Wallace K. Ferguson

The Renaissance in historical thought : five centuries of interpretation

For centuries, the idea of a Renaissance at the end of the Middle Ages has been an active agent in shaping conceptions of the development of Western European civilization. Though the idea has enjoyed so long a life, conceptions of the nature of the Renaissance, of its sources, its extent, and its essential spirit have varied from generation to generation. Confined at first to a rebirth of art or of classical culture, the notion of the Renaissance was broadened as scholars of each successive generation added to what they regarded as the essence of modern, as opposed to medieval, civilization. Originally published in 1948, Wallace K. Fergusons The Renaissance in Historical Thought is a key piece of scholarship on Renaissance historiography. Ferguson examines how the Renaissance has been viewed from successive historical and national viewpoints, and by canonical thinkers over the centuries, including Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire and Jacob Burckhardt. Republished as part of the Renaissance Society of America Reprint Text series (RSARTS), Fergusons study remains an essential part of Renaissance scholarship and will once again be available for students and scholars in the field.

Apologia Qva Respondet Dvabvs Invectivis Edvardi Lei

The publication by Erasmus of the Greek New Testament, with his own Latin translation and notes, aroused the fury of the conservative theologians as had no other act of the militant humanist’s career. Many who could not read it were profoundly suspicious of the Greek text. Many more, including those who knew some Greek, resented the Greek text and the Latin translation as an impious attempt to supplant the time-hallowed Vulgate, the foundation upon which had been reared most of the dogmas of the Church. Though the editor had been guided solely by the desire to establish the true text of the Scriptures according to the best obtainable sources, certain significant variations from the Vulgate, such as the omission of the passage concerning the Three Heavenly Witnesses (I John, v, 7), convinced them that the work was dangerous and inspired by heretical ideas. Above all, the conservatives were offended by the Annotationes — and with greater reason. For the notes, charmingly written, witty and discursive, were as unorthodox in manner as in matter. Their chief purpose was to clarify the literal sense of the text; but in so doing they challenged or destroyed many of the traditional interpretations that had been accepted as fundamental truths.

Poems from the Silva Carminvm

The poems written by Erasmus at Steyn after he had made his profession are for the most part characterized by a tone of greater piety than is to be found in his earlier work. Though purely classical in form, they are conventionally Christian in thought. The young humanist undoubtedly took his religious vows more seriously than he was willing to admit at a later date ; and his ideas at that time were probably in fair harmony with the monastic piety about him. With the exception of the verses against the „barbarians“ who opposed the study of classic letters, almost all the poems he wrote in the monastery after the year of probation dealt with moral or religious themes. Such a choice of subject was to have been expected from a monk who must please his superiors; yet, as Mestwerdt has pointed out in connection with the Epistola de Contemptu Mundi, the condemnation of the cares, passions and vices of the world expressed in these works of the conventual period probably represented the real thought of their author 1).

Epigramma Erasmi in Institvtiones Astronomicas Ringelbergii

The following short epigram, hitherto unpublished in any collection of Erasmus’ works, appeared first as a preface to the Institutiones A stronomicae of Joachim Ringelbergius of Antwerp, 31 Oct. 1528, and again in a second edition of 1535. Ringelbergius 1) had been educated at Louvain from the age of seventeen and, as he himself recounts, had been in that city eleven years when he decided to travel into Germany and Switzerland, to gain experience („ad quod tam crebro studiosos omnes Cicero hortatur“) and to teach dialectic, rhetoric and mathematics. The. trip, which lasted till the spring of 1529, was evidently a pleasant experience, as may be gathered from his interesting account of his wanderings in the preface to his Chaos (Antwerp, J. Sevaerinus and P. Sylvius, 1529), addressed to Peter Gilles. Most pleasant of all was the memory of the three or four months he spent in Basle, in the autumn of 1528, in close intimacy with Erasmus, whom he praised as the father of letters and the most amiable of companions. The great humanist, for his part, was much pleased with the company of his younger compatriot 2), and as the Institutiones Astronomicae was going to press, he wrote the verses which Ringelbergius included as a preface. Later, the young scholar from Antwerp published several more works on literary and scientific subjects, but his career was cut short by his untimely death about 1531.

Epigramma Erasmi in Ivlivm II

The following mordant epigram by Erasmus on Julius II was practically unknown until its publication by J.-B. Pineau in 1925 1), from an Erasmian autograph, to which his attention had been called by P. S. Allen. The manuscript was at that time to be found in the library of A. Meyer in Paris, but has since been sold. The epigram was evidently composed during the lifetime of Julius, and probably in England. The manuscript bears on the reverse side the words, „Th. Morus. Byth. Capad.“ Erasmus had probably given it to More, knowing that he loved epigram and shared many of the donor’s opinions concerning the papacy. It may have been sent to him from Cambridge, where Erasmus lived during the last years of the warrior Pope. The last two words of the inscription, however, are distinctly puzzling. The poem is interesting as an example of the humanist’s power of caustic epigram, and has beside a special interest from the close parallel in thought and phrasing to the anonymous Iulius exclusus, forming an additional link in the evidence for the Erasmian authorship of the latter 2).

Epigramma Erasmi in Merspvrgvm

The following epigram, hitherto unpublished, I have taken from a manuscript copy, apparently in the hand of Beatus Rhenanus, on the last cover of one of his books in the municipal library of Selestat. The book is a copy of Cicero’s Epistolae ad Familiares, Venice, Aldus, 1512, on the fly-leaf of which is the inscription, „Sum Beati Rhenani, nec muto dominum. Basileae. M.D. XIII.“ The verses on Meersburg are headed simply, „Erasmi Roterodami,“ and are dated at the foot of the page, M.D. XXIII.

In Evropae a Monachis Svbactae Pictvram. E.R.

The following epigram is to be found in the interesting collection of pasquinades edited at Basle in 1544 by Coelius Secundus Curio 1). The majority of the epigrams in this valuable little work were evidently true pasquinades, and no doubt made their first appearance on the statue of Pasquino at Rome 2) ; but many of them were certainly written in Germany and had no connection with Italy. The Iulius exclusus is included in the second volume, and there are some epigrams by Hutten and other German reformers.

Chonradi Nastadiensis Dialogvs Bilingvivm ac Trilingvivm

The Dialogus bilinguium ac trilinguium stands as a literary monument to one of the sharper crises in Erasmus’ life-long battle against obscurantism in the fields of education and theology. Years earlier, at Steyn, the young humanist had launched his Antibarbari against the enemies of classical studies 1). His opponents then were the monks and teachers who, through laziness, ignorance, conservatism or fear of pagan influences, still clung to the medieval forms of education and tried to check the advance of the new learning. The quarrel thus far was waged on literary grounds. Later, when his interests turned to the study of Christian as well as classical antiquity 2), the struggle entered a new and more virulent stage. In dealing with the problems of biblical scholarship and early Christianity, Erasmus used the same methods, the same approach, as in dealing with the classics. His enemies, too, were the same, but he was attacking them now at a much more sensitive point. He ignored the scholastic learning of the intervening centuries, and turned to the original sources as the only true authority.

Poems from the Gouda MS. 1323

Like every other young humanist, Erasmus in his youth had devoted much of his time to the composition of Latin verse. His genius developed slowly, and it was never at any time a poetic genius ; but the patient versifying of these „apprentice years“ played an important part in perfecting the classic Latin style that was in time to make him the idol of the humanists, and to add such grace to the expression of his mature thought. A number of his early poems have been published in the Opera Omnia 1). The three groups of poems which follow, written at different stages in his development, complete the list. Though written largely for practice and with more attention to classical form than to originality of content, these verses throw some interesting side lights on the making of a humanist.

Hieronymi Stridonensis Vita

In writing a sound and scholarly life of Jerome, a biography based entirely on original sources and freed from the distortion of legend and myth, Erasmus made an important contribution to his herculean task of restoring early historical Christianity. The Vita Hieronymi however was more than that. It was also a labor of love, an act of filial piety by one who considered himself Jerome’s spiritual descendant. For of all the writers of Christian antiquity, that great humanist among the Fathers appealed most strongly to the Christian among the humanists. From the first, Erasmus had felt himself drawn to Jerome by ties of common interest and inherent sympathy, and this feeling grew in scope and intensity with the gradual development of his own thought. „In the hermit of Bethlehem who translated the Scriptures, who cultivated the tongues, who loved the classics, who cared so little for systematic theology and so much for life, he saw the prototype of his own mind and the champion of the ,Philosophy of Christ’. In such respects Jerome was a perfect contrast to Augustine, the great thinker, the explainer of God’s ways, the asserter of determinism and of total depravity.