see through the press; More committed his Utopia to Erasmus, who had it printed for him at Louvain; Linacre sent his translations of Galen to Paris by the hands of Lupset, who supervised the printing. It is therefore quite probable that Erasmus did not personally superintend the publication of the Julius; but until students of typography can tell us definitely which is the first printed edition, and where it was printed, we cannot be certain. But besides this point of practice born of convenience, there was another born of modesty. With compositions that were purely literary—poems and other creations of art and fancy, as opposed to more solid productions—the convention arose of pretending that the publication of them was due to the entreaties of friends, or even in some cases that it had been carried out by ardent admirers without the author's knowledge. Printing, with its ease of multiplication, had made publication a far more definite act than it was in the days of manuscripts. In the prefaces to his early compositions, Erasmus almost always assumes this guise. More actually wrote to Warham and to another friend that the Utopia had been printed without his knowledge. Of course this was not true, but nobody misunderstood him. Dolet's Orationes ad Tholosam appeared through the hand of a friend, but with the most transparent figments.
There was, therefore, abundant precedent for denying authorship. But there is a difference between the light veil of modesty and clouds of dust raised in apprehension. The publication of the Julius certainly placed Erasmus in a dilemma; he extricated himself by equivocation, which barely escapes from direct untruth. It is possible that a public man of his position at the present day might find himself driven to a similar method of escape from a similar indiscretion.3 But experience has taught men not to write lampoons which they dare not avow, and a more effective law of copyright protects them against publication by pirate printers.
[1] De Officiis, 2. 16.
[2] R.C. Christie, Étienne Dolet, ch. xxiv.
[3] An example of this may be seen in the new Life of Edward Bulwer, First Lord Lytton, 1913, ii. 71-6. Bulwer-Lytton's letter, 15 March 1846, denying the authorship of the New Timon, might almost have been translated from Erasmus' to Campegio, except that it goes further in falsehood.
An interesting parallel is often drawn between Indian life to-day and the life with which we are familiar in the Bible. The women grinding at the mill, the men who take up their beds and walk, the groups that gather at the well, the potter and his wheel, the marriage-feasts, the waterpots standing ready to be filled, the maimed, the leper, and the blind—all these are everyday sights in the streets and households of modern India.
But we may also make an instructive comparison between India and mediaeval, or even Renaissance, Europe. As soon as one gets away from the railway and the telegraph—indeed even where they have already penetrated—one still finds in India conditions prevailing which continued in Europe beyond the Middle Ages. The customary tie between master and servant, lasting from one generation to another, preserves the community of interest which prevented the feudal bond from being irksome. The modern severance of classes, the modern desire for aloofness, has not yet come. The servants are an integral part of the household, sharing in its ceremonies and festivities, crowding into their master's presence without impairing his privacy, and following him as escort whenever he stirs abroad. The child-marriage which we condemn in modern India, was frequently practised in Europe in the sixteenth century, when the uncertainty of life made men wish to secure the future of their children so far as they could. The foster-mothers with whom young Mughal princes found a home, whose sons they loved as their own brothers, had their counter-part in these islands as late as the days of the great Lord Cork. Walled cities with crowded houses looking into one another across narrow winding alleys, were an inevitable condition of life in sixteenth-century Europe before strong central government had made it safe to live outside the gates. Even the houses of the great were dark, airless, cramped, with tiny windows and dim, opaque glass; such as one may still see at Compton Castle in Devonshire or the Château des Comtes at Ghent. Communications moved slowly along unmetalled roads or up and down rivers. Carriages with two or four horses were occasionally used; but the ordinary traveller rode on horseback, and needy students coming to a university walked, clubbing together for a packhorse to carry their modest baggage. These are features which may still be matched in many parts of India.
The ravages of plague, the absence of sanitation, the recurrence of famine and war, all combined in sixteenth-century Europe to produce an uncertainty in the tenure of life, which modern India knows only too well from all the causes except the last; but India does not follow Europe in the resulting practice of frequent remarriage on both sides. In Erasmus' day a marriage in which neither side had previously or did subsequently contract a similar relation must have been quite exceptional. A certain German lady, after one ordinary husband, became the wife of three leading Reformers in succession, Oecolampadius, Capito, and Bucer—almost an official position, it would seem. She survived them all, and when Bucer died at Cambridge in 1551, was able to return to Basle, to be buried beside Oecolampadius in the Cathedral. Katherine Parr married four times. To her first husband, who left her a widow at fifteen, she was a second wife; to her second, a third wife; to her third, who was Henry VIII, a sixth; and only her fourth was a bachelor.
The custom of the year's 'doole' after the death of husband or wife was just at this period breaking down. In 1488 Edward IV declined a new marriage for his sister, Margaret of York, the new-made widow of Charles the Bold, on the ground that 'after the usage of our realms no estate or person honourable communeth of marriage within the year of their dool'. But Tudor practice was very different. For Mary, Queen of France, who married her Duke of Suffolk as soon as her six weeks of white mourning were out, there was some excuse of urgency; Henry, too, in his rapid marriage with Jane Seymour had special reasons. But Katherine Parr, when her turn to marry him came, was but a few months a widow; and later, in being on with her old love, Thomas Seymour, when her grim master was only just dead, she had no motive beyond the wishes of lovers long delayed. The Princess Mary, however, considered this latter action highly improper.
John Oporinus (Herbst), the Basle printer (1507-68), had a varied experience; taking four widows to wife. At the age of 20 he married—almost, it seems, out of a sense of duty—the widow of his teacher, Xylotectus of Lucerne; an elderly lady who persecuted him sorely, and once in a passion threw dirty water over him. After eight years, two of which he had spent roving through Germany with Paracelsus, she died, leaving her property to relations. Oporinus' next widow had three children, girls, who grew up to share their mother's expensive tastes. For nearly thirty years their extravagance vexed him, though his wife had tact enough to keep from open quarrels. Then one day he returned from the Frankfort fair to find her dead of the plague. The same visitation, 1564, by carrying off first John Herwagen the younger and then Ulrich Iselin, Professor of Law at Basle, made two more widows, successively to bear Oporinus' name. Herwagen's widow, Elizabeth Holzach, was a sweet woman, but died in the fourth month of her new marriage, 17 July 1565. Iselin's was Faustina, daughter of Boniface Amerbach, born in 1530. To her seven children by Iselin, she added one for Oporinus, Emmanuel, born 25 Jan. 1568; but the father of 60 did not live six months to have pleasure in his firstborn.
With such frequent changes the marriage-tie cannot have given the same personal attachment that is possible at the present day: indeed such unions can scarcely have seemed more lasting than the temporary associations of friends. One need only recall the bargainings that occur in the Paston Letters to realize that there was not much romance about their marriages, at any rate beforehand. Thus wrote Sir John Paston in 1473 of a suitor for his sister Anne: 'As for Yelverton, he said but late that he would have her if she had her money; and else not.'
Thomas More is rightly regarded as a man in whom the spirit burned brighter and clearer than in most of his contemporaries; and yet his matrimonial relations savour more of convenience or even of business than of affection. For his first wife, we are told—and there is no reason to doubt the story—, his fancy had lighted on an Essex girl, the daughter of a country-gentleman; but on visiting her at home he found that she had an elder sister not yet married. Feeling that to have her younger sister married first would be a grief to the elder, he 'inclined his affection' towards her and made her his wife in place of his first choice. The interpretation that when he saw the elder sister, he preferred her before the other, might be probable to-day: to apply it to the story of More would be a case of that commonest of 'vulgar errors' in history,—judging the past by the ideas of the present. For five or six years More lived with his girl-bride, whose country training and unformed mind caused much trouble and difficulty to them both. The unequal relation between them appears in a story told by Erasmus; that More delighted her once by bringing home a present of sham jewels, and apparently did not think it necessary to undeceive her about them. Happiness came in time; but after bearing him four children, she died. Within a month the widower came to his father-confessor by night and obtained leave to be married next morning. His new wife was a middle-aged lady of no charms—indeed she seems to have been a regular shrew—who served him as a capable housekeeper and looked after his children while they were young. But she never engaged his affections; and it was his eldest daughter, Margaret, who became the chosen partner of his joys and sorrows in later years.
The habitual remarriage of widows proceeded in part from the desire, or even need, for a husband's protection; and in consequence it was not only the young who were open to men's addresses. Beatus Rhenanus, writing to a servant-pupil who had recently left him to launch forth into the world, counsels him to marry, if possible, a rich and elderly widow; in order that in a few years by her death he may find himself equipped with an ample capital for his real start in life. Such advice from a man like Beatus can only have been in jest: but if there had not been some reality of actual practice, the jest would have fallen flat. Indeed Beatus goes on to indicate that this course had been taken by Reuchlin; whose elderly consort was, however, disobliging enough to live for many years. The ill-success attending Oporinus' essay in this direction we have already seen.
But it was not so with all. Not infrequently Erasmus deplores the imprudence of the young men who had left his service, in allowing themselves to fall in love and marry without securing proper dowries with their young brides. He was indeed, considering his natural shrewdness, singularly ignorant of women; as his advice to youthful husbands sometimes shows. To one, for example, who had written to announce that before long he hoped to become a father, he replies with congratulations, and then says: 'Now that your wife no longer needs your care, you will be able to betake yourself to a university and finish your studies'—advice which we may surely suppose was not taken.
During the insecurity of the Middle Ages, the seclusion of women for their own protection had been severely necessary. In the East the 'purdah-system' reached the length of excluding women of the better classes from the society of all men but those of their own family. Of such rigidity in Europe I cannot find any traces except under Oriental influence;1 but there is no doubt that women's life at the beginning of the Renaissance in the North was circumscribed. Such higher education as they received was given at home, by father or brothers or husband, or by private tutors. But there are not a few examples of educated women. In the well-known Frisian family, the Canters of Groningen, parents and children and even the maidservant are said to have spoken regularly in Latin. Antony Vrye of Soest, one of the Adwert circle, wrote to his wife in Latin; and his daughter helped him with the teaching of Latin in the various schools over which he presided, at Campen and Amsterdam and Alcmar. Pirckheimer's sisters and daughters, Peutinger's wife, are famous for their learning. In England throughout the Renaissance period the position of women and their education steadily improved. Alice, Duchess of Suffolk, the foundress of Ewelme, had an interest in literature; and the great Lady Margaret, besides the endowments which are her memorial at the universities, constantly fostered the efforts of Wynkyn de Worde, and herself translated part of the Imitatio from the French. The Princess Mary, as the result of the liberal training of Vives and other masters, could translate from Aquinas, take part in acting a play of Terence, and read the letters of Jerome; and before she was 30, made a translation of Erasmus' Paraphrase of St. John's Gospel, which formed part of the English version of those Paraphrases ordered by Injunctions of Edward VI to be placed beside the Bible in every parish church throughout the realm.
More, for his dear 'school', engaged the best teachers he could find. John Clement, afterwards Wolsey's first Reader in Humanity at Oxford, and William Gonell, Erasmus' friend at Cambridge, read Sallust and Livy with them. Nicholas Kratzer, the Bavarian mathematician, also one of Wolsey's Readers at Oxford, taught them astronomy: to know the pole-star and the dog, and to contemplate the 'high wonders of that mighty and eternal workman', whom More could feel revealed himself also to some 'good old idolater watching and worshipping the man in the moon every frosty night'.2 Richard Hyrde, the friend of Gardiner and translator of Vives' Instruction of a Christian Woman, continued the work after the 'school' had been moved to Chelsea;3 and when Margaret, eldest and best-beloved scholar, was married. Not that this interfered. The love of learning once implanted brought her with her husband to keep her place among her sisters in that bright Academy. Her fame is well known, how the Bishop of Exeter sent her a gold coin of Portugal in reward for an elegant epistle; how familiarly she corresponded with Erasmus; how she emended the text of Cyprian, imitated the Declamations of Quintilian, and translated the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius.
It is evident that in England, for women as well as men, the seed of the Renaissance had fallen on good ground. By the middle of the century the gates of the kingdom of knowledge were open, and the thoughtful were rejoicing in the infinite variety of their Paradise regained. In 1547-8, Nicholas Udall, in a preface for Mary's translation of Erasmus' Paraphrase, writes with enthusiasm: 'Neither is it now any strange thing to hear gentlewomen, instead of most vain communication about the moon shining in the water, to use grave and substantial talk in Greek or Latin with their husbands in godly matters. It is now no news in England to see young damsels in noble houses and in the courts of princes, instead of cards and other instruments of vain trifling, to have continually in their hands either Psalms, "Omelies" and other devout meditations, or else Paul's Epistles or some book of Holy Scripture matters, and as familiarly both to read and reason thereof in Greek, Latin, French or Italian as in English. It is now a common thing to see young virgins so "nouzled" and trained in the study of letters that they willingly set all other vain pastimes at nought for learning's sake.' It is melancholy to reflect how soon the gates of the kingdom were to be closed again, and its trees guarded by the flaming sword of theological certainty mistaking itself for truth.
Besides marriage, almost the only vocation open to women in the fifteenth century was the monastic life. It was not uncommon for several daughters in a family to embrace religion: parents, apart from higher considerations, regarding it as a sure method of providing for girls who did not wish to marry, or for whom they could not find husbands. As heads of religious houses women held positions of great dignity and influence, and discharged their duties worthily. Within convent walls, too, it was possible for some women to become learned; though in later times the achievements of Diemudis were never rivalled. She was a nun at Wessobrunn in Bavaria at the end of the eleventh century, and during her cloistered life her active pen wrote out 47 volumes, including two complete Bibles, one of which was given in exchange for an estate.
We also hear of women of means, usually widows, dispensing hospitality on a large scale to the needy and deserving. Wessel of Groningen, as we saw, was adopted by a wealthy matron, who saw him shivering in the street on a winter's day and fetched him into her house to warm. Erasmus describes to us a Gouda lady, Berta de Heyen, whose kindness he repeatedly enjoyed in his early years; and in addition to her general charities mentions that she was wont to look out for promising boys in the town school who were designing to enter the Church, receive them into her family amongst her own children, and when their courses were completed, bestir herself to procure them benefices—an indication of the possession of influence outside her own home. He goes on to say that when widowhood came to her, she refused to think of a second marriage, and almost rejoiced to be released from the bonds of matrimony, because she found herself free to practise her liberality. But we must not lay too much stress on these latter utterances. They come from a funeral oration composed after the good lady's death, and addressed to her children, some of whom were nuns: to whom therefore the conventional representation of the Church's attitude towards marriage would be acceptable. Butzbach describes the wife of a wealthy citizen of Deventer as entertaining daily six or seven of the poorer clergy at her table, besides the alms that she distributed continually before her own door. To him she frequently gave food and clothes and money, with much sympathy.
It is noticeable how the charity is represented as proceeding from the wife and not from the husband. A mediaeval moralist urges wives to make good their husbands' deficiencies in this respect; and against the remark Ulrich Ellenbog, the father, notes that he had always left this burden to his wife. The inference is probable that though the sphere of women was in many ways restricted, they were within their own dominion, the household, supreme—more so perhaps than they are to-day. Yet in spite of this domestic authority, I do not see how we can escape the conclusion that the real power rested with the husband, when we read such passages as this in the Utopia, where, speaking of punishment, More says: 'Parents chastise their children, husbands their wives.' Indeed, it was recognized as one of the primary duties of a husband, to see that his wife behaved properly.
What we have been saying may be well illustrated by the letter just alluded to from Antony Vrye 'to his dear wife, Berta of Groningen'. It was written 'from Cologne in haste'; and as it appears in Vrye's Epistolarum Compendium, it may be dated c. 1477. 'Your letter was most welcome, and relieved me of anxiety about you all. I rejoice to hear that the children are well and yourself; your mother too and the whole household. You write that you are expecting me to return by 1 March, to relieve you of all your cares. I wish indeed that I could; but besides our own private matters, there is some public business for me to discharge, and this will take time. So be diligent to look after our affairs, and pray to God to keep you in health and free from fault: my prolonged absence will make my return all the more joyful. It is great pain to me to be absent from you so long, who art all my life and happiness. But as I must, it falls to you to guard our honour and property, and to care for our family. This, Jerome says, is the part of a prudent housewife, and to cherish her own chastity. Bide then at home, most loving wife, and be not tempted by such amusements as delight the vulgar; but patiently and modestly await my return. I too will be a faithful husband to you in everything. Be a chaste and honoured mother to our boy and little girls; and cherish your mother in return for the singular kindness she has showed us.'
One feature of life at this time which materially affected the lives of women, was the length of families and the accompanying infant mortality. It was common enough in all classes down to the middle of the last century; and it is still only too common among the poor. On the walls of churches, more especially in towns, one frequently sees tablets with long lists of children who seem to have been born only to die: and yet the parents went on their way unthinking, and content if from their annual harvest an occasional son or daughter grew up to bless them. Examples of this may be collected on every side. Cole (1467-1519), for instance, was the eldest of twenty-two sons and daughters; and by 1499 he was the only child left to his parents. His father, who was twice Lord Mayor of London, lived till 1510; the mother of this great brood survived them all, and, so far as Erasmus knew, was still living in 1521.
Another case which may be cited is that of Anthony Koberger, the celebrated Nuremberg printer, 1440-1513: and it is the more interesting, since owing to his care for genealogy, we have accurate records of his two marriages and his twenty-five children. The first marriage produced eight, born between 1470 and 1483; of these, three daughters lived to grow up and marry, but of the remaining five—including three sons, all named Anthony, a fact which tells its own tale—none reached a greater age than twelve years. In September 1491 the first wife died; and in August 1492—without observing the full year's 'doole'—Anthony married again, the second wife being herself the sixteenth child of her parents. At first there was only disappointment; in 3½ years four children were born and died, two of these being twins. But better times followed: of the remaining thirteen only three died as infants. Anthony the fifth and John the third, and three sons named after the three kings, Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, were more fortunate. When 21 years had brought 17 children, the sequence ended abruptly with the death of Anthony the father; leaving, out of the 25 he had received, only 13 children to speak with his enemies in the gate.
A family Bible now in the Bodleian4 enumerates 16 children born to the same parents in 24 years, 1550-74. One girl was married before she was 16; one son at 20 died of exposure on his way home from Holland; two reached 10, one 8, one 6. None of the remainder ten lived for one year.
Of public morals in the special sense of the term this is not the place to speak in detail. But it may suitably be stated that sixteenth-century standards in these matters were not so high as those of the present day. 'If gold ruste, what shal iren do?' The highest ecclesiastical authorities were unable to check a nominally celibate priesthood from maintaining women-housekeepers who bore them families of children and were in many cases decent and respectable wives to them in all but name; indeed in Friesland the laity for obvious reasons insisted upon this violation of clerical vows. A letter from Zwingli, the Reformer, written in 1518 when he was parish priest of Glarus, gives an astonishing view of his own practice. Under such circumstances we need not wonder that the standards of the laity were low. The highest record that I have met with is that of a Flemish nobleman, who in addition to a large family including a Bishop of Cambray and an Abbot of St. Omer, is said to have been also the father of 36 bastards. Thomas More as a young man was not blameless. But it is surprising to find that Erasmus in writing an appreciation of More in 1519, when he was already a judge of the King's Bench, stated the fact in quite explicit, though graceful, language; and further, that More took no exception to the statement, which was repeated in edition after edition. We can hardly imagine such a passage being inserted in a modern biography of a public character, even if it were written after his death. Just about the same time More published among his epigrams some light-hearted Latin poems—doubtless written in his youth—such as no public man with any regard for his character would care to put his name to to-day.
There is another matter to which some allusion must be made, the grossness of the age, though here again detail is scarcely possible. The conditions of life in the sixteenth century made it difficult to draw a veil over the less pleasant side of human existence. The houses were filthy; the streets so disgusting that on days when there was no wind to disperse the mephitic vapours, prudent people kept their windows shut. Dead bodies and lacerated limbs must have been frequent sights. Under these circumstances we need not be surprised that men spoke more plainly to one another and even to women than they do now. Sir John Paston's conversations with the Duchess of Norfolk would make less than duchesses blush now. The tales that Erasmus introduces into his writings, the jests of his Colloquies, are often quite unnecessarily coarse; but one which will illustrate our point may be repeated. One winter's morning a stately matron entered St. Gudule's at Brussels to attend mass. The heels of her shoes were caked with snow, and on the smooth pavement of the church she slipped up. As she fell, there escaped from her lips a single word, of mere obscenity. The bystanders helped her to her feet, and amid their laughter she slunk away, crimson with mortification, to hide herself in the crowd. Nowadays great ladies have not such words at command.
Theological controversy has a proverbial name for ferocity; in the sixteenth century other qualities were added to this. In 1519 a young Englishman named Lee, who was afterwards Archbishop of York, ventured to criticize Erasmus' New Testament, with a vehemence which under the circumstances was perhaps unsuitable. Erasmus of course resented this; and his friends, to cool their indignation, wrote and published a series of letters addressed to the offender: 'the Letters of some erudite men, from which it is plain how great is the virulence of Lee.' Among the contributors was Sapidus, head master of the famous school at Schlettstadt, which was one of the first Latin schools of the age. His letter to Lee concludes with a disgusting piece of imagery, which would shock one if it proceeded from the most unpleasantly minded schoolboy. One cannot conceive a Head Master of Rugby appearing in print in such a way now.