The Eve of the Reformation

It is too often assumed that in the choice and education of the clergy little care and discretion was exercised by the bishops and other responsible officials, and that thus those unfit for the sacred ministry by education and character often found their way into the priesthood. In the last Convocation held on the eve of the Reformation a serious attempt was evidently made to correct whatever abuses existed in this matter, when it was enacted that no bishop might ordain any subject not born in his diocese or beneficed in it, or without a domicile in it for three months, even with dimissorial letters. Further, that no secular clerk should be ordained without testimonial letters as to character from the parish priest of the place where he was born or had lived for three years, sealed by the archdeacon of the district, or in the case of a university, by the seal of the vice-chancellor. No one whatsoever was to be admitted to the subdiaconate “who was not so versed in the Epistles and Gospels, at least those contained in the Missal, as to be able at once to explain their grammatical meaning to the examiner.” He must also show that he understands and knows whatever pertains to his office.155

The most important book of this period dealing with the life and education of the clergy is a tract printed by Wynkyn de Worde about the beginning of the sixteenth century. It was written by William de Melton, Chancellor of York, and at the end is the declaration of Colet, that he has read it and highly approves of its contents.156 The author states that he desires to instruct the “many young men” who every Ember time come up to York for ordination in their duties. No person, he says, ought to present himself to receive the priesthood who is not prepared to lead a life in all things worthy of the sacred ministry. He should remember that he is really to be accounted one of the twelve who sat with our Lord at His last supper. He must be sufficiently versed in the learning of the world not to dishonour the priestly calling, and above all be taught in His school “who has said, ‘Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of heart.’”

“And since I am now on the question of those only partly well learned,” continues the author, “I wish all coming for ordination to understand that always and everywhere those who have not yet attained to at least a fair knowledge of good letters are to be rejected as candidates for Holy Orders. They can in no way be considered to have a fair knowledge of letters who, though skilful in grammar, do not possess the science well enough to read promptly and easily Latin books, and above all, the sacred Scriptures, and expound their meaning and the literal signification of the words as they stand in the books; and this not haltingly, but readily and easily, so as to show that they know the language not merely slightly and slenderly, but that they possess a full and radical knowledge of it and its construction. Therefore, those who read the sacred Scriptures or other Latin work with difficulty, or, whilst reading, often mistake the proper connection of the words, or read them with such pauses as to seem not to be used to the Latin language, are to be refused Sacred Orders until, by diligent study, they have become more skilled in their letters.”

In the same way the tract goes on to declare that those who are unable to explain or understand the spiritual signification of Scripture are to be refused ordination to the sacred ministry until they show themselves at least fairly well able to do so. “To be reckoned among even the fairly proficient, we require,” says the author, “such a thorough and sure foundation of grammatical knowledge that there may be hopes that alone and without other teachers they may, from books and diligent study, endeavour day by day to improve themselves by reading and study.” Then addressing the candidates the author begs them, if they feel they have not this necessary foundation, “not through mere presumption to offer themselves to the examiners.” “Seek not a position in the Church of God in which neither now nor during your whole life will you be able to show yourself a fitting minister. For those who before taking Holy Orders have not fitted themselves fairly well in learning rarely if ever are seen to make progress in literature. On the contrary, they ever remain, even to old age, dunces and stupid, and, furthermore, such priests known to the common people for such manifest ignorance are a great scandal which involves the whole sacred ministry.”

Great damage is done to the whole Church of God through the ignorance of the clergy. Both in towns and country places there are priests who occupy themselves, some in mean and servile work, some who give themselves to tavern drinking; the former can hardly help mixing themselves up with women, the latter employ their time in games of dice, &c., and some of them pass it in the vanities of hunting and hawking. Thus do they spend their whole lives to extreme old age in idleness and non-religious occupations. Nor could they do otherwise, for as they are quite ignorant of good letters, how can they be expected to work at and take a pleasure in reading and study; rather throwing away these despised and neglected books, they turn to that kind of miserable and unpriestly life described above, hoping to kill time and cure their dulness by such things.

He then goes on to exhort the young to implant in their hearts a strong desire to study deeply in the books of God’s Law rather than to be tainted thus by the stains and vanities of the world which they were supposed to have left. “It is,” he continues, “impossible that such a holy desire should possess you, unless you have made progress in such studies before taking Holy Orders, and are so advanced in your literary studies that the reading of many books is both easy and pleasant to you, and the construction of the meaning of a passage no longer difficult, but whilst reading you may quickly and easily follow at least the literal sense of the sentence.”

This interesting tract then goes on to warn subdeacons not to take upon themselves the perpetual obligations of Sacred Orders unless they are conscious to themselves of no reason or objection, however secret and hidden, which may stand in the way of their faithfully keeping their promises. They must feel that they enter the ranks of the clergy only from the motive of serving God. Then, after warning the clergy against the vices which specially detract from the sacred character of the priesthood, the author continues, “Let us therefore turn to study, reading, and meditation of the Holy Scriptures as the best remedy against unworthy sloth and foolish desires. Let us not consume the time given us uselessly and fruitlessly.” A priest should say his Hours and Mass daily. He should spend the morning till mid-day in choir and other works, and even then not think he has fulfilled the whole duty of the priesthood. A priest is bound to serious studies and meditation. “Constant reading and meditation of the books of God’s law and the writings of the holy Fathers and Doctors are the best remedy for slothful habits,” and these have been put at the disposition of all through the printing-press. Just as a workman has besides his shop a workroom where he has to spend hours preparing the wares that he offers for sale, so the priest, who in the church on Sunday offers his people the things necessary for salvation, should spend days and nights in holy reading and study in order to make them his own before he hands them on to others. “Wherefore, my dearest brethren, let us think ourselves proper priests only when we find our delight and joy in the constant study of Holy Scripture.”

So much for the important advice given to priests or those intending to be priests as to the necessity of acquiring previous habits of study. Not infrequently the fact that in 1532 Parliament did actually transfer the power of ecclesiastical legislation hitherto possessed by Convocation to the Crown, is adduced as proof that to the nation at large the powers of the clergy, for a long time resented, had at length become a yoke not to be borne. Yet it is clear that the policy of the king to crush the clergy in this way was by no means heartily supported by the Commons. There can be no doubt whatever that the petition of the Commons against the spirituality really emanated from the Court, and that the Lower House was compelled by direct royal influence to take the course indicated by royal will. Four drafts of the petition existing among the State papers in the Record Office put this beyond doubt, as they are all corrected in the well-known hand of Henry’s adviser at this time, Thomas Cromwell. The substance of the petition states that on account of the diffusion of heretical books, and the action of the bishops in spiritual courts, “much discord had arisen between the clergy and the laity at large.” The answer of the bishops denies all knowledge of this discord, at least on their parts. The ordinaries, they said, exercised spiritual jurisdiction, and no one might interfere in that, as their right to make laws in this sphere was from God, and could be proved by Scripture. The two jurisdictions could not clash as they were derived from the same source, namely, the authority given by God. Finally, they practically refused to consider the possibility of any just royal interference in matters of the purely ecclesiastical domain. Their resistance was, of course, as we know, of no avail; but the incident shows that up to the very eve of the changes the clergy had no notion of any surrender of their spiritual prerogatives, and that it was the Crown and not the Commons that was hostile to them.157

CHAPTER VI

ERASMUS

During the first portion of the sixteenth century Erasmus occupied a unique position in Europe. He was beyond question the most remarkable outcome of the renaissance in its literary aspect; and he may fairly be taken as a type of the critical attitude of mind in which many even of the best and the most loyal Catholics of the day approached the consideration of the serious religious problems which were, at that time, forcing themselves upon the notice of the ecclesiastical authorities. Such men held that the best service a true son of the Church could give to religion was the service of a trained mind, ready to face facts as they were, convinced that the Christian faith had nothing to lose by the fullest light and the freest investigation, but at the same time protesting that they would suffer no suspicion to rest on their entire loyalty of heart to the authority of the teaching Church.

Keenly alive to the spiritual wants of the age, and to what he, in common with many others of the time, considered crying abuses in the government of the Church, resulting from the excessive temporal grandeur of ecclesiastics engaged in secular sovereignty and government, Erasmus, like many of his contemporaries, is often perhaps injudicious in the manner in which he advocated reforms. But when the matter is sifted to the bottom, it will commonly be found that his ideas are just. He clamoured loudly and fearlessly for the proper enforcing of ecclesiastical discipline, and for a complete change in the stereotyped modes of teaching; and he proclaimed the need of a thorough literary education for Churchmen as the best corrective of what he held to be the narrowing formalism of mediæval scholastic training. It is, perhaps, hardly wonderful that his general attitude in these matters should have been misunderstood and exaggerated. By many of his Catholic contemporaries he was looked upon as a secret rebel against received authority, and in truth as the real intellectual force of the whole Lutheran movement. By the Reformers themselves, regarded as at heart belonging to them, he was upbraided as a coward, and spoken of as one who had not the courage of his convictions. Posterity has represented him now in the one aspect, now in the other, now as at best a lukewarm Catholic, now as a secret and dangerous heretic. By most Catholics probably he has been regarded as a Reformer, as pronounced even as Luther himself; or to use the familiar phrase founded upon an expression of his own, they considered that “his was the egg which Luther hatched.” Few writers have endeavoured to read any meaning into his seemingly paradoxical position by reference to his own explanations, or by viewing it in the light of the peculiar circumstances of the times in which he lived, and which are, to some extent at least, responsible for it.

Desiderius Erasmus was born at Rotterdam, in the year 1467. His father’s Christian name was Gerhard, of which Desiderius was intended for the Latin, and Erasmus for the Greek, equivalent. Other surname he had none, as he was born out of wedlock; but his father adopted the responsibility of his education, for which he provided by placing him first as a chorister in the cathedral of Utrecht, and subsequently by sending him to Deventer, then one of the best schools in Northern Europe. Deventer was at that time presided over by the learned scholar and teacher Alexander Hegius, and amongst his fellow-students there, Erasmus found several youths who subsequently, as men, won for themselves renown in the learned world. One of them, under the title of Adrian VI., subsequently occupied the Papal chair.

His father and mother both died of the plague whilst Erasmus was still young. At the age of thirteen he was taken from Deventer by the three guardians to whose charge he had been committed, and sent to a purely ecclesiastical school, meant to prepare those intended only for a life in the cloister. Here he remained for three years, and after having for a considerable time resisted the suggestions of his masters that he should join their Order, he finally entered the novitiate of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine at Stein, near Gouda. Here he was professed at the age of nineteen, and after the usual interval was ordained priest.

Much obscurity and many apparent contradictions prevent us fully understanding Erasmus’s early life, and in particular the portion spent by him in the cloister. One thing, however, would seem to be quite clear; he could never have had any vocation for the religious life. His whole subsequent history shows this unmistakeably; and the ill-judged zeal of those who practically forced him into a state for which he was constitutionally unfitted, and for which he had no aptitude or inclination, must, if we take his account of the facts as correct, be as strongly condemned by all right-thinking people as by himself. He, however, appears not to have understood that this may have been a special case, and not the usual lot of youths entering religion. One evident result of his experience is the bitter feeling created in his heart towards the religious Orders and the uncompromising hostility he ever after displayed towards them. In the celebrated letter he wrote to the papal secretary, Lambert Grunnius, which was intended for the information of the Pope himself, and which is supposed to describe his own case, Erasmus justly condemns in the strongest language the practice of enticing youths into the cloister before they were fully aware of what they were doing. If we are to believe the statements made in that letter, Erasmus did not think that his was by any means a singular case. Agents of the religious Orders, he declared, were ever hanging about the schools and colleges, endeavouring to entice the youthful students into their ranks by any and every method. But he is careful to add, “I do not condemn the religious Orders as such. I do not approve of those who make the plunge and then fly back to liberty as a licence for loose living, and desert improperly what they undertook foolishly. But dispositions vary; all things do not suit all characters, and no worse misfortune can befall a youth of intellect than to be buried under conditions from which he can never after extricate himself. The world thought well of my schoolmaster guardian because he was neither a liar nor a scamp nor a gambler, but he was coarse, avaricious, and ignorant, he knew nothing beyond the confused lessons he taught to his classes. He imagined that in forcing a youth to become a monk he would be offering a sacrifice acceptable to God. He used to boast of the many victims which he destined to Dominic and Francis and Benedict.”158

Without any taste for the routine of conventual life, and with his mind filled by an ardent love of letters, which there seemed in the narrow circle of his cloister no prospect of ever being able to gratify, the short period of Erasmus’s stay at Stein must have been to him in the last degree uncongenial and irksome. Fortunately, however, for his own peace of mind and for the cause of general learning, a means was quickly found by which he was practically emancipated from the restraints he ought never to have undertaken. The Bishop of Cambray obtained permission to have him as secretary, and after keeping him a short time in this position he enabled him to proceed to the University of Paris. From this time Erasmus was practically released from the obligations of conventual life; and in 1514, when some question had been raised about his return to the cloister, he readily obtained from the Pope a final release from a form of life for which obviously he was constitutionally unfitted, and the dress of which he had been permitted to lay aside seven years previously.

The generosity of his episcopal patron did not suffice to meet all Erasmus’s wants. To add to his income he took pupils, and with one of them, Lord Mountjoy, he came to England in 1497. He spent, apparently, the next three years at Oxford, living in the house which his Order had at that University; whilst there he made the acquaintance of the most learned Englishmen of that time, and amongst others of Grocyn, Linacre, and Colet. He also at this time took up the study of the Greek language, with which previously he had but a slender acquaintance, and his ardour was so great that the following year, 1498, whilst at work on the Adagia, he could write, “I am giving my whole soul to the study of Greek; directly I get some money I shall buy Greek authors first, and then some clothes.” From 1499 to 1506 he was continually moving about in various learned centres of France and Holland, his longest stay being at the University of Louvain.

In the April of 1506 he was again in England, first with Archbishop Warham and Sir Thomas More in London, and subsequently at Cambridge; but in a few months he was enabled to carry out the plan of visiting Italy which he had long contemplated. He engaged to escort the two sons of Sebastian Boyer, the English court physician, as far as Bologna, and by September he was already in Turin, where he took his doctor’s degree in divinity. The winter of the same year he passed at Bologna, and reached Venice in the spring of 1507.

His main object in directing his steps to this last-named city was to pass the second and enlarged edition of his Adagia through the celebrated Aldine printing-press. Here he found gathered together, within reach of the press, a circle of illustrious scholars. Aldus himself, a man, as Erasmus recalled in a letter written in 1524, “approaching the age of seventy years, but in all matters relating to letters still in the prime of his youth,” was his host. In 1508 Erasmus removed to Padua, and the following year passed on to Rome, where he was well received. His stay in the eternal city at this time was not prolonged, for a letter received from Lord Mountjoy announcing the death of Henry VII., and the good affection of his youthful successor to learning, determined him to turn his face once more towards England. He had left the country with keen regret, for, as he wrote to Dean Colet, “I can truly say that no place in the world has given me so many friends – true, learned, helpful, and illustrious friends – as the single city of London,” and he looked forward to his return with pleasurable expectation.

For a brief period on his arrival again in this country Erasmus stayed in London at the house of Sir Thomas More, where, at his suggestion, he wrote the Enconium Moriæ, one of the works by which he is best known to the general reader, and the one, perhaps, the spirit of which has the most given rise to many mistaken notions as to the author’s religious convictions.

From London, in 1510, he was invited by Bishop Fisher to come and teach at Cambridge, where by his influence he had been appointed Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity and Regius Reader of Greek. “Unless I am much mistaken,” Erasmus writes, “the Bishop of Rochester is a man without an equal at this time, both as to integrity of life, learning, or broad-minded sympathies. One only do I except, as a very Achilles, the Archbishop of Canterbury (Warham), who alone keeps me in London, though I confess not very unwillingly.”159

In estimating the spirit which dictated the composition of the Moriæ, it is well to remember not only that it represented almost as much the thought and genius of Sir Thomas More as of Erasmus himself, but that, at the very time it was taking definite shape in More’s house at Chelsea, the author’s two best friends were the two great and devout churchmen, Archbishop Warham and the saintly Bishop Fisher. Moreover, Sir Thomas More himself denies that to this work of Erasmus there can justly be affixed the note of irreverence or irreligion; he answers for the good intention of the author, and accepts his own share of responsibility for the publication of the book.

The period of Erasmus’s stay at Cambridge did not extend beyond three years. The stipend attached to his professorships was not large, and Erasmus was still, apparently, in constant want of money. Archbishop Warham continued his friend, and by every means tried continually to interest others directly in the cause of learning and indirectly in the support of Erasmus, who is ever complaining that his means are wholly inadequate to supply his wants. The scholar, however, remained on the best of terms with all the chief English churchmen of the day, until, as he wrote to the Abbot of St. Bertin, “Erasmus has been almost transformed into an Englishman, with such overwhelming kindness do so many treat me, and above all, my special Mæcenas, the Archbishop of Canterbury. He indeed is not only my patron, but that of all the learned, amongst whom I but hold a low place. Immortal gods! how pleasant, how ready, how fertile is the wit of that man! What dexterity does he not show in managing the most complicated business! What exceptional learning! What singular courtesy does he not extend to all! What gaiety and geniality at interviews! so that he never sends people away from him sad. Added to this, how great and how prompt is his liberality! He alone seems to be ignorant of his own great qualities and the height of his dignity and fortune. No one can be more true and faithful to his friends; and, in a word, he is truly a Primate, not only in dignity, but in everything worthy of praise.”160

Erasmus returns to this same subject in writing to a Roman Cardinal about this time. When I think, he says, of the Italian sky, the rich libraries, and the society of the learned men in Rome, I am tempted to look back to the eternal city with regret. “But the wonderful kindness of William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, to me mitigates my desire to return. Had he been my father or brother he could not have been more kind and loving. I have been accorded, too, the same reception by many other bishops of England. Amongst these stands pre-eminent the Bishop of Rochester, a man who, in addition to his uprightness of life, is possessed of deep and varied learning, and of a soul above all meanness, for which gifts he is held here in England in the highest estimation.”161

Erasmus certainly had reason to be grateful to Warham and his other English friends for their ready attention to his, at times importunate, requests. Warham, he writes at one time, “has given me a living worth a hundred nobles and changed it at my request into a pension of one hundred crowns. Within these few years he has given me more than four hundred nobles without my asking. One day he gave me one hundred and fifty. From other bishops I have received more than one hundred, and Lord Mountjoy has secured me a pension of one hundred crowns.” In fact, in the Compendium Vitæ, a few years later, he says that he would have remained for the rest of his life in England had the promises made to him been always fulfilled. This constant and importunate begging on the part of the great scholar forms certainly an unpleasant feature in his life. He gets from Dean Colet fifteen angels for a dedication, and in reference to his translation of St. Basil on the Prophet Isaias, begs Colet to find out whether Bishop Fisher will be inclined “to ease his labours with a little reward,” adding himself, “O this begging! I know well enough that you will be laughing at me.”162 Again, whilst lamenting his poverty and his being compelled to beg continually in this way, he adds that Linacre has been lecturing him for thus pestering his friends, and has warned him to spare Archbishop Warham and his friend Mountjoy a little. In this same letter, written in October 1513, there are signs of friction with some of the Cambridge teachers of theology, which may have helped Erasmus in his determination once more to leave England. Not that he professed to care what people thought, for he tells Colet he does not worry about those whom he calls in derision “the Scotists,” but would treat them as he would a wasp. Nevertheless, he is still half inclined by the opposition to stop the work he is engaged on; confessing, also, that he is almost turned away from the design of thus translating St. Basil, as the Bishop of Rochester is not anxious for him to do it, and – at least so a friend has told him – rather suspects that he is translating, not from the original Greek, but is making use of a Latin version.