2 Ep. Eras., Ep. 215, 1, 449-452. At the same time, and probably in the same packet of mail, Erasmus received a short note from his other great English patron, William Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, offering him a substantial sum of money for the expenses of his trip (Ep. 214, p. 449).

3 Ibid., Ep. 216, 1, 452-454. Paul Oskar Kristeller reports in Renaissance News XIV (1961), 11-14, a hitherto unpublished letter to Erasmus from an Italian humanistphysician, Daniel Scevola. He seems to have been no more than a slight acquaintance; the letter probably never reached Erasmus; and it has no bearing on the problem under discussion here. It is dated from Ferrara 22 December 1509, six months or so after Erasmus’ departure from Italy.

4 Ibid., Ep. 218, 1, 455-456. There is one exception, a letter from Paolo Bombace (Paulus Bombasius), a learned humanist of Bologna and one of Erasmus’ closest friends in Italy. Unfortunately for what light it might shed on the problem at hand the original of this letter no longer exists and we have it only in a two-line abstract made by the eighteenth-century Italian scholar Fantuzzi in his Notizie degli scrittori Bolognesi. Its text apparently contained no reference to Erasmus at all and it was simply addressed to him —'di Paolo ad Erasmo'—with no place designated. Furthermore, Allen dates it, with some question, in March 1511, a month or less before the end of our ‘lost’ period. See Ep. Eras., Ep. 217, I, 454 and also Ep. 210, p. 443, for bibliographical note on the whole volume of correspondence of which this piece is part. Any attempt to recover more of the Bombasius correspondence is apparently a dead end. See de Nolhac, P., Les Correspondants d'Aide Manuce (Rome, 1888), pp. 83–84 Google Scholar, and notes.

5 Ep. Eras., 1, 36-37.

6 The value of this corpus of correspondence has long been appreciated. Nolhac considered it as important for this period as the letters of Petrarch or Voltaire for theirs. See his Erasme et l'ltalie (Paris, 1925), pp. 18-19. For the past half century every serious student of Erasmus has stood particularly in the debt of P. S. Allen for his monumental edition of the letters. While nearly all the modern biographical studies of Erasmus acknowledge this debt, for the purposes of this paper see especially de Vocht, op. cit., pp. viii-ix; Ferguson, Wallace K., The Renaissance in Historical Thought: Five Centuries of Interpretation (Boston, 1948), p. 275 Google Scholar; and Roland H. Bainton, ‘Interpretations of the Reformation’, American Historical Review LXVI (1960), 74-75, 84.

7 There are several gaps in the very early correspondence, as one might reasonably expect, and this should not constitute an exception to the statement in the text. The most conspicuous lapse is between the end of 1489 and some time in the year 1493. It was during this time that Erasmus left the monastery of Steyn to become secretary to the Bishop of Cambrai, in the spring of 1492. The changed pattern of his life, increased business, etc., might account for the scarcity of letters. Moreover, most of the early letters we have are rhetorical exercises rather than letters in a real sense. See Ep. Eras., Eps. 11-16, 1, 19-20. Some of them were later suppressed by Erasmus himself: as Albert Hyma points out in The Youth of Erasmus (Ann Arbor, 1930), p. 160, ‘Erasmus was ashamed of them afterwards and never published them.’ The early letters were collected only late in Erasmus’ life and then reluctantly. Most of them are dated with difficulty. See Ep. Eras., 1, Appendices II-V, pp. 583-590.

8 He gladly accepted a position as ‘guardian’ to the children of Henry VII's Italian court physician. See ibid., Ep. 267, I, 519n; Ep. 192, pp. 423-424; and Ep. 197, pp. 429-430. As he crossed the Alps Erasmus composed a long and melancholy rumination ‘On the Approach of Old Age’: he was actually only approaching the age of forty, but the poem is a reflection of the years of ill health, financial struggle, and demanding scholarship through which Erasmus had passed. The poem is noted here to contrast the mood in which he approached Italy to that in which he departed from it three years later. See Dr. C. Reedijk's recent and scholarly edition of The Poems ofDesiderius Erasmus (Leiden, 1956), pp. 280-290.

9 Nichols, op. cit., Ep. 110, 1, 225-226. See also Ep. Eras., Ep. 188, 1, 273-274.

10 The University of Turin awarded him the doctorate in theology: ibid., Ep. 200, I, 431-432, and the biographical account of Beatus Rlienanus to Wied, p. 55. See also ibid., Ep. 205,1, 434-435 and Appendix VI, I, 590-593.

11 While Erasmus’ acquaintance among the great in Rome may not have matched his boast some years later to the prior of his monastery—'Romae nullus erat Cardinalis qui me non tanquam fratrem acciperet’ (ibid., Ep. 296, 1, 568)—he was well acquainted with the learned Egidio de Viterbo and Tommaso Inghirami, the Cardinals Grimani, Riario, and Medici, the later Leo x. For a close study of these associations, see Karl Schätti, Erasmus von Rotterdam und die Römische Kurie (Basel und Stuttgart, 1954), especially the opening pages.

12 For the progress of the edition and his relations with the Aldine circle see Ep. Eras., Ep. 207, 1, 437-439 and Ep. 209, pp. 440-442 as well as the later colloquy, ‘Sordid Wealth’. For the latter see Opera omnia, emendatiora et auctiora, ad optimos editiones, praecuipe quas ipse Erasmuspostremo curavit… (Lugduni Batavorum, MDCCIV), I, 862-866 as well as Preserved Smith, A Key to the Colloquies of Erasmus (Cambridge, Mass., 1927), pp. 51-53. The letter of dedication, addressed to Lord Mountjoy, is in Ep. Eras., Ep. 211, I, 443-447. See also Firmin-Didot, Ambroise, Alde Manuce et l'Hellenisme à Venise (Paris, 1875), PP. 148–149, 452-453Google Scholar.

13 Erasmus and the Northern Renaissance (London, 1959), p. 61. The classic authorities on Erasmus in Italy, Nolhac and Renaudet, are in substantial agreement. Nolhac is emphatic enough to hold that, in spite of Erasmus’ age at this time (cf. note 8 above), the Italian journey ‘appartienne encore a sa jeunesse, du moins a cette periode de preparation intellectuelle qui se prolongeait si longtemps chez les hommes d'autrefois (op. cit., pp. 16-17). See also Augustin Renaudet, Erasme et Vltalie (Geneva, 1954), p. xi, as well as his briefer ‘Erasme, sa vie et son oeuvre jusqu'en 1517’, Revue Historique CXI (1913), 244-246.

14 Nolhac, op. cit., p. 63.

15 Huizinga, Johan, Erasmus and the Age of Reformation (New York, 1957), p. 67 Google Scholar.

16 Ibid.

17 Allen, P. S., The Age of Erasmus (Oxford, 1914), p. 143 Google Scholar.

18 It is true not only of Erasmian materials as such but of the materials pertaining to the people he knew on whose references we might depend. There is no substantial body of materials preserved for this period for any of his English friends, the people most likely to have known his movements during the years in question. The More correspondence, collected by Elizabeth F. Rogers (Princeton, 1947), is as silent as that of Erasmus. The standard ‘life and works’ of Colet, Joseph H. Lupton, A Life of John Colet (London, 1887), cites no corpus of correspondence aside from Colet's letters to Erasmus in the Erasmian Opus epistolarum, with the exception of a letter to Wolsey in 1517 and several of Colet's works in epistolary form (pp. 90 ff., 286 ff.). In any event none of these has relevance to the period under survey. The recent monograph of Clemente Pizzi, Un amico di Erasmo: Vumanista Andrea Ammonio (Firenze, 1956), uses the standard materials and cites no new evidence for this period. There is nothing pertaining to this problem on his older English friends Grocyn and Linacre. The same is the case with the carefully edited and comprehensive Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, ed. J. S. Brewer, vols. 1 and n, parts 1 and 2 (London, 1862), even though they contain abstracts of a great body of private correspondence of virtually every important public, semipublic, and literary figure of the age.

The problem is aggravated by the fact that there is no major work of modern scholarship that adequately treats this period of Erasmus’ life. The general works such as Preserved Smith, Erasmus, A Study of his Life, Ideals, and Place in History (New York, 1923), Huizinga, op. cit., or Phillips, op. cit., treat the problem in a sentence or two. The massive polemical work of John J. Mangan, The Life, Character and Influence ofDesiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (New York, 1927) is little better. The careful studies of Paul Mestwerdt, Die Anfdnge des Erasmus (Leipzig, 1917, Studien zur Kultur und Geschichte der Reformation 11) and Hyma, op. cit., stop short of this period of his life. The same is the case with the studies of Nolhac and Renaudet of Erasmus in Italy. Nothing has yet replaced the pioneer study of Erasmus in England, Seebohm, op. cit. The excellent later studies of Erasmus’ English friends have not addressed this problem. This is true even of R. W. Chambers, Thomas More (London, 1935): see p. 102, which simply echoes the opinion of Allen.

19 Again we turn for the dating of this letter to the authority of Allen. See Ep. Eras., Ep. 222, 1, 459-460, intro. This is a particularly troublesome letter since it carries a misleading year date and no specific place reference, simply ending, ‘Ex Rure Quinto Idus Iunias [An. M.D.VIII]’. The year date was added only in the Froben edition of 1522, presumably either by Erasmus or with his consent. He was notoriously careless or, if one prefers, evasive about dates and may in this case simply have been too hurried by other concerns to check an offhand recollection. Allen demonstrates conclusively that 1511 is the actual year to which the letter belongs. The ‘Ex Rure’ may refer to some country place near Paris, where the book was in press in the summer of 1511. It certainly does not refer to More's ‘suburban’ place at Chelsea as some writers have thought. This house was not purchased until the mid-l520s and the More house that Erasmus knew was that at Bucklersbury ‘in the very middle of London'. The genealogy of this error leads back to Froude, James H., Life and Letters of Erasmus (New York, [c. 1894]), pp. 97, 108Google Scholar. See Chambers, op. tit., pp. 182-183 and 183 n. 1; and Routh, E. M. G., Sir Thomas More and his Friends, 1477-1535 (London, 1934), p. 38 Google Scholar.

20 The translation used is that of Leonard F. Dean in his recent and careful edition of The Praise of Folly (New York, 1946), p. 37.

21 This letter is quoted in part in Nichols, op. cit., 1, 464-465. It is the same letter to which Allen probably refers in Ep. Eras., Ep. 216, I, 452, intro.

22 In the biographical sketch which Beatus Rhenanus prepared to accompany the Froben edition of Erasmus’ works in 1540, he wrote, ‘Itaque per Alpes Rheticas Curiam primum, deinde Constantiam ad lacum Brigantinum profectus, transito Lentiensium tractu qui sunt ad Martianae syluae initium, quod priscis Orcynium fuit, per Brisigauos Argentoratum venit, vnde sequundo Rheno in Hollandiam vectus est. Mox amicis suis Antuerpiae et Louanii salutatis Angliam adit’ (ibid., 1, 62). In a letter which Allen dates in the autumn of 1512, to Adolphus of Veere, Erasmus refers somewhat wistfully to this visit to Louvain: ‘Quoties poenituit me fortunam quam ante triennium mihi Louanii ofFerebas non amplexum fuisse! Sed turn quidem amplae spes me ferocem reddiderant et aurei Britanniae montes animo concepti; sed earn cristam mihi depressit fortuna’ (ibid., Ep. 266, 1, 519). The date (autumn 1512), the reference to ‘three years ago', and the reference to his hopes for preferment in England tend to pinpoint the letter.

23 The quoted passage is from Nichols, op. cit., 1, 33, the translation of the Beatus Rhenanus sketch cited in note 22 above. The date of his arrival in England, prboable enough, is gratuitously assigned by Nichols, 1, 465.

24 Ep. Eras., Ep. 337, II, 94. Erasmus mentions it again, much later, in his ‘Catalogus omnium Erasmi lucubrationum’, which he wrote to his friend Johann Botzheim (Basel, 3o Jan. 1523), ‘Moriam lusimus apud Thomam Morum, turn ex Italia reuersi’ (ibid., 1, 19).

25 ‘ … aurei Britanniae montes’ (ibid., Ep. 266, 1, 519).

26 Ames, Russell, Citizen Thomas More and his Utopia (Princeton, 1949), pp. 44–45 Google Scholar, ‘We find Thomas More … giving a home to Erasmus probably for eighteen months, from the time his friend wrote the Encomium Moriae … until he took the book to Paris.’ Huizinga, op. cit., pp. 79-80, seems to imply a longer residence than seems feasible, i.e. ‘During these months he was able to work without interruption… . As soon as he no longer enjoys More's hospitality the difficulties and complaints recommence. Continued poverty, uncertainty and dependence were extraordinarily galling to a mind requiring above all things liberty. At Paris he charged Badius with a new, revised edition of the Adagia….’

27 Nichols, op. cit., II, 11. See also Ep. Eras., Ep. 218, 1, 456.

28 H. Maynard Smith, in his generally fine ‘background’ book for this period, Pre-Reformation England (London, 1938) telescopes die time here. He takes a reference from 1516, ‘ni iam me taederet Britanniae, et sentirem me vetulum iam hospitem vxori Moricae supputere’ (Ep. Eras., Ep. 451, II, 317), and reads it back to 1510. Jane had been dead five years (ibid., Ep. 228, 1, 468-369n) and More had long since married the ‘aged, blunt, rude, and barren’ Mistress Alice. See the reference in Chambers, op. cit., p. 109.

29 Ibid., pp. 98 ff., 184 ff. Much of this comes from the famous description of More and his household which Erasmus wrote to Ulrich von Hutten. See Ep. Eras., Ep. 999, IV, 12-23. The growing business of More at this time is well documented. He was closely associated with the Inns of Court (Lincoln's Inn Black Books, 1, bk. iii, fol. 8, p. 145; fol. 12, p. 146; fol. 15, p. 155; fol. 39, p. 165). For his connections with the Mercers’ Company, see Acts of Court of the Mercers’ Company, 1453-1527, ed. L. Lyell (Cambridge, 1937). P- 3 2 0 - See also Appendix D of Ames, op. cit., pp. 186-187. Some of his other activities are mentioned in L. P. Henry VIII, 1, no. 3071. In general see the fine historical notes to Nicholas Harpsfield, The Life and Death of St. Thomas More, ed. E. V. Hitchcock, intro. R. W. Chambers (Oxford, 1932, E.E.T.S.), p. 312.

30 See not only the letter referred to, Ep. Eras., Ep. 215, 1, 449-452, but the rather blunt assertion by Allen in the prefatory note to Ep. 204 (1, 434) that ‘the invitation to Erasmus to return to England [was] one of the first acts of the new reign’.

31 He had favorably impressed the young prince when they had met in 1499 or 1500 at Eltham. See ibid., 1, 6; Ep. 104, pp. 239 ff. There had been a friendly exchange of letters between them while Erasmus was in Italy. See ibid., Ep. 204, 1, 433-434 and Ep. 206, pp. 433-437.

32 See the ‘Letter to Servatius’, 8 July 1514, ibid., Ep. 296, 1, 569, ‘nunc quoque saepe sic de me loquitur vt nemo honorificentius, nemo amantius; et quoties eum saluto, blandissime complectitur et oculis amicissimis obtuetur, vt intelligas eum non minus bene de me sentire quam loqui. Et saepe mandauit suo eleemosynario [the redoubtable Wolsey] vt mihi de sacerdotio prospiceret.’ For the scantiness of Henry's patronage see Allen's note on Ep. 204, 1, 433-434.

33 There seems to be some confusion in both the standard authorities and the public records on this point. Allen, ibid., Ep. 120,1, 283n, gives the date 26 June 1503, with the commission carrying back to April, and bases his conclusion on Record Office files. On the other hand Sir Sidney Lee, in his sketch of Mountjoy in DNB, states with equal authority, ‘Towards the end of the year [1509] he was appointed lieutenant of the castle of Hammes, in Picardy, and of the marches of Calais.’ Some doubt is cast on this position since Erasmus dated a letter ‘Ex arce Hammensi’ which carried the year date 1503, but which Allen dates 1506 (Ep. Eras., Ep. 193,1, 426).

34 In DNB, Lee says, ‘In 1511 Mountjoy was in England again,’ implying that he had been gone the whole time since his appointment in 1509. We may assume that he returned to England from time to time during this period, for he had other duties, but the next definite reference we have to him is in Ep. Eras., Ep. 218, 1, 455-456, where Erasmus is with him at Dover as they are both bound for the continent once more in April 1511.

35 In a letter dated 14 March 1513-1514, to Anthony of Bergen (ibid., Ep. 288, 1, 551), Erasmus speaks of his two English pensions, from Mountjoy and Warham. Warham's pension can be dated specifically from ecclesiastical records, 31 July 1512 (ibid., Ep. 255, I, 50In) and in referring to Mountjoy's pension Erasmus says, ‘Tantundem addit alter ille Mecoenas de suo'. The ‘addit’ strongly implies that this pension cannot be dated earlier than Warham's. In his letter to Servatius (ibid., Ep. 206,1, 569), Erasmus gives the amount of the pension as a hundred crowns and for rather obvious reasons exaggerates his financial success in England. In contrast, see for example ibid., Ep. 333, II, 68-73 a nd Ep- 334, PP- 73-79-

36 In a letter to Colet (ibid., Ep. 231, I, 471-472): ‘praesertim si redeat Montioius, vt liceat mihi domo illius vti, quod nunc per Cerberum ilium non licet’. He makes the same reference in a letter to Ammonio, ibid., Ep. 240, I, 483.

37 Nichols, op. cit., Ep. 247, II, 45. See Ep. Eras., Ep. 261, 1, 512-513. Just before his visit to Italy, when he was last in England, Erasmus had been introduced to Warham by Grocyn and had presented him with a translation of Euripides’ Hecuba. The archbishop had not warmed to Erasmus immediately. Later, in Paris, Erasmus had the work printed along with another and publicly dedicated them to Warham. See ibid., Ep. 188, I, 417-420 and the ‘Letter to Botzheim’, pp. 4-5. Warham also sent him money for his return to England (note 2 above). In 1512 he presented Erasmus with his pension (note 35 above). From the absence of later references we must assume that Warham provided Erasmus with no other substantial aid between July 1509 and July 1512.

38 Erasmus had probably met Fisher only shortly before leaving for Italy when the bishop wanted to install him at Cambridge. For the connection here see Ronald Bayne, The Life of Fisher transcribed from MS. Harleian 6382 (E.E.T.S. Extra Series 117, 1921), pp. 9-12. See also Grace Book I, Containing the Records of the University of Cambridge for the Years 1501-1542, ed. Wm. G. Searle (Cambridge, 1908), p. 46 as well as Ep. Eras., Ep. 225, I, 465ns Appendix VI, I, 590-593; and the whole series of ‘Cambridge’ letters that follows until January 1514. As shortly after our period as 8 Feb. [1515], Erasmus wrote of Fisher, ‘Aut egregie fallor, aut is vir est vnus cum quo nemo sit hac tempestate conferendus vel integritate vitae, vel eruditione, vel animi magnitudine; vnum excipio Cantuariensem [Warham] tanquam Achillem; qui solus hie me retinet, etiamsi non admodum volentem’ (ibid., Ep. 254,1, 501).

39 Ibid., Ep. 187, 1, 416-417. For the rest of these men the best single source is probably L. P. Henry VIII, in which I find no reference pertinent to the present time or problem.

40 Nichols, op. cit., II, 33. Cf. Ep. Eras., Ep. 241, 1, 484-485. Erasmus takes the same contrite tone in an unusually candid letter to Colet, ibid., Ep. 237,1, 478, referring to all he has received from Warham and Mountjoy. Grocyn enjoyed a number of ecclesiastical benefices: Sir Sidney Lee in DNB says, ‘His emoluments were considerable', but one should not imagine them considerable enough to support much more than extended hospitality, not elaborate patronage.

41 See, for example, Ep. Eras., Ep. 218, 1, 456; Ep. 225, pp. 465-466; Ep. 229, p. 469; Ep. 237, p. 478; and Ep. 248, p. 495.

42 In ibid., Ep. 237, 1, 478: ‘lam etiam Linacro nostro videor parum verecundus, qui cum sciret me Londino discedere vix sex instructum nobilibus, et valetudinem optime norit, ad haec instantem hyemem, tamen sedulo monet vti parcam Archiepiscopo, vti parcam domino Montioio; sed ipse potius me contraham et assuescam fortiter ferre paupertatem. O amicum consilium!’ The time of this incident cannot be conclusively fixed. But it was surely in the recent past and the reference to his departure from London places it in or immediately after the period with which we are concerned. Erasmus made one quick trip to London from Cambridge to which he refers in ibid., Ep. 231, 1, 471.

43 See the references in my article, ‘Erasmus and the Apologetic Textbook: a Study of the De duplici copia verborum ac rerum’, Studies in Philology LV (1958), 123. See also the letter to Colet, Ep. Eras., Ep. 237,1, 467, part of a running debate through several letters, in which he complains of his poverty and the necessity of begging: ‘O mendicitatem! iam rides, sat scio. At ego meipsum odi, planeque decretum est aut aliquam nancisci fortunam quae me ab his mendicabulis eximat, aut prorsus Diogenem imitare.’ In Ep. 230, I, 471, ‘quid ego cum pecuniis aliorum, vnde iudices aut suspicere apud me esse pecunias quoquo modo mihi creditas’, and the passage following.

44 Ibid., Ep. 187a, III, xxixn.

45 Ibid., Ep. 232, 1, 472 and Ep. 236, p. 476.

46 Ibid., Ep. 215, 1, 449∼450n and Ep. 218, p. 455n. See also his fulsome letter of dedication to Mountjoy which accompanied the volume of verses which Erasmus took to Paris for him, Ep. 220, 1, 457.

47 Nichols, op. cit., II, 14. See also Ep. Eras., Ep. 221, 1, 458-459. Because of this reference to their shared lodgings and the reference to their both living, at one time or another, with More (see note 42 above) Allen concludes, ‘the period before this journey had evidently been spent in London, where he had been living with Ammonius (Ep. 221.28) in More's house in Bucklersbury’ (Ep. 218, p . 455n). This might certainly have been the case, but it does not rule out the possibility that they also shared separate lodgings. This is the conclusion of Mangan, one of the closest, if most hostile, students of Erasmus: ‘It would appear, however, that he and his friend Andreas Ammonius… went into hired lodgings, and to some extent Erasmus thereby realized the dream of his youth, which was to live together with some choice literary spirit with whom he might share his thoughts and aspirations’ (1, 326). On this point Allen has the agreement of Pizzi, op. cit., p. 18, where he says, ‘Nel 1511 entrò nel collegio di San Tomaso, ove—egli dice—non si trovava affatto meglio che nella famiglia del Moro. La povertá non gli permetteva di aprire casa e di vivere a suo piacere.’ Ammonio's move to the College of St. Thomas of Aeon is documented by a letter from Erasmus dated, without question, 5 Oct. 1511. Erasmus referred to a recent trip to London (cf. the reference in the preceding letter to Colet, Ep. 231,1, 471) and expressed surprise that Ammonio was not staying with More, as he had apparently been doing just before this, but had already moved into the College of St. Thomas (Ep. 232,1, 472). Pizzi's last reference to Ammonio's inability to afford a place of his own refers also to a time somewhat later than our period.

48 This assertion is based upon the probability that Erasmus and Mountjoy would hardly be in Dover at the same time unless in each other's company. Nothing in the phrasing makes it certain, i.e. ‘Cum Douariae per occasionem ostendissem Mecoenati nostro tua poemata, ingenium et eruditionem vbique probauit’, Ep. 218, 1, 455.

49 The reference is Ep. 218, 1, 456, ‘Linacro meis verbis etiam gratulare; siquidem audiui apud Archiepiscopum quod audiui non illibenter.’ The allusion to Linacre's good fortune helps fix both the time and place. The Canterbury Register [Reg. Warham, f. 341] records the appointment of Thomas Linacre, M.D., to the ecclesiastical living at Hawkhurst, dated ‘24 die Mensis Mart. A.D. 1510 [1511] apud Cant …', quoted in Nichols, op. cit., ii, n n and cited in Ep. Eras., Ep. 218,1, 456 n. 17.

50 Ibid., Ep. 108, 1, 246-249.

61 Mangan, op. cit., 1, 327.

62 ‘Basilium in Hesaiam’, Ep. Eras., Ep. 227, 1, 467, and the preface to the same work, Ep. 229, pp. 469-470: ‘Ad quas si breuius respondeo, diuo Hieronymo debes imputare, quern interpretandum suscepi’, ibid., Ep. 245, 1, 492; ‘Quod ni me sic torqueret Hieronymus, etc.’, ibid., Ep. 248, 1, 495.

53 Nichols, op. cit., Ep. 280, II, 118-119. Ep. Eras., Ep. 264, 1, 517-518. See also ibid., Ep. 245, I, 492; Ep. 248, p. 495.

54 P. S. Allen, ‘Erasmus’ Services to Learning’, British Academy Proceedings, 1924-25, XI (1927), 358. See Allen's introductory note to Ep. 373, Ep. Eras., II, 164-166, the preface to the Novum Instrumentum. In his letter to Servatius, dated 8 July 1514 (Ep. 296, I, 570), referring to his recent stay in England, Erasmus says, ‘His duobus annis praeter alia multa castigaui diui Hieronymi Epistolas; adulterina et subdititia obelis iugulaui, obscura scholiis illustraui. Ex Graecorum et antiquorum codicum collatine castigaui totum Nouum Testamentum, et supra mille loca annotaui non sine fructu theologorum. Commentaries in Epistolas Pauli incepi, quos absoluam, vbi haec edidero.’

55 Ibid., Ep. 373, II, 164-166, intro. note.

56 Ibid.

57 The leading item among these was the De copia uerborum ac rerum commentarii duo. He also translated and emended Lily's De syntaxi and wrote a number of poems for the school, notably a ‘Carmen rudimenta complectens hominis Christiani', and the collection containing the Concio de puero Iesu. He describes them all in the ‘Catalogus lucubrationum', ibid., 1, 6, 8, 9, and 21. See also the prefatory epistles, ibid., Ep. 260, 1, 510-512; Ep. 175, PP. 388-389; and the reference to the Hominis Christiani institutum in ibid., Ep. 298, 11, 2. See also Colet's letter in which he praises Erasmus for his educational ideas and his help to the school (Ep. 230, 1, 470).

58 Ibid., Ep. 175, 1, 388n.

59 Reedijk, op. cit., intro. Carmen 85, pp. 291-292, confirms the 1 Sept. 1511 date for the printing. He also traces the Concio back to its first draft in the form ‘Contestatio Salvatoris ad hominem sua culpa pereuntem. Carminis futuri rudimenta (Autumn 1499?)’, and connects it with the influence of Colet even at this early date. See p. 255, intro. Carmen 47.

60 Ep. Eras., 1, 21, ‘Nam Concionem de puero lesu pridem scripseram rogatu Ioannis Coleti.’

61 Reedijk, op. cit., item 84, pp. 290-291.

62 ‘Expecto abs te epitaphia scurrulae istius merobibi’, Ep. Eras., Ep. 216, 1, 454. The terms used here are so similar to those used in the Epitaphia published with the Concio that it is almost certainly the response to Borsody's request. See also the arguments of Reedijk, op. cit., pp. 290-291.

63 Ep. Eras., Ep. 333, II, 68-73, to Cardinal Riario and Ep. 334, pp. 73-79, to Cardinal Gramani, both dated 15 May 1515.

64 The quoted passages are from the L. F. Dean edition of the Praise of Folly, pp. 111-113.

65 Ep. Eras., Ep. 233, 1, 473; Ep. 232, p. 472; Ep. 245, p. 492; Ep. 248, pp. 494-495. See the detailed arguments in Erasmi Opuscula, a Supplement to the Opera Omnia, ed. W. K. Ferguson (The Hague, 1933), pp. 40-41.

66 Ep. Eras., Ep. 228,1, 468, ‘Audio Iulium maximum vita defunctum’.

67 Ferguson includes it in the Erasmi Opuscula, along with exhaustive and conclusive arguments and evidence for its authorship, pp. 41-44.

68 Ibid., p. 41.

69 Ibid., pp. 35-37.

70 This rendition of the epigram is no more than a paraphrase to convey the sense.

71 Erasmi Opuscula, p. 35. The inscription to More reads, ‘Th. Morus, Byth. Capad.’, and there is no explanation of the last two words. In spite of the autograph copy, Reedijk, p. 392, makes a rather elaborate argument against the Erasmian authorship, but, in my view, the arguments for attributing it to Erasmus are by no means demolished.

72 In the first extant Italian letter there is nothing but a report of hostilities, Ep. Eras., Ep. 200, 1, 431-432; in Ep. 203, p. 433, ‘Verum hie iam frigent studia, feruent bella’, and a passing reference to Julius’ investment of Bologna; in Ep. 205, ‘Summus Pontifex Iulius belligeratur, vincit, triunphat, planeque lulium agit.’ These represent the extent of his criticisms of Julius while he was in Italy.

73 The dispensation is reproduced in ibid., Ep. 187a, III, xxix-xxx. See also ibid., Ep. 517, I, n. 7 and Hyma, op. cit., p. 53 and n.

74 Renaudet, op. cit., p. 100.

75 Wallace K. Ferguson in Erasmi Opuscula, p. 35.

76 Ep. Eras., Ep. 219, 1, 456, ‘Proverbium quod istic ostendisti annota …'.

77 Reich, op. cit., pp. 130-131.

78 ‘Briefe aus dieser Zeit sind uns nicht erhalten; denn mit seinen Freunden, deren Kreis sich auf London beschränkte, stand er im personlichen Verkehr’, ibid. As if to emphasize this point, some of the most charming of his letters date in great numbers from the years at Cambridge which immediately followed this period. See Ep. Eras., Ep. 225, 1, 465 ff.

79 The correspondence with his companion in Greek studies, Bombasius, was picked up years later. See ibid., Ep. 729, III, 155-157; Ep. 800, pp. 254-255; and Ep. 855, pp. 355-358. The same was true of Aleander, who had been closely associated with Erasmus in Venice. See ibid., Ep. 256, 1, 502-503 and p. 503n; ibid., Ep. 1482, v, 528-530, when Aleander was a distinguished churchman. With his would-be patrons the Cardinals Riario and Grimani and Leo x, the correspondence is picked up in 1515 with Eps. 333-335, II, 68-90.

80 In the 1531 edition of the Colloquies, published by Froben and Episcopius, Erasmus added several new pieces, one of them called ‘Sordid Wealth’. This is a direct attack upon the family of Aldus. As Preserved Smith has pointed out in his Key to the Colloquies ojErasmus, pp. 52-53, the provocation for the attack was the controversy over Erasmus’ Ciceronianus (1528), which had annoyed several scholars. In the ensuing exchange of verbal blasts Erasmus suspected some of his old associates from the Aldine academy of slandering him. As a result he wrote a ‘counterattack’ in the form of this colloquy in which he described the miserly ways of the family of Aldus. Its obvious ungraciousness has been something of an embarrassment to Erasmus enthusiasts ever since. For the colloquy see Opera omnia, I, 862-866. The point of greatest importance for the present problem is not the immediate provocation for the work, the Ciceronian dispute, but why Erasmus singled out the family of Aldus as his target. I suggest a previous history of hostility. In die light of this suggestion, the slighting reference to Aldus in the Praise of Folly, ed. Dean, pp. 91-92, may have more point.

81 Cf. Ep. Eras., Ep. 207, 1, 437, the opening lines of his first letter to Aldus, ‘Illud apud me saepe numero optaui, doctissime Manuti, vt quantum lucis atulisses vtrique litteraturae, non solum arte tua formulisque longe nitidissimis, verum etiam ingenio doctrinaque neutiquam triuiali, tantundem emolumenti ilia tibi vicissim rettulisset. Nam quantum ad famam attinet, dubium non est quin in omnem vsque posteritatem Aldus Manutius volitaturus sit per omnium ora, quicunque litterarum sacris sunt initiati.’ The same sort of phrasing occurs in Ep. 209,1, 440-442.

82 Ibid., Ep. 213, 1, 449; but there is no indication in the letter itself of a cooled relationship.

83 He mentions the intention to Ammonio in a letter from Paris, 27 April 1511: ‘Prouerbium quod istic ostendisti annota; nam mea hie denuo imprimentur’ (Ep. 219,1, 456). He also mentions the availability of the Aldine copies, ‘et quidem mediocri precio'. See also the letter of his printer Badius, inquiring after this work and others in May 1512, ibid., Ep. 263,1, 514-516, which in fact he never printed. It was passed instead to Froben in Basel. See the prefatory letter, ibid., Ep. 269, 1, 521-525. In his ‘Catalogus lucubrationum', ibid., I, 17, Erasmus rather ingenuously explains, with the perspective of many years, ‘… quum ego interim copiosiorem syluam collegissem in Venetam aeditionem, quae prodiit ex omcina Aldina. Porro quoniam videbam hoc opus sic esse gratiosum apud studiosos vt victurum appareret et a multis typographis certatim aederetur, iterum atque iterum locupletaui, vt se dabat vel ocium vel maior librorum copia. Postrema manus aedita est apud Ioannem Frobenium, anno a natali Seruatoris 1523.'

84 He had been in Paris briefly in 1505; then again on the way to Italy in the summer of 1506 he had stopped there to get some manuscripts to the printers. There is no communication with Paris for the next six years. The tone of his last Parisian letters to Linacre, Colet, and Wentford, ibid. Eps. 194, 195, 196, 1, 426-429, clearly expresses his preference for England and his English friends over the anonymous ‘Gallicos amicos’. Robert Gaguin had died in 1501 and we hear nothing of Faustus Andrelinus after 1500. For additional commentary see Huizinga, op. cit., p. 58.

85 Both Batt and the bishop had died in 1502. See Ep. Eras., Ep. 172, 1, 380-381, and n. The Lady of Veere ceased to be a patron at about the same time and Erasmus’ hopeful connection with her ended abruptly. The relations with Servatius and the monastery were strained at best. Then in 1505 or 1506 Erasmus received the dispensation which freed him from the hold of his monastery. The text of the dispensation is quite specific: ‘… specialibus constitutionibus et ordinationibus, statutis quoque et consuetudinibus monasterii de Stein in Hollandia … dispensamus'; it is dated 4 Jan. 1505 or 1506 in ibid., Ep. 187a, III, xxix-xxx. See also ibid., Ep. 185, I, 414-415; Ep. 189, pp. 420-421; and Ep. 203, p. 433. As Huizinga observes, op. cit., p. 59, ‘Clearly his relations with Holland were not yet satisfactory. Servatius did not reply to his letters. Erasmus ever felt hanging over him a menace to his career and his liberty embodied in the figure of that friend, to whom he was linked by so many silken ties, yonder in the monastery of Steyn, where his return was looked forward to, sooner or later, as a beacon-light to Christendom.'

86 Nichols, op. cit., 1, intro., p. lxxxiv. For the Latin see Ep. Eras., Ep. 2203, VIII, 249-250. See also ibid., I, Appendix VII, pp. 593 ff., ‘The Principal Editions of Erasmus’ Epistolae’.

87 Nichols, op. cit., 1, p. lxxxix. For the Latin see Opera omnia, Ep. MCXCV, III, 1517-1518.

88 Allen feels that Erasmus, in earlier days, kept letter books. See Ep. Eras., I, Appendix VII p. 593. In 1501 he wrote to Batt asking for copies of letters—‘quae sunt apud te epistolae’ (Ep. 151, 1, 355). At the end of 1505 comes the first reference to an actual collection of a book of epistles. In writing to another friend he asks for copies of his letters, ‘Nam mihi in animo est vnum epistolarum librum edere’ ‘Ep. 186, 1, 415-416).

89 There is an enormous literature on the editions of Erasmus’ correspondence. For our purposes here it will be sufficient to refer to the lists of the principal editions of the letters and the critical comments on them in Ep. Eras., I, Appendix VII, pp. 593-602 as well as Allen's Erasmus: Lectures and Wayfaring Sketches (Oxford, 1934), pp. 19-20; Nichols, op. cit., I, intro., passim; Smith, Erasmus, pp. 204-206.

In his recommendations to Botzheim as to the order in which his works should be published, Erasmus specified the third volume for his letters ﹛Ep. Eras., 1, 39).

90 This is simply to say that nearly all the Erasmian correspondence we now have we have had since Erasmus himself supervised the great editions of his letters near the end of his life. See the references in note 89 above. P. S. Allen, with the cooperation of other Erasmian scholars, was unable to turn up more than some thirty ‘new letters’ for the first volume of his edition, up to the year 1514 of Erasmus’ life, out of a total of almost 300.

91 In the introductory critical notes to his translation of the letters Nichols, op. cit., I, xxii, says, ‘But in later times, when his epistles were addressed to more important correspondents, he did not care to publish these earlier productions. Only two epistles earlier than his thirtieth year (Epistles 26, 27) are included in the Farrago Epistolarum of 1519'. In the preface to the Epistolae ad diversos ﹛Ep. Eras., Ep. 1206, IV, 499), published 1521, he makes a point of the suppression of some of this early correspondence. Two years later, in the ‘Catalogus lucubrationum', he makes the following candid statement about his collections of letters generally: ‘… nam plaerasque lusimus adolescentes aut certe iuuenes. His repurgatis addemus nonnullas, aliquot fortasse submouebimus’ (1, 39).

92 Preserved Smith, in his Erasmus, pp. 206-207, says: ‘Comparison with the manuscripts, where they have survived, shows extensive and important alterations. Dates, added from memory, were frequently wrong, or were sometimes falsified intentionally to give a desired impression. Names were suppressed; whole passages were omitted, and others added. Justus Jonas remarked with astonishment that one of the humanist's letters to himself had been greatly expanded on publication, and corrupted by the introduction of an incorrect statement.’ In a letter to More, Ep. Eras, Ep. 785, III, 238, Erasmus asks for copies of some of their letters and tells More that he will alter certain passages to make them suitable for publication. He makes the same statement to Mountjoy about the same time, Ep. 783, in, 236. As another instance, the letter in which he thanks Ammonio for helping to arrange the papal dispensation with Leo x, Ep. 552, III, 504, is printed in the Farrago epistolarum, but removed from all later editions of the correspondence. See the comments of Nichols, op. cit., Ep. 533, n, 524-525. In Huizinga, op. cit., pp. 97-98, there is a clear and learned exposition of the status of the letter in the age of Erasmus and of his attitudes regarding his letters.

93 See notes 73 and 85 above.

94 Ep. Eras., Ep. 218, 1, 455-456; Ep. 219, p. 456.

95 Ibid., Ep. 222, 1, 459-460, Allen's introd. note to the preface to the Praise of Folly.

96 Nichols, op. cit. II, 8.

97 Renaudet, op. cit., p. 100, points out the same possibility in a parallel instance: ‘Aucune des lettres qu'Érasme a pu écrire de Rome ne subsiste, et pourtant il ne resta vraisemblablement pas sans confier ses impressions à l'amitié fidèle de More ou de Colet. Il a peut-être lui-même détruit une correspondance trop explicite.’