1. See the superscript of letter 17, in Allen, 1 : 93, “Erasmus of Rotterdam to Cornelis Gerard, Poet and Theologian.”

2. Letter 74 : 14–15 and letter 92 : 6–8, in Allen, 1 : 202, 228 (CWE 1 : 151, 181).

3. Letter 64 : 6–7, 64–66, in Allen, 1 : 190–192 (CWE 1 : 135–138), italics mine; CWE translates “vetus theologus” (lines 6–7) as “former theologian,” but the obvious reference is to the vetus theologia advocated by Antibarbari. The followers of John Duns Scotus (1266–1308) were one among the “ways” or schools of thought contending for dominance in the faculties of philosophy and theology. Despite what he says in this letter, Erasmus learned a good deal of scholastic theology, presumably in Paris: John Payne, Erasmus: His Theology of the Sacraments (Richmond, 1970).

4. Letters 43–46 (from and to Gaguin; letter 46 discusses Antibarbari); letter 49 : 91–97, in Allen, 1 : 163 (CWE 1 : 103–104); Cornelis Reedijk, The Collected Poems of Desiderius Erasmus (Leiden, 1956), 224–243; C. G. van Leijenhorst, “Willem Hermans,” CE 2 : 184–185.

5. IJsewijn, “Erasmus ex Poeta Theologus,” in J. Coppens, ed., Scrinium Erasmianum, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1969), 375–389, citing especially letter 113 : 46–55, in Allen, 1 : 262 (CWE 1 : 222).

6. For the history of these texts, see the pertinent introductions in CWE 24 (translations of De Duplici Copia and De Ratione Studii) and 25 (translation of De Conscribendis Epistolis), and Craig R. Thompson, The Colloquies of Erasmus (Chicago, 1965). The 1499 version of De Copia is thought to have been lost to Erasmus for good, but I have maintained otherwise in “On the Composition Dates of Seven of Erasmus’s Writings,” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 31 (1969): 355–364, here 360–361.

7. See the preface to CWE 31, and letter 152, Erasmus to de Voecht, 28 April [1501].

8. Letter 61 : 85–95, in Allen, 1 : 183 (CWE 1 : 127).

9. William H. Woodward, Desiderius Erasmus concerning the Nature and Aims of Education (Cambridge, 1904); Rudolf Pfeiffer, Humanitas Erasmi, Studien der Bibliothek Warburg 22 (Leipzig, 1932); James D. Tracy, “Against the ‘Barbarians’: The Young Erasmus and His Humanist Contemporaries,” Sixteenth Century Journal 11 (1980): 3–22; Jacques Chomarat, Grammaire et rhetorique chez Érasme, 2 vols. (Paris, 1981), 1 : 231–263.

10. Erasmus to Gaguin, letters 67, 68, and Hanna-Barbara Gerl, Rhetorik als Philosophie: Lorenzo Valla (Munich, 1974); L. Jardine, “Distinctive Discipline: Rudolph Agricola’s Influence on Methodical Thinking in the Humanities,” and R. J. Schoeck, “Agricola and Erasmus: Erasmus’s Inheritance of Northern Humanism,” in F. Akkerman and A. J. Vanderjagt, eds., Rodolphus Agricola Phrisius (Leiden, 1988), 38–57, 181–188.

11. Woodward, Erasmus concerning Education, 114, referring to De Ratione Studii: ASD I : 1, 2 : 115–116, and CWE 24 : 667.

12. James D. Tracy, Erasmus: The Growth of a Mind (Geneva, 1972), 71–77; cf. the early letter 27…1–6, in Allen, 1 : 116 (CWE 1 : 49):

In spite of the great utility, and to some extent the attractiveness, of the kind of prose that deals with struggle and conflict [contentio], I must confess, dear Cornelis, that I take much more pleasure in what is called the familiar kind [genus familiare]; for while the latter is gentle and peaceable, the former is somewhat too agitated, and whereas the latter is cheerful and friendly, the former frequently verges on ill-will.

13. Letter 58 : 131–134 and letter 107 : 40–46, in Allen, 1 : 178, 244 (CWE 1 : 121, 201); Tracy, Erasmus: The Growth of a Mind, 65–68; Yvonne Charlier, Érasme et l’amitié d’après sa correspondance (Paris, 1977), 71–79, 104–105.

14. Letter 108 : 35–36 and letter 141 : 13–14, in Allen, 1 : 247, 331–332 (CWE 1 : 203, 308).

15. Letter 40 (Gaguin to Erasmus); letter 50 : 3–6, in Allen, 1 : 164–165 (CWE 1 : 105–106); cf. the poem published in 1531 or 1532, “D. Erasmi Divae Genovefae Praesidio a Quartana Febre Liberati Carmen Votivum,” in Clarence H. Miller and Harry Vredeveld, The Poems, CWE 85 : 168–177.

16. Letter 73 : 9–11, letter 135 : 17–21, and letter 83 : 34–39 (the quote), in Allen, 1 : 200–201, 314, 217 (CWE 1 : 149, 287, 168).

17. Letter 83 : 40–44, letter 90 : 12–14, letter 159 : 59–65 (the quote), in Allen, 1 : 217, 227, 368 (CWE 1 : 168, 168, and 2 : 45).

18. Letter 81 : 15–16, in Allen, 1 : 213 (CWE 1 : 163); to Batt, letters 80, 87, 90, 91, 95, 101, 102.

19. For a recollection of Grocyn’s and Linacre’s Greek studies, see the exchange between William Latimer and Erasmus, letter 520 : 125–133 and letter 540 : 47–60, in Allen, 2 : 441, 486 (CWE 4 : 201–202, 259–260).

20. Letter 119 : 7, in Allen, 1 : 275 (CWE 1, 237 : 9, with explanatory notes).

21. Letters 119, 124, 128, 130, 138, 139; for the quotes, letter 130 : 40–47, letter 139 : 34–37 (my italics; for meis literis, CWE has “my literary works”), in Allen, 1 : 302, 326 (CWE 1 : 273–274, 301).

22. Letter 143 : 177–84, in Allen, 1 : 339 (CWE 2 : 9): Erasmus had his information from the diocesan officialis who conducted the trial, and he shared this man’s skepticism about claims that one of the accused was tormented at night by a demon. But he also reports without comment how the chief sorcerer had conjured forth the devil. While in service with the bishop of Bergen, Erasmus had had some acquaintance with charges that the nuns of the convent of Keinout (Hainaut) were possessed by the devil; the “most humane prelate” consulted many universities about a case that “tormented” him, but in the end “the evil was not extinguished until the nuns were extinguished, down to the last one”: Hieronymi Stridonensis Opera (Basel, 1516), 1 : 110-verso, a note to epistula 50, in which Jerome comments on a nun possessed by the devil. Because of his family connection to a case involving charges of demonic possession, Erasmus may have guessed that Antoon would be interested in the affair in Orléans. See also letter 149 : 69–76, in Allen, 1 : 353 (CWE 2 : 27).

23. Letter 145 : 1–15, in Allen, 1 : 342 (CWE 2 : 12–13) (the three Annas were Anna, the sister of Vergil’s Dido, Hannah the mother of Samuel, and St. Anne, mother of the Blessed Virgin); letter 146 : 25–27, in Allen, 1 : 347 (CWE 2 : 19).

24. CWE 2 : 32, 50, 53, 58.

25. John B. Gleason, John Colet (Berkeley, 1989); I follow Gleason and those he cites (pp. 111–113) in dating from England Erasmus’s passion to learn Greek.

26. Abelard, The Story of My Misfortunes, trans. Henry Adams Bellows (Glencoe, Ill., 1958), 1–2: “Since I found the armory of logical reasoning more to my liking than the other forms of philosophy, I exchanged all other weapons for these, and to the prizes of victory in war I preferred the battle of minds in disputation.”

27. Letter 23 : 56–58 (Agricola), letter 123 : 22–23, letter 129 : 66–68, letter 138 : 41–51 (my italics; CWE translates salus as “survival”: see chapter 2 above, note 33), letter 139 : 124–129, in Allen, 1 : 105–106, 285, 301, 321, 328 (CWE 1 : 38, 249, 272, 295–296, 304).

28. Catalogus Lucubrationum, in Allen, 1 : 19 : 34–20 : 12. See the introductions to letter 164 in Allen, 1 : 363, and CWE 2 : 51. On Vitrier see below, this chapter, note 30.

29. The best study remains Alfons Auer, Die Vollkommene Frömmigkeit eines Christen (Düsseldorf, 1954).

30. André Godin, Érasme, lecteur d’Origène (Geneva, 1982), 6–29; Érasme, vies de Jean Vitrier et de John Colet (Angers, 1982); and “Jean Vitrier,” CE 3 : 408–409; letter 1211 : 13–243, in Allen, 4 : 508–514 (CWE 8 : 226–232). For the context of letter 1211, which gives an admiring portrait of Colet as well, see also Gleason, John Colet, 3–5.

31. Cornelis Augustijn, Erasmus: His Life, Works, and Influence (Toronto, 1991), 46–50; Enchiridion Militis Christiani, in Annemarie Holborn and Hajo Holborn, Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus Ausgewählte Werke (Munich, 1933), 67–88 (hereafter Holborn and Holborn) (CWE 66 : 65–84). There may be slight differences between the text and translation I cite, because the former is based on the 1518 Basel edition (said by the editors to differ only slightly from the 1503 editio princeps and subsequent printings), while Charles Fantazzi’s translation is based on the Strasbourg edition of 1519.

32. Holborn and Holborn, p. 32, lines 25–28 (CWE 66 : 33): “Of the philosophers I should recommend the Platonists because in much of their thinking as well as in their mode of expression [dialogues?] they are the closest to the spirit of the prophets and of the Gospel.” Fantazzi’s note suggests he has in mind Neoplatonists like Plotinus and Proclus, but there are only a few late references in Erasmus’s correspondence (see Allen’s index) to the latter and none to the former. For echoes of Pico’s Regulae…Dirigentes Hominem in Pugna Spirituali, see the notes to the latter sections of Fantazzi’s translation in CWE 66 and the reservations expressed by Auer, Vollkommene Frömmigkeit, 40–42.

33. Before he began to read Origen, Erasmus commented about how ignorance of the literal sense of the Greek New Testament permitted theologians to spin inapposite stories “about how the flesh wages an endless war with the spirit”: letter 149 : 21–24, in Allen, 1 : 352 (CWE 2 : 148).

34. Godin, Érasme, lecteur d’Origène, 33–114; for the quotes, Holborn and Holborn, p. 33, lines 31–34 (CWE 66 : 34–35); Holborn and Holborn, 52–55 (CWE 66 : 51–54).

35. John Clark Smith, The Ancient Wisdom of Origen (Lewisburg, Pa., 1992), 46 (n. 62).

36. Holborn and Holborn, p. 41, line 17–p. 42, line 2 (CWE 66 : 41); cf. Origen, Peri Archon sive De Principibus, in Carolus and Carolus Vincent de la Rue, eds., Origenis Opera, rev. Lommatsch, 25 vols. in 10 (Berlin, 1831–1848), vol. 21, I, i, 5: “Ita mens nostra cum inter carnis et sanguinis claustra concluditur…tamen dum ad incorprea nititur atque eorum rimatur intuitum . . .”

37. Holborn and Holborn, p. 46, line 35–p. 47, line 1, p. 54, line 20–p. 55, line 4, p. 89, line 18–p. 90, line 12, p. 44, line 23–p. 45, line 6 (CWE 66 : 46, 53, 85, 44). For Origen on the annihilation of passion, see Walther Völker, Das Vollkommenheitsideal des Origenes (Tübingen, 1931), 46–47. Auer, Volkommene Frömmigkeit, 72, believes Erasmus in the Enchiridion agrees with the Peripatetics (as indeed he did in Antibarbari).

38. For a good account of this theme in the literature of classical Greece, see Bernard Knox, The Heroic Temper: A Study in Sophoclean Tragedy (Berkeley, 1964).

39. Tracy, Erasmus: The Growth of a Mind, 205–206.

40. Holborn and Holborn, p. 44, line 36–p. 45, line 1, p. 96, line 31–p. 97, line 1, p. 42, lines 31–36, p. 43, lines 11–29 (CWE 66 : 44, 91, 42, 43).

41. Holborn and Holborn, p. 45, lines 16–26, p. 39, line 30–p. 40, line 15, p. 82, lines 19–20 (CWE 66 : 44, 40, 78–79).

42. For Vitrier’s conflicts with church authorities, see letter 1211; for Colet’s zeal in theological debate and Erasmus’s reaction see letters 108–111 and 116. Holborn and Holborn, p. 45, lines 10–12 (cf. p. 77, lines 23–33), p. 47, lines 21–25 (CWE 66 : 44 [cf. 74], 47).

43. O’Malley, “Introduction,” CWE 66 : xii; Holborn and Holborn, p. 34, lines 6–11, p. 26, lines 16–21 and p. 33, lines 13–18, p. 71, lines 27–33 (CWE 66 : 35, 28 and 34, 69).

44. See especially the Paraphrase of Mark (1524); there were few commentaries from which Erasmus could draw for this Gospel, and he uses allegorical interpretation here more liberally than in other Gospel paraphrases.

45. Holborn and Holborn, p. 38, lines 14–18, with p. 90, lines 2–12 and p. 51, lines 5–6, p. 126, lines 15–34, and p. 111, line 1–p. 112, line 15 (CWE 66 : 38, with 85 and 50, 119, and 104–105). Those who “shamelessly beg what belongs to another” are undoubtedly the mendicant friars: see chapter 7 below.

46. Holborn and Holborn, p. 26, lines 30–33, p. 73, line 25–p. 74, line 10 (CWE 66 : 28 [with Fantazzi’s note 34], 70–71); The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas a Kempis, trans. Ronald Knox and Michael Oakley (New York, 1960), book 4, chaps. 8, 9.

47. Holborn and Holborn, p. 100, lines 7–36 (CWE 66 : 94–95). Auer, Vollkommene Frömmigkeit, 27, believes that Erasmus remained in the Catholic church “because in the end he accepted her claim to be the Body of Christ” (weil er ihren Anspruch, Leib Christi zu sein, letzlich annerkannte).

48. For example, the assembly that voted taxes for the County of Flanders consisted of four members (the cities of Bruges, Ghent, and Ypres plus the Franc of Bruges, itself a federation of rural districts); in the major cities of Brabant patricians, merchants, and guildsmen, all organized as corporate entities, were members of the town government.

49. Letter 181 : 47–50, in Allen, 1 : 405, my translation; CWE 2 : 87 has “solely in order to counteract the error of those who make religion in general consist in rituals and observances of an almost more than Jewish formality, but who are astonishingly indifferent to matters that have to do with true goodness.” For Erasmus on Jews and on what he calls “Jewish” or “more than Jewish ceremonies” within Christianity, see chapter 7 below.

50. Holborn and Holborn, p. 34, lines 22–33 (CWE 66 : 35).

51. Holborn and Holborn, p. 77, lines 10–19 (CWE 66 : 75), my italics. The phrases in italics, greges eorum and cultu, connote religious life in a way not captured by CWE’s translations, “their followers” and “manner of life.”

52. Holborn and Holborn, p. 77, line 33–p. 81, line 21 (CWE 66 : 75–78).

53. Holborn and Holborn, p. 134, line 34–p. 135, line 10 (CWE 66 : 127), my italics (for Monachatus non est pietas I prefer the definite article).

54. Holborn and Holborn, p. 83, lines 13–17, p. 14, lines 3–6 (CWE 66 : 79, 17).

55. Augustijn, Erasmus, 54–55; Holborn and Holborn, p. 104, lines 17–27, p. 110, lines 22–25, p. 76, lines 25–35 (CWE 66 : 98, 104, 73–74, 36).