Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
AND DYSTOPIA
BETWEEN UTOPIA
AND DYSTOPIA
Erasmus, Thomas More, and the Humanist
Republic of Letters
Hanan Yoran
LEXINGTON BOOKS
A division of
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanham Boulder New York Toronto Plymouth, UK
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
To my parents
Contents
Acknowledgments
ix
Abbreviations
xi
Introduction
Humanism as Form
The Construction of the Erasmian Republic of Letters
Erasmian Humanism: The Reform Program of the
Universal Intellectual
17
37
69
107
133
159
Conclusion
187
Notes
191
Bibliography
229
Index
245
vii
Acknowledgments
ix
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Works of Erasmus
AB
Civ
Co
CR
CWE
DB
E
EtV
FD
FW
IP
xii
LB
P
Puer
Pan
QP
RS
SA
Scar
Abbreviations
Introduction
ridden as it
was with wars, social tensions and bitter religious conflicts, the image of
Erasmus seems to represent an unrealized, perhaps unrealizable, option. Erasmus and the circle of humanists gathered around him represent the pinnacle
of more than two centuries of humanist intellectual activity in such fields as
critical scholarship, education, literature and religion. By drawing on the legacy bequeathed by previous generations of humanists, Erasmian humanism
achieved something more important still: it offered a comprehensive program
of religious, intellectual and cultural reform, universal in scope. Its adherents
sought to reform all aspects of European society, from childrens manners to
theology, and they addressed themselves to Christendom as a whole. Erasmus
himself spoke to men and women, to laymen and clergymen, to kings and
whores, to butchers and popes. Though he had many opponents, he had, at
least before the Reformation, many more admirers. Not only scholars and
literati, but princes, statesmen and prelates all saw him as the educator and
the reformer of Europe. He was, as the title of one of his biographies states,
Erasmus of Christendom.1
The most striking characteristic of Erasmian humanism was its independence. Erasmus and his friends constructed the identity of the universal
intellectual and a semiautonomous social and intellectual space, the humanist Republic of Letters.2 In contrast to most other humanists, when Erasmus
addressed the powerful, including his patrons, he did so from a position of
clear intellectual and moral superiority. More importantly, his reform program did not represent the interests and the ideology of a distinct political
1
Introduction
establishment or social estate, but only the ideals and values of the Erasmian
humanist qua humanist. In contrast to the medieval scholastic philosophers
and theologianswith whom the humanists struggled for cultural hegemonythe views elaborated by Erasmus were not primarily derived from
eternal metaphysical and religious truths. The Erasmian humanist, in other
words, did not produce knowledge and instruct society from a transcendent
sphere. The Erasmian humanist was therefore a modern universal intellectual,
perhaps the first universal intellectual.3
Among the citizens of the humanist Republic of Letters, Thomas More
stands out as the most profound thinker, not least because he attempted, in
his polemics against Erasmuss enemies, to provide a theoretical grounding
for his friends broad vision and heterogeneous intellectual production. This
is one of the reasons (but not the only one) why this book concentrates to a
large extent on Erasmus and More.
Since the image of Erasmus, transmitted by his generation to posterity,
coincides with the modern image of the intellectual as the disinterested and
universal thinker,4 there is a tendency to see Erasmuss as the purest form
of humanism, uncontaminated by foreign interests and ideologies. Much
of the modern scholarship takes this position, usually implicitly and almost
always without problematizing the issue. The autonomy of Erasmian humanism is therefore taken to be the natural position of the intellectual vis--vis
power. Even if the exceptional nature of Erasmian humanism, compared to
contemporary groups of humanists and literati, is notedindeed, especially
in this caseErasmus and More are seen as the true intellectuals.
The most notable exception to this attitude is to be found in Lisa Jardines
Erasmus, Man of Letters, which exposes the strategies used by Erasmus and his
circle in constructing the public image of the leader of the Republic of Letters
as an unbiased intellectual, as the educator of Europe. Employing their literary talents and their command of the new art of printing, these humanists
presented Erasmus as the true heir of Italian humanism of the quattrocento,
even if this entailed conscious distortions on their part. Erasmus would also
be the modern Jerome whose personal piety and critical and literary skills
were uniquely suited to the reform of Christianity.5 The great merit in Jardines approach is its resulting denaturalization of Erasmuss persona, which
is revealed to be constructed rather than naturally given. At the same time, her
methodology and rhetoric tend to overemphasize the manipulative dimension of this project. Jardine describes the invention of what she sees to be an
ultimately false and misleading image. This wholesale rejection of Erasmian
humanisms self-presentation is problematic if less than the uncritical embrace of the same. Moreover, there is a structural ambiguity within Jardines
argument: while she (correctly) assumes that social identities are constructed,
Introduction
the polemical tone of her study implicitly identifies the constructed with the
false and the inauthentic. The notion of social identity employed in the present study, in contrast, evades this pitfall. Identity is taken to be as a social
construct, but this does not render it less real or authentic (even though
it may be riddled with ambiguities and internal strains).
The aim of the present work is to examine the autonomy of Erasmian humanism in its intellectual and cultural context, to describe its construction
and to expose the problems it raised. My central thesis is that the Republic of
Letters, as an emblem of intellectual autonomy, both grew from and sustained
Erasmian humanism. But at the same time this autonomy was most problematical, indeed impossible, within humanist discourse. From the Republic of
Letters the Erasmian humanists spoke to Christendom, and it rendered their
words and ideas meaningful. Citizenship in this republic provided the intellectual resources and the symbolic capital these men needed to think through
and present their social and political criticism and their reform proposals. But
at the same time this citizenship opened a rift between their social being and
their intellectual commitments, for the very existence of a separate intellectual
realm contradicted the fundamental epistemological and ethical presuppositions of humanist discourse.
Humanism as Form
Defining the term humanism has proved difficult enough to convince
some that the kind of argument I have proposed is untenable. The extensive
research on all aspects of Renaissance humanism done in the past few decades has shown that humanism flourished in a variety of social and political
contexts. It has also demonstrated that the views of the humanists were often
mutually contradictory. Today it is agreed that humanism was not a coherent
body of knowledge or a set of shared views. Ultimately, humanist thought
cannot be defined in terms of its contents.
Humanist discourse can, however, be defined as a set of distinct, though
usually implicit, ontological and epistemological presuppositions, from which
emerged a characteristic attitude regarding the understanding and the representation of human reality. Humanism rejected the metaphysical assumptionperhaps the most fundamental assumption of mainstream classical and
medieval intellectual traditionthat behind the diversity of phenomenal appearances stood intelligible and unchanging substance. Humanist discourse
consequently denied that the meaning of human realityhuman history,
social institutions, political eventswas contingent upon its subordination
to a transcendent realm. Instead the humanists presupposed that the human
Introduction
world was a world made by men.6 Moreover, humanist discourse denied the
existence of an ontological gap between the linguistic and the social, between
the symbolic and the real. It perceived human reality as inherently symbolic
and social entitiesinstitutions, interactions, practicesas meaningful entities. Such ontological presuppositions had, of course, their epistemological
counterparts. Humanism rejected the assumption that the understanding
of human reality could be reduced to a set of universal categories arrived at
by abstract reasoning. For if the social and symbolic were inseparable, then
social activity was inherently performative, an activity of interpretation and
communication, and human beings were principally the producers and interpreters of meanings.7
These presuppositions were rarely explicitly stated by the humanists, who
usually did not indulge in abstract discussions or theoretical reflections. But
in the writings of the more theoretically oriented humanists, particularly
when they were in a polemical mood, these notions were closer to the surface.
In my reconstruction of humanist discourse I discuss some such writings,
focusing on Mores long letter to the Louvain theologian Martin Dorp, one of
the most reflective and forceful attempts to give an epistemological grounding
to humanist thought and to provide a coherent alternative to the scholastic
organization of knowledge. I also demonstrate that these presuppositions
of humanist discourse were implied in the elaborations of central humanist
concepts and in the contributions they made to the various fields of knowledge. Only by taking these into account can we understand the full range and
significance of humanist thought: humanist ethical discourse (in the broader
sense of the term) and the humanist image of the human being; humanist
educational thought, in particular the tenet that the main aim of education
was to fashion a moral agent and a responsible citizen; the humanist attack on
the traditional distinction between the vita activa and the vita contemplativa;
the importance the humanists attributed to rhetoric and to mans prudential
and deliberative faculties; and the humanist invention of textual criticism and
philology.
An understanding of the epistemological presuppositions also helps us
understand the role of the intellectual, or, to use a historically unexceptionable term, the litteratus, in humanist discourse. If knowledge is not scientific
knowledge in the Aristotelian and scholastic sensethat is, knowledge of
universally valid truths, based on evident axiomsbut knowledge of a contingent, historically and culturally determined human society, and if, furthermore, the origin, the epistemological status and the purpose of knowledge
are inherently imbedded in society, then the litteratus claim to knowledge
could not be based on membership in a distinct intellectual or contemplative sphere. On the contrary, the humanist litteratus was a producer and
Introduction
Introduction
Introduction
Introduction
Introduction
the citizen of the Republic of Letters. And yet the Erasmian humanists never
clearly defined, let alone legitimized, the notion of the autonomous intellectual. In other words, they did not conceptualize a basic presupposition of
their discourse. One of the reasons for this silence may have been a lack of appropriate terminology. And then there was the difficulty of integrating the notion into contemporary prevailing ideology, which did not acknowledge the
autonomy of the intellectual. But given the remarkable intellectual resources
of the Erasmian humanists and given their social prestige, these explanations
are at best partial.
The failure of the Erasmian humanists to conceptualize the notion of the
universal intellectual must be considered a symptom of a deeper problem.
My contention is that this problem was inherent in Erasmian humanism
itself: the notion could not be legitimized within the humanist discourse
because it violated the basic epistemological and ethical presuppositions of
that discourse. The very existence of the Republic of Letters created a fissure
between the social existence of the Erasmian humanists and their intellectual
commitments.
Irresolvable, this contradiction was never discussed by the Erasmian humanists. On the contrary, it was carefully disguised or, better still, repressed.
My aim is consequently to expose this contradiction when it becomes visible
in the texts of Erasmus and More. But this task demands a different set of hermeneutic tools than those used in reconstructing the discourse of Erasmian
humanism. A different notion of text and different relation between text and
discourse must be assumed. The text, or rather some if its phenomena, should
be read as symptomatic of the discourses internal tensions. The text should
be read against its explicit assertions and argumentation in order to expose
the problems it hides and the contradictions it tries to resolve. This kind of
textual analysis focuses on the fissures between explicit content and literary
embodiment. These fissures and discontinuities may be expressed in various
ways: rhetorical excesses and logical or conceptual antinomies; contradictions
in the structure of the argument or paradoxes that stem from it; the introduction of figurative language to conceal conceptual problems; gaps between the
rhetorical or metaphoric aspects of the text and its content; literary aporias;
and the silences of the textsilences that have their own phenomenology.
This study thus requires different methods of reading texts and of relating texts
to discourse and context. First, by straightforward readings of works written by
Erasmian humanists this study reconstructs the content of Erasmian humanism:
the body of knowledge produced by and the views and values of the discourse.
This type of reading also brings to the fore the not always explicit or even conscious premises and presuppositions of Erasmian discourse. Secondly, this study
examines these works as instruments in a struggle for intellectual hegemony, and
in an effort to construct the identity of the Erasmian humanist as a universal
10
Introduction
Introduction
11
12
Introduction
from the rest of humanity. An analysis of the real and the metaphorical borders between the humanist utopia and the outside world soon shows that the
two different worlds cannot but be suspicious and hostile toward each other;
indeed they are incommensurable. The existence of the humanist garden
therefore cannot be justified in humanist terms, and the rural estate is consequently located in the twilight zone between the human and the divinea
no-place in humanist discourse.
In the concluding chapters of this study I analyze Thomas Mores key
works, The History of Richard III and Utopia. Since More was the most theoretically sophisticated thinker among the Erasmian humanists, his writings are
of crucial importance in the reconstruction of Erasmian humanism. For the
same reason, the internal tensions and contradictions inherent in Erasmian
humanism heavily pervade his writings. For my purpose, it is their common
difficulties, even more than their basic proximity, that unite the leader of the
Republic of Letters and its most imaginative citizen.
The History of Richard III is an unruly text that demonstrates the disruptive
potential of Mores works. It describes the murderous events that brought
Richard, Duke of Gloucester, to the English throne; it depicts its main protagonist as a diabolical figure, almost the personification of evil. Not surprisingly,
Richard III has traditionally been read as a moralistic work, a condemnation of
unnatural evil. As such it was often seen as an example, albeit an idiosyncratic
one, of the didactic and moralistic characteristics of humanist historiography.
This reading ignores, however, the ambiguities and irony so evident throughout the work. The alternative reading I suggest sees Mores history as the
description of a typical political event and therefore as a portrait of political
reality as such. According to such a reading, Richard III is a picture of politics
in general as an irredeemably corrupt realm. This conclusion contradicts the
humanist ethical and political discourse (in all of its variants), which assumed
that a sound and moral political order could be established. Moreover Richard
III undermines the key humanist notion of rhetoric. Within the theoretical
framework that rhetoric provided for humanist discourse, human reality
was apprehended as inherently symbolic and human activity was defined as
an interpretive and performative activity. Richard III strips rhetoric of these
functions. At the level of the books plot, rhetoric functions as an instrument
of dissimulation and distraction. Richard III therefore questions the humanist
ethical and political discourse that sees rhetoric as a means to establishing a
moral and rational political order and as a privileged means for the expression
of mans humanitas. Furthermore, in Mores work rhetoric is ridiculed, broken down, displaced and taken out of context by every possible literary device.
Ultimately, Richard III undermines the notion of rhetoric as an instrument
of communication and interpretation, and with it the very ontological and
Introduction
13
14
Introduction
indicates the paradoxical situation of Erasmian humanism. Erasmian humanism implied the identity of the universal intellectual, but at the same time
this notion contradicted the basic presuppositions of humanism. In humanist discourse knowledge was embedded in and inextricably connected to the
social. Knowledge was essentially knowledge of contingent historical, social
and political human reality, and was oriented toward social and political
aims. It was necessarily produced by those who were part of society, that is,
by those who actively participated in creating, reproducing and transforming the human world. The notion of the universal intellectual threatened to
undermine precisely these premises. The universal intellectual, the citizen of
the Erasmian Republic of Letters, was detached from active social forces and
concrete social happenings, and this detachment infringed on the humanist
ethical commitment to the vita activa. More importantly, the social existence
of the universal intellectual was ultimately an epistemological problem for
Erasmian humanism. It meant that the intellectual activity of the Erasmian
humanist was conducted and his knowledge was produced in a disembodied
intellectual sphere. But this sphere, this privileged point outside social reality,
was not, under the premises of humanist discourse, a location for production
of knowledge. The Erasmian Republic of Letters was literally utopian, a humanist no-place. For this reason, notwithstanding the independence of Erasmian humanism from external constraints and pressures, More and Erasmus
ultimately failed to provide a coherent humanist account of political reality,
to elaborate a coherent humanist political theory or to visualize a coherent
humanist utopia.
I
THE ERASMIAN REPUBLIC OF LETTERS
1
Humanism as Form
18
Chapter 1
the understanding of humanism in its social and political contexts. The lack
of a uniquely humanist comprehensive body of knowledge, in particular the
lack of distinctively humanist political theory, explains how humanism could
adapt itself to varying social, political and cultural contexts.
Any attempt to provide a comprehensive reconstruction of humanist
discourse inevitably involves constant movement between historical, historiographical and theoretical levels. A critical reading of the two most influential interpretations of humanism in the English-speaking world, those of
Paul Oskar Kristeller and Hans Baron, serves as the point of departure of my
analysis. In my discussion I analyze several key humanist endeavors, notably the debate with scholastic philosophy. Throughout my reconstruction I
highlight the theoretical stakes in any definition of humanism, which most
clearly surface when the alleged modernity, secularity and rhetorical nature
of humanist discourse are discussed.
Humanism as Form
19
for instance, that Italian humanism did not arise as a result of an eventually
successful struggle with the dominant scholastic philosophy. In Italy, both
intellectual traditions emerged in the fourteenth century and kept their vitality and their social importance throughout the Renaissance and beyond.4
According to Kristeller, this observation amounts to much more than a correction of a historical inaccuracy. The fact that humanism and scholasticism
existed side by side indicates, he argued, that the noisy polemics between
them lacked real substance. Humanism could not, and actually never tried to,
replace scholasticism, since the fields of interest of the two intellectual currents barely converged. The humanists had little to offer in disciplines such as
metaphysics, natural philosophy and astronomy.5
Kristeller and Jerrold Seigel, who followed him, also emphasized the continuity between the Renaissance humanists and their medieval predecessors.
The humanists were the direct successors of the medieval notaries, epistles
writers and rhetoricians from both professional and social perspectives. Like
those who engaged in the medieval ars notaria, ars dictaminis, and ars arengandi, the humanists occupied various public positions in the administrations
of the cities, in the Roman curia and in the courts of princes. The main difference between the two groups, according to Kristeller and Seigel, was that the
humanists adopted the classical rhetorical model in their struggle to enhance
their prestige and social status.6
Kristeller thus toppled humanism from its position as the philosophy
of the Renaissance and showed it to be one among several contemporary
intellectual currents in a wider cultural context. His interpretation, however,
has several theoretical insufficiencies that hinder full understanding of some
important aspects of humanism.
The limitations of Kristellers interpretation are most conspicuously revealed in his evaluation of the broad cultural significance of humanism.
Kristeller focused almost exclusively on the humanists role as disseminators
of classical Greek and Latin literature.7 Even in this context, he does not examine the significance of making the classical heritage a normative ideal, but
rather concentrates on the revival of specific classical ideas, texts and authors.
In the last analysis, humanism only obliquely contributed to future intellectual and cultural transformation. In making this point in the last paragraph of
The Humanist Movementarguably the article most referred to by scholars of humanismKristeller slips into odd terminology and imagery:
Since the entire range of Greek philosophy and scientific literature was made
[by the humanists] more completely available to the West than it had been in
the Middle Ages or in Roman antiquity, there was a large store of new ideas and
notions that had to be tried out and appropriated until its lesson was finally
20
Chapter 1
Humanism as Form
21
concludes that they were able to add genuine wisdom to their eloquence.13
He fails, however, to give any conceptual account for this achievement. What
was the nature of the humanists genuine wisdom? Was it immanently related to their humanism or was it imported from the field of philosophy? And
what was the precise nature of the addition operation? Did it affect wisdom
or eloquence or was it only an external relationship? Several paragraphs later
Kristeller argues that many Renaissance scientists and philosophers were influenced by the humanists clear style and literary form, which was not always
or entirely a mere external feature, but he again fails to explain the nature of
this influence.14 Kristellers inability to conceptually account for what he sees
as important contributions of humanism as well as his hesitant language attest
to the insufficiency of his theoretical framework.15
I shall return to this crucial point later. At this stage, it is important to
stress that in one important respect Kristeller is certainly right: many, perhaps
most, humanists do agree with his description. The literary and intellectual
production of many humanists was quite conventional and rhetorical in the
pejorative sense of the word. Any different reconstruction of humanismone
that highlights the original contributions of some outstanding humanists
must account for this phenomenon.
The roots of the second important interpretation of humanism go back to
the thirties. In his research, Hans Baron placed the originality and historical
importance of humanism in a subcurrent of the movement that he termed
civic humanism. According to Baron, civic humanism emerged in Florence
at the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth century
as a fusion of the Petrarchean humanism of the trecento with the civic tradition of the medieval Italian communes.16 The change began to take place at
the end of the fourteenth century with Filippo Villani and Coluccio Salutati
and reached maturity in the first decades of the next century with the intellectual activity of Leonardo Bruni, Matteo Palmieri, Giannozzo Manetti, Leon
Battista Alberti and their colleagues.17 In The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance, Baron explained the emergence of civic humanism as a consequence of
the struggle between republican Florence and Milan under the Visconti dynasty.18 This thesis was justifiably criticized, on both empirical and theoretical
grounds, as one-dimensional and reductive.19 For our purpose, however, this
issue is of minor importance. Much more consequential is Barons understanding of civic humanist thought against the background of the hegemonic
intellectual and cultural tradition of the Middle Ages.20
According to Baron, Petrarchean humanism was a nostalgic classicist literary movement steeped in medieval notions, most notably adhering to the
ideal of the vita contemplativa. As such, the humanism of the trecento tended
to fetishize the classical heritage and could, at best, slavishly imitate the
22
Chapter 1
original. The synthesis of civic values and classicism in civic humanist thought
gave birth to a new approach. The civic humanists employed classical notions,
texts, and genres as instruments for confronting issues and problems endemic
to their own society. Their imitation of classical literature was, consequently,
critical and creative. Not surprisingly, the civic humanists, in contrast to other
humanists, developed a positive view of contemporary vernacular literature
and culture.21
The new stance of the civic humanists regarding the classical heritage was
immanently connected to what Baron sees as comprehensive revolution in
their attitude toward human activity and social reality. An example in point
is the understanding of economic activity by civic humanism. Although
medieval intellectual traditions held diverse views on the subject, it would
be accurate to say that practically all of them looked, at the very least, with
suspicion on the pursuit of worldly goods. Furthermore, as Baron shows, in
trecento Italy, the view of economic activity, accepted by most humanists of
the period, was dominated by the attitude of the extreme wing of the Franciscan order and Stoic philosophy which regarded worldly riches with utter
contempt.22 Against this background, the affirmation of economic activity by
the civic humanists takes on its full revolutionary significance. Initially, some
humanists, notably the Venetian Francesco Barbaro, employed pragmatic
reasoning, arguing that ownership of property is essential for mans familial
and social position.23 Later, Bruni, who translated the pseudo-Aristotelian
Economics in 14201421, laid the philosophical groundwork for the affirmation of the value of economic activity, by arguing that ownership of property
is a condition for the realization of mans humanity and his commitment
to society.24 A similar revolutionary change characterized the attitude of the
civic humanists toward marriage and family life. In contrast to the medieval
ideals of the monk and the stoic sage, the humanists celebrated family life as
an immanent and essential part of human life.25 Leon Battista Albertis Della
famiglia completed the shift of values, consolidating the humanist views concerning both economic activity and family life.26
These two new conceptions, the affirmation of the value of economic activity and of marriage and the family, Baron relates to the general civic humanists challenge to traditional ideals and values, most conspicuously manifested
in the rejection of the distinction between the vita contemplativa and the vita
activa. This distinction, and the precedence given to a life of contemplation
and prayer, based as it was on Christian as well as classical conceptions, was
central to medieval high culture. Petrarchs and even Salutatis ambivalence
regarding the vita activa, which stood in contrast to their unequivocal rejection of other common medieval ideas, demonstrates how entrenched this
attitude was. Again, the civic humanists of the quattrocento were those who,
Humanism as Form
23
24
Chapter 1
religiously indifferent. It can be seen as secular and as a secularizing phenomenon in the sense that it denied the subordination of disciplines and fields
of inquiry to religion. This is true to the humanist intellectual activity in the
areas we discussed above: economy, family life and history. Writing on these
issues the humanists used secular terms and categories rather than religious
ones. These fields of inquiry eventually obtained autonomous status, as they
acquired their own vocabulary, internal rules and discursive practices. This
was equally true of humanist political discourse. As already mentioned, the
humanists held different views and propagated diverse political theories.
These differences notwithstanding, the humanist political language was
secular in the sense defined above: it analyzed and represented politics in
nonreligious categories and thus assumed the autonomy of the political realm
vis--vis theology.34 The change in artistic practices and, more importantly,
the emergence of the very conception of art during the Renaissance reveals the
same process. The secularization of Renaissance art was not primarily due to
the large number of nonreligious representations, nor to greater consumption
of art and patronage of artists by laymen in comparison to previous centuries.
Art was secularized in the Renaissance, because in this period it became a
distinct discipline with its own autonomous technical and aesthetic rules and
conventions, and later with its own sense of internal history.35
Humanism as Form
25
26
Chapter 1
objective reality and for understanding it, implying precisely the correspondence between them.44 Scholastic dialectic, known also as terminist logic,
went far beyond the Aristotelian logic. The main field of inquiry of medieval
logic, known as proprietates terminorum, illustrates the basic motivations
and preoccupations of scholastic philosophy. Within this field, the scholastic
philosophers tried to account for the equivocality of words due to different
meanings in different semantic contexts (such as the different meanings of
the word man in the sentences: Man runs, Man is a rational animal and
Man is a noun). This effort reflects the attempt to cancel the pragmatic and
contingent dimensions of language and consciousness, and to prove the existence of full correspondence between them and objective reality, consisting,
it was believed, of distinct universal entities.45
The principles of scholastic grammar reflect the same motivations and persuasions. It is sufficient to quote the words of Gerhard Ztphen, the author
of a popular commentary on the Doctrinele of Alexander Villedieu: Who was
the first inventor of grammar? The first inventor of positive grammar was
a metaphysician and natural philosopher, because considering the diverse
properties, nature and modes of being of things, he imposed on these things
diverse names.46 The concept of language as a nomenclature, as implied here,
is the traditional concept of Western philosophy. Ztphens words illustrate
how consistent and extreme were the scholastics in pursuing this concept.
Subordinating grammar directly to metaphysics and natural philosophy is
yet another indication of the scholastic denial of the very intelligibility of
the particular and the contingent. Indeed, the explicit aim of the speculative
scholastic grammarians, the modistae, was to find the universal structure of
language as such, beyond what was understood to be the superficial differences between natural languages.47
Humanist discourse rejected these assumptions, but as most humanists
were not inclined toward, and lacked the talent for, abstract theoretical discussions, the presuppositions of humanist discourse were usually not stated
explicitly. Thomas Mores polemical letter to Martin Dorp is one of few
exceptions. It is one of the most profound and reflective attempts to epistemologically ground humanist discourse (MtD). More belongs therefore
to a small group of humanistsLorenzo Valla, Rudolf Agricola, Juan Luis
Vives, Petrus Ramus and Marius Nizolius are other prominent nameswho
did try to offer a comprehensive substitute for the scholastic organization of
knowledge. In the next chapter, I will discuss the context of this writing and
the other three humanist letters of More (MtL; MtM; MtO). It is worth
mentioning at this stage, however, that the impressive letter was written in the
context of a concrete polemic. Moreover, as the letter achieved its purposeit
put an end to Dorps attack on Erasmusit was never published by More.
Humanism as Form
27
These facts exemplify the general attitude of the humanists toward abstract
discussions: even a thinker with the reflective ability of More embarked on a
theoretical discussion only out of necessity.
In the letter More fiercely attacks scholastic philosophy.48 He cites several examples of common logical discussions from scholastic literature, for
instance, the dialecticians attempt to distinguish the different meanings of
the two sentences Vinum bibi bis (Wine I drank twice) and Bibi bis vinum
(I drank twice wine), or their attempt to discern the truth-conditions of the
statement Meritrix erit virgo (The whore will be a virgin).49 According to More
these discussions are patently senseless, monstrous absurdities (27), and
as such they attest to the inanity of scholastic dialectics as a whole. Indeed,
scholastic dialectic is not dialectic at all: neither Antichrist nor the final day
of judgment itself could upset natures order as thoroughly as this dialectic
(33). In passing, More also attacks scholastic grammar and he significantly
discards precisely what the modistae saw as the great virtue of their enterprise.
Referring to a treatise by a certain Albert, More contemptuously complains
that the author, who professed to write a grammatical work, has presented
us instead with some sort of logic or metaphysics, or rather with out-and-out
drivel and nonsense (27).
Mores sarcasm and scorn echo more than 150 years of bitter humanist
polemics against scholasticism. But even this aspect of Mores text is more
theoretically oriented than the great majority of similar humanist works.
More does not dwell, for example, on the traditional humanist theme of the
barbarous scholastic Latin. Instead, he concentrates on what he sees as the
fundamental intellectual failures of scholastic logic, notably its solipsistic tendency and its detachment from common experience and concrete reality:
I wonder, by Jove, how these petty adepts ever reached the conclusion that those
propositions should be understood in a way that no one on earth but themselves
understands them. Those words are not technical terms on which these men can
claim monopoly, as it were, so that anyone wishing to use them must go and ask
them for a loan. Such expressions are actually common language, though these
men do return some of them in a worse state than they were in when they were
appropriated from ordinary craftsmen. They have borrowed their words from
the public domain; they abuse public property. (35)
As dialectic formed the basis of scholastic enterprise, its rejection or devaluation by humanism had far-reaching implications concerning the organization of knowledge. In fact, it affected the very definition of knowledge.
Walter Ong succinctly describes the consequences of this assault: In terms
of the established pattern, humanism forced a crisis by proposing a program
which in effect challenged the primacy of dialectic and, in so doing, impugned
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the whole curricular organization and the teaching profession as such, and
thereby threatened the intelligibility of the whole universe.50
The attempt to elaborate a humanist dialectic to substitute for scholastic
logic was one of the central aims of the theoretical humanist efforts from Valla
to Ramus and beyond.51 While scholastic dialectic believed itself to be operating in the realm of eternal truths, the humanists sought to construct a system
of rules for deliberation and persuasion in the realm of probable truths and
opinions. A would-be humanist dialectic consequently placed less emphasis
on the faculty of abstract reasoning and more on the prudential and deliberative faculties for dealing with concrete situations and specific circumstances.
As the realm of opinions and probable truths is not easily given to systematic
treatment, the humanist enterprise turned out to be most complicated. In
fact, the humanists never succeeded in elaborating a comprehensive substitution for scholastic dialectics, and most of them remained to a large extent
within the boundaries of the Aristotelian logic.52
Mores understanding of the issues at stake was sharper than that of most
other humanists, and more conducive to the elaboration of the basis of humanist discourse. He avoids altogether the attempt to construct a comprehensive humanist dialectic. Instead, he simply restricts the scope and significance
of the discipline. At the beginning of his discussion, he calmly states that
even a typical illiterate of average intelligence can master dialectic (17). He
repeatedly argues that dialectic is only an instrument of learning, verging on
a modern understanding of logic as a tool for deriving valid conclusions from
accepted assumptions: In dialectic . . . I should have thought it sufficient to
master the nature of words, the force of propositions, and the forms of syllogisms, and at once to apply dialectic as a tool to the other branches of learning
(25). This is a radical assertion, since it undermines not only specific scholastic
assertions, but is also close to challenging the very Aristotelian concept of science. As a precondition for its attempt to arrive at an adequate description of
objective reality, Aristotelian science needed access to the basic categories of
objective reality, and dialectic was believed to provide exactly these categories.
Mores argumentation leads to the emptying of dialectic of its substance: just
as dialectic elicits various species and numerous patterns of arguments from
the nature of things once it is known, even so when the things themselves
remain a mystery dialectic necessarily falls silent, of no use at all (73). More
denies, in other words, that dialectics can tell us something about reality, and
he thus demolishes the ontological and epistemological foundation of sciencescientiaas the term was understood from Aristotle onward.
The greatest importance of Mores letter lies, however, in its attempt to
provide a theoretical basis for a humanist organization of knowledge. In this
attempt, More gives the primacy to grammar. He follows here the main thrust
Humanism as Form
29
30
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existence of an ontological gap between the linguistic and the real. Humanist
discourse thus perceived human reality as inherently symbolic, and the entities
that comprised itsocial institutions and interactions, political and historical
events and so onas meaningful entities.
These ontological presuppositions were not explicitly stated by More, or
any other humanist for that matter, but were implied by his conceptions of
dialectics and grammar. Their epistemological counterparts were, in contrast,
much more elaborated. They are most forcefully presented when More gives
the definition of the ideal grammarian. Answering Dorps pejorative labeling of Erasmus as only a grammarian, as opposed to a metaphysician or a
theologian, More says:
grammarian means precisely the same thing as man of letters [litteratus],
whose area of study extends across every variety of literature [omnes litterarum
species], that is, every discipline. For this reason, though anyone who has studied
dialectic may be called a dialectician, anyone who has studied arithmetic may be
called an arithmetician, and so on in the rest of the arts, no one, in my opinion
at least, may be styled a man of letters who has not pored through each and every
one of the sciences. (13)
Notwithstanding the use of the term science (scientia) and the nomination of
dialectic and arithmetic, the meaning of the passage is clear enough. The producer and transmitter of knowledge is not the dialectician or metaphysician,
who seeks to know objective reality outside the symbolic realm, but rather
the litteratus, the person who masters every variety of literature, that is, the
literary heritage. Knowledge is essentially literary and interpretive. It is essentially bounded by and imbedded in social reality in its origin and epistemological status, as well as in its orientation and purpose. The litteratusas the
term itself suggestsis essentially a producer and interpreter of meanings.55
This understanding of knowledge and intellectual activity undermines
the distinction between the intellectual and the ordinary social subject.
A social distinction could, of course, be constructed, and the tendency toward philological and literary specialization certainly characterized many
versions of humanism. We must not, however, confuse a social distinction
with an epistemological one. For the corollary of the perception of reality as
inherently symbolic is the definition of social activityjust like intellectual
activityas essentially involved with the interpretation and production of
meanings. Epistemologically, intellectual activity became a specific kind
of social activity. Ultimately, this insight lay behind the insistence of the
humanists that valid knowledge was practical and their affirmation of the
vivere civile. It also provided the justification of the humanists pursuance
of public careers.
Humanism as Form
31
32
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Humanism as Form
33
34
Chapter 1
Humanism as Form
35
legitimately belonged to their specific milieus, traditions, interests and ideologies. Such a notion of knowledge also constituted the theoretical basis for
the vita activa, which in turn served to legitimate the humanists pursuits of
public careers.
This reconstruction of humanist discourse makes it therefore easy to understand why so many humanists aspired to some sort of public career (which
offered, of course, other economic and social rewards). It also accounts for
humanisms success in establishing itself in practically every political and
cultural context in fifteenth-century Italy and sixteenth-century northern
Europe. It further explains why most humanists were associated with the ruling establishment and the dominant classes. This association is particularly
evident when we note that humanist political thought served a specific polity,
and that the humanists political writings propagated the dominant ideology.
The historical scholarship of the past several decades, which has examined the
various centers of humanism within their distinct contexts, has clearly shown
that in this respect there was no difference between humanists in republican
Florence, aristocratic Venice, monarchic Naples, theocratic Rome or princely
Milan, to name just some of the important centers in Italy.69
2
The Construction of the
Erasmian Republic of Letters
revealed the
many possibilities latent in humanist discourse. It also explained the
close relationship between most humanists and the ruling establishment, together with their adherence to the dominant ideologies of those places where
humanism flourished. I want to suggest that Erasmian humanism of the
early sixteenth century was an exception to this rule, that it transcended its
immediate political and cultural contexts. Erasmus and his followers created
a humanist Republic of Letters as a relatively autonomous sociointellectual
space. They created the social identity, embodied first and foremost by Erasmus himself, of the universal intellectual whose sole concern is the well-being
of Christendom as a whole.
The following chapter will explore how citizenship in the Erasmian Republic of Letters allowed its leader, Erasmus, and its most reflective denizen,
Thomas More, to develop a critique of the very foundations of the established
order while formulating a reform program that did not embrace the interests or ideology of any political establishment or social estate. This chapter
examines the coming into being of the Republic. As it must be clear by now
that this Republic was anything but the natural place of the humanist, I will
examine its formation as the distinct response of a group of humanists to
specific circumstances. I will explore the way by which the Erasmian humanists constructed the identity of the universal intellectual and how the image of
Erasmus came to embody this ideal. In order to do so, I will trace the evolving
relationship between Erasmus and his patrons, Erasmuss response to the
37
38
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39
humanists were economically and socially dependent on an unmediated relationship with the powerful. In this respect there was a clear difference between
the humanists and the scholastic philosophers, whose professional identity was
based on a specific institution, namely the medieval university.6
England at the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII serves as a typical
example of the kind of relations that existed between humanists and their
powerful patrons. Henry VII, despite his reputation as a narrow-minded
miser, was a generous patron of artists and literati.7 But both he and his court
adhered to the Burgundian literary and artistic tradition, which meant that
humanists found meager support under his reign. The one notable exception
to this rule attests to Englands lag behind the new intellectual fashion. The
Italian humanist Polydore Vergil was hired by the king to write the first humanist history of England with the aim of internationally strengthening the
insecure legitimacy of the new regime.8
By contrast, Henry VIIs son, Prince Henry, was known for his taste for good
learning. His ascendancy to the throne in 1509 consequently provoked great
expectations among the English humanists. Thomas More composed several
laudatory, albeit not unequivocal, epigrams on behalf of Henry at the new
kings coronation.9 Urgent letters from Erasmuss two most important English
patrons, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal William Warham, and the educator of the new king, William Blount, Lord Mountjoy, rushed Erasmus back
to England from Italy (Epp 214, 215). For you are bound to repose the highest
of hopes in a prince whose exceptional and almost more than human talents
you know so well, says Mountjoy in a letter, whose real author was probably
Mountjoys Latin secretary and Erasmuss friend, Andrea Ammonio (Ep 215:
56). He continues to report on the mood among the English humanists:
Oh, Erasmus, if you could only see how happily excited everyone is here, and
how all are congratulating themselves on their princes greatness, and how they
pray above all for his long life, you would be bound to weep for joy! Heaven
smiles, earth rejoices; all is milk and honey and nectar. Tight-fistedness is well
and truly banished. Generosity scatters wealth with unstinting hand. Our kings
heart is set not upon gold or jewels or mines of ore, but upon virtue, reputation,
and eternal renown. (ibid.: 1320)
The text goes on to describe a recent conversation with the king. Henry had
told Mountjoy that he longed to be a more accomplished scholar. Mountjoy, perhaps somewhat startled by the idea, did not forget his protg and
he dared to reply: We do not expect this of you; what we do expect is that
you should foster and encourage those who are scholars. To this the king
responded with the reassuring words: Of course, for without them we could
scarcely exist (ibid., 2024).
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And, indeed, humanism greatly advanced in England during the second decade of the sixteenth century. In terms of jobs and honors, Henry
fulfilled the expectations of the humanists. Thomas Lincare, for instance,
was appointed royal physician. John Stokesley became a kings chaplain.
Richard Pace was nominated to be a royal secretary. Andrea Ammonio was
nominated as Henrys Latin secretary. And Cuthbert Tunstal became the
master of the rolls.10 Thomas More participated in two commercial missionsin 1515 to Bruge and in 1517 to Calaisand in March 1518 was
appointed a royal councillor.11 These appointments were matched by the
kings political support of humanism. On at least three separate occasions
from 1518 to 1520 Henry repelled attacks by church and Oxford conservatives against humanism.12
The kings position was shared by other powerful figures. The efforts of
supportive bishops, for instance, greatly advanced humanism in the two
English universities. John Fisher, the bishop of Rochester and the chancellor
of Cambridge, played the leading role in humanisms introduction into the
university. In 1511 Fisher arranged for Erasmus to be appointed as reader in
the university and in 1516 he was instrumental in the foundation of St. Johns
College, which advanced Greek and Hebrew studies. Similarly, the bishop
of Winchester, Richard Foxe, founded the humanistically oriented Corpus
Christi College in Oxford.13 Even greater progress was made in the sphere of
nonuniversity education. Numerous humanist schools were established in
these years, the most famous of which was St. Paul in London. Such developments attest to the growing presence of humanist values in English society,
even liberal education was rapidly becoming the standard of the upper classes
and the vehicle for a public career.14
These achievements, and the senior positions filled by a small number of
humanists such as More, should not cause us, however, to overestimate the
social standing and importance of most adherents of the bonae literae. The
majority of humanists could at most aspire to be educators, secretaries and
midranking administrators and diplomats. In a society dominated by an aristocratic ethos, the status of humanists was never very high. Maria Dowlings
study has refuted earlier interpretations that attributed eminent political and
religious rank to English humanists. Dowling demonstrated that the great
majority of English humanists adapted their views to the fluctuating ideology of the Crown. She suggests, furthermore, and as something of a paradox,
that their minor position in society helped the humanists to survive Henry
VIIIs cannibalistic reign in which more important personages and groups
were crushed and subsequently disappeared.15 The need, and the willingness,
of humanist circles to serve their patrons may also explain why their literary
work was often rather conventional.16
41
Between Friends
How did the humanists perceive their low social standing in the northern
European aristocratic monarchies? How did they experience the inherent uncertainty of the patronage system? These questions can be explored in the correspondence between Erasmus and his friend Ammonio. Ammonio was born
in about 1478 into an old family in Lucca. After studying and teaching in Bologna he moved to Rome and later to England, where he lived until his early
death from sweating sickness in 1517. In 1509 Ammonio was nominated to
be secretary to Lord Mountjoy. As mentioned, two years later he was made
secretary to Henry VIII. He was given two church incomes in England and in
1515 was appointed by Pope Leo X to be subcollector of papal taxes in that
country. Ammonio was with the king during the war against France in 1512.
In celebration of the occasion he composed a Panegyricus ad Henricum VIII,
which has been lost, as was an account of the war against the Scots, which he
may also have written. In fact, Ammonios only extant literary production is
a volume of poetry, published by Erasmus in Paris in 1511. All in all, Ammonios biography is rather typical of a lesser humanist, hence its importance for
understanding the humanists position within the patronage system.17
Erasmus met Ammonio in England in 1505. Both were probably guests in
Mores home from 1509 to 1511. During Erasmuss long stay in England from
1509 to 1514 Ammonio was his closest friend and confidant. The correspondence between the two of them, particularly the exchanges between 1511 and
1512, when Erasmus was in Cambridge and Ammonio in London, is revealing of the human, quotidian and sometimes even petty sides of Erasmuss
characterErasmus in slippers, in Augustin Renaudets phrase.18 The correspondence also clearly exposes the problematical nature of the relationship
between humanists and their patrons and the social and professional anxieties
experienced by the former. The relationships of Erasmus and Ammonio to
their patrons occupy a central place in their letters. We learn, for example, that
the first dedication Ammonio wrote for his poems was excessively praising of
Mountjoy in a way that lessened his peers. As Erasmus predicted, knowing as
he did Mountjoys disposition well enough, the lord did not like the dedication and politely suggested that the work be published without it (Ep 218, 219).
Ammonio accepted Erasmuss advice and wrote a new dedication, authorizing his friendalready an expert in the fieldto make whatever changes he
deemed fit (Ep 221). The published dedication explicitly lays bare the nature of
the relationship between a humanist and his patron. Ammonio emphasizes the
generosity of Mountjoy, as well as that of numerous other unnamed English
patrons, in a clear response to his lords previous reservations. He adds that, as
his poverty prevents him from returning the favor, he entered upon the one
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way that lay open to him: I undertook to eulogize those to whom I thought
I owed the most. The relations of subordination are clear. Still, the humanists
service is not to be despised and Ammonio refers to Pliny the Younger when
reminding his patron and his readers that it was once so highly valued that
those who had written encomiums on men or cities were habitually decorated
with rewards of honour or money (Ep 220).
Ammonio was also involved in Erasmuss relationship with his actual and
prospective patrons, especially when the latter was away from London. Several times, for instance, Erasmus asks him for information about the whereabouts of Mountjoy (Ep 232, 233): It is not good to be, for too long, at such
a distance from my personal Jupiter (Ep 238). And he occasionally mentions
his relations with Warham and Fisher (e.g., Ep 240: 6061; 245: 4446).
Ammonios principal task, however, was to help Erasmus win the patronage of Foxe and Thomas Ruthall, the bishop of Durham. As such, Erasmus
asks Ammonio to pass on his letters to the bishops, as Foxe and Ruthall
are often referred to in the correspondence (Ep 234). Ammonio promises
to do that, as well as to add some words of his own (Ep 236). Erasmus asks
about the results of the effort (Ep 238) and Ammonio replies that the bishops
received the letters with utmost delight. However, Foxe complained that
Erasmus neglected him (to which Ammonio found no better answer than
to invoke his friends awkward shyness). In any event, the two were so occupied with other business that Ammonio decided that a delay was in order
before resuming his efforts (Ep 239: 2736). He reports to Erasmus on the
renewal of activity and we once more gain access to the concrete workings of
the patronage system, that is, the mechanisms behind the public orations and
formal dedications:
The bishop of Durham promises you his aid and keen support, while the bishop
of Winchester has said less in public but in a more friendly vein. He was under
the impression that you already held a benefice; I replied that you had been
given the expectation of a benefice but that none had yet been forthcoming. He
smiled and asked whether that particular hope was something you could use to
buy food. I smiled in turn, and said: Rather Erasmus has purchased these expectations by spending money and time. Thereupon he told me to speak to him
about this on another and more suitable occasion. (Ep 243: 4654)
As the correspondence evolves, questions about the position of the humanist and about his relations with his patrons are discussed with increasing
personal intensity. Ammonio initiates and develops this discussion. Responding to Erasmuss vaguer-than-usual complaints about his situation (Ep 240:
1113), Ammonio refers to his friends fame and learning and concludes that
Erasmus cannot fail to find powerful patrons everywhere. Ammonio is
43
less optimistic in regard to himself: But I, unless I can scrape together some
means to support my declining years among those whom I have given much
hard work, many years, and no little expense to oblige, know not where I can
take refuge, seeing that I have quite grown old in this Cimmerian darkness
(Ep 243: 2041). Erasmus initially seeks to avoid any direct communication
on the subject, resorting to clichs and generalizations. He continuously
complains about his own misfortunes; his reputation only holds a candle to
his misery and increases his embarrassment. Ammonio is better off than he.
True, Ammonio has not won a position commensurate to his talents. On the
basis of his gifts he ought to be the supreme pontiff. Nevertheless, he is the
luckiest of men considering his nationality, appearance, age, talents, character, and the approval he has received from the best sort of people. Erasmus
goes on to predict that his friends lot will change for the better, and then tries
to end the conversation by jokingly suggesting that Ammonios fear of old age
has been provoked by the teasing of girls about his gray hair (Ep 248). But
Ammonio will not let Erasmus evade the painful subject. In his response he
gently scolds Erasmus for teasing him, adding that he discerns in his friends
words a touch of rhetorical embellishment. Nor is he interested in abstract
moral principles. I know that your advice to make the best of what we have is
sound, he remarks, but I should like you to advise me where to go, without
altogether playing the philosopher (Ep 249).
Erasmus responded four days later in a short letter. He assured Ammonio
that his previous discourse was sincere but nevertheless promised to speak
at that time without playing the philosopher too much. He then recommended an aggressive policy of self-advancement. To begin with, put a bold
face on everything to avoid ever feeling shame. Next, intrude in all the affairs
of everyone; elbow people out of the way whenever possible. Do not love
or hate anyone sincerely, but measure everything by your own advantage;
let your whole course of behavior be directed to this one goal. Give nothing
unless you look for return, and agree with everyone about everything. But
this too was no more than a rhetorical exercise, a simple ironic inversion of
Erasmuss former philosophical attitude. The very abstract and exaggerated
nature of his new posture attests to as much: how could Ammonio suddenly
rid himself of those qualities, which Erasmus attributed to him, in order to
behave so brutally? Only in the following sentence is the rhetorical screen
raised as Erasmus offers his friend some concrete advice:
Come then, here is a piece of advice just made to order for you, since you wish
it; but, mind you, I whisper it confidentially. You are familiar with British jealousy; use it for your own profit. . . . Threaten to go away, and actually get ready
to go. Flourish letters in which you are tempted away by generous promises.
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Sometimes remove your presence deliberately in order that, when your society is
denied them, they may feel the need of you all the more keenly. (Ep 250)
There is something fascinating for the modern reader in this correspondence. The great effort required of Ammonio in drawing Erasmus into a
sincerely intimate dialogue shows the extent that humanist literary conventions determined the terms and realities of personal friendship. Still more
significant are the inherent tensions in humanist discourse evidenced here.
Faced with the possibility that he has wasted his life, Ammonio wishes to
suspend rhetorical embellishment, moral maxims, and, indeed, philosophy
itself. They all seem irrelevant to the harsh social and professional realities he
has to cope with. However, rhetoric and moral philosophy, and particularly
the kind of moral precepts Erasmus offered Ammonio, were the daily bread
of the humanists. This is what they had to offer to anyone who cared to listen. And they offered it precisely as a means for coping with those concrete
problems that individuals faced in the course of their social lives. Ammonios
words therefore attest to the limitations of humanist discourse, to the fact
that, in some cases at least, this discourse was not a guide for conduct but was
a means for disguising actual social practice.
45
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was the period in which Erasmus published the first edition of the Adagia
(1500) and the Enchiridion militis christiani (1501) and when he wrote the
first drafts of important educational works, including De ratione studii, De
copia, and several of the dialogues of the Colloquia.
In stark contrast to such intellectual self-confidence was Erasmuss lack of
proper place. In the decade or so following his departure from the monastery
Erasmus moved about restlessly, mostly between Paris and the Low Countries, including an extended stay in England. After a first, nightmarish year
at Collge de Montaigu, he usually dwelled in the homes of friends, patrons
and employers. The search for lodging and the discords with his hosts are a
prominent feature in his correspondence from this period. Will he stay in
Paris or depart for the Low Countries (Ep 80: 918)? To where will he flee the
plague, Flanders or Orlans (Ep 129: 221)? Will he return to England or visit
Italy (Ep 159: 5971)? Erasmus also lacked any definite social and professional
standing. His nominal position as a monk studying theology was, as we saw,
not to his liking. What is more, he rejected many of the professional avenues
that were open to humanists. In 1502, for example, as he recounted in a letter to the prior of Steyn, that he turned down the responsibility of lecturing
publicly in Louvain, citing specific reasons which included most especially
a concern about hostile reactions (Ep 171). Erasmus did later accept the position of lecturer in Cambridge in 1511, staying at the university until 1514. But
as he repeatedly testified, he had unwillingly accepted the appointment out of
acute economic need (e.g., Ep 241). And though the lectureship was created
for him and provided an excellent opportunity to deepen the presence of humanism in the English academy, he left as soon as he felt he could.
Erasmuss distaste for teaching was not limited to the specific culture of the
university. Poverty in his student years had forced him to give private tutoring.
Later, in order to finance his desire to journey to Italy, he agreed to supervise the
education of the sons of the Italian physician of Henry VIII, Giovanni Battista
Boerio. But he never regarded teaching as anything other than a temporary constraint, abandoning it as soon as possible.24 Erasmuss homelessness and lack of
a defined social position aroused a degree of uneasiness among those around
him. In a letter written in September 1500, for example, he mentions his wish
to live in the Low Countries, adding that at present my fellow countrymen at
home believe that I am glad to be away, in order to be free, while those who
reside in Paris suspect that I am not popular with my own nation and am living
here in a kind of enforced exile (Ep 129: 4346).
All this increased the pressure to find patrons. And, in fact, Erasmus dedicated considerable time and energy in seeking the attention and favor of several
potential patrons, among them the bishop of Cambrai, Anna van Borssele, lady
of Veere, Batts patroness and employer and Lord Mountjoy, together with
47
several prominent figures in the court of Philip the Fair, the duke of Burgundy.
Erasmuss experience with patrons was almost always unpleasant. It was characterized by a recurring pattern of initial high hopes followed by disappointment.
The mold was already set with Erasmuss first patron, the bishop of Cambrai.
His principles are admirable but he gives nothing while promising much,
was Erasmuss repeated complaint (Ep 81: 1819). In due course he learned to
restrain his anger when the promises that he believed were made to him were
left unfulfilled (which they always were). But in the early stages of his career as
protg he often gave vent to his feelingsAnti-Maecenas, as he defined van
Bergen in a letter to Batt (Ep 135: 20). Feeling that he was not properly rewarded
after writing four epitaphs in honor of the late bishop he meanly remarked: so
as to keep up in death the character he had in life! (Ep 179: 56). Some of these
comments must have reached van Bergen, for in an interview held in the spring
of 1501 he accused Erasmus of ingratitude. Erasmus was forced to compose a
humble letter of apology in which he declared to the bishop: I have loved you
unreservedly, looked up to you, reverenced you, sung your praises, and not
forgotten you. To this very day I have not once said a mass without beseeching
immortal God to repay you with ample interest, since he alone can, for all that
you have given me (Ep 154: 2024). The text once again highlights the position
of the Renaissance literati vis--vis their patrons. It also demonstrates how the
system of patronage informed their perspective: God himself is represented as
the apex of the patronage pyramid.
Such debilitating feelings of dependence and uncertainty were immanent
to patronage relations. It would appear, however, that Erasmuss disappointments were also due to his own ambivalence about patronage and his
dissatisfaction with the customary terms of these relations. From early on
he had a vision of the ideal patronage relationship, which he disclosed in his
correspondence with Batt. On becoming the tutor of the young Adolph of
Burgundy, the son of Anna van Borssele, Batt sought to direct the ladys favors toward Erasmus. At first things looked promising. Erasmus was warmly
received by van Borssele at her castle of Tournehem in February 1499 and
was loaded with her favors (Ep 88: 4656). But as usual, the situation
rapidly deteriorated. Erasmus gave vent to his despair in a letter to Batt written in July 1500, complaining that my lady merely extends promises from
day to day (Ep 128: 1718). This was the background for his explication to
Batt several months later of the kind of support he believed necessary for his
career: Possibly you think I am well enough off if I can avoid beggary. But
my own attitude is this: either I must obtain, from whatever source, the essential equipment of a scholars life, or else I must to abandon my studies
completely. And that essential equipment includes a way of living that is not
utterly poverty-stricken and miserable (Ep 139: 10711). In concrete terms,
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Erasmus demanded that Batt obtain from van Borssele at least two hundred
francs as an advance on next years salary. This would allow him to travel to
Italy and earn a doctorate there. He also wanted a beneficethe first choice
among a large number of livingsso that when I come back from Italy I
may have a literary retreat (ibid.: 3739, 5569). Erasmus instructed Batt to
promise van Borssele eternal fame in return:
Please explain to her how much greater is the glory she can acquire from me,
by my literary works, than from the other theologians in her patronage. They
merely deliver humdrum sermons; I am writing books that may last for ever.
Their uneducated nonsense finds an audience in perhaps a couple of churches;
my books will be read all over the world, in the Latin west and in the Greek east
and by every nation. Say that there is everywhere a huge supply of such uneducated divines as these, while such one as I am is scarcely to be found in many
generations. . . . (Ep ibid.: 4148)
49
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and even in times to come, provided I can say something worthy to be recorded
for the future. I was also carried away, I could almost say intoxicated, by the
unbelievable joy with which your longed-for return has lifted the hearts of one
and all in a manner unprecedented . . . (Pan 8)
51
festive celebrations to bloody triumphs, and would rather sing your praises in
odes of joy and panegyrics than with dismal tragedies. (50; LB 4: 534B)
Here, for the first and the last time in the text, the chorus of learned and
eloquent men assumes a position of its own. Erasmus the humanist continuously promises to enhance the princes eternal fame and glory, but he now
demandspolitely but unmistakablya certain mode of conduct from his
patron. Having established his position and authority, Erasmus embarks on a
long declamation concerning the benefits of peace and the horrors of war. This
includes many of the themes of his later pacifist writings, for instance, that the
worst peace is better than the most just war, and that the pursuit of peace is the
highest duty of the Christian prince (5060). The tone of his discourse is also
changed. The common hierarchy between patron and protg is suspended as
Erasmus addresses Philip from a position of moral authority. A Christian ruler
has a duty to be all-merciful, he lectures his sovereign and patron, adding: His
entire realm or even his own life ought not to mean so much to him that he
would be willing for a single innocent man to die on his account (55).
Such exhortations, in far more combative language, would later characterize
Erasmuss political writings. But in 1504 he still enjoyed limited independence,
which meant that he duly returned to the conventions of laudatory declamations
at the end of his oration. It is as if Erasmus suddenly awoke from his absorption
in the question of war and peace and remembered where he stood and to whom
he spoke. I did not mean, he abruptly states, to ignore Philips military skills,
and if war breaks out the prince will doubtless display them for all to see. For
who amongst the leading military men can rival you in fleetness of foot, agility
in leaping, or energy in wrestling. . . . Whom does the helmet with menacing
plume, the bronze breastplate, baldric, sword, and shield, in short the whole
panoply of war, suit so marvelously as you? (61). Erasmus goes on to laud
the military prowess of Philips forefathers, Burgundians and Habsburgs alike.
Thus, an aristocratic military ethos replaces Erasmuss humanist pacifism.
Erasmuss discontent with the Panegyricus is evident in the selection of letters
printed together with the text. In addition to the standard letter of dedication,
to Ruister in this case, Erasmus added an extended text, in fact, an apologia,
that was addressed to Desmarez. It explicitly rejoins accusations of flattery (Ep
180). Here Erasmus distances himself from the Panegyricus, arguing that it was
Desmarez who convinced him to overcome his reluctance and compose the
oration and then publish it (ibid.: 188203). He mentions that he lacked three
essential ingredients for the success of this assignment: subject-matter (that
is, precise information concerning Philipss journey), time and, significantly,
emotion. He actually describes his role as entirely technical: The orator . . .
is given certain facts; he does not invent them for himself (ibid.: 13568). The
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53
political interests and, of even greater significance for him, the cultural values
of patrons. In sixteenth-century northern Europe this meant, as the Panegyricus amply shows, identifying oneself with the aristocratic ethos and the court
culture, which Erasmus considered to be contradictory to his own humanist
and Christian values.
Erasmus never again composed another laudatory oration for a patron. He
later wrote, in a line added to the dedicatory letter of the 1516 edition of the
Panegyricus, that Philip promised me the earth if I were willing to come to
court as a member of his household (Ep 179: 1920) but that he had declined
the offer of becoming a courtier.28
In the same year he wrote the Panegyricus, a new aspect of Erasmuss attitude toward patronage emerged, one that would increase in importance
alongside his own increasing prominence. This dimension, what may be
called politicocultural patronage, was connected to the support required by
the humanists in pursuing their struggle for cultural hegemony. This support
was particularly important in relation to such sensitive issues as theology. For
Erasmus such requirements were obvious by 1504, when, in the summer of
that year, he found a manuscript of Lorenzo Vallas Adnotationes on the New
Testament in an abbey near Louvain and instantly recognized the vital role
textual criticism and philology could play in the study of scripture. Erasmus
published Vallas work in Paris the following spring. His introductory letter
to Christopher Fisher, an English churchman (and Erasmuss host in Paris),
reveals his awareness of the controversial nature of biblical philology and of
the need for backing if he was to pursue this enterprise. Erasmus correctly
anticipated many of the arguments to be employed by his opponents in their
future polemical attacks against the intolerable presumption of the grammarian to let his impertinent pen loose on Holy Scripture itself (Ep 182:
119226). Of most significance to the present discussion is Erasmuss conviction that pursuing the enterprise of biblical philology required the support of
powerful patrons. As a consequence, he generouslytoo generously, one suspectsassigned most of the responsibility for the decision to publish Vallas
work to Fisher, whom he defined as his patron and defender (ibid.: 19). It
was Fisher who not only lent his considerable support to Erasmuss decision
to publish the Adnotationes, but who actually deafened him with importunities not to deprive countless students of the enormous advantage of
Vallas work (ibid.: 1115). Fisher was Vallas stout and tireless champion
(ibid.: 23). Indeed, it was Fisher rather than Erasmus who brought [Valla]
to public notice (ibid.: 232). Fisher emerges as the modest predecessor of
the popes and cardinals who Erasmus later enlisted in support of his religious
reform program, particularly his Novum Testamentum project.
Having refused to be Philip the Fairs courtier, Erasmus left Louvain at the
end of 1504 and traveled to Paris. He spent most of the next decade in England
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and Italy.29 His intellectual activity continued unabated. In 1508, after months
of strenuous work in Aldo Manuzios printing house in Venice, he published
an enlarged edition of the Adagia, whose exposition of 3,260 proverbs became
an Erasmian version of the encyclopedia of classical inheritance.30 In 1511 the
work destined to become Erasmuss most enduring achievement, the Moriae
encomium, was published by Bade in Paris. In the following year he published
two of his important literary-educational writings, De ratione studii, an exposition of the various stages of liberal education, and De copia, a detailed exposition of the rhetorical theory of writing. This partial list of activity shows just
how much Erasmuss declared abandonment of secular literature (Ep 189)
should not be taken literally. Erasmus did, however, dedicate a significant part
of his intellectual activity to religious works, especially to the New Testament
project and to editing of the writings of the Church father Jerome.
Erasmuss literal and metaphorical homelessness remained unchanged. He
continued to move from one place to another, circulating between the homes
of patrons, friends, and printers. He detested the two most important paid
positions he held during the period, supervising the education of Boerios
sons and lecturing in Cambridge. He continued to consider patronage as the
only route for pursuing an intellectual vocation. Immediately upon leaving
Louvain Erasmus sought, through Colet, to reingratiate himself with Lord
Mountjoy (Ep 181: 8791). Once he arrived in England by the latters invitation, Erasmus invested great effort in winning additional patrons. His skills
at doing so were fast improving. The dialogues of Lucian that he translated
into Latin were the site of no less than seven letters of dedication to prospective patrons or to those who could assist him in finding a patron.31 Mountjoy
and Warham, whom Erasmus correctly estimated as the most reliable patrons
for the long term, were treated with care. The Aldine edition of the Adagia
was rededicated to the lord (Ep 211) while the translation of two tragedies
of Euripides was dedicated to the cardinal (Epp 188, 208). Erasmuss style
also improved. The new dedications were shorter than the letters he had
written to his patrons in the Low Countries; the praises they contained were
more restrained. In 1501 he had begun his letter to Anna van Borssele with
a long, effusive comparison of his patroness to three classical and biblical
namesakesDidos sister, Samuels mother, and the Virgin Marys mother
(Ep 145: 340). In a letter of dedication to the bishop of Winchester five years
later, Erasmus calmly noted that Lucian was a suitable presentation from
a man of studies to a prelate who, though he has been richly endowed with
every advantage in Fortunes gift, infinitely prefers virtue, and virtues companion, good letters (Ep 187: 1113).
Such efforts to win English patronage were at least partially successful. In
March 1512 Erasmus at last received a benefice from Warham, the living of
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benefices as I cared to have (Ep 296: 12426). He also recounts his rejection
of Queen Catherines offer to serve as her tutor, as well as of offers from both
English universities (ibid.: 12324, 14041). Erasmus had apparently begun
to appreciate that his disappointments were not solely due to the behavior of
patrons who reneged on earlier promises. He began to better understand his
contributionhis unwillingness to fulfill his patrons expectationsto the
frustration of his hopes.
Another indication of Erasmuss predicament is to be found a year later
in yet another account by him of his years in England, this time in a letter to
his most important Italian patron, Cardinal Raffaele Riario. The ambivalence
is still evident: I have in England a position of the middle sort, less than I
could wish and than my friends had promised, but more than I deserve (Ep
333: 1618). On the one hand, Erasmus mentions the support he enjoyed
from prominent English figures, notably the king himself, the rising man in
the court, Bishop Thomas Wolsey, and above all, Warham (ibid.: 1831).
On the other hand, he voices his usual complaints about empty promises of
mountains of gold, and more than gold. This time he is more specific than
usual, however. He left Italy and returned to England, he writes, only because
Mountjoy was making a definite offer and a very large one, coupled with
complete leisure and the freedom to choose my own way of life which I regard
as so necessary that, if deprived of that, I should think life not worth living
(ibid.: 4044). Erasmus was doubtless referring to Mountjoys letter from
May 1509 (Ep 215), which, as we have already seen, does paint Erasmuss
future in England in bright colors. Nevertheless, the actual promises made by
Mountjoy were a far cry from what Erasmus later described. In fact, besides
10 to cover his travel expenses, the only thing Mountjoy promised Erasmus
if he returned to England, doing so in Warhams name, was a benefice (ibid.:
7380). The cardinal kept this promise, albeit three years later. More importantly, Mountjoys letter makes absolutely no mention of complete leisure
or freedom to choose ones own way of life. It is most unlikely that any such
promises were made or that Warham, Mountjoy, or any other patron even
thought in these terms. Patronage, and certainly a permanent patronage relationship, required service or at least some kind of commitment from the
protg. A letter sent from Warham to Erasmus, which was written under
the same circumstances as Mountjoys, is rather clear on this issue. In the
extant fragment of the letter the cardinal promises Erasmus 150 nobles on his
arrival in England, but then adds that it will be paid on condition only that
you agree to spend the rest of your life in England. The cardinals further
stipulations for allowing Erasmus, on suitable occasions, to revisit his native land, family and friends underlines the importance of the condition (Ep
214). Warham was an uncommonly generous and selfless patronhe actually
57
continued to pay Erasmus the pension for which he commuted his benefice
even after the latter left England. But even Warham demanded a commitment
in return for his patronage. As the primate and the lord chancellor of England
he required in the very least that, by living in the realm, Erasmus would contribute to its prestige.
By now Erasmuss unwillingness to beg or to spend a few months at
court had acquired a different meaning, one that he himself spelled out in a
concluding remark on the issue of patronage in his letter to Riario: Not but
what, if truth be told, it was that not so much that no position came my way
as that I would not live up to any position; such is my abhorrence of ordinary business, and so far am I from ambition, so lazy if you like, that I need
a position such as Timotheus enjoyed, and success caught in my nets while I
sleep (Ep 333: 5357). This is Erasmuss most important statement concerning his social and professional position in England, and his understanding of
the patronage relationship. As we have seen, Erasmus early on rejected most
of the professional options open to humanists, placing his hopes on direct
patronage. After his experience in the Burgundian court Erasmus also came
to reject the common terms of patronage. He simply refusedand publicly
stated so34any kind of service or commitment that would compromise his
leisure and freedom and that would interfere with his intellectual activity.
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part in this enterprise (ibid.: 8081)but this does not change the fact that
he was the one who enjoyed paving the way for others who had greater project in hand (ibid.: 8687). Indeed, Erasmuss modesty, or feigned modesty,
cannot hide the fact that he became the arbiter of the state of the bonae literae
at least north to the Alps.
Another novel development, indicated in the letter to Capito, was Erasmuss
posture in relation to the powerful. Certainly, he continued to lavish praise on
European rulers. But he now did so in a different manner. He praised each
for his contribution to reform, which made Erasmus more of a judge than a
humble subject or protg. Thus, King Henry VIII is something of a scholar
himself, King Charles is a divinely gifted young man, and King Francis
seems as if born to this very purpose of propagating reform. By the time
Erasmus arrived at the Emperor Maximilian, whom he always felt a strong
distaste for,35 he assumed an almost openly ironic and critical tone: in his old
age, wearied by so many wars, [Maximilian] has decided to relax in the arts
of peace, which will prove both more appropriate to his time of life and more
beneficial to the Christian world (ibid.: 3451).
The previously cited letter to Antoon van Bergen from March 1514 provides further insight into this transformation of Erasmuss status and position. Van Bergen, abbot of St. Bertin at Saint-Omer and the brother of the
bishop of Cambrai, was one of Erasmuss patrons, or, rather, prospective
patrons, at the opening of the century. Erasmus renewed his correspondence
with van Bergen after more than a decade in an attempt to rebuild his patronage relations in the Low Countries. In the very first sentence of the letter
Erasmus informs van Bergen of his desire to be restored to my native country if I could but obtain from the prince a competence that might suffice to
sustain me in modest leisure (Ep 288: 68). However, both the style and the
content of this letter are strikingly different from that to be found in the previous correspondence addressed by Erasmus to van Bergen and other patrons.
We have already seen that, in contrast to his common complaints concerning
unfulfilled promises, Erasmus now makes an enumeration of his important
English patrons and attributes his decision to leave the country to its preparation for war against France. Indeed, most of the letterwhich served as a
draft for the famous adage Dulce bellum inexpertisis given over to a diatribe
against war. Erasmuss relationships with his patron are thus projected onto
a new plane. While in 1501 Erasmus wrote to van Bergen (who barely offered
him any assistance), declaring that his debt to his patron was so great that
even if I should auction off my very life he would not be able to repay it (Ep
143: 36), he now charged the abbot with responsibility for preventing war,
this to be achieved by applying his influence on Prince Charles and Emperor
Maximilian (Ep 288: 14452). The relations between the humanist and his
59
patron were thus inverted. In 1501 Erasmus was a private litteratus asking
for the support of a powerful public figure; in 1514 Erasmus placed himself
in the position of guardian of the common good. He even did not hesitate
to invoke van Bergens private interests. You already know from experience
how expensive even ones friends can be in wartime, he reminds the abbot,
presumably alluding to the prospects of new taxes to be allayed for financing
the war, and concludes that it will thus also be in your own interest to endeavor to bring this war to an end; so you need not think you will undertake
this responsibility with no reward (ibid.: 14952).
In his letters to Capito and Van Bergen, Erasmus addresses the powerful,
including his patrons, from a position of ethical and intellectual superiority.
This is indicative of a significant change in his status, indeed his identity,
pointing to his standing as the educator and reformer of Christendom, the
unbiased intellectual who speaks on behalf of the common good. I want to
suggest that this position was unique. No humanist, perhaps no European
intellectual, had ever held it prior to Erasmus. Those who created the identity
of the universal intellectual, and promoted Erasmus as the embodiment of
the ideal reformer, will be defined in this study as Erasmian humanists. As
the definition makes clear, Erasmian humanism, in contrast to most other
types of humanism, has no geographical or political center. No city, court
or even kingdom served as the context of Erasmian humanism. Erasmian
humanists were spread all over northern Europe. Membership in the group
was continually changing. As Erasmuss prestige increaseddue, in large
part, to the efforts of the Erasmian humanists themselvesmany humanists
became eager to join him and move into his orbit. At the same time, others
left the Erasmian Republic of Letters, most notably to join the Reformation.
Erasmian humanism can, therefore, be studied at any point of time after the
middle of the second decade of the fifteenth century. I will focus on the years
of its inception and on the group of German humanists who played a central
role during this period. In an important sense, all later Erasmian humanists
simply mimicked this first group.
The symbiotic relationship that developed between Erasmus and the German humanists in the second decade of the sixteenth century was due in part
to the situation of German humanism in this period. In the last decades of the
fifteenth century German humanism quickly passed its antiquarian phase,
its immersion in classical literature, and was already directing its energies
toward contemporary issues. This effort was principally devoted to promoting national German culture, to establishing liberal education in the cities
and, above all else, to advancing religious reform. The practical, didactic and
moralistic nature of German humanism was a major factor in the rapid progress of the movement. German humanism established itself in both lay and
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ecclesiastical courts, in the cities and even in several universities after 1470,
reaching its height during the first two decades of the sixteenth century.36 By
then German humanists were in need of a leader who would embody their
own sense of being a mature and confident movement reaching for cultural
hegemony. This was the context for the unconditional recognition on their
part of Erasmuss leadership even though he did not even hint at any intention of settling in Germany.
Indeed, the gap between Erasmus and the German humanists over the
national issue suggests that the choice of the Dutch humanist was an odd
one. From its beginnings in the first half of the fifteenth century, German
humanism had been struggling against what it considered to be Italian cultural hegemony and Roman religious domination. The German humanists, in
contrast, sought to revive and develop a distinct German culture.37 Erasmus
was certainly not the right choice to head such a project. Erasmuss rather
limited sense of patriotism was anchored in the Netherlands, which was a part
of the empire only because of the marital politics of the Habsburgs; indeed,
his views were distinctly cosmopolitan.38 The Germans chose to ignore these
characteristics, and defined Erasmus as German. Save the occasional reference
to our Germany in his correspondence Erasmus, did nothing to accommodate himself to this spirit.39
In any event, within German humanism the national question was subordinated to the religious one. Like the other humanists, the Germans also
detested scholastic theology and argued that the Church was corrupted and
badly in need of reform. They advocated a return to the sources, namely to
the works of the Church fathers and particularly to scripture itself through the
learning of Greek and Hebrew. In addition, they supported a general religious
reform based on the spiritual and ethical dimensions of Christianity whose
reinforcement would come at the expense of what they considered to be the
excessive emphasis on form and ritual.40 According to Lewis Spitz, however,
their notion of religious enlightenment was vague and ill-defined.41
Tracy observes that Erasmus was oblivious to the depth of religious unrest in
Germany.42 These problems surfaced during the third decade of the sixteenth
century when the majority of the younger German humanists joined the
Reformation, often assuming important roles in Germany and Switzerland.
In 1514, however, this rift lay in the future. At this time German humanists
viewed Erasmus to be the one who would articulate their views and lead their
reform programs. This, in turn, enabled Erasmus to elaborate his nonconformist theology and sharpen his criticism of the Church.43
Among the important centers of German humanism were Vienna, Heidelberg, Nrnberg, and Erfurt,44 but for Erasmus the most important region of
all was that which he called Upper Germany (Ep 414). The symbiosis and
61
collaboration between Erasmus and the humanists living and working in the
cities of the Upper Rhine, Strasbourg, Slestat, Freiburg, and especially Basel
(which was, of course, part of the Swiss confederation) were particularly significant. In the second and third decades of the sixteenth century these cities
contained the highest number of humanists whose intellectual activity was
directly related to, and subordinated to, that of Erasmus.
Erasmuss interaction with these humanists who would define themselves
as Erasmians gave birth to that language which conceived of the humanist
as a universal intellectual, and of the Republic of Letters as an autonomous
sociointellectual space.
This was done, first of all, by assigning Erasmus the place as head of a unified movement. His journey to Basel in the summer of 1514 was a testimony
to his leadership. Humanists in city after city celebrated his arrival. In Strasbourg and Slestat he was even officially welcomed by the local magistrates.
We learn of these events from a letter written by the Strasbourg humanist
Jakob Wimpfeling to Erasmus after the latters visit to the city. The short correspondence is a quasi-official one, written as it was on behalf of Strasbourgs
sodalitas literaria, conveying the best wishes of the members and urging him
to respond without delay. The existence of such literary societies in Strasbourg and elsewhere was part of German humanisms attempt to create
some kind of institutional structure for their shared identity.45 Wimpfelings
concluding words, prefacing his enumeration of the societys members, attest to Erasmuss central place in German humanism: Our society as a body
presents its compliments to you and offers its devoted services, if there is
anything it can do for you (Ep 302). Less than two years later, in April 1516,
the German humanist Johann Witz opened a short letter to Erasmus with the
following words:
How right they are, the scholars of our native Germany, to love and respect
you, my dear Erasmus, most scholarly of men! You have always regarded them
with special affection, and your industry and learning contribute greatly to their
prosperity; and this is why the devotees of literature flock round you from the
whole Germany in their devotion.
Perhaps even more significant are the concluding words of this letter: Greeting to Beatus Rhenanus and all the Erasmians (Ep 399). This first appearance
of the term Erasmians is a clear indication of the centrality of Erasmus in the
very self-definition of German humanism.
The attitude of the German humanists toward Erasmus as revealed in his correspondence is a further testament to Erasmuss unique position. The language
employed in addressing Erasmus is closer to the language of a protg addressing a patron or a subject addressing his sovereign than it is to the language the
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63
Erasmus came to Basel in order to work with Froben, whose printing firm
was the epicenter of humanist activity in the city. The printing press is indeed
another context for the understanding of Erasmian humanism, more important
even than the humanist sodalities. The printing press played, of course, a crucial role in the humanist enterprise as a whole. It was a central institution for
the humanist production and transmission of knowledge. It was instrumental
in the dissemination of the revival of classical literary heritage as well as the
humanists own notions of learning and education. The printing presses provided occupation for many humanists and, more importantly, they became a
site of collective humanist activities and therefore of intellectual fermentation.
In this respect the printing press can be seen as the humanist substitutiona
partial one to be sureof the scholastic university.50 During his career Erasmus
closely collaborated with several printersManuzio, Martens and Froben were
already mentionedwho were crucial in propagating his vast literary output.
Moreover, Jardine argues that Erasmus and his friend skillfully employed their
command of the art of printing in order to project a carefully manufactured
image of the leader of the Republic of Letters.51 Jardine seems to overlook,
however, the fundamental significance of the printing press to the Erasmian
Republic of Letters. As an institution the printing press represented an autonomous and cosmopolitan site for the production of knowledge free of lay and
ecclesiastical control. It was the social place of the disinterested universal intellectual who labored for the reform of Christendom. In this respect, the printing
press provided for Erasmian humanism the context which the city-state or the
court provided for other groups of humanists. Already in 1508, referring to
Aldo Manuzio in his famous adage Festina lenta, Erasmus emphasized the social
role as well as the universal character of the printing press. Aldo, Erasmus says,
is building a library which knows no walls save those of the world itself.52
Moreover, Manuzio, who used the emblem of Festina lente, was the true heir
of the few good Roman emperors who had also associated themselves with the
symbol. Nor do I think, Erasmus continues
this symbol was more illustrious then, when it was stamped on the imperial
coinage and suffered the wear and tear of circulation as it passed from one merchant to another, than it is now, when in every nation, even outside the limits of
any Christian empire, it spreads and wins recognition, it is held fast and prized
in company with books of all kinds in both the ancient languages, by all who are
devoted to the cult of liberal studies.53
The contrast between the political (and commercial) world and the Republic
of Letters cannot be sharper.
Among those active in Basel at the time of Erasmuss arrival were Rhenanus, Capito, Gerard Lyster, Heinrich Loriti (Glareanus), Ludwig Bear, and
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compared Erasmuss position with his own: You are indeed to be congratulated, for your labors will win you the favor of God and of his saints, and of
the world. I on the other hand am obliged to follow the noise and bustle of
the law and the squabbles of princes, in which even to please God is perhaps
impossible; and how meanly Fortune treats those who immerse themselves in
public business, history has many examples to show. He implored Erasmus
to stay on his chosen course, ensuring him that he will ultimately earn a
name that will outlive riches and royalty (Ep 375).
Pirckheimers language is most significant. His public career was typical of
a successful humanist. Such a career was usually conceived of and presented
as a fulfillment of the humanist commitment to society. In fact, Erasmus
himself, adopting the common humanist terminology, described this choice
as a natural and praiseworthy one. And yet, in comparing himself to Erasmus,
Pirckheimer employed the language of Erasmian humanism to describe his
public activities as detrimental to his humanist vocation. Erasmus is the one
who represents humanism in its pure form, and that because he has distanced
himself from the courts of law and courts of princes. Such an attitude is what
leads us to define Pirckheimer and those who shared his viewsthat is, those
who created the social role of the universal intellectualas Erasmian humanists even though they themselves were to be found filling various public positions and roles.
The relationship between Erasmus and the powerful changed noticeably
after 1514, a change that attests to the success of Erasmian humanists in
constructing their Republic of Letters. A new tone can be discerned already
in Erasmuss letter, discussed above, to Strasbourgs literary society in the
summer of 1514. Erasmus writes of his intentions to take some days for paying my respects to the German princes and getting to know them (Ep 305:
23738). Erasmus almost sees himself as being a prince among princes. Perhaps more revealing is the fact that the princes saw things in the same light.
In February 1516, for instance, Duke Ernest, the son of Duke Albert IV of
Bavaria, tried to attract Erasmus to the University of Ingolstadt. The approach
was indirect (for to write directly to so great a man as Erasmus was deemed
inappropriate). Urbanus Regius, a lecturer at the university, asked his fellow humanists, Johannes Fabri, the chancellor of the bishop of Basel and
Capito, to inquire whether Erasmus intended to accept the offer. The letter,
which lavished praises on Erasmusthe great scholar of Rotterdam, the
man of universal learning, the great champion of humane studiesoffered
generous conditions of employment, including an annual salary equivalent to
more than 34 and very lucrative benefices. Erasmus was not even expected
to teach, but was simply asked to be in attendance in Ingolstadt and by his
presence add luster to the university. In case the offer was not accepted, the
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admiring duke had another: a month-long visit, for which Erasmus would be
liberally compensated (Ep 386). Erasmus turned down both offers in a short
letter that noted how his loyalty was already divided between two countries
and two personages, that is, between his native Low Countries and its ruler
Prince Charles, and his adopted land, England, and his eminent English patron, the archbishop of Canterbury. He also made it a point to clarify that
these loyalties did not hamper his freedomIf my freedom is endangered, I
resign everythingand declared himself willing, if the plan of my journey
permits, to expend two or three days with the prince (Ep 392).
This chapter traced the creation of a unique version of humanism, different from all other humanist groups and centers that flourished throughout
Europe. Erasmus overcame the social and professional pressures to associate
himself with a political establishment. He understood himself and was perceived by many of his contemporaries as the educator of Europe, detached
from any particular interest and ideology and committed only to the wellbeing of Christendom as a whole. Erasmus did not attain his position by himself. The activity of the circle of humanists gathered around him was crucial
in every respect. As we saw, the Erasmian humanists actively participated in
the great scholarly projects of Erasmus. Moreover, they created the identity
of the universal intellectual and the image of Erasmus as the embodiment of
this identity. They also crowned Erasmus as the head of a movement: not an
isolated prophet who highlights the unbridgeable gap between what is and
what ought to be, but rather the head of a movement which sought to harness
its intellectual resources and cultural capital for the reform of Christendom.
In the following chapter we will examine in detail how the construction of
identity of the autonomous intellectual, the citizen of the Republic of Letters,
fashioned the discourse of Erasmian humanism.
3
Erasmian Humanism: The Reform
Program of the Universal Intellectual
the head of the humanist Republic of Letters. This chapter will examine how the discourse
of Erasmian humanism shaped and was shaped by the identity of the autonomous intellectual. It will consequently highlight the Erasmian critique
of powerful institutions and prevailing customs, a critique that sometimes
developed into a rejection of the ideological basis of the social and political
order in northern Europe. The universal scope of Erasmian humanism will
also be underscored, observing that the Erasmian reform program addressed
Christendom as a whole, seeking to change and ameliorate all aspects of society, ranging from childrens manners to theology. Erasmian humanism was
universal in another sense as well: it did not represent the interests or ideology
of any distinct political or religious establishments or of any distinct social
class. Rather, it understood and presented itself as the reform program of the
Erasmian humanists qua universal and disinterested intellectuals.
My interpretation will focus on Erasmian humanism at its height, the
decade or so after Erasmuss return to the Continent in 1514. In this period
Erasmus, the leader of the humanist Republic of Letters, and Thomas More,
its most reflective citizen, wrote their most important works. Erasmus published, among other works, the Novum Testamentum, the edition of the letters
of Jerome, The Education of a Christian Prince, and the 1515 utopian edition of the Adages.1 More wrote practically all his humanist works during this
period: Utopia and The History of Richard III, as well as the four humanist
letters. More importantly, Erasmuss prestige and influence reached their
zenith in these years while Mores commitment to humanist values and to
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the Erasmian project was at its height. It was now, before the Reformation
transformed the religious and political landscape, that Erasmian humanism
achieved a truly autonomous position.
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and plotters of treachery; nor gaping like those of idiots . . . (Civ 274). This
is also the source for the powerful psychological insights characteristic of
De civilitate. Erasmus observes, for instance, that some people eat or drink
without stopping not because they are hungry or thirsty but because they cannot otherwise moderate their gestures, unless they scratch their head, or pick
their teeth, or gesticulate with their hands, or play with their dinner knife, or
cough, or clear their throat, or spit (284).
Erasmus, as his observations suggest, viewed society and tradition from a
distance. He did not accept the existing order of things as irrevocable. Consequently, his aim is ultimately not to transmit an established tradition but
to transform society. This is why Erasmus also augments the medieval code
of manners. While medieval guides dealt almost exclusively with table manners, De civilitate covers various aspects of human behavior in society.7 For
Erasmus, tutoring polite behavior is just the beginning of a comprehensive
educational process, the more important stages of which are instruction in
the duties of life, instilling a love for, and a thorough knowledge of, the
liberal arts, and, most important, implanting the seeds of piety. Erasmus
perceived these varied teachings to all belong to a single objective, the task of
fashioning the young [formandi pueritiam] (273; LB 1: 1033B). His reform
program, therefore, is a unified one. His wish to reform manners and daily
conduct was integral to his vision of a humane, educated and truly Christian
society, a fully civilized Europe. This vision explains the decision of Europes
leading intellectual to busy himself with childrens manners, a subject usually
left to minor figures.
Erasmuss treatment of manners as part of his reform program determined
his very conception of polite behavior and had far-reaching social implications. Erasmuss uniqueness within the guidebook tradition is here especially
pronounced. The genre first appeared in Europe in the twelfth century, doing
so within clerical society. In the next century it spread in vernacular languages within feudal-aristocratic culture, directed as it was toward this social
estate.8 From the sixteenth century onward, the class attributes of the code of
manners were even more marked in the courtly writings as the conventions
of conduct became the very essence of court society. When actual political
power became increasingly concentrated in the hands of a central government
at the expense of the nobles, it was the code of mannersas opposed to power
based on land ownership and military powerthat defined the position and
status of each person in the intricate court hierarchy.9 The courtly discourse
of manners tended, therefore, to conventionalism as roles of behavior were
reified and fetishized. For this reason the courtly manners seem so mannerist:
artificial, affected, and inauthentic.10
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however, different. By the quattrocento the feudal nobility had long disappeared
from the city-states of central and northern Italy. New social groups and a new
sort of individualsrich merchant families, popolani, condottieriacquired and
struggled with each other for political power. Their political views were definitely
not aristocratic. Denunciations of the aristocratic ethos by the Italian humanists
thus actually served the interests and ideology of the ruling classes in the Italian
statesand in this respect there is not much difference between popular communes, and many oligarchic republics and city-states ruled by new princes
devoid of dynastic legitimacyand corresponded to ruling ideas.12 Erasmus, by
contrast, lived in northern Europe where monarchical and aristocratic political
ideology and cultural values were dominant. Against this background Erasmuss
rejection of the aristocratic ethos and ideology acquires its full meaning, and
becomes a true indication of the autonomy of Erasmian humanism.13
Erasmus speaks in De civilitate from a position of unmistakable preeminence and authority. The tone of his words and his manner of addressing his
audience attest to this as much as the content of his work. Here, for instance,
is the opening passage of De civilitate:
If on three separate occasions that illustrious man St. Paul was not averse to
becoming all things to all men so that he might benefit all, how much less ought
I be irked at repeatedly resuming the role of youth through a desire to help the
young. And so, just as in the past I adapted myself to the early youth of your
brother, Maximilian of Burgundy, while I was shaping the speech of the very
young, so now, my dearest Henry, I adapt myself to your boyhood so that I may
give instruction in manners appropriate to boys. (273)
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sensibilityhis aversion to fish and putrid air, for example, which he reveals
at the outset of a theological discussion (FD 67780)his labeling of syphilis
as a mark of moral debauchery and social illness,15 and his demand to isolate
patients suffering from contagious diseases (CR 206). As Elias clearly discerns,
Erasmuss satirical dialogue Diversoria (Inns) emphasizes many attributes of
what is considered today to be civilization: cleanliness, refinement, decency,
and, more significant, a heightened sense (compared to the Middle Ages) of
individuality and privacy and the consequent increase of prohibitions governing the sphere of interpersonal relations. 16 The Colloquies as a whole reflects
Erasmuss wish to reform European society in accordance with these views and
values. In the same context, but from a more abstract perspective, we should
also understand Erasmuss objection to any kind of excess, transgression, or loss
of self-control such as debauchery, gluttony, and drunkenness, and his condemnation of behavior related by the contemporary cultural code to aggression
such as hunting and chivalry tournaments.17 Even more significant is Erasmuss
explicit contempt for physical education, which stood in stark contrast to the
classical and Italian humanist ethos (Puer 323).18 Erasmuss notion of civilization was, furthermore, inherently tied to his abhorrence of any kind of violence,
ranging from brutality in the schools to war between nations.19
The perspective developed above also provides a framework for the reconstruction of Erasmuss educational writings. Erasmuss educational thought
clearly belonged to the humanist tradition. He was, in fact, the greatest humanist
educational thinker, bringing that tradition to its apex. He probably wrote more
on education than all other important fifteenth-century humanists put together.
His treatment of the subject was, consequently, highly more detailed. While the
Italian humanists usually dedicated a single work to the subject, Erasmus wrote
separate works on each aspect. Some of these writings were among the most
popular used in European schools until well into the eighteenth century.20 Erasmuss pedagogical works reproduced the basic tenets of humanist educational
thought: the assumption that the aim of education is to fashion personality
rather than to endow professional skills; the emphasis on the social importance
of education; and the adherence to the classical rhetorical curriculum and, more
generally, to the literary character of education.21 Most importantly, Erasmus,
like his predecessors, believed that human beings are potentially moral and responsible individuals and that this potential could be realized an adequatethat
is, humanisteducation. If you are negligent, Erasmus wrote in De pueris,
you will rear an animal; but if you apply yourself, you will fashion, if I may use
a such bold term, a godlike creature (Puer 305).22
Erasmuss vision, however, did diverge from that of his predecessors, in
particular in regard to the social function of education. The various etymologies given for the adjectives liberal and humanist used to describe the proper
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education and literature provide a first clue. In his important De moribus, the
Italian humanist Pier Paolo Vergerio stated that liberalis is derived from liber
(free) since liberal studies are the only form of education appropriate to
free man.23 Erasmus, by contrast, argues somewhat tortuously that humanitatisin humanitatis literascomes from the ancients conviction that success
in study depended basically on a relationship of good will between student
and master (Puer 338; LB 1: 511A). A distinctively political connotation is
replaced by general human values. This is indicative of a significant difference
between Erasmus and his quattrocento predecessors. The Italian humanists
emphasized how the purpose of education was to fashion a virtuous and
responsible citizen. The polity was the obvious context of their discussion,
and their writings were consequently explicitly meant to prepare the pupil
for political activity and were rich in political connotations and allusions.24
Erasmus by distinction defines humanist education less in terms of citizenship and more in terms of humanity (humanitas) in general. Indeed, for him,
humanity itself is equated with education: man certainly is not born, but
made man. Primitive man, living a lawless, unschooled, promiscuous life in
the woods, was not human, but rather a wild animal (304); It is beyond
argument that a man who has never been instructed in philosophy or in any
branch of learning is a creature quite inferior to the brute animals (3045);
and lastly, a man without education has no humanity at all (298).
The Italian humanists sought to prepare the educated individualpractically upper- or middle-class manfor life in the Italian city-state. Erasmuss
educational thought is to a large extent abstracted from a concrete social
and political context. Erasmus wants to educate the citizens of a fully civilized
society that does not yet exist. This difference is intimately related to the diverging positions taken by most humanists, on the one hand, and by Erasmus,
on the other hand, vis--vis society. The former, Italians and northerners
alike, propagated the fundamental values of the dominant classes of their society. Erasmus, as a citizen of the humanist Republic of Letters, perceived society from a critical distance, from the perspective of the universal intellectual.
This was the source of his criticism of accepted institutions and customs.25
Even more importantly, it was the source of his universal social vision.
And it was also the basis of the distinct humanness to be found in Erasmian humanism, which was by no means inherent in humanism as such.
Among the educational writings, the humanness of Erasmian humanism is
most salient in the long pedagogical discussions that are rife with psychological insights. This is where Erasmuss thought is most clearly superior to that
of previous humanists as well as classical theoreticians of education. In De
pueris, for instance, Erasmus argues that the teacher must gain his pupils affection as a prerequisite for learning (324). Small children, Erasmus observes,
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are incredibly active, yet not experiencing any weariness, for they think of
their activity as play rather than exertion. For this reason the teacher must
render learning as play (341). Even more significant is Erasmuss long denunciation of physical punishment, a subject that hardly disturbed most of his
predecessors. His emotional involvement is clear in the text. He emphatically
condemns the brutality of contemporary teachers while recounting numerous
tales from his own experience (32534). This denouncement is the only occasion on which Erasmus abandons the discussion of education proper and
criticizes the general brutality of the mentality and customs of his age. He
thus censures what he considered to be savage initiation rites practiced in the
universities (331) as well as the brutal treatment of slaves and the institution
of slavery as a whole (32728). His metaphors are often revealing. A violent
teacher, he states, fancies he has gained for himself a private little empire,
and it is shocking to see how this illusion of absolute power will lead him to
inflict acts of savagery, no, not upon wild beasts, as the author of the comic
stage has it, but upon a young generation that should be raised with gentleness (325). The humanness of Erasmian humanism was related to identity of
the Erasmian humanist as a universal intellectual. The citizenship of the Republic of Letters created the distancethat is too often explained in psychological termsthat allowed Erasmus to apprehend the brutality and violence
of everyday life that was far less obvious to most of his contemporaries.
Perhaps the strongest expression of the humanness as well as the universalism of Erasmian humanism is Erasmuss attitude toward the Turks. At
the beginning of the sixteenth century the Ottoman Empire posed a real
threat to Christian Europe and the Turks were perceived not only as infidels
but also as a barbarous and depraved race. As Nancy Bisaha demonstrated,
the Italian humanists of the quattrocento were those who transformed the
traditional Christian language of religious enmity toward them and created
the image of the Turks as Europes Other. The enemy of faith became the
political and cultural enemy, the uncivilized.26 Erasmus, together with few
others, was an exception. True, he sometimes described the Turks as barbarous. But more often than not he explicitly rejected their demonization.
From his position of the universal intellectual critical toward his society, he
could argue for the similarity between the Turks and the Europeans. How
can we persuade the Turks to become Christians, he rhetorically asks, if
our noise and bustle, worse than any tyrants, give them a clear idea of our
ambition, if from our rapacity and lechery and oppression they learn how
greedy and profligate and cruel we are? For Erasmus, the Turks are at
least human beings (EtV 10).27 Indeed they are in large part half-Christian
and perhaps nearer to true Christianity than most of our own folk (DB
43233).
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In his Antibarbari, in a few moving sentences, Erasmus relates the various dimensions of humanist learning we have discussed above: What is it
that leads those hard and boorish men towards a more humane type of life,
towards a kinder outlook and gentler ways? Is it not letters? It is they which
mould our character, quiet our passions, check our uncontrolled impulses,
give mildness to our minds in place of savagery? (AB 64).
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Erasmus, and adds: what relates to life should also be imparted in few words,
and those words so chosen as to make them understand that Christs yoke
is easy and comfortable and not harsh. . . . (EtV 11). In the famous debate
with Luther on the question of free will he was more specific. The question of
predestination, as well as issues like the nature of the Trinity, the double nature of Christ, and the Virgins immaculate conception, Erasmus writes in De
libero arbitrio, are obscure, indeed otiose topics (FW 10). On such issues, he
argues, it is better to make as few assertions as possible, even to seek refuge in
Scepticism (7). Erasmus contrasts these dogmatic issues with the precepts
for a good life about which God is absolutely clear and thus which should
be learned by everyone (10).
This is the context for understanding Erasmuss elimination of the traditional boundaries and modes of theological discourse. Thus, for example,
Erasmus discusses theological questions in the Colloquies in nontechnical language, using the voices of laypersons (including butchers and fishmongers)
and the low genre of satirical dialogue (FD). In the same vein, he famously
appeals for translations of the Bible into vernacular languages and its dissemination among all Christians (P 9697). Only this kind of religion, based on
a simple creed and oriented toward practical behavior, could function as the
vehicle for personal and social melioration.
And why shouldnt Christian doctrine be simple? Christianity, Erasmus
believes,
easily penetrates into the minds of all, an action in especial accord with human
nature. Moreover, what else is the philosophy of Christ, which He himself calls
a rebirth, than the restoration of human nature originally well formed? By the
same token, although no one has taught this more perfectly and more effectively
than Christ, nevertheless one may find in the books of the pagans very much
which does agree with His teaching. (100)
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ethical convictions and moral behaviorthat no one was wise unless he was
good, that nothing can be a delight for us . . . except virtue alone, and so
forthat the expense of dogmatic concerns.
Even closer affinities between Christianity and the classical heritage are to
be found in some of Erasmuss other writings. The Antibarbari is a clear example. The work is a staunch defense of classical learning in which Erasmus
goes so far as to argue that we Christians have nothing we have not inherited
from the pagans (AB 57).34 He then embarks on a radical apologetic strategy,
arguing that the classical golden age was part of a divine cosmic program.
The pagans brought human knowledge and culture to perfection, as a necessary precondition for the advance and victory of true religion (5961). In this
respect, the classical heritage and Christianity become intrinsically related,
for the best religion should be adorned and supported by the finest studies.
Moreover: Everything in the pagan world that was valiantly done, brilliantly
said, ingeniously thought, diligently transmitted, had been prepared by Christ
for his society. He it was who supplied the intellect, who added the zest for
inquiry, and it was through him alone that they found what they sought (60).
The cultural and intellectual products of classical antiquity are thus almost
sanctified. Consequently, according to Erasmus, the divorce of Christianity
from classical literature and learning resulted in the decline of Christendom.
As Kathy Eden argues, Erasmuss attitude toward the classical heritage was
markedly different from the attitude that the church fathers bequeathed to
Latin Christianity: while Augustine and Jerome described the employment
of elements of the classical heritage as an appropriation of the enemys propertythe spoils of the Egyptians was their favorite metaphorErasmus saw
it as property shared by friends.35 It is small wonder that sometimes Erasmus
went as far as arguing that being a philosopher is in practice the same as
being a Christian; only the terminology is different (IP 214).
Erasmuss emphasis on the similarities between the teachings of Christianity
and classical philosophy occasionally develops into a representation of Christ
and the apostles as model classical philosophers. This comparison is central
to the important adage, Sileni Alcibiadis, first published in the 1515 Froben
edition of the Adages. The Sileni of Alcibiades signify something that, at first,
appears worthless and contemptuous but, upon closer examination, turns out
to be precious and admirable (SA 262). According to Erasmus, such Sileni
were the Greek philosophers Antisthenes, Diogenes, Epictetus, and, above all,
Socrates, whose way of life was a reflection of their teachings and, in particular,
their rejection of worldly goods (26264). The prophets, John the Baptist, and
the apostles were similarly Sileni, and for essentially the same reasons, as was
Christ himself, who also rejected earthly power and wealth (26465). Erasmus
thus employs the same categories to describe Jesus and classical philosophers
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who became proverbial for leading an ethical life. This is revealing of his
general attitude toward Christ, which focused on Jesuss human nature while
disregarding Christs divine nature, or at least not coherently integrating it into
his theology. Christs educational and moral mission is emphasized at the expense of his transcendent and metahistorical mission as the savior of humanity.36 In the early Enchiridion, Christ is referred to time and again as model
(exemplum) and archetype (archetypus) (E 8486; LB 5, 39B, 40C). In the
Paraclesis, which is entirely constructed around the character of Jesus, Christs
death on the cross is not mentioned at all. Instead, Erasmus concentrates on
Jesus as a teacher and a model of moral behavior.37 For example: The first step
. . . is to know what He taught; the next is to carry it into effect. Therefore, I
believe, anyone should not think himself to be Christian if he disputes about
instances, relations, quiddities, and formalities with an obscure and irksome
confusion of words, but rather if he holds and exhibits what Christ taught
and showed forth (P 101). Erasmuss disregard of the God on the crossthe
image that best encapsulates the entire conceptual and symbolic universe of
medieval Christianityis telling of his de-emphasis of those notions such an
image so forcefully conveys: the depraved nature of humanity that led to the
murder of God and salvation as an unmerited act of grace.
The positive image of human beings and the correlative devaluation of
primal sin are central aspects of Erasmian theology. In numerous works, in
various genres, and on different subjects, Erasmus insisted on the positive
potential inherent in men and women and on their ability to make moral decisions and bear individual and social responsibility. Such convictions lay, of
course, at the heart of his famous debate with Luther over free will. They also
account for Erasmuss systematic softening and humanizing of the hard
Pauline doctrines in his paraphrases of the Pauline epistles. In his summary
of the Paraphrase on Romans, for instance, Erasmus unsurprisingly emphasizes the distinction between ceremonial Judaic law and Christian faith.
He almost completely evades, however, the theology that underpinned the
Pauline dichotomy. Indeed, he marginalizes Pauls fundamental theological
concepts, as the following citation clearly illustrates: In passing [Paul] puts
forth many and various doctrines: foreordination (or rather, predestination),
foreknowledge, the elect, grace and merit, free will, the divine plan inscrutable
to us, the law of nature, the law of Moses, the law of sin.38 Such a setting aside
of the core issues of Pauline theology attests to Erasmuss uneasiness with
them. Sometimes Erasmus was even more creative in undermining notions
he disliked. In paraphrasing Pauls affirmation of predestination in Romans
9, for example, Erasmus does state that it is not by willing or by exertion
that salvation is attained, but by the mercy of God. But he qualifies himself
immediately afterward, arguing: Or rather, some part of it depends on our
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own will and effort, although this part is so minor that it seems like nothing
at all in comparison with the free kindness of God.39 An even bolder inversion appears in the Enchiridion: By yourself you are too weak; in him there
is nothing you cannot do. Accordingly, the outcome of our struggle is not
in doubt, because victory does not depend at all on chance but is entirely in
the hands of God and through him also in our hands. No one fails to win in
this battle except those who do not want to win. The goodness of our helper
has never failed anyone. If you see to it that you do not forsake his goodness,
you can be sure of victory (E 2930). The notion of predestination is thus
inverted.40 Erasmuss anthropological optimism also explains his reservations
concerning Augustinian theology and his clear preference for other church
fathers, including the controversial Origen and above all Jerome.41
These theological positions were essential to Erasmian humanism. Without assuming that humans are potentially good and are able to freely choose
between good and evil, the Erasmian reform program was not possible. This
is evident in any field and at any level of abstraction. Education, the main
instrument of the Erasmian reform program, is one example. Humanist
education, especially in its Erasmian version, assumed that men and women
can become moral individuals. This image suggested distinctive notions concerning the essence and source of evil. True, in De pueris Erasmus seems to
waver in his discussion about human nature. He occasionally suggests that
men and women are more inclined to evil than to good, and he even invokes
original sin to explain this disposition (Puer 3089, 321). In other passages
he embraces the opposite view, namely that nature has implanted humanity with the desire to attain virtue (310). In yet other passages he strongly
argues that human nature is neutral at birth. The newborn is nothing but a
shapeless lump, but the material is still pliable, capable of assuming any form
(305). These contradictions may attest to the tension between the traditional
Christian anthropology and the classical one. However, only the latter anthropology can be coherently integrated with Erasmuss discourse, as the notions
of human perfectibility and the force of education inform his discussion.
Whatever the natural human disposition may be, Erasmus unambiguously
argues, the mature character and personality of men and women depend on
their environment and education. In fact, even when he invokes original sin,
he hastens to add that the greater portion of this evil stems from corrupting
relationships and a misguided education (321).
The rejection of the Augustinian anthropology is tied up with the integration of the social visions of humanism and Christianity. Indeed, the theological and social are often fused in Erasmuss writings. This is underscored in De
libero arbitrio, where Erasmus argues that rejecting freedom of the will would
have devastating moral and social consequences: If this were made known
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to the masses, how wide this would open the door to godlessness in countless
mortals, especially given the extent of their dullness, inertia, wickedness, and
their incorrigible tendency to all manner of evil? Where is the weak man who
will keep up the unremitting and painful struggle against his flesh? (FW 13).
This argument, we may note, enraged Luther. The question of free will, he
answered, is concerned with an object solemn and essential which ought to
be defended if the whole world should not only be thrown into tumult and
set in arms thereby, but even if it should be hurled into chaos and reduced to
nothing.42 The style is characteristic of Luther, as is the eagerness to follow
an argument to its logical, even if unpleasant, conclusion. But Luther represented the notion of theology consistent with mainstream Christian tradition. He argues, in effect, that theology is the branch of knowledge that dealt
only with what pertained to salvation. All other questions, including social
and moral considerations, were outside its scope. Thomas Aquinas makes
the same distinction when he serenely states in the very first question of the
Summa theologiae that theology deals with human acts only in so far as they
prepare men for that achieved knowledge of God on which their eternal bliss
reposes.43 Erasmuss insistence that social reasons force us to assume the existence of free will therefore alters the very meaning of theology, enormously
broadening its scope and eroding its specificity, and fuses it with other fields
of knowledge and activity.
The implications of Erasmian theology are perhaps most clearly manifested
in Erasmuss pacifist writings. These writings best represent mature Erasmian
humanism as they complete his rehabilitation of human nature. In the famous
adage Dulce bellum inexpertis, for example, Erasmus depicts humans as naturally peaceful, friendly and devoid of any inherent evil. Men and women are
born entirely for friendship, which is formed and cemented most effectively
by mutual assistance. All qualities that nature endowed man with attest to
his sociability. He is of mild and gentle appearance. And of all the animals,
he alone is endowed with the use of speech and reason, the thing that is able
above all else to create and nourish good will. In addition, nature gave man
friendly eyes, revealing the soul; she gave him arms that embrace; she gave
him the kiss, an experience in which souls touch and unite. Man alone she
endowed with laughter, the sign of merriment; man alone she endowed with
tears, the symbol of mercy and pity (DB 402). Most importantly, man was
created in the image of God and implanted with a divine spark that impels
him to selflessly help and serve others and to take pleasure in deserving well
of everyone (403).
It may be argued that Erasmuss depiction of human nature in the pacifist
writings was not part of his theological discourse and that, moreover, because
it was instrumental to his denunciation of war, it should not be considered
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representative of his ideas. However, this would miss the point on several
accounts. First, the image of the human being in Erasmuss nonreligious
writings might be more pronounced than in his theological works but it is essentially similar to the latter. Moreover, the very distinction between religious
and nonreligious is anachronistic in regard to Erasmus, who repeatedly rejected making such a distinction by highlighting the interconnectedness of the
social and religious spheres, and the compatibility between Christianity and
secular reason. Finally, Erasmuss complaint of peace was certainly a genuine
concern and was integral to his reform program. Poetically and rhetorically
exaggerated as it may be, the image of humanity in the pacifist writings is
the one presupposed by the mature Erasmian discourse.
Erasmuss pacifism opposed mainstream Christian thought as elaborated
since the church fathers. This opposition issued from diverging theological
assumptions. The conceptual basis of the Christian doctrine of just war was
elaborated by Augustine and was accepted by the important thinkers of the
Middle Ages, from Albertus Magnus and Aquinas to the sixteenth-century
neoscholastics.44 Augustines discussionand his religious thought as a
wholerests on the all-important distinction between the objective and subjective, between the individuals external actions and his internal disposition.
In his famous letter to Marcellinus, a text repeatedly quoted in the discussion
of just war, Augustine explains that such Christian precepts as turning the
other cheek and returning good for evil are more relevant to the training of
the heart within than to our external activity.45 According to this division,
we should always hold fast to the precepts of forbearance in the disposition
of our hearts; and in our will we should always have perfect benevolence in
case we return evil for evil. Regarding our external activity, however, we are
entitled, indeed, sometimes obliged, to exercise kind harshness, that is, to
use force and hurt others for their own benefit and interests and for securing a peaceful society that is pious and just. In this conceptual framework
even wars will be waged in a spirit of benevolence.46 If the Christian wages
war in order to satisfy a desire (libido)to revenge or to dominatethen he
mortally sins (though the war in itself may be justified). If, on the other hand,
he loves his enemies even as he fights and kills them, then his righteousness
is left intact.
In his pacifist writings Erasmus verges on the rejection of the distinction
between the internal disposition of the heart and external activity. When
most intensely portrayed the Erasmian vision assumes that the gap between
internality and externality could be bridged, which would usher in a truly
Christian civilization on earth. Is it in vain that we pray as Christ taught us:
Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven? Erasmus asks rhetorically in
Dulce bellum, and then adds: In the heavenly city there is complete concord,
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and Christ wanted his church to be no less than heavenly people on earth living, as far as possible, in the image of that city . . . (DB 418). He thus inverts
the Augustinian imagery of the two cities. Augustine viewed the heavenly and
earthly cities as separate and incommensurable, perceiving of actual human
societies, including the nominal Christian ones, as reflections of the latter.
Erasmus collapses the distinction and implies that Christendom could be
modeled on the heavenly city. Indeed, creation of a heavenly citya fully civilized humanist and Christian societywas the aim of the utopian Erasmian
reform program.
Erasmuss religious thought as well as the position from which he elaborated
and propagated his religious reform program shed light on the identity of the
Erasmian humanist as the universal intellectual. The perception of scripture as
a source of ongoing interpretation and adaptation for changing circumstances;
the emphasis on the ethical dimension of Christianity and its integration with
the ethical message of classical heritage; and the social orientation of the religious reform program, indeed the refusal to separate theological and social considerations47all these attest to an identity very different from those occupied
by medieval religious thinkers and authorities. His personal status notwithstanding, Erasmus certainly did not speak in behalf of the church as a mystical
institution. His (rather nominal) degree of theology notwithstanding, he did
not speak as a scholastic theologian, that is, he did not seek abstract theoretical
knowledge of eternal truths. Notwithstanding the centrality of religion to his
thought, Erasmus was therefore a lay intellectual. He was, in Thomas Mores
apt description, a litteratus, a man of letters, whose area of study extends
across every variety of literature (MtD 13). Erasmuss mastery of the literary
heritagereligious and secularand his aptitude to employ this treasure for
confronting the concrete problems of his age made him a humanist intellectual.
The universal scope of his reform program and his detachment from any distinct political establishment made him a universal intellectual.
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Ages and, again, in the Reformation. This is partly due, of course, to the
many political struggles that took place between the church and the secular
authorities. More importantly, the issue of the churchs authority invariably
touched upon the very identity of Europe as a Christian society. Not surprisingly, therefore, the ideological conflict between church and state drew some
of the best intellectuals, including Dante, William of Ockham, and Marsiglio
of Padua,48 and was the occasion for the elaboration of the most original and
forceful medieval political theories.
At the same time, as Quentin Skinner notes, the issue hardly bothered most
of the humanists.49 Lorenzo Valla was an exception.50 Erasmus was another. His
unequivocal position concerning the place of the institutional church within the
secular world issued from his general ecclesiology and theology. Of the various
traditional definitions of the church, Erasmus clearly preferred the wider, seeing
the church as the community of all Christians. Attacking the view that stressed
the importance of the institutional church, he argued in Sileni Alcibiadis that
they give the name of the Church to priests, bishops and supreme pontiffs,
though they are in truth nothing but the Churchs servants. No, it is Christian
people who are the Church (SA 271). The implications of this position for
the institutional church are to be perceived in Erasmuss most comprehensive
statement on the subject in his letter to Volz.51 Erasmus depicts the church as an
assembly of three concentric circles, at the center of which stands Christ. In the
innermost circle he places priests, bishops, cardinals, popes and those whose
business it is to follow the Lamb wherever he may lead them. The second circle
includes the lay princes, that is, secular authority, whose exclusive task is to
preserve peace and order (EtV 14). In the third and outermost circle there are
all other Christians, the common people all together, as the most earthly portion of this world (15). Outside the third circle evil reigns. Everything there is
abominable, whenever and wherever it appears (16).
The Christian clergy has therefore a distinct place at the center of Christendom. But what are its duties and what authority does it enjoy? Erasmuss
positions turn out to be radically different from the official ecclesiology.52 He
makes no mention of any institutional structure for the order of the priests.
His vision of the role of the clergy is purely spiritual and educational. They
should embrace the intense purity of the centre and pass on as much as they
can to those next to them, that is, to the lay princes. They should, in particular, work to mitigate the harsh realities of politics (14). In the letter to Volz he
does not explicitly address the issue of the temporal authority of the church.
The whole tenor of the discussion, however, posits a comparison of coercive
authority, attributed to secular power, and to spiritual and moral authority,
which is attributed to the denizens of the first circle. Erasmus likewise emphasizes Christs disdain of any involvement in worldly politics (1415).53
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Dante, Ockham and Marsiglio politically allied themselves with the secular
authorities, especially with the emperors. They were ideologists of secular authority: they elaborated systematic and coherent political philosophies at the
heart of which lay a positive evaluation of secular political authority.54 This was
not a contingent characteristic of their positionthe result of the need to be
protected from the anger of the popes, for examplebut was rather conceptually built into their discourse. Within the framework of the discoursewhich
they shared with the ideologists of the churchultimate political authority
lay either in the secular or in the spiritual authority. Erasmuss rejection of
the churchs claims for temporal authority, by contrast, was not coupled with
a positive evaluation of secular power. On the contrary, his writings on the
church are also highly suspicious of secular authority, and most critical of
secular princes. The Sileni Alcibiadis, for example, condemns the established
political culture. In the current climate of ideas, Erasmus argues, the counselor
and friend of princes is one who corrupts them with misguided education,
infects them with foolish ideas, deludes them with adulation, eggs them on by
bad advice to incur the hatred of their subjects, and involves them in wars and
in the frenzy of civil discord (270). In the letter to Volz the alienation from the
political world is even more profound. Erasmus stresses in almost Augustinian
fashion that political authority is a necessary evil, devoid of any inherent moral
let alone religious value. Princes and lay magistrates handle a certain amount
of worldly business that has no part at all in Christian purity; and yet this must
not be criticized, because it is necessary for the conservation of society (EtV
15). Indeed, in his last words on the subject, he relegates the secular rulers from
the second to the third circle, that which is the most remote from Christ (16).
The denunciation of secular authority, at least in its past and contemporary
form, is the theme of another adage, Scarabeus aquilam quaerit (A dung-beetle
hunting an eagle) of the Froben utopian edition of 1515. The eagle, Erasmus
points out, is a traditional regal symbol (Scar 182).55 Around this analogy between eagles and kingsall kings except perhaps one or two throughout history (184)Erasmus weaves his story, which does not leave any doubts about
his mind-set concerning kings. The kings, he says, are enveloped in a black
night of ignorance of all that is good, and have anything in mind but Christ
(18485). Their behavior reflects their character and beliefs: If these gods,
these famous men, these victors have any leisure left from dicing, drinking,
hunting, and whoring, they devote it to truly regal considerations. They have no
other thought but how they may organize laws, edicts, wars, treaties, alliances,
councils, and courts, ecclesiastical and lay, in such a way that they sweep the
whole wealth of the community into their own treasury . . . (185).
Erasmuss critical attitude toward the church is, therefore, not coupled with
a positive evaluation of secular authority; he is as critical of kings at least as he
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is critical of popes. He does not reject the churchs claims for temporal authority in the name of secular authority. He censures the churchas well as the
stateas an autonomous intellectual, who does not represent the ideology of a
specific establishment but only the common good as he sees it. Erasmus speaks
from the position of the universal intellectual, a position that did not exist for
the fourteenth-century political philosophers. As if to emphasize Erasmuss
independence of both secular and ecclesiastical authorities, Scarabeus and Sileni
Alcibiadis were published together in 1517 by Froben in a separate edition.
As the universal intellectual Erasmus does not speak on behalf of any other
political establishment or social class. On the contrary, he severely criticizes
any and all such groups. In Sileni Alcibiadis he spews his usual contempt for
the aristocracy, branding its emblems, Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great,
as great robbers (SA 276). The common people do not fare much better.
Labeled as the stupid multitude (267) and infected as they are by gross plebeian blessings (276), the common people lack any sense of moral judgment
and sound reason. This deep-rooted attitude actually subverts the logic of
the narrative of the Scarabaeus. The logic of the legend Erasmus relatesthe
deadly struggle between the eagle and the dung beetle, that is, between a cruel
and arbitrary powerful person and a weak but morally superior and resilient
onenaturally leads to a sympathetic stance toward those located at the
opposite end of kings on the social spectrum, namely the common people.
But in the concluding remarks of the adage Erasmus, without any noticeable embarrassment, turns the lesson of the story on its head, condemning
inferior and mean little men, who make trouble for great men (Scar 214).
Distancing himself from the common people Erasmus suddenly transforms
the rapacious and oppressing tyrants he so vividly described throughout his
narrative into great men.
Nor, finally, can Erasmus be seen as representing the interests of a putative
bourgeoisie. His deep suspicion and alienation of mercantile and financial
activities is clearly revealed in yet another utopian adage, A mortuo tributum
exigere.56 The proverb, which refers to obtaining money by foul means or by
exploiting the weak, provides Erasmus with yet another platform to condemn
the rapacious and oppressive behavior of both the secular rulers and the
church.57 Here, however, princes and prelates are coupled with the mercantile
class: the usurers who enjoyed high esteem though their activity were rejected
by pagan philosophy and Christian religion alike, as well as this sordid class
of merchants who use tricks and falsehoods, fraud and misrepresentation, in
pursuit of profit from any source.58
From the position of the universal intellectual, Erasmus condemns European culture as a whole. Contemporary society, he claims, inverts the proper
scale of values: Thus gold is more valued than sound learning, ancient lineage
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more than integrity, bodily endowments more than intellectual gifts; true religion takes second place to ceremonies, Christs commandments to the decrees
of men, the mask to the true face; shadow is preferred to substance, artificial
to natural, transient to solid, momentary to eternal (SA 269).
An analysis of Erasmuss most comprehensive political work, Institutio
principis christiani, is further revealing of the unique position of Erasmian
humanism in comparison to that of other intellectuals, including most humanists, in the late Middle Ages and early modern Europe. The work was the
fruit of Erasmuss renewed relationship with the Low Countries, particularly
through the chancellor of Burgundy, Jean Sauvage. In the spring of 1515
Sauvage arranged for the nomination of Erasmus to the council of Prince
Charles, the future emperor Charles V. The Education of a Christian Prince
was Erasmuss payment for the appointmentthe only payment, as Erasmus
insisted that his freedom be preserved and that the nomination would be
only nominal (Ep 392).59
Institutio principis belongs, at least partially, to the genre of guidebooks
for princes (speculum principis). The genre originated in classical Greece
and was extant throughout the Middle Ages. During the Renaissance it
was enthusiastically adopted by those humanists who served princes. The
genre was an expression of monarchical ideology throughout its history.
The authors of the various guidebooks either stated or assumed that oneman rule was the best of possible regimes. Describing the qualities of a
good princeas opposed to a tyranteach of these texts also explicitly or
implicitly affirmed the authority and majesty of the specific ruler to whom
it was addressed.60
To some extent, Erasmuss work, which was printed together with his
translation of Isocrates guidebook for princes, the first speculum principis,
shares these characteristics of the genre. In the opening sentence of his dedicatory letter Erasmus describes Charles as the greatest of princes (IP 203), and
goes on to declare that the prince had no need of any mans advice, least of
all mine, and that he only uses Charless name for setting forth the ideal or
perfect prince for the general good (204). Such typical dedicatory language
highlights the patronage relationship that existed between the prince and the
humanist, the latter putting himself in the service of the former. As a writer
of a guidebook for princes Erasmus participated in a ritual of legitimacy addressed to the ruler, 61 implicitly propagating the hegemonic political and
social ideology.
This is, however, only one side of the picture, for Erasmuss position vis-vis power as reflected in Christian Prince is very different from the position
of the other writers of mirrors for princes. Erasmus speaks from a position of
full moral and intellectual authority. Even his dedicatory letter, the platform
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These include amending bad laws and customs, ridding his domain of robbery and crime with the least possible bloodshed, enhancing his cities with
public buildings such as bridges, colonnades, churches, embankments and
aqueducts, diverting rivers, improving food supplies by ensuring that fields
are tilled and so on and so forth (28081). As always, the concrete discussion
is imbued with moral dimension. In concluding the list of the princes duties,
for instance, Erasmus states that there are a thousand similar tasks, whose
supervision is an admirable job for the prince, and even a pleasant one for the
good prince, so that he will never feel the need, bored by inactivity, to seek
war or to waste the night gambling (281).
The combination of Erasmuss position of moral superiority and his
concrete approach toward reality has a sharp critical edge. As Tracy notes,
Erasmus criticizes in Institutio principis a series of practices directly related to
Burgundian policy and the Habsburg dynasty.65 Erasmus, for instance, censured the practice of taxing the population in order to finance foreign tours
(260) soon after Sauvage succeeded in receiving from the Estates of Brabant
and Flanders a grant to finance Charless journey to Austria. The most striking example of this type is Erasmuss censure of political marriages and his
insistence that a prince ought to marry within his realm. Indeed, the subject
seemed to him important enough to deserve a separate chapter in which he
argued that the mutual love that should exist between the prince and his subjects depends on a common fatherland, similar characteristics of body and
mind, and a sort of national aura (277). It is indicative of Erasmuss standing
that he allowed himself to articulate such arguments in a work written for a
prince who stood to inherit a vast and nationally heterogeneous empire that
was procured to a large extent by the marriage strategy of his ancestors. The
issue of political marriage is also the occasion of a rare reflection on Erasmuss
part concerning his social isolation. I can see that this custom is too well
established for me to hope that it can be uprooted, he remarks, but then immediately adds: but I thought it right to speak out, just in case things should
turn out contrary to my expectations (279).
Whether Erasmus had his royal patron in mind when he made these comments is a matter of conjecture. The important point is that the practices he
condemned were part and parcel of contemporary political culture. Erasmuss
rejection of them is only one expression of the most salient characteristics of
Institutio principis, namely its condemnation of the aristocratic ethos and court
culture, which were the foundation of the social and political order in northern
Europe. His sweeping denunciation that addressed almost every aspect of the
aristocratic worldview and way of life is repeated throughout the text.
Erasmus reveals his distaste of hereditary monarchy and his preference for
an elected one in the opening sentences of the work. From the outset, this
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making this point. Always bear in mind, he reminds the prince, implicitly
referring to notions of evangelical freedom and equality, that the words dominion [dominium], imperial authority [imperium], kingdom [regnum],
majesty [majestatem], and power [potentiam] are pagan terms, not Christian. The true Christian prince is nothing more than an administrator who
dedicates all his time and energy to his subjects: the imperial authority of
Christians is nothing other than administration [administrationem], benefaction [beneficentiam], and guardianship [custodiam] (IP 233; LB 4: 577D). It
is not surprising, in light of this conceptual framework, that Erasmus could
calmly recommend that the prince abdicate if he cannot defend his kingdom
without violating justice or causing bloodshed (217), and even if he simply
cannot be a good man, while being a good prince (243).
The insistence on reducing all politics to ethics separates Erasmuss political discourse from that of most other humanists, Italian as well as northerners, republican as well as monarchist. To be sure, humanist political writings
were heavily moralizing. Nevertheless, humanist political discourse endowed
at least some autonomy to politics in relation to ethics and religion. This was
not usually explicitly acknowledged; indeed it is not clear to what extent the
humanists were aware of it. But it was surely implied by the assumptions,
concepts and categories they employed to analyze and represent the political
realm. This can be seen when the distinct image of man that informed humanist political discourse is considered. The humanists ideal was a man,
who, by his virt, overcomes all obstaclesall of Fortunas vagariesin
fashioning reality according to his will.71 This was, of course, a central insight
of Burckhardt, who explored the various expressions of this virilevirt is
derived from the Latin vir, or mancreative and aggressive notion in Italian society, politics and culture.72 The political manifestation of this ideal was
the perception of man as a political animal whose ultimate goal was to acquire
glory, honor and fame by excelling in an agonistic competition with others.73
This ethos precludes the reduction of politics to ethics. It has at least a latent
aggressive dimension, one that could potentially provoke amoral and even
immoral conduct. These negative facets were usually sublimated or disguised
in humanist political discourse as most humanists argued that political virtues
were compatible with ethics. The Florentine civic humanists of the quattrocento, to take one example, believed that the striving of each individual
to achieve personal excellence in a free society would contribute to the wellbeing of the republic as a whole.74 In fact, even the civic humanists made an
explicit separation of politics from ethics in the field of foreign policy. Their
republicanism was overtly particularistic and imperialistic and they did not
feel the slightest embarrassment when denying conquered city-states the freedoms they considered to be crucial to the individual and the collective.75
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A comparison to Machiavelli enables us to precisely identify the unique nature of Erasmuss position. Machiavelli spelled out the radical potential inherent in humanist political discourse. He clearly presented, and dramatized, the
incompatibility between the Christian creed and the classical ethos. He clearly
also understood, and consented to, the implications of the autonomy given to
the political realm, namely the separation between political virtues and moral
ones and the consequent sanctioning of immoral actions in politics.76 These
disturbing insights, together with the authors unequivocal choices, are the
source of the Florentines fame and notoriety.
Erasmus shares Machiavellis fundamental insights concerning the implications of perceiving the political realm as autonomous. Erasmuss choices,
though as clear as Machiavellis, were diametrically opposed to his. He denies
any autonomy to politics, and consequently rejects any value or conduct that
is not strictly compatible with ethics. Institutio principislike Il principe and
the Discorsi, but from an inverted perspectiveought thus to be read as an
implicit critique against the dogmatic assumptions of traditional humanist political thought. Erasmus, like Machiavelli, perceived what most other
humanists could not or would not, namely that the construction of an autonomous political discourse disjoins politics from ethics. He also understood
that political discourse that is kept separate from ethics, even to the smallest
degree, is inherently prone to be appropriated by the powerful to legitimize
their rule and immoral policies.
It must be stressed that the difference between Erasmus and the other
humanists is related to their different social positions, indeed different identities. We have seen that most humanists were related to a specific establishment, or at least to a specific political community. We have also seen that
humanist discourse perceived knowledge as practical and affirmed the vita
activa. The humanists political thought was consequently theoretically and
morally legitimately embedded in a particular political and ideological milieu. Indeed, most political works composed in the humanist tradition were
written on behalf of a specific polity, and the political theories elaborated
or propagated in them were reflective of the dominant ideologies. From this
perspective the humanists insistence on the compatibility between political virtue and ethical values was linked to their adherence to the dominant
ideology (for ideology always tries to anchor politics in ethics and to present
the political order as a moral one). From the Republic of Letters Erasmus
could clearly perceive this ideological dimension of humanist political
thought. In response to this diagnosis and as an intellectual who does not
speak on behalf of any specific political community or ideology, but, rather,
on behalf of Christendom as a whole, Erasmus insists on the complete reduction of politics to ethics.
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The doctrine of just war, as actually practiced, is elastic enough to justify any
war: just, however, means any war declared in any way against anybody by any
prince (425). Claims about justice, Erasmus elaborates at length in numerous
occasions throughout his pacifist writings, are only a pretext for initiating wars,
the real causes of which are the personal ambitions of rulersthe desire for
power, glory and territoryand the flattery and hypocrisy of their counselors.80
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It is not surprising, then, that the pacifist writings are such a forceful testament to Erasmuss opposition to the dominant establishments and ideologies.
Erasmus preaches to Christendom as a whole, and to its constituent social
estates and professional groups: I call on you, princes . . . I call on you, priests
. . . I call on you, theologians . . . I call on you, bishops . . . I call on you, nobles
and magistrates . . . I call on you all alike who are counted Christians . . .
(QP 32021). He formally avoids mentioning names, but often alludes unmistakably to specific persons. In the Querela pacis, for example, he states that
the wars of the past ten yearsthe wars of the League of Cambrai, the Holy
League, and the French invasion of Italy in 1515were caused by nothing but
the interests of the princes (305). He goes further and alludes to even more
personal causes undoubtedly recognized by contemporaries: One discovers
or invents some mouldering, obsolete title to support his claim. . . . Another
pleads some trifling omission in a treaty covering a hundred clauses, or has a
personal grievance against his neighbour over the interception of an intended
spouse or a careless word of slander (305).81
Erasmuss unambiguous condemnation of the much-discussed holy war
against the Turks is an indication of his readiness to voice unpopular views.82
At the beginning of the sixteenth century there was wide agreement in Europe about the need to fight the Ottoman Empire. Erasmus rejects both the
rhetoric of self-defense mobilized to justify the war, and the idea of converting
the Turks by means of holy war (DB 43134). As we saw, he goes so far as to
assert that most Turks are half-Christian and perhaps nearer to true Christianity than most nominal christians (43233).83 Unsurprisingly, the internal
dynamics of Erasmuss discussion result in an unequivocal attack against the
powerful, the secular, as well as ecclesiastical: The rumour of war with the
Turks has been put forward as an excuse for robbing the Christian population, so that it is broken with every sort of oppression and therefore is more
servile to the tyranny of both sorts of princes (434). The very implausibility
of this conspiracy theory underscores the unique status of Erasmus.
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of all citizens, as well as their moral and intellectual improvement. The chief
aim of their constitution is that, as far as public needs permit, all citizens
should be free to withdraw as much time as possible from the service of the
body and devote themselves to the freedom and culture of the mind [animi
libertatem cultumque]. For in that, they think, lies the happiness of life
(135). The Utopian order apparently realized these aims. Raphael Hythloday,
the traveler-philosopher who returned from Utopia, begins his description of the island by remarking that the Utopians suppress almost all other
peoples in their high level of culture and humanity [cultus humanitatisque]
(111). Utopias political structure embodies the Erasmian critique of European politics. The island is a true republic, respublica in the literal sense of the
term, in which no individual subverts the general interest for personal gain.
All holders of political office are elected in Utopia (12123, 231). However,
all the important officials are elected from a small, effectively self-perpetuating, group of three hundred scholars in each Utopian city (131). Utopia thus
solves the Erasmian worry of and distaste for hereditary monarchies and for
aristocratic culture in general. At the same time, Mores society faithfully
upholds the fundamental principle of humanist (and not only Erasmian)
political thought, namely the notion that political power should be based on
true nobility, or virtue. Utopia therefore unsurprisingly satisfies the basic
humanist ideals of a stable and harmonious state free of social conflicts and
political factionalism.
Utopia also assigns the highest importance to learning. Indeed, in intellectual pursuits [the Utopians] are tireless (181). While only the small group
of scholars dedicates its time exclusively to the pursuit of knowledge, many
of the common citizens, both men and women, attend public lectures (127).
The Utopian scholars study all the branches of learning (155). Like the
humanists, the Utopians identify knowledge as practical knowledge. Their
readiness to learn is cited as the really important reason for their being
better governed and living more happily than [the Europeans] (107). All
Utopian children are sent to school where instruction in morality and virtue
is considered no less important than learning proper. They make every effort
to instil in the pupils minds, while they are still tender and pliable, principles
useful to the commonwealth (231). The content and imagery of this passage
faithfully evoke the educational ideal of the humanists, from Pietro Paolo
Vergerio to Erasmus. The central aim of education is not to teach professional
skills but to fashion a moral and responsible citizen.
But the real achievement of Utopia is not its political and institutional
structure, nor even its citizens love of learning, but the citizens themselves
and their way of life. They are the true focus of Hythlodays narrative, and
the clearest manifestation of the Erasmian nature of Utopian society. Love
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discourse the distinction was rather blurred). The more probable source of
Utopias communism is, again, Mores evaluation of the preconditions for the
Erasmian reform program, or, more specifically, his conclusion that without
the abolition of private propertytogether with the elimination or reduction of
other distinctions between citizens such as status and professiona moral and
sound social order is impossible. Be that as it may, Utopian communism does
not contradict the Erasmian reform program. In fact, in his prefatory letter to
Mores work, Guillaume Bud considers communism to be one of the fundamental features that make Utopia a truly Christian society (13).
The non-Christian nature of Utopian society proved to be an even more
vexing problem than its communism for the humanist interpretation of Utopia. Given the central place of reformed Christianity in Erasmuss vision of
reformed Europe, a non-Christian society can hardly be considered an ideal
Erasmian society. This is certainly true, but we must ask whether the Utopian
social order is ideal even for Christians. In other words, would the acceptance
of Christianitys revealed truths require an essential change in the structure
of Utopian society? The answer, in my opinion, is negative, as evidenced as
well in the answers of Hythloday and the Utopians themselves. The former
identifies Utopian social organization and the way of life with the basic principles of Christianity (24547). The latter were often disposed to convert
to Christianity, partly because they were much influenced by the fact that
Christ approved of his followers communal way of life, and that among the
truest groups of Christians the practice still prevails (221). We have seen that
Erasmus equated secular ethics and their social and political consequences
with the practical moral, social and political imperatives derived for Christianity. The fact that Utopia is not Christian does not in itself then prevent it
from embodying the practical moral, political and social values of Erasmian
humanism.94
In fact, from a more abstract perspective, Utopias non-Christian, as well
as nonmetaphysical, discourse firmly places the work within the framework
of humanist political thought. For we have seen that humanist political discourseregardless of its many variants and the contradictory political views
and theories elaborated and propagated by different humanistswas essentially secular and nonmetaphysical, in the sense that it perceived and represented the political order in secular, historical and concrete categories rather
than in theological or metaphysical ones. This attitude reflected the basic
ontological presupposition of humanist discourse, namely that the political
order was a human artifact rather than a part of a cosmic or divine order. Seen
in this light, Utopia as well as the invention of the utopian genre reflect the
basic assumptions of humanist political discourse. For Utopia, by virtue of its
utopian character, is precisely an attempt to overthrow the existing order of
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things, including those customs and institutions that were perceived as part
of the natural order of things. This is the theoretical basis for the abolition of
private property and aristocracy, and for perhaps even more radicalgiven
contemporary mentalityabolition of the difference between town and
country and reduction of the differences between men and women (e.g.,
11315, 12527, 21113). All aspects of the Utopian order, conversely, are a
consciously constructed human artifact. This is as true for Utopian cities and
houses (11521) as for the Utopian political structure; for the Utopians daily
routine (12729) as for their sitting order in common dining halls (14143).95
Indeed, the text goes out of its way to underscore the artificiality of Utopia.
We become aware of this at the very beginning of the description of the ideal
state: They say (and the appearance of the place confirms this) that their
land was not always surrounded by the sea. But Utopus, who conquered the
country and gave it his name (for it had previously been called Abraxa), and
who brought its rude, uncouth inhabitants to such a high level of culture and
humanity . . . also changed its geography (111). The construction of Utopia
involves changing the natural geography, the natural nomenclature and the
very nature of the natives.96
Here also lies the fundamental difference between Utopia and ancient
depictions of ideal societies, of which Platos The Republic is, of course, the
prime example. The Platonic republic is oriented to and governed by a transcendent realm of eternal truths.97 Utopia, by contrast, is a wholly secular and
worldly society. Utopia has religion, indeed several religions, but far from
subordinating politics to religion, Utopia perceives religion as a social institution.98 Moreover, Utopia tries to theoretically base the Utopian order on an
explicitly antimetaphysical naturalist philosophy of pleasure, notwithstanding the insurmountable difficulties involved in this attempt (15979).99 One
of the strongest manifestations of the difference between Mores work and
Platos is the contrast between the Platonic guardians and the Utopian scholars. The ideal Platonic social order hinges on creating a segregated guardian
class, whose education and way of life are designed to remove the obstacles
separating the material world from the world of eternal ideas. Much of The
Republic is dedicated to this subject, and the text emphasizes again and again
the distinction between the guardians and the other classes. Utopia, by contrast, is governed by scholars, whose orientation, as we have seen, is clearly
practical and social. For this reason, Utopia attempts to narrow as much as
possible the disparity between the scholars and ordinary Utopians. Indeed,
it even tries to conceal those differences that do exist. As a consequence, the
crucial political role played by the scholars is not discussed at all in the chapter
dedicated to Utopias political structure. It is mentioned only later, and then
only in a single sentence (131). While both The Republic and Utopia depict
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ideal societies, the former is one of the most important expressions of Western metaphysical tradition, and the latter best exemplifies the fundamentally
antimetaphysical humanist discourse.100
The phrase De optimo reipublicae statu in the title of Utopia is, therefore, an
explicit indication of how the Utopian order is conceived as the best possible
Erasmian social and political order. This is indeed how the book was read by
Mores fellow humanists. In fact, the text, in its published form, can almost be
seen as a collective humanist work. The letters, testamentary verses, and maps
that appeared as prefaces and postscripts to the many editions of Utopia bore
the signatures of prominent northern humanists, including Erasmus, Bud,
Thomas Lupset, Rhenanus, Giles and Busleyden. They understood Utopia to
be a work that represented basic humanist values and principles, and recognized Utopia to be an ideal state, finer even than Platos republic.101
More than any of Erasmuss works, including his pacifist writings, Utopia
demonstrates the intellectual autonomy of Erasmian humanism. Utopia radically challenges the hegemonic ideology and the prevailing social imagination.
It explicitly rejects the foundations of the social and political order, abrogating, or at least radically qualifying, those dichotomies on which society rested.
The order offered as a substitution does not embody the ideology or interests
of any specific social group or political establishment, least of all the dominant ones. It solely reflects the ideals and values of the Erasmian humanist as
universal intellectual. Indeed, also from this perspective, the utopian genre
can be seen as a product of the Erasmian Republic of Letters, for this genre
is the ideal vehicle for expressing the ideas of the humanist as autonomous
intellectual.
Utopia amply proves, in short, that the Erasmian humanists had the intellectual resources to envision an order radically different from the existing one,
and enough symbolic capital to present it to Christendom.
II
THE ERASMIAN REPUBLIC
AND ITS DISCONTENTS
4
The Politics of a Disembodied Humanist
to a reconstruction of Erasmian
humanism built around the notion of its sociointellectual autonomy.
The Erasmian humanists constructed the identity of the universal intellectual
and the semiautonomous space of the Republic of Letters. As citizens of the
Erasmian republic they could reject the foundation of the established social
and political order and the hegemonic ideology as well as challenge some of
the basic tenets of humanist political discourse itself. Their self-understandingshared by many contemporariesas autonomous intellectuals allowed
them to elaborate and present their own reform program.
We have also seen that that there was nothing natural in this position. On
the contrary, most groups of humanists were connected to political or religious
establishments and identified themselves with the dominant ideology. Indeed,
many humanists aspired to a public career in court or city administration. This
attitude reflected the professional and social dependency of the humanists on
their patrons. The humanists symbiosis with the powers that be was also related
to a basic tenet of humanist discourse itself, namely the affirmation of the vita
activa. We have further seen that this conviction was not an isolated notion,
but was rather an expression of the fundamental presuppositions of humanist
discourse, namely that human reality was inherently symbolic, that knowledge
was inherently social and hence that human activityordinary social activity
as well as intellectual activitywas interpretive and performative.1
And indeed we have examined the great efforts Erasmus and the humanists
gathered around him had to invest in order to construct their social position:
to restructure the relationship between the humanist and his patron, and to
HE FIRST PART OF THIS STUDY WAS DEDICATED
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endow the former with moral and intellectual authority that compensated for
his social inferiority.
Against this background we have good reasons to suspect that the identity
of the universal intellectual was problematic from the perspective of humanist
discourse itself. There seems to be a tension between humanisms orientation
toward public activity and the Erasmian detachment from it. From this angle
it is hard to see how the Republic of Letters, the social place of Erasmian humanists, could be legitimized in humanist discourse. The rest of this study will
be dedicated to substantiating this hypothesis, by uncovering and analyzing
the manifestations of the tension between the Erasmian humanists identity
and the premises of their discourse.
But how could this investigation be carried out? The supposed internal
tension within Erasmian humanism was never acknowledged, let alone
thematized, by the Erasmian humanists. It was repressed. Repressed contradictions and tensions produce, however, disruptive effects. If therefore
my hypothesis is correct, the internal tensions in Erasmian discourse must
have left their traces, in the writings of the Erasmian humanists. In order
to uncover these traces, a method of reading different from those utilized
in the previous chapters must be employed. Now the text must be deconstructed, that is, read against its explicit argumentation and rhetoric, in
order to expose its internal strains, gaps and aporias and to highlight the
textual moments that unsettle its apparent coherency and transparency.
This is essentially a symptomatic reading, as the textual disruptions have no
meaning in themselves. They may be said to have only a negative existence,
inasmuch as their only discernable effect is the undermining of the explicit
meaning of the text.
Using this methodology, I will closely reread in this chapter some of Erasmuss political writings discussed in the previous chapter, together with one
utopian work. In the next two chapters I will read Thomas Mores History
of Richard III and Utopia.
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here as a position that sees an unbridgeable gap between the ethical and
political Christian imperatives and those of secular philosophy and calls for
a literal implementation of the former). Erasmus repeatedly reminds the
prince that there is an essential difference between a Christian prince and
a non-Christian one: Whenever you think of yourself as a prince, always
remember the fact that you are a Christian prince! You should be as different from even the noble pagan princes as a Christian is from a pagan (216).
Still more important is his use of evangelical language and his allusions to
the notions of evangelical liberty and equality. If it is the part of pagan
princes to dominate, domination is not the way for a Christian to rule, he
says at one point (228). Later he employs this notion for the condemnation
of any distinctively political concepts, that is, concepts not reducible to ethics. Hence his condemnation of the basic vocabulary of contemporary political thoughtdominium, imperium, regnum, majestatem, potentiamas
pagan terms not Christian. This abrogates any autonomy of the political.
Indeed, correct political behavior is nothing but the evangelical service paid
by the prince to his subject: The imperial authority of Christians is nothing other than administration [administrationem], benefaction [beneficentiam], and guardianship [custodiam] (233; LB 4: 577D).5
This strain of political evangelism in Christian Princebased as it is on
the assumption of incommensurability of Christianity and secular wisdom
stands in stark contradiction to Erasmuss fundamental conviction about the
compatibility between the moral imperatives of Christianity and of classical
thought.6 The premises of this political evangelism tend to undermine the
fundamental humanist, and specifically Erasmian, premises about human
nature. Erasmus believed that human beings could recreate themselves and
their world, including their political world, by means of their natural reason
and natural faculties. He usually enthusiastically shared these assumptions.
Indeed, his reform program was based upon them.7 The evangelical conceptualization subverts these assumptions. By its insistence on supernatural
revelation as crucial for the construction of just and sound political order, it
implies that human natural faculties are as inherently destructive or at least
radically insufficient.
Side by side with clear evangelical assertions, however, there are in Institutio principis contradictory statements, more in line with Erasmuss usual
views concerning human nature and the relationship between reason and
faith. In fact, often immediately before or after an uncompromising evangelical assertion, Erasmus mitigates and reinterprets it. Thus, after explaining to
the prince that domination, majesty and the like are pagan terms, he hastens
to add: But if these words are still to your liking, be sure to remember how
the pagan philosophers themselves understood and expounded them: that
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the princes authority over a people is the same as that of the mind over the
body, and that therefore the minds control is exercised for the great advantage of the body rather than for its own. . . . (233). By the same token,
just before resorting to language resonating with the notion of evangelical libertywhat a mockery it is to regard as slaves those whom Christ redeemed
with the same blood as redeemed youErasmus argues that humans are
naturally free: nature created all men free and slavery was imposed upon
nature (a fact which even the laws of the pagans concede) (234). Erasmus
assumes here that the political imperatives derived from the Christian religion
and those derived from classical thought are identical. And indeed, he goes
so far as arguing that being a philosopher is in practice the same as being a
Christian; only the terminology is different (214). The evangelical language,
which distances Christianity and secular philosophy, is replaced by its opposite, a language that abrogates the distinction altogether.
It might be argued that Christian Prince is a rhetorical rather than philosophical workthat Erasmuss aim was to convince and exhort rather than
to present a coherent political theoryand that in this context the employment of contradictory arguments is explicable. This may be partially true. But
it must be remembered that effective persuasion also requires some measure
of coherency. Other writings of Erasmus, not less rhetorical than Christian
Princefor example, the educational works, notably De pueriswere basically coherent. In any case, humanisms rhetorical nature must not be automatically invoked in order to explain away conceptual tensions. If the texts
tensions and disruptions have their own internal logicas, I suggest, is the
case with Institutio principisit must be assumed that they are symptoms of
an underlying problem.
And indeed, Christian Princes conceptual inconsistencies are reproduced in
the literary form of work. Erasmus defines his text as a collection of aphorisms
(204). This form suited Erasmuss moralizing attitude toward politics. It may
have also underlined his position of moral and intellectual superiority.8 But at
the same time, at least in Institutio principis, it may also attest to the authors
inability to elaborate a coherent view. As any aphorism is a discrete unit only
loosely (if at all) associated with the preceding and succeeding ones, the text
as a whole lacks center and unity. The same is true for the second important
literary characteristic of the Christian Prince, namely the numerous, literally
hundreds, of citations of and references to classical authors: Plato, Aristotle,
Xenophon, Plutarch, Cicero, Seneca and others.9 Erasmus, however, never
tries to present, even in a superficial manner, the thought of any classical
political thinker. On the contrary, his treatment of classical political literature
dissolves the distinctiveness and unity of any specific political theory and text.
The classical heritage is fragmented and recreated as a never-dried reservoir of
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The defensive tone of Erasmuss first words on the subject proves that he
knew how different his views were from the traditional humanist convictions. Now I would not deny, to be sure, that a considerable wisdom can be
gathered from reading the historians, he says, but immediately qualifies this
commonplace: but you will also take in the most destructive ideas from these
same writers unless you are forearmed and read selectively. He subsequently
disqualifies some classical writers: Both Herodotus and Xenophon were pagans and very often depict the worst image of a prince, even if in doing so they
were writing history, whether telling an enjoyable story or painting a picture
of an outstanding leader. Other historians are only somewhat more positively evaluated: Much of what Sallust and Livy write is indeed admirable,
and, I would add, all of it scholarly, but they do not approve everything that
they recount and they approve of some things which should by no means be
approved of by a Christian prince (IP 251). Livy and Sallust were the most
appreciated historians by the humanists, and their moral values were unquestionable.13 The fact that even they arouse such suspicions attests to a general
anxiety concerning history.14
The misgivings concerning history are, moreover, only one manifestation
of skepticism toward learning in general. This suspicion is clearly implied by
the reading list that Erasmus prepares for the young prince. He recommends
several books from the Bible: the proverbs of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, the
Book of Wisdom and the Gospels (250). Other parts of the scripture, particularly of the Old Testament, are felt to be dangerous and must be therefore
taught with caution: The prince must be forewarned not to think that he
should imitate straight away even what he reads in the Scripture. He should
learn that the battles and carnage of the Hebrews and their savage cruelty to
their enemies are to be interpreted allegorically; otherwise they make pernicious reading (252). Next comes classical literature, and here Erasmuss list is
surprisingly short. It includes, in fact, only Plutarchs Apophthegms and Moralia, Seneca, Platos The Republic15 (and its restatement in Ciceros The Laws)
and good many extracts from Aristotles Politics and Ciceros Offices. Thats
all. This list stands in stark contrast to Erasmuss usual humanist endorsement of comprehensive learning, and especially of a thorough knowledge
of classical literature. To give one example, in his De ratione studii Erasmus
recommends for the first stage of learningthat is, the stage of learning the
classical languagesLucian, Demosthenes, Herodotus, Aristophanes, Homer
and Euripides for Greek, and Terence, selected comedies of Plautus, Virgil,
Horace, Cicero, Caesar and Sallust for Latin (RS 669). How different is this
calm nomination of canonical authors for the use of children at the very beginning of their education from the diet recommended for the prince! Only
when education is presented within the framework of political discussion
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does Herodotuss paganism and his wont of depicting the worst image of a
prince disturb Erasmus. By the same token, while in Christian Prince, Caesartogether with other classical historical and mythological heroes such as
Achilles, Xerxes and Cyrusis dubbed a raging bandit (IP 251), in De ratione
studii he is simply a model for good Latin style.
Over and beyond the different evaluations of this or that writer, there is a
profound difference between Institutio principis and Erasmuss educational
writings concerning the very conception of learning. The educational writings
unwaveringly perceive and present learning as good in itself and as the central
means for cultural renewal. Thus De ratione studii, for instance, cherishes
even the most marginal information to be found in classical writings on such
subjects as cooking, minerals and plants (RS 674). Its idealwhich could not
be achieved by any student, but should at least characterize the teacheris
encyclopedic knowledge. The teacher must range through the entire spectrum of writers so that he reads, in particular, all the best, but does not
fail to sample any author, no matter how pedestrian (672). The warnings,
restrictions and censorship in Christian Prince, on the other hand, disclose
an anxiety about learning. Knowledge suddenly appears dangerous and potentially destructive, as it becomes clear that it could serve immoral purposes
just as easily as moral ones. This may seem a quite realistic appreciation, but
it certainly did not characterize mainstream humanist educational thought.
Most humanists, and Erasmus above all, believed that learning was a central
means for moral improvement. So entrenched was this assumption that it was
often simply taken for granted. In other cases, usually in response to criticism
from the opponents of humanism, it was explicitly defended. In De ratione
studii, for instance, Erasmus explicitly rejects the possibility of contradiction
between learning and ethics: if some passage is encountered which may corrupt the young, he argues, the agility of the teacher would ensure that far
from its harming their morals it may in fact confer some benefit, namely by
concentrating their attention, partly on annotation of the passage, partly on
loftier thoughts (683).
The questioning of the moral efficacy of learning brings us closer to the
core issue of liberal education, namely the humanist conviction that education can fashion the individual as moral Christian and responsible citizen. We
have seen that also in this respect Erasmus stands at the pinnacle of humanist
educational thought. His De pueris is perhaps the most forceful presentation of the notion of humanist education. Following his Italian predecessors
Erasmus argues that education is crucial for human happiness (Puer 301),
for achieving the good life of the individual (303) and for society as a whole
(307, 314). Even more than his predecessors Erasmus emphasizes that the
very humanitas of man is the product of humanist education: Man without
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and rammed [inculcanda sunt] home (210; LB 4: 563F). The assault on the
princes mind reveals a repressed skepticism concerning the efficacy of liberal
education. And the violent mechanical metaphors undermine the humanist
notion of education so beautifully expressed by the organic similes, namely
that the human mind is receptive to the fundamental moral values. The images of etching and pressing imply not a conscious and volitional transformation of personality, but rather its molding by external and alien force. Education, in other words, becomes indoctrination. And indeed in Christian Prince,
Erasmus slides to an analogy between education and taming of wild animals:
For, given that there is no wild animal so fierce and savage that it cannot be
controlled by the persistent attention of a trainer, why should he think that
any human spirit is so hopelessly crude that it will not respond to painstaking
education? (210).
This ambiguitybetween conscious self-fashioning and coercive molding
from the outsidemay be immanent to liberal education, which aspires to
fashion the individuals character and personality. But from our perspective
the important point is the difference between Erasmuss general educational
writings and Institutio principis. While the former overwhelmingly represent
the notion of liberal education as a process of volitional internalization of values, the latter implies that education is a sort of indoctrination. I suggest that
what brings about the change is the specific political context of the discussion
of education in Christian Prince. Erasmus implicitly acknowledges this when he
says that no other time is so suitable for moulding and improving the prince
as when he does not yet understand that he is the prince (207). The education
of the prince, which Erasmus offers at the beginning of his work as the main
safeguard for just and sound political order in northern Europe, turns out to
be more and more problematic. Indeed, far from solving the political problem,
the discussion of the education of the prince subverts the fundamental assumptions of humanist education itself. Its apparent simplicity notwithstanding, Institutio principis turns out to be riddled with internal strains.
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For these reasons they are a particularly interesting test case for the examination of the internal tension within Erasmian humanism.
At the base of Erasmuss pacifism lies the conviction that human beings by
their nature and Christians by their creed could and should live in a state of
undisturbed peace, where peace is taken as the epitome of both the individuals ethical way of life and the moral and harmonious political order. If people
acted according to the imperatives of nature, reason and faith there would be
no war. But if this is the case a question arises: why, in fact, are human beings
in general and Christians in particular so often engaged in wars against each
other? Answering this question Erasmus concludes in Dulce bellum inexpertis
that it must have been a gradual process that led to the present situation: It
must have been by many stages that [man] descended to such an extraordinary madness (DB 407). And he indeed resorts to two stories of the Fall:
from a primordial golden age and from the state of primitive Christianity.
The first, taken in its general lines from Ovids Metamorphoses, is a universal story concerning the decline of humanity as a whole.19 Thus the story
begins: Long ago therefore when the first primitive men lived in the forests,
naked, without fortifications or homes, they were sometimes attacked by
savage beasts. It was with these that man first went to war (407). This first
bloodshed was the only one that was done solely for self-defense and was
therefore the only justified one. It was, however, a first step into a slope. Men
soon started to hunt animals for their skinsthe first murdersand later
for eating, an act that Erasmus likens to patricide, cannibalism and prostitution of virgins in religious rites (408). Habituating himself to killing, man
incited by anger, began to attack his own species with fists, clubs and stones.
However, this kind of barbarity remained for a long time a matter of fighting between individuals. But with the passage of time, people started to
band together in groups of kin, neighbors and friends, and to conduct battles
with rival groups. The scope and the sophistication of these battles increased
with time. Moreover, a cultural code that sanctioned values of virility and
heroism, which in turn propagated war, came into being (409). The scope
of war became ever larger as cities and kingdoms began to make war with
each other. Yet even at this stage some inhibitions, traces of the humanity of
the earliest times, still remained, and Erasmus cites some classical war customs. Through constant war and bloodshed the great empires emerged, and
power had fallen into the hands of the most criminal sorts of mortals (410;
see also 42122). The situation continued to deteriorate until the madness
has reached such a point that life consists of nothing else. Now a situation
of continuous war of all against all prevails: race against race, people against
people, brother against brother and, worst of all, Christian against Christian.
And still worse, no one is surprised at this, no one denounces it (411).
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The most striking feature of the narrative is that it undermines the humanist, and particularly the Erasmian, image of man. Erasmus, who taught that
the very humanitas of humans is a product of culture, who confidently declared in De pueris that primitive man, living a lawless, unschooled, promiscuous life in the woods, was not human, but rather a wild animal (Puer 304),
sees now primitive man as the apex of humanity. Unsurprisingly, however, he
cannot say anything positive about primitive man besides his peaceful nature.
Here the contrast between his golden age and that of the classical tradition is
most significant. In contrast to the classical writers, Erasmus does not dwell
on the bliss of life in nature without the shackles of civilization. For Ovid,
for example, the golden age was an age of eternal spring, of rivers of milk
and rivers of nectar, of supernatural abundance mirrored in a state of moral
perfection, in which faith and righteousness were cherished by men of their
own free will.20 For Erasmus, the only thing that can be said about primitive
existence is that the first primitive men lived in the forests, naked, without
fortifications or homes (DB 407), and even this description appears in a subordinated clause of a sentence that actually relates the negative aspect of this
way of lifethe attacks of the savage beastswhich led in turn to civilization.
Primitivism simply cannot be defended in Erasmian discourse.
Ultimately, the disturbing conclusion of Erasmuss story is the immanent
connection it makes between war and civilization. His narrative depicts a
strict correlation between the civilizing process and the intensification of war
and violence. There was no war at the stage of primitive humanity, when men
and women wandered naked in the wilderness. Man became a political animal
when he began to war: a man was considered brave and a leader if he had
driven off attacking beasts from his fellow humans (4078). And from then
on, any development in social organization went hand in hand with intensification of war. Indeed, Erasmus does not leave this link implicit: malice grew
gradually side by side with civilization [rerum cultu] (40910; LB 2: 956B).
While the Erasmian reform program was based on the notion of a process of
personal as well as social melioration, in the adage the process of civilization
is a story of linear, unqualified fall. Erasmuss own time becomes the ultimate
lunacy, an age beyond redemption. The inversion of the usual Erasmian notions could hardly be more radical.
Erasmus returns to the same issue later in the adage, long after he finishes
relating the myth, and this time his discussion clearly reveals the problematic
nature of the story. The occasion is a comparison between the ancient kings
and heroes and the Christian ones. In line with the overall pessimistic perception of Dulce bellum, he argues that the former were much better than their
successors. Not that he liked Xerxes, Alexander the Great and their likes. On
the contrary, Erasmus dubs them raving bandits (421). The only ambition
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of these pagan monarchs, he says, was achieving glory. But he hastens to add
that, in contrast to the Christian princes,
they took pleasure in increasing the prosperity of the provinces they had subjugated in war; where rustic peoples were without education or law and living
like wild beasts, they brought refinement and the arts of civilization [civilibus
artibus]; they populated uncultivated regions by building towns; they fortified
unsafe places, and made mens lives easier by building bridges, wharves, embankments, and a thousand other such amenities, so that it turned out beneficial
to be conquered. (423; LB 2: 962F)
Once again Erasmus associates war and civilization, and now the result is
ambiguous to its core: the golden age of primitive humanity is altogether
dropped. The usual humanist perspective is naturally taken: before the arts
of civilization were introduced, people were simply barbarous, indeed similar to wild animals. But again, civilization is immanently related to war. The
evaluation of civilization is therefore inherently equivocal: it brings with it
material advantages and prosperity as well as social and intellectual advancement. And yet all these advantages are causally attributed to war. It was necessary to be subdued by war and conqueredby raving bandits whose only
ambition was gloryin order to enjoy civilization. Civilization turns out to
be the source of both good and evil. Human history becomes a process of
melioration as well as degradation.
Dulce bellum also challenges the premises of humanist discourse concerning the nature of social reality. Humanism assumed as we saw that the human
world was a human artifact, the product of human desires, decisions and actions. History was therefore understood and represented in secular categories,
rather than in theological or metaphysical ones. Erasmuss narrative, by contrast, is quasi-mythological. It describes the unfolding of a predestined fate in
accordance to objective, quasi-natural and certainly nonhuman, forces.
A similar paradox surfaces in Erasmuss second story of fall, which meant
to answer a narrower question than the first: how is it possible that Christians
make war? Also here Erasmus argues that war could have become acceptable
only by gradual process of decline. His views concerning the causes of this
process are, however, quite surprising, for Erasmus puts the blame on nothing
else but learning. The first Christians, he relates, dispensed with erudition altogether. Whatever secular knowledge they acquired before becoming Christians they employed for pious uses. Learning and eloquence were introduced into Christianity on the pretext of combating heresy and immediately
an ostentatious love for controversy crept in (419). With the passing of time
learning brought about the replacement of Christian values with contrary
pagan ideals, to the point that by Erasmuss time, the greater part of a lifetime
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is needed even to free oneself to investigate the sacred scriptures. And when
one seems to free himself, he is already inevitably so corrupted with all these
worldly ideas that the precepts of Christ either seem utterly repugnant or they
are distorted to fit the teachings of the pagans (420).
Dulce bellum thus undermines the fundamental conviction of Erasmian humanism, namely the compatibility between secular learning and Christianity,
between eruditio and pietas.21 The views put forward in the adage are diametrically opposed to those propagated in other works of Erasmus. The depiction
of learnings subversion of Christian religion is read almost as a parody on
works like Antibarbari. In the latter work, Erasmianisms intellectual rationale and ideological manifesto all in one,22 both the intrinsic value of classical literature and its compatibility with Christianity are celebrated in forceful
terms (AB 5964). The decline of classical learning is perceived as a calamity
that demands an explanation: what the disaster was that had swept away
the rich, flourishing, joyful fruits of the finest culture, and why a tragic and
terrible deluge had shamefully overwhelmed all the literature of the ancients
which used to be so pure (23). And the divorce of Christianity from secular
learning is understood as the principal cause of the decline of Christendom
(2324).23 Indeed, apart from the sections about the origins of war, Dulce bellum itself propagates the same ideas. Throughout the work war is condemned
equally on human and religious grounds and natures moral imperatives are
taken to be identical to Gods (e.g., DB 4067, 41618). Moreover, the adage
endows learning with its usual positive attributes. It unequivocally states that
the pursuit of learning and the desire for knowledge is the most effective
means of drawing the mind of man away from all savagery (402).
Hand in hand with the undermining of learning, Dulce bellum subverts
also humanist distinction between different types of learning. Unsurprisingly, Erasmus uses his censure of learning for staging yet another assault
on scholasticism, attacking Aristotle and the Roman law: the former taught
Christians that human happiness is not complete without bodily comforts
and worldly goods and that a state in which all property is held in common
cannot flourish, while the latter taught them to meet force with force and
justified war and usury (41920). But not only Aristotle and the Roman law
are guilty of the perversion of the original Christian teaching: the teaching of
Christ is contaminated by the writings of pagan dialecticians, sophists, mathematicians, orators, poets, philosophers and lawyers (420). The distinction
between the scholastic quibbles and the bonae litterae, which the humanists
toiled to establish in numerous works written over more than a century and
a half, vanishes in one stroke. Orators and poets are now joined with the dialectician and the sophists as the enemies of Christianity. Humanism is thus
implicitly put on the same plane as scholasticism.
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and preferences.25 Johan Huizinga goes further, arguing that the dialogue is
an example of the Renaissance ideal of good life: a serious and tranquil conversation in a rural house, which realizes the dream of harmony, simplicity,
sincerity, truth and nature.26 Walter M. Gordon also sees the text as representing Erasmuss notions of the good man and the good life in the secular world
(that is, outside the cloister).27 Marjorie ORourke Boyle claims that the rural
estate is a realization of the Erasmian vision of a Christian society based on an
ongoing interpretation of scripture.28 Eusebiuss villa, the setting of the dialogue, is, in her words, an earthly fiction of paradise.29 Examining Erasmuss
educational thought, William Woodward argues that the dialogue has a triple
function: a Latin textbook, a model of humanist moral philosophy and an
illustration of the humanist ideal of universal eruditio.30 Wayne Rebhorn,
who examines the humanist notion of education from a different perspective, claims that The Godly Feast constructs the ideal humanist educational
environment.31 And Michel Jeanneret shows that the conversation between
the participants in the dialogue and their manners exemplify the Renaissance
ideals of moderation and decorum, of harmony and friendship.32
The Convivium religiosum represents the Erasmian ideal, and so it appears
to be also from the perspective of the present study. We have seen in the
previous chapter that the Colloquia deals with all aspects of lifefrom theology to prostitutionand addresses Christendom as a whole. The collection
clearly expresses Erasmuss belief in a civilizing process, a process of personal
education and social melioration. From this point of view, The Godly Feast
depicts the realization of the civilization process; it gives the reader a glimpse
of truly civilizedChristian and humanistindividuals and social relations.
The dialogue succinctly presents and dramatizes the central notions of the
Erasmian reform program. The philosophersas they define themselves
(CR 175)who participate in the dialogue are all married. And the sensitive
issue of lay as opposed to religious way of life is explicitly discussed. Anyone
can live a full Christian life even in the secular world: piety is sought after by
various modes of life. Some find the priesthood to their liking, some celibacy,
some marriage, some withdrawal from the world, some public affairs, according to their different constitutions and temperaments (186). Eusebius the
host and the principal interlocutor goes even further, arguing that marriage is
preferable to celibacy (187). The conversation of these laymen revolves around
the interpretation of scripture, a further illustration of a tendency of Erasmian
humanism: anyone can participate in a theological discussion, indeed, as one
of the interlocutors asserts, scriptural exegesis is permissible even for sailors
(184). The dialogue also clearly expresses Erasmuss views concerning the
essential compatibility, even similarity, between the moral teachings of Christianity and of the classical heritage. Eusebius firmly expels a feigned doubt
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reading and interpreting the Bible are explicitly compared to eating and digesting the food. Christ himself is invited to mingle with all our food and
drink, so that everything may taste of him, but most of all may he penetrate
our hearts! (183).33 This truly godly feast should be read also against the
background of humanist educational thought. The organic metaphors employed by the humanists for describing the progression of education conveys,
as we saw, the central notions of liberal education: the idea that humanist
education is natural to men and (differently) to women in the sense that
he is naturally predisposed to absorb the fundamental humanist values and
the idea that these values become an organic part of the mature personality.
The metaphors of ingestion and nutrition convey the same meanings, but
underline the active dimension of the practice of self-fashioning. It is the
mature humanistrather than a schoolboywho tastes, digests and absorbs
scripture and the classical canon in order to transform himself into a moral
person and a true Christian.
Closer reading reveals however that the literary brilliance and the placid
surface of the Convivium religiosum hide considerable internal strains. Some
of these strains come to the fore in the conversation of the interlocutors. The
discussion of human activity in the secular world is one example. The Godly
Feast clearly expresses the humanist affirmation of such activity, notably by
rejecting the traditional dichotomy between lay and religious ways of life. It is
somewhat surprising therefore to find in the text also the opposite attitude. It
is presented in an exegetical discussion of the famous verses from the Gospels:
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the
other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve
God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you: Take no thought for your life,
what ye shall eat, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life
more than meat, and the body more than raiment? (Matt 6:2425; CR 200).
At first Timothy offers two complementary interpretations of the passage.
He suggests first that it should be read in its specific historical context: the
apostles dedicated themselves completely to the dissemination of Christianity
and therefore could not earn their living, especially when they knew no craft
but fishing (201). The literal meaning of the verses is therefore not valid to
contemporary reality and they must be understood metaphorically. He goes
on to explain this latter meaning, arguing that Christ did not forbid labour
but anxiety which derives one to immerse in work to the point of neglecting everything else. Making a living is therefore permissible as long as it does
not interfere with the individuals obligations, especially the religious duties
(2012). These interpretations express of course the common humanist and
Erasmian notions; the first also exemplifies, albeit somewhat comically for the
modern reader, the humanist historical consciousness.
125
In this case the interlocutors do not notice the contradiction between the two
attitudes. They all seem to agree both that the body is partner rather than
dwelling of the soul and that it is a garrison rather than a house.
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In the last words of the political discussion Eusebius moves uneasily between
contradictory positions and different fields of meaning. His inability to answer the question indicates his failure to conceptualize the political world in
humanist terms, and indeed he ends up again in what may be termed political
fideism.
Against this background we must understand the deeper meaning of the
verse offered by Timothy. King, the latter argues, is the perfect man, who
completely controls his bodily passions; the man who is governed solely by
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the power of the Holy Spirit. As such, this person is above any human law.
Instead he should be left to his Master, by whose spirit he is led; he is not to
be judged by those circumstances through which the weakness of feeble men
is drawn, in one way or another, to true godliness (185). The Convivium religiosum thus unwittingly ends up adopting the Augustinian (and Lutheran)
dichotomies between faith and reason, between internal purity and freedom
and external servitude within an irredeemably corrupt social world. These
dichotomies contradict of course the fundamental assumptions and purposes
of Erasmian humanism, which rejected the distinction between inner faith
and external behavior and argued for the compatibility of reason and faith.
The Erasmian reform program assumed a process of personal as well as social
melioration and advancement toward the horizon of the truly humane and
Christian society. It was to be achieved by human efforts, notably by education, and assumed therefore that most Christiansindeed most men and
womencould become moral agents and responsible citizens.
The conclusion of the political discussion in The Godly Feast therefore
undermines Erasmian humanism. The discussion gives us however a further
clue concerning the internal tensions in the discourse of Erasmian humanism.
For the dichotomy between the two types of kings, or more precisely between the kings of the second kind and the rest of humanity, is superimposed
on another dichotomy, namely between Eusebiuss rural house and the external world. The philosophers gathered in Eusebiuss villa are the kings of which
Timothy talks, and indeed Eusebius defines himself as king and his house as
kingdom (176, 183). Erasmusin contrast to Augustine and Lutherdoes
externalize, therefore, the Christian inner freedom and faith. His city of God
is fictionally realized: Eusebiuss rural house is the place in which social relations reflect the true Christian values.
This interpretation highlights the separation, and the opposition, between
the rural housethe Erasmian utopiaand the external world. This is indeed
one of the persistent themes of The Godly Feast. A close examination of the
precise relationship as well as the border between the two realms may therefore provide important insights. Already the short introductory part of the
dialogue focuses on the opposition between two worlds: the fresh and smiling countryside and the smoky cities, where greedy merchants and monks
reside.36 At this stage, the dichotomy is therefore between nature and culture
as seen from the perspective of the pastoral or even primitivist view. This view
was developed at length, as we saw, in Dulce bellum and led to a dead end.
The Godly Feast takes, however, a different route, as Timothy undermines
the dichotomy in its first form. Socrates, he reminds his friends, referring
to Phaedrus, preferred the city. For the archetypal philosopher was eager to
learn and cities afforded him means of learning. In the countryside, to be sure,
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were trees and gardens, springs and streams, to please the eye; but they have
nothing to say and therefore taught nothing. In his response Eusebius mentions that Nature . . . is not silent but speaks to us everywhere and teaches
the observant man many things, notably Gods wisdom and goodness. He
even more emphatically argues that the conversation between Socrates and
Phaedrus in the countryside is of the utmost philosophical importance (175).
His argumentation changes the original dichotomy. The rural house does not
stand for nature in the pastoral sense. It is a humanist utopia, whose character
we shall presently explore.
In any event, the second term of the dichotomy, the city, retains its original
negative significance. Eusebiuss estate is sharply separated from the city and
symbolically opposed to it. A strange conversation between the owner and
one of the guests illustrates the point:
TIMOTHY: Where does such a pretty stream finally bury itself?
EUSEBIUS: See how crude we are: after it has delighted our eyes here sufficiently,
it drains the kitchen and carries that waste along to the sewer.
TIMOTHY: Thats callous, so help me!
EUSEBIUS: Callous, unless the goodness of the eternal Will had made it for this
use. (17879)
The contact between such different realms cannot but be contaminating. The
invocation of Gods will also attests, however, to an uneasiness caused by this
separation and to the difficulty of legitimizing it.
Wayne Rebhorn sought to account for this separation between Eusebiuss
house and the external world. His account is based on the distinctive character of Erasmian humanism compared with other kinds of humanism.
According to Rebhorn, Erasmusin contrast to the Italian humanists of
the quattrocentowas an alienated intellectual. He was critical of the basic
values of his society and understood that he could not reform Christendom.37 This alienation was particularly strongly felt in the field of education,
as Erasmus and his friends concluded that their aim of fashioning a truly
moral Christian individual was bound to fail due to negative influences
of corrupt society.38 The Convivium religiosum is, according to Rebhorn,
Erasmuss solution to this predicament. Eusebiuss rural estate should be
seen as an extension of the schoolroom into the adult world. It is a carefully shaped and controlled environment in which the humanist education
can operate without hindrance.39 In the humanist enclave the contradiction between ideal and reality vanishes.40 In the terms of the present study,
the Erasmian garden was the place of the universal intellectual. Rebhorn
manages to see the strains beneath the surface of the dialogue only to be
enchanted in the end by its literary qualities. For how can the text solve
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the very real problem of alienation of the Erasmian humanist? At best, the
dialogue may be said to provide a fictivebut ultimately deceptiverefuge
from the harsh truths about the impotency of Erasmian humanism. The
dichotomy between the rural villa and the external social world thus corroborates our previous conclusion concerning the dialogues undermining
the prospects of the Erasmian reform program. It implicitly but necessarily
degrades the world outside the rural estate. Social reality outside the enclosed garden is irredeemably fallen, the realm of the Pauline flesh and the
Platonic matter. And if this is the conclusion, it must be that the Erasmian
reform program is doomed to fail.
The precise meaning of this conclusion must however be further explored.
The inability to implement the Erasmian reform program and to transform
society might be seen as an external problem of Erasmian humanism: an
unpleasant fact about the world that has nothing to do with the discourse
of Erasmian humanism itself. In this case we would expect Eusebiuss rural
house to be a true Erasmian utopia. Protected from the damaging external
influences it would be able to at least fictively realize the values and ideals of
Erasmian humanism that cannot be realized in the world. This is indeed the
explicit position of the Convivium religiosum. If, however, it would turn out
that the text fails to construct a perfect place, it would indicate an inability of
the discourse to do so. In this case, the imperfections of the rural house would
attest to an internal problem of Erasmian discourse.
The problematical nature of the Erasmian utopia is most clearly revealed
when the questions concerning the ultimate foundationsand legitimizationof the rural estate is examined. Eusebiuss villa is a grandiose attempt
to appropriate and refashion nature and culture alike in order to create a
perfect place. Thus the rural house has lakes, rivers and seas, and it contains
numerous trees and animals. In fact it contains all the kinds of trees, birds and
fish (1801). The garden thus attempts to recreate the fullness and perfection
of creation. Perforce most plants and animals are represented by pictures and
statuettes. The employment of art is of course a solution to the technical
problem of gathering the entire natural realm. When asked why a real garden
was not good enough, Eusebius admits that One garden wasnt enough to
hold all kinds of plants. The rest of his answer leads, however, to a different direction: Moreover, we are twice pleased when we see a painted flower
competing with a real one. In one we admire the cleverness of nature, in the
other the inventiveness of the painter, in each the goodness of God, who gives
all these things for our use and is equally wonderful and kind in everything
(179). Eusebius imparts a positive value to human inventiveness and even
to a competition between culture and nature. And indeed Eusebiuss villa
integrates nature with culture. Thus, besides the pictures of natural objects
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there are other representations, religious and secular alike. Biblical scenes,
including the Last Supper and the killing of John the Baptist, are set side by
side with moralistic pictures of historical events such as the meeting between
Cleopatra and Anthony and the slaying of Clitus by Alexander. Finally, the
library which contains the human literary heritage is at the heart of Eusebiuss
house (205). Moreover, already at the beginning of their visit the guests learn
that the Gardens plants and animal are full of life: nothing inactive, nothing
thats not doing or saying something, as one of the guests notes with marvel
(180). Some of them directly speak to the passerby and by means of maxims
and proverbs teach moral lessons. Others, the more interesting, appear as
emblems that the visitor must decipher, and thus they give rise to interpretive practice (1801). The very nature of Eusebiuss house thus illustrates the
fundamental tenet of Erasmuss humanist theology, namely the notion of a
never-ending interpretive process of elucidatingbut never exhaustingthe
unfathomable Word of God.41
But the Convivium religiosum also constitutes Eusebiuss house, particularly
its inner gardens, as paradise. The porter of the place is Peter himself, who
greets the callers in the three classical languages and invites them to repent
and to live by faith. Just to the side of the entrance there is a little shrine, with
a statue of Jesus on its altar. Christ looks to heaven whence his Father and the
Holy spirit look out, and he points to heaven with his right hand while with
his left he seems to beckon and invite the passer-by (177). A fountain nearby,
just beside the entrance to the inner more cultivated garden, completes the
picture. It symbolizes in a manner, the host explains, that unique fountain
which refreshes with its heavenly stream all those who labour and are heavy
laden, and for which the soul, wearied by the evils of this world, pants as, according to the psalmist, does the thirsty hart after tasting the flesh of serpents
(178). The meaning of the symbols and images seems unequivocal: Stepping
into Eusebiuss house means leaving behind the fallen world and entering the
Garden of Eden. This reconstruction is consistent with the identification of
the inhabitants of the rural estate with Timothys kings, namely the perfect
men who are ruled solely by the Holy Spirit. Moreover, this interpretation
can also account for the texts ambivalence concerning the relation of body
and soul. The dichotomy between flesh and spirit disappears only to the
extent that Eusebiuss rural estate is indeed a paradisiacal place. In paradise
the body is under the total control of the soul, and the flesh does not tempt
the spirit. In paradise body and soul are indeed partners and bodily pleasures
are natural and positively valued.42 Eusebiuss house, from this perspective, is
not a human artifact but rather paradise inhabited by the elect. The Erasmian
utopiathe truly reformed societyturns out to be paradise. The neverending play of signs and interpretations of the human garden is replaced by a
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in Erasmian discourse, and for his failure to construct a coherent utopia, and
for all this manifest in works that present a most forceful demonstration of
his independence from kings, nobles and prelates? Why, in other words, while
Erasmus was free to formulate his views, he nevertheless became entangled in
contradictions? The answer is to be found in the fact that the political discussion actually brought to the fore a problematic dimension of the autonomy
of Erasmian humanism, that is, the problematic position of the universal intellectual within the parameters of humanist discourse itself. The same social
position that allowed Erasmus to condemn the reigning ideology and present
Christendom with an independent reform program also served as the source
of conflict and contradiction within his work. In order to deepen our investigation of this dynamic we will turn in the following chapters to two works
by Thomas More.
5
Mores Richard III: The Fragility of
Humanist Discourse
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the literary canon and such an influence on popular folklore. This chapter
thematizes these issues by theoretically examining the ambivalence of Richard
III toward humanist discourse. It also accounts for this ambivalence against
the background of the problematical nature of the Erasmian Republic of Letters, which we explored in the previous chapters.
A brief examination of the literature on Mores work will suggest the historical and theoretical problems involved in this kind of reading. Until the
past few decades many scholars tended to read Richard III as a chronicle, and
they could not help pointing out the books many deficiencies as an example
of that genre. Richard III is littered with many factual errors: among others
there is the confusion of the Christian names of several individuals, the addition of thirteen years to the age of King Edward IV (in the opening sentence)
and the misidentification of Edwards alleged first wife.4 The main complaint against More the historian was, however, that his alleged Tudor sympathies had led him to distort the character and deeds of Richard III.5 Alison
Hanham has convincingly refuted this interpretation, together with the very
notion that there ever were Tudor historians.6 In any case, this approach is
anachronistic since its conceptual categoriesits notion of historical truth
and its criteria for distinguishing fact from fiction, for exampleare foreign
to Mores work and to the contemporary understanding of the historical discipline in general.
More recent scholarship has abandoned this misleading and sterile approach.
During the past few decades most readers have underscored the literary and
dramatic qualities of Richard III, analyzing it as a literary fiction in the modern
sense of the word.7 Many of these readings provide important insights, yet both
their methodology and their conclusions are problematic. By underscoring the
literary character of Richard IIIin the modern sense of literaturethey reproduced the anachronistic distinction between fiction and nonfiction constructed
by the historicists they sought to displace. Typically, they disregarded the fact
that More did write a history, or at the very least professed to having done so.8
More generally, they refrained from examining Richard III as a humanist work.
In any case, most readings, their different approaches and specific interpretations notwithstanding, agree that Richard III is basically a moralistic work, an
unequivocal condemnation of the crimes of an evil tyrant.9
Other readings insist on the centrifugal forces that operate within the text,
frustrating the attribution of a simple and unproblematic meaning. These
interpretations highlight the texts pervasive irony, those parodic and satirical effects which undermine the dramatic superstructure and challenge even
what seems at first glance to be an univocal message. Such insights necessarily
reopen the question of the generic classification of the work and also of its relation to contemporary literary and scholarly disciplines. Though she believes
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that Mores basic intention was to condemn tyranny, Hanham suggests that
the books internal literary dynamics turned its cutting edge in other directions: toward the popular folklore that transformed Richard into an inhuman
monster; toward the political propagandists who distorted history to please
their patrons; toward the humanist historians who purported to know the
motives and causes of historical events and so on. Richard III is thus, according to Hanham, both history and a parody of history, something not very
far from a black comedy.10 Daniel Kinney goes even further, concluding that
the work is immune to any generic classification or reductive interpretation.
Richard III, he argues, reveals the partial nature of any historical and political work, and creates for the reader a space for reflection on political reality.11
Hanham and Kinneys well-established insights regarding the uncontrollable
nature of the text, its self-reflexivity and its subversion of any facile classification, clearly illustrate the limitations of the moralistic interpretation.
However, neither of the authors places the text within a well-defined context.
Hanham refrains from any conceptualization, and bases her interpretation
on Mores idiosyncratic humor and fondness for Lucianic satire. Kinney
places Richard III in a vast intertextual space that includes all of the classical
and humanist works cited or alluded to by More, but provides no discursive
reconstruction of this space. Thus the question of what exactly Richard III
subverts remains unanswered.
Analyzing Richard III within the context of humanist discourse, I argue that
Mores work reproduces the presuppositions of humanist discourse and at
the same time challenges and subverts them.12 The equivocal character of the
work explains why it could have been interpreted as both a very simple and a
very complicated text. It may also explain how the genre of humanist history
could produce such an extraordinary work. To explore the many dimensions
of this question, I shall proceed in three stages. First, I will analyze the content of the textits argumentation and its moral and political lessonsto
demonstrate that it may legitimately be read in two contradictory ways, one
that reiterates fundamental humanist convictions and another that undermines them. The same indeterminacy is reproduced on a second level of
analysis, which concentrates on the central metaphor of the text, namely
human life as a theater. In Richard III the theatrum mundi is made to stand for
both reality itself and for its misrepresentation. Finally, in order to account
for these ambiguities and explore their implications, I will examine the text
against the background of the conventions of the humanist genre of history,
demonstrating that it undermines the humanist notion of rhetoric and thus
subverts the basic epistemological presuppositions of humanist discourse.
Several notes about the text itself are appropriate. More wrote Richard III
concurrently in English and Latin, and never published the book. There is an
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essential difference between the Latin and the English versions. The former
ends with Richards usurpation of the throne, while the latter goes on to tell
the story of the murder of the two nephews and of the breach between Richard and the Duke of Buckingham, only to end quite abruptly in the middle
of a dialogue between the Duke and Bishop Morton. It appears that at some
stage More intended to write a complete history of the rise and fall of Richard
III, and he even mentions a plan to write the history of King Henry VII (R
8283). However, the section leading up to the usurpation of power is more
complete and coherent than later sections, from both a linguistic and a literary point of view. It may safely be concluded that Mores original intention
had been to write only the story of the usurpation, and that the other sections
were added at a later date.13 These considerations invite both an analysis of
the first part as a finished narrative, and an examination of the differences
between the two parts.
Mores sources included two early chroniclesThe Chronicles of Fabyan and
The Great Chronicle of Londonthe oral tradition and possibly some legal
documents. Most importantly, Hanhan and Alistair Fox convincingly argue
that More was acquainted with Vergils account of the affair in his historia.14 The
differences between Mores account and that of his sources, especially Vergils,
are of primary importance. For More did not seek to correct factual errors;
indeed sometimes the contrary is true. The changes he did make often provide
therefore strong clues concerning the meaning of his work.
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a result the gap between normal politics and the events of the spring of 1483
shrinks decidedly, foregrounding the structural causes of the tragedy.
To explore further this internal tension let us compare the representation
of the protagonist to those of the other characters in the drama. There is no
ambiguity regarding Richards character, which is famously mirrored by his
physique: little of stature, ill fetured of limmes, croke backed, his left shoulder
much higher then his right, hard fauoured of visage. Richards monstrosity is
inscribed already at his abnormal birth: hee came into the worlde with the feete
forwarde, as menne bee borne outwarde, and (as the fame runneth) also not vntothed (7). The protagonists circumstances of birth presage his future crimes:
Richard al the bandes broken that binden manne and manne together, withoute anye respecte of Godde or the worlde, vnnaturallye contriued to bereue
[his nephews], not onelye their dignitie, but also their liuese (6). Both Richard
and his acts are transgressions of the divine and natural order of things. Richard
is thus posited as an alien evil, external to the normal order of things.
The text apparently highlights this at the very beginning of the work with a
description of Richards virtuous brother, and the state of the realm under his
reign. Edwards appearance, generosity, courage in battle and political wisdom
endear him to all his subjects, commoners and nobles alike (34). But mild
problems soon appear: the king was a handsome man, but in his latter dayes
wyth ouer liberall dyet, sommewhat corpulente and boorelye. Moreover, hee
was of youthe greatelye geuen to fleshlye wantonnesse. More seems willing
to overlook these flaws: they bothered no one, for neyther could any one
mans pleasure, stretch and extende to the dyspleasure of verye manye, and was
wythoute violence (4). But the excuses are equivocal. The king, we may safely
presume, had the means to satisfy his desires without resort to violence, and if
his subjects minded their own business this can hardly be described as a virtue.
In any event, Edwards petty vices and personal faults, apparently unimportant,
acquire a different significance once we learn their consequences. More hints
that Edwards unbridled gluttony hastened his death, leaving the young heirs
unprotected (8). And sexual dissipation led to his politically problematic marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, which incited discontent among the nobility and
indirectly caused the ensuing tragedy (6065).
The description of Edward illustrates some of the unique qualities of
Richard III: the evasive language, the dark insinuations, the qualification of
any decisive statement and the underscoring of petty vices, especially sexual
ones. These devices tend to overdetermine the meaning of the text and to
undermine its apparent simplicity. In particular, by suggesting that Richards
much praised predecessor had been less than perfect, Mores text reveals its
reluctance to make Richard out to be uniquely immoralthis turns out to be
a salient feature of Mores narrative as a whole.
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Elizabeths stubborn protection of her honor in the face of Edwards aggressive advances had been widely admired by Mores contemporaries. The Italian
Dominic Mancini, who composed the first account of Richards usurpation,
praises the willingness of the future queen to die rather than live unchastely
with the king, and concludes with an edifying moral: Whereupon Edward
coveted her much more, and he judged the lady worthy to be a royal spouse.
. . .18 Mores take is much more ambiguous. He does underline Elizabeths
virtuous refusals, but adds: But yt did she so wiseli, & with so good maner,
& wordes so wel set, that she rather kindled his desire then quenched it (61).
Mores account, in contrast to Mancinis, allows the possibility that Elizabeth
intentionally aroused Edwards desire. It is without any surprise at all that
the reader learns immediately afterward that after many a meting Elizabeth
herself may have planted the idea of marriage in the kings mind: she shewed
him plaine, yt as she wist herself to simple to be his wife, so thought she her
self to good to be his concubine (61).
It is not clear whether Richard III is endorses noble behavior or exposes
the cynical exploitation of human weakness. Both readings are possible, but
they cannot be harmonized. The contradictory readings correspond to two
different readings of the text as a whole. The first is the traditional moralistic
reading mentioned above, the reading that sets Richard apart from the other
protagonists, and thus sees the tragedy of 1483 as an overthrow of the natural
order of things by the intrusion of abnormal, even inhuman, evil. According
to the second reading, there is no qualitative difference between Richard and
the other political players. All of them are reduced to hollow puppets moved
by a single motive: a ruthless and unbounded lust for power.19 No other motive for these actions is even mentioned.20 Richards usurpation ceases to look
like a unique event. On the contrary, it is a normal event, completely explicable by the logic of politics. Given the motivations, intentions and desires that
fashion political reality, the kind of tragedy described seems almost inevitable.
But if this is the case, if Richards usurpation is an archetypal event, the conclusion or the lesson of the work is that the political world is irredeemably
corrupt, that no moral and rational political order is possible, at least not one
based on mans natural reason and moral capacities.21
We may now begin to evaluate, albeit in a preliminary manner, Richard III
against the background of humanist thought, or more specifically humanist
ethical and political thought. Humanism as such did not imply a distinctive
political position, let alone a coherent political theory. However, humanist
ethical and political discourseunderstood as the shared assumptions underlying the various political views and theories elaborated and advocated by
the humanistspresupposed that a stable and just political order could be
established, at least in principle.22 This formulation highlights the differences
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between the two proposed readings of Richard III. If we read it as a description of the work of an abnormal and unique evil, as a condemnation of the
transgression of the natural order, then Mores work is in keeping with humanist ethical and political thought. If Richard appears as an aberration, then
Richard III is an examplealbeit a rather idiosyncratic oneof the moralistic
and didactic humanist literature. If, on the other hand, Richards usurpation
of the throne is a typical political event in a thoroughly corrupt secular political world, then the text contradicts, or at least challenges, a basic assumption
of humanist political thought. In order to substantiate this tentative conclusion the literary characteristics of Richard III must be examined.23
Kings Games
An examination of the meaning and function of the central metaphor in
Richard III, human life as a play, may provide us with a clearer insight into
the problematic of Mores text, first, as the theatrical metaphor is the central
literary device that organizes Richard III,24 and second, as the meaning of this
metaphor bears directly on crucial questions of humanist discourse.
The significance of the topic is declared at the outset, when a description of
Richards physical monstrosity is followed by a paean to his theatrical talents:
He could adopt any role, then play it out to perfection, whether cheerful
or stern, whether sober or relaxed, just as expediency urged him to sustain
or abandon it (RL 325).25 Richard is both an excellent actor and a peerless
director. The success of this distorted creature in seizing the throne without
resorting to open rebellion depended on his ability to enchant and deceive
allies and enemies alike, and indeed the conspiracy as a whole is described by
More as a succession of theatrical performances.
The description of Hastingss demise is one of the most elaborately theatrical scenes in Mores Richard III. A dynamic tension arises as More contrasts
Hastingss total lack of understanding with Richards meticulous direction
and control of events. The scene opens with the protectors entrance to the
tower hall where the nobles were already assembled. After excusing himself
for being late and asking the Bishop of Elye to provide the nobles with the exquisite strawberries he grows in his garden, Richard momentarily takes leave
(R 47). Here the Latin version emphasizes how pleased were the nobles with
the protectors mild mood (RL 407). Richard soon returns, but al changed
with a wonderful soure angrye countenaunce, knitting the browes, frowning
and froting and knawing on hys lippes, and so sat him downe, in hys place: al
the lordes much dismaied & sore merueiling of this maner of sodain chaunge,
and what thing should him aile (R 47). What punishment is due to those
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who conspire against the protector and attempt to kill him? Richard asks the
stunned nobles. At this stage everyone present senses that Richard has already
begun to plot the death of another hapless soul, and resolves to hold his
tongue. Everyone, that is, except Hastings, who typically displays irritation for
having been left out of the new intrigue. An ironic dialogue ensues. Richard
accuses the queen and Shores wifeEdwards former mistress and, according to More, Hastingss paramour at the time of the dialogueof attempting
to cast a spell of death upon him. Hastings responds that if they have indeed
hatched such a plot, they deserved to be severely punished, and his use of the
conditional supplies the protector with the pretext he needs to implicate the
lord himself in the conspiracy. Several nobles are arrested, and Hastings is
ordered to prepare for a quick death, because, as Richard explains to him, by
saynt Poule . . . I wil not to dinner til I se thy had of (49).26
What is the significance of the contrast between Richard the omnipotent
and Hastings the impotent? It might be argued that the lord has fallen as
divine punishment for his participation in the murderous plot against the
queens faction. But, as we saw, Richard III can hardly be interpreted as a
description of the providential direction of human history. Furthermore, the
text attributes Hastingss downfall not to his sins, but to his innocence, to his
being very faithful, & trusty ynough, trusting to much (52). But then again,
Hastingss crimes receive so much attention in the book that he can hardly be
described as innocent.
The theatrical metaphor may help us resolve this puzzle. If the political world is a grand play, then political action is a theatrical behavior and
the skillful politician is the skillful actor. The basic dichotomy in the text
is therefore not between sinfulness and innocence, in the usual sense of
the terms, but rather between natural human behavior, both good and
bad, and theatrical, political, natural behavior. For this reason, Richard,
the most consummate political player, is never accused of natural sins,
and is, for example, never censured for the sexual debauchery that so conspicuously looms in the background of so many other characters. For the
same reason More insists that the protectors brutal acts usually arise not
out of anger, but rather from rational calculation (8). By now the contrast
between Richard and Hastings has come into focus. Being a trusting man,
Hastings does not see through the very good semblaunce of Richard and
Buckingham and the dissimulacion of Catesby (46). The lords demise is
therefore not a punishment of his sins, but rather the result of his lack of
theatricalthat is, politicalskills.
The contrast between the natural and the theatrical occupies a central place
in Richard III. In particular it explains the otherwise hardly explicable two
digressions in so concise a text.
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euen such: whoso wel aduise her visage, might gesse & deuise which partes
how filled, wold make it a faire face (5556). The digression on Shores wife
opens with a passage once labeled surely the most charming piece of prose
that had yet been written in England.29 Here More describes her appearance
at the height of her humiliation: she went in countenance & pace demure
so womanly, & albeit she were out of al array saue her kyrtle only: yet went
she so fair & louely, namelye while the wondering of the people caste a comly
rud in her chekes (of whiche she before had most misse) that her great shame
wan her much praise . . . (5455). What is the meaning of this empathy and
saintly description? After all, sanctity has little enough to do with Jane Shores
behavior, which More does not try to attenuate.
Jane Shore is contrasted to all the characters in Richard III. More stresses the
womans distinguishing trait: she never misused her political power. On the
contrary, she neuer abused to any mans hurt, but to many a mans comfort &
relief: where the king toke displeasure, she would mitigate & appease his mind:
where men were out of fauour, she wold bring them in his grace. For many that
had highly offended, shee obtained pardon (56). Jane Shore never participated
in the play of politics. Her sins, the result of her seduction by the glimmer and
luxury of the court and the pleasure of royal attention, are qualitatively different
from the crimes of the other protagonists. They belong to the natural Christian
economy of sin, remorse and punishment. It is not innocence that makes her
the only human character in Richard III, but innocence from political crimes.
Now we can understand when and why other characters enjoy rare moments of grace. The queen in the sanctuary, Hastings after his execution and
King Edward on his deathbedall are suddenly bathed in a forgiving, Christian light, but only once they have exited the stage of politics. Now we can
also see why the bearers of political morality in Richard III are the common
Londoners. Being outside the theater of politics they can expose Richards
deceptions (though not prevent his victory).30
Richard III itself offers, through the mouths of the common Londoners,
an explication for the theatrical metaphor. The occasion is the protectors
initial refusal, and subsequent reluctant acceptance, of the crown. Some
condemned the shameless pretense.
Howbeit somme excused that agayne, and sayde all must be done in good order
though. And menne must sommetime for the manner sake not bee a knowen
what they knowe. . . . And in a stage play all the people know right wel, that he
that playeth the sowdayne is percase a sowter. Yet if one should can so lyttle
good, to shewe out of seasonne what acquaintance he hath with him, and calle
him by his owne name whyle he standeth in his magestie, one of his tormentors
might hap to breake his head, and worthy for marring of the play. (8081)
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The meaning of the theatrical metaphor turns out to be ambiguous to its core,
for in this passage, as in Richard III as a whole, it can be interpreted in two
contradictory ways. The theater and its conventions stand, as we have already
seen, for deception and dissimulation, for plain falsehood that could easily
be exposed (if not immediately, at least retrospectively by the historian). The
Londoners knew right well that the protectors initial refusal of the throne was
feigned. They simply argue that sometimes it is better not to show what one
knows. But at the same time the theater stands for reality as such. Political
reality is perceived as essentially theatrical, in the sense that there is no other,
objective reality beyond or beneath the social conventions and fictions.31
This is one way to understand the Londoners insistence that things must
be done in good order. The example Londoners employ further illustrates
this fundamental ambiguity: For at the consecracion of a bishop, euery man
woteth well by the paying for his bulles, yt he purposeth to be one, & though
he paye for nothing elles. And yet must he bee twise asked whyther he wil be
bishop or no, and he muste twyse say naye, and at the third tyme take it as
compelled ther vnto by his owne wyll (80). The question is where the burden
of the example lies. If the knowledge of the transactions behind the scenes is
underscored, then the nomination ceremony of the bishop becomes a mere
theatrical performance, a disguise, which can and should be removed, of the
realities of power and money. If, by contrast, the focus is on the ceremony
itself, then the performative dimension of human activity and the symbolic
nature of reality are highlighted. The future bishops refusals to accept his
nomination are, after all, a necessary part of the sequence of actions that
actually makes him a bishop. Reality in this case is essentially and irreducibly
theatrical.
The significance of the ambiguity explored above becomes clearer if we examine it in the context of humanist discourse and against the background of
the traditional meaning of the theatrical metaphor. By Mores day, the depiction of the human world as a stagefamously expressed by the emblem of the
theatrum mundihad become part of the symbolic code of Western culture.
Its stable kernel of meaning, transmitted from classical antiquity through
the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, is wonderfully presented in Erasmuss
Moriae encomium:
If anyone tries to take the masks off the actors when theyre playing a scene on the
stage and show their true, natural faces to the audience, hell certainly spoil the
whole play and deserve to be stoned and thrown out of the theater for a maniac.
. . . Now, what else is the whole life of a man but a sort of play? Actors come on
wearing their different masks and all play their parts until the producer orders
them off the stage, and he can often tell the same man to appear in different
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costume, so that now he plays a king in purple and now a humble slave in rags.
Its all a sort of pretense, but its the only way to act out this farce.32
The emblem of the theatrum mundi underscored the vanity of material and
political success in particular and of any purposeful human activity in the
saeculum in general. It asserted that the destiny of human beings was determined by providence and that human history was meaningful only as part of
a divine plan beyond human comprehension. In other words, the traditional
theatrical metaphor was part of a cultural code that questioned the very possibility of a secular understanding and transformation of reality, but at the
same time assured that reality was ultimately meaningful.33
Against this background, it is clear that Mores text appropriates the theatrical metaphor to humanist discourse, for in Richard III the director of the play of
life is no longer divine Providence but rather man. The theatrical metaphor thus
presents political reality as a human artifact, a reality created by human intentions and actions. The moral and political consequences of the theatricality of
the political world in Mores text, however, are hardly in accordance with the
accepted assumptions of humanist moral and political thought. The theatrical
performances served Richard and his allies and were essential for the success
of the protectors plot. They exclusively serve evil. In Richard III the theatrical
metaphor is associated with deception and devastation. The theatricality of the
political world is connected to its immanent corruption. Indeed, the corruption of the political world is a corollary of its theatrical nature. Most humanists
celebrated the possibility of purposeful human activity in a human-made world.
In Richard III, by contrast, the human nature of the political world is perceived
as intrinsically destructive. The Londoners drew the right conclusion from this
profoundly antihumanist insight: And so they said that these matters bee Kynges games, as it were stage playes, and for the more part plaied vpon scafoldes.
In which pore men be but ye lokers on. And thei yt wise be, wil medle no farther.
For they that sometyme step vp and playe wt them, when they cannot play their
partes, they disorder the play & do themself no good (81).
Moreover, in a deeper layer the equivocality of Richard III reflects an
ambiguity toward the basic presuppositions of humanist thought. One of
the possible interpretations of the theatrical metaphor in the text, that is,
the perception of the human world as essentially theatrical, squares with
the ontological and epistemological presuppositions of humanist discourse,
namely that human reality is inherently symbolic and that therefore human
activity is inherently interpretative and performative. The other interpretationthat is, that theatricality is simply a disguise of realitydenies the
symbolic dimension of social reality, and thus contradicts the presuppositions
of humanist discourse. Richard III is equivocal precisely on this matter, as
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the theater stands both for reality as such and for realitys misrepresentation.
This irreducible ambiguity may lead to a paradoxical conclusion: reality is a
constructed human artifact, but constructed as deceptive and false. In order
to account for this ambiguity we must examine the precise relation of Richard
III to the genre of humanist history.
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151
We must instead try to examine rhetoric in Richard III in light of the disciplines more fundamental epistemological meanings and functions. For this
purpose we can bracket rhetorics direct political function, that is, we can ignore
the questions of who employed rhetorical devices and what causes it served.
The speech given by the dying King Edward at the beginning of Richard
III may serve as a point of departure. As Edward urges the nobles to unite as
brothers, he not only iterates universally accepted moral values, he also articulates, as the plot will show, the course of action that might have prevented
Richards triumph. It is strongly ironic, however, that so dubious a character
as Edward is preaching the gospel of Christian fraternity. Moreover, even if
it were possible to discount that irony, we cannot ignore the setting of the
oration, its circumstances and its theatricalization, and how these undermine
the speechs potential value. The dying king delivered his valedictory speech
to the nobles he had summoned to his deathbed. This places the speech in the
twilight zone between this world and the world to come, outside the realm of
political interests and desiresoutside the theater of politics. The precise setting of the oration further underscores a complete detachment from political
realities, and threatens to turn the whole scene into a parody. At the beginning of the scene, When these lordes with diuerse other of bothe the parties
were comme in presence, the kynge lifting vppe himselfe and vndersette with
pillowes, began speaking (11). At the end of his speech the king no longer
enduring to sitte vp, laide him down on his right side, his face towarde them.
The audience was apparently deeply touched: none was there peresnt yt
coulde refraine from weping. The nobles, however, were simply following
the prescription that the Londoners would later state explicitly, namely they
reacted according to the standard conventions, when (as it after appeared by
their dedes) their herts, wer far a sonder (13).
The oration changed the course of events not at all. It did not even encourage rational and ethical behavior that might have shaped political reality.
More important still, rhetoric is presented as an empty theatrical device and
nothing more. Edwards oration was nothing but a meaningless show. The
theatricalization of rhetoric undermined its performative function.
Once we begin to take a closer look, we see that the text subverts rhetoric
whenever a rhetorical performance takes place, that is, at every key moment
of the narrative. Let us consider again the long scene in which the Duke of
York is extracted from the Westminster Sanctuary, focusing on the protectors speech to the nobles and especially on the differences between Mores
version and Vergils Angelica Historia.52 Addressing the nobles, Richard promises to accept their counsel; he complains about the harm the affair has done
to the kingdoms good name and to the authority of the nobles; he warns of
the possibility of sedition if the situation is not improved; and he offers to
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send a delegation to persuade the queen to leave the sanctuary with her son
(2527). In these respects his speech closely resembles that attributed to him
in Vergils narrative. However, there are differences. First, in Mores version
the protector insistsand the nobles finally agreethat if the queen refuses
to let her son leave the sanctuary he must be forcibly taken from herthis
does not happen in Vergils account. Secondly, in Mores version, Richard
dwells at length upon one argument that does not appear in Vergils: without
a playmate will not the heir see his health suffer? And do not considerations
of rank and age make the princes younger brother the only suitable candidate
in the realm? In order to underscore the importance of this particular argument he even employs a rhetorical commonplace: And yf anye manne thinke
this consideracion light (whiche I thynke no manne thynketh that loueth the
Kynge) lette hym consyder that sommetime withoute saml thinges greatter
cannot stande (26).
What is the significance of these innovations? In Mores text the nobles
decide that the sanctuary is violable and then send a delegation to the queen.
But as the childs fate was decided beforehand, the ensuing long and elaborate debate between the nobles and the queen clearly becomes superfluous.
More underscores this by giving the queen the upper hand in the dialogue
with the cardinal and, more explicitly, by inserting an internal monologue to
show that while the queen delivered up her son she did so only because she
was convinced that otherwise he would have been taken without her consent
(4041). Although the queen and the cardinal debate the issue for some time
and put forward several reasonable arguments, no consideration is truly given
to rational arguments, and nobody is persuaded. The exchange is a simulation of a dialogue, a theatrical performance of a dialogue. The text presents
a well-constructed dialogue, but suggests that it is inane and vacuous, and
this combination underscores not a local rhetorical dysfunction but rather a
complete breakdown in the constructive capacities of rhetoric.
The second change is not less significant. The ridiculous argument about
the princes need for a playmate may be shown to ridicule the very idea of
rhetoric, especially when integrated with the protectors reasonable arguments.
Apparently the nobles and the prelates must have guessed the protectors true
intentions and simply chose to comply. Vergil, it should be noted, explicitly
rejects this possibility: the nobles suspectyd no subtyltie and agreed to the
protectors proposal because they deemed it both mete and honest.53 We
ought not to be surprised by Mores bleak perception of the political world
and its actors. But by now rhetoric has come to be immanently implicated in
this depiction. Far from being an instrument of rational and moral negotiation, rhetoric is presented as intrinsically corrupt and corrupting. Let us look
at two other examples.
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The sermon John Shaa gives at St. Pauls, in which he argues that Edward as
well as his sons were born of adulterous relations and concludes that Richard
is the true heir to the crown, goes far in using rhetoric against itself. In order
to give the illusion of a sign from heaven, the protector and the preacher had
agreed that the former would enter St. Pauls at the precise moment when
the latter declared that Richard was the legal heir to the throne. The timing,
however, went awry, and by the time Richard made his entrance Shaa had
already exhausted the subject. In a desperate and far from inspired moment,
the preacher decides to repeat the relevant part of his speech word for word,
but completely out of context. The text lingers on this comic scene, and the
description highlights the failure of the rhetorical performance:
[When the protector entered, Shaa] sodainly lefte the matter, with which he was
in hand, and without ani deduccion therunto, out of al order, & oute of al frame,
began to repete those wordes again. . . . Whyle these wordes wer in speaking, ye
protector accompanied wt the duke of Buckingham, went thorow ye people into
ye place where the doctors comonly stand in the vpper story, where he stode to
hearken the sermon. But the people wer so farre fro crying king Richard, yt thei
stode as thei had bene turned into stones, for wonder of this sermon. (68)
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In the examples I have just reviewed rhetoric is located as far as possible from
the realm of authenticity, morality and rationality, and instead is intrinsically
associated with deception and evil. Furthermore, rhetoric is mangled, ridiculed,
displaced and taken out of context. All the rhetorical sins are committed in
order to undermine rhetorics fundamental capacity as a means of communication, persuasion and action. Rhetoric, and language in general, lose their
performative function. But this subverts the very ontological and epistemological basis of humanist discourse, namely the presuppositions that the social and
the symbolic are inseparable and that human action is inherently performative.
Richard III questions, to use Struevers definition, the notion that the model
for the structure of history is the structure of discourse.
This analysis of the function of rhetoric in Richard III has led to the same
paradox we encountered in the analysis of the texts reliance on theatrical metaphors. The eloquent orations delivered by Richard and his allies were false
and were perceived as such, but by no means were they redundant (otherwise
why should More craft such lengthy speeches?). They were done in good
order and as such were essential to the construction of reality. Hence the
paradox: political reality is rhetorically constructed, but constructed as false.
This epistemological and political deadlock is best illustrated by the peoples
reactions to the speeches of Shaa and Buckingham. The paralyzed silences
thei stode as thei had bene turned into stones; all was husht and mute; al
was as styl as ye midnightand the inarticulate, inhuman soundsneyther
loude nor distincke, but as it were the sounde of a swarme of beesare the
only possible responses when reality becomes unintelligible.
Humanist Comedy
Richard III undermines the humanist notion of rhetoric rendering political
activity futile and threatening the very possibility of comprehending reality in
humanist terms. But if this is true, how could the writing of history be possible
at all? For rhetoric, as the term was explicated throughout this study, provided
the basis for the humanist intellectual enterprise generally and to the humanist
historiography in particular. We saw in fact that in humanist discourse political
and intellectual activity were conceived as epistemologically identical.54 Undermining the former, therefore, means undermining also the latter. And indeed
Mores text questions accepted humanist assumptions concerning the writing
of history, casting doubt on the very possibility of the task.
We are tipped off by the convoluted style of Richard III, and by the repeated use of two obfuscatory techniques, namely reporting from rumor and
presenting two alternative versionsdark and darkerof events.55 Had, for
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the kinges pleasure (84). Brackenbury appears to have found nothing strange
in these orders and he promptly admitted Tyrrell to the tower. More provides
an account of Tyrrells meticulous preparations, of the strangling of the sleeping children and of their hasty burial at the stayre foote, metely depe in the
grounde vnder a great heape of stones (85).
Richards sudden metamorphosis also violates the rules of humanist historiography. So different is the Richard who appears suddenly at the end of the
drama from the Richard we have come to know that all psychological verisimilitude vanishes. The unveiling of psychological depths and sensitivities in
the person described from the beginning as the embodiment of pure ambition
overturns the narrative. The kings metamorphosis begins with a sober and
melancholic reflection on (of all subjects) loyalty, occasioned by Brackenburys
disobedience and directed at the secrete page of the bath: Ah whome shall a
man trust? those that I haue broughte vp my selfe, those that I had went would
most surely serue me, euen those fayle me, and at my commaundemente wyll do
nothyng for me (83). (These words evoke the fatal words attributed to Henry
II at the climax of the Becket affair: What sluggards, what cowards, have I
brought up in my court, who care nothing for their allegiance to their lord! Not
one will deliver me from this low-born priest!57 This resemblancewhether
this is an intentional allusion is, of course, a matter of conjectureadds an
ironic touch to Richards reflection, as he assumes for himself the role of Henry
II and likens the murder of the helpless children to the struggle with the mighty
archbishop.) Later, after the murder, real pangs of remorse begin to assail the
king and he becomes obsessed with the burial place of his nephews: he allowed
not as I haue heard, ye burying in so vile a corner, saying that he woulde haue
them buried in a better place, because thei wer a kinges sonnes (86). And so,
thei say, a priestonly this man and the secrete page go unnamed in the
murder storyin the service of Brackenbury was sent to disinter the bodies and
rebury them in a secret place. Since the priest himself died soon thereafter no
one would ever learn the reburial site.
This parody of humanist history is the logical result of the subversion of
the epistemological and ethical presuppositions of humanist discourse. Perhaps this may explain why the murder story does not appear in the version
done in Latin, that authoritative language of humanist history. It may even
explain why Mores text terminates abruptly soon after the murder, and
why the history as a whole was never completed. In any event, it is probably
no coincidence that the work commences with a reflection on the theme of
historical memory. We have already seen how the text ironically undermines
the idealizing description of Edward IV and his reign, but Richard III also
mediates upon the source of the rosy image. At the time of Edwards death,
More tells us,
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the displeasure of those that bare him grudge, for kinge Henries sake the sixte,
whome he deposed, was well asswaged, and in effecte quenched, in that that
manye of them were dead in more than twentie yeares of his raigne, a great parte
of a longe lyfe. And many of them in the meane season growen into his fauoure,
of whiche he was neuer straunge. (4)
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6
Utopia and the No-Place
of the Erasmian Republic
159
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161
cast here as the nave, opens the discussion by saying that any king would
gladly take Hythloday into his service, permitting him to promote his interests and those of his relatives and friends. Hythloday easily sidesteps this
argument, emphasizing that he treasures his liberty above all other things
(U 51). Now Morus enters the discussion, bringing up the substantial argument: assuming a public career is certainly a personal sacrifice, nonetheless
it is one that must be accepted as a moral duty. The philosopher ought to
contribute to the general good, and his presence near the king, from whom
a peoples welfare or misery flows in a stream, is particularly important
(53). In response, Hythloday describes three situationsone actual and
two hypotheticalin which he serves as a counselor, among typical counselors, to the powerful. In each of his stories he concentrates on destructive
aspects of the European social and political orderthe brutality of the penal
system and the causes of poverty, princely foreign policy and the causes of
wars and the corrupt fiscal policy of European rulersand offers remedies
drawn from the societies he came to know in his voyages. In all three cases,
the structure of Hythlodays argument and his conclusions are identical. He
demonstrates that the failure of the philosopher-as-counselor is an inevitable
result of the existing political order. Counsel, according to Hythloday, is impossible, for the simple reason that the fundamental assumptions and aims
of the philosopher and of the prince along with his benighted counselors are
incommensurable (5395).
But the debate does not end at this point. Morus accepts Hythlodays diagnosis of the existing state of things, but continues to adhere to the humanist
affirmation of public career, employing the full range of Ciceros canonical
arguments in De officiis.4 He argues that the philosophers inability to offer
advice he knows for certain will not be listened to must not deter him
from attempting to improve things as much as possible by using indirect
approach. He thus rejects Hythlodays academic philosophy [Philosophia
scholastica] (95), recommending another philosophy, better suited for the
role of a citizen, that takes its cue, adapts itself to the drama in hand and
acts its part neatly and appropriately. Morus further employs the theatrical
metaphor in order to highlight the humanist notion of decorum and to refute
Hythlodays position:
Otherwise, when a comedy of Plautus is being played, and the household slaves
are cracking trivial jokes together, you come onstage in the grab of a philosopher
and repeat Senecas speech to Nero from the Octavia. Wouldnt it be better to
take a silent role than to say something inappropriate and thus turn the play into
tragicomedy? You pervert a play and ruin it when you add irrelevant speeches,
even if they are better than the play itself. So go through with the drama in hand
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as best as you can, and dont spoil it all just because you happen to think of a
play by someone else that might be more elegant. (97)
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that the virtuous, rather than the rich and those of noble lineage, should rule.
This position obviously contradicted the political reality and political culture
of the northern European monarchies of the day. According to Skinner, the
basic conservatism of most humanists, combined with their dependency on
their patrons, led them to resolve this contradiction by identifying those who
belonged to the upper classes with the virtuous, thereby reaffirming the existing order. The originality of Utopia lies in its rejection of this dogmaticand
convenientposition. According to More, in an order based on the worst
human quality, namely pride, the less virtuous inevitably rule. He also drew
the logical conclusion from his analysis that pride will be abolished only once
all social distinctions have been abolished, and for distinctions to vanish,
private property must go. Thus, according to Skinner, Utopia is truly radical
because in it we see the humanist discourse put to use in a critique of longstanding humanist positions. Utopia is a humanist critique of humanism.9
Utopia, to cast Skinners interpretation in the terminology of this study,
does describe the ideal Erasmian society, but at the same time it questions the
Erasmian reform program, at least as Erasmus conceived it, as it demonstrates
that the problems of European society cannot be solved by means of education,
persuasion, and preaching. Skinner disregards, however, the full implications
of Mores critique of the Erasmian reform program. It is in fact easy to turn
his interpretation on its head, as indeed Fenlon does, simply by shifting the
focus of ones reading from the presentations of the Erasmian ideal to the acknowledgment that it will never be realized. Utopia, Fenlon reminds us, nowhere exists; it is a pure fantasy, and as such it amounts to a clear admission
of the futility of Erasmian humanism.10 The same interpretive components,
so to speak, lead to contradictory conclusions concerning the meaning of the
work. The question about the lesson of Utopia remains unsolved: is it the
textual realization of the Erasmian ideals or rather the impossibility of their
actual realization?
The same problem is posedand dramatizedby some of Utopias literary
features. One such feature is constant textual movement: drawing the ideal state
closer to the reader and then withdrawing. On the one hand, the text presents
Utopia as a real state, and therefore as a realizable social and political ideal. On
the other hand, it offers many indications that the ideal is bound to remain forever on the horizon. The description of Utopia, for example, is fully integrated
into a realistic narrative that locates the ideal state in the temporal and geographical context of Europe and the New World at the beginning of the sixteenth
century as seen in the references to Mores own diplomatic mission to Flanders
and to the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci, which are now common reading
everywhere (U 45). Utopia, one of the many countries between America
and Ceylon, becomes no less real than England or Flanders. But even in this
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realistic description, a withdrawing motion appears when the return of Hythloday from Utopia to Europe is defined as a strange good fortune and even
beyond all hope (51). In the prefatory letter addressed to Giles, the internal
tension is even more clearly revealed. There More states that the only thing he
had to do as the writer of Utopia was to relate accurately what he had heard
from Hythloday, but soon he is led to admit that the exact location of Utopia
is unknown. For it didnt occur to us to ask, nor to him [Hythloday] to say
(35), he complains, disclosing the imaginary nature of the no place.11 The
nomenclature of Utopia provides further indication of the nowhereness of
Utopia. As is well known, Utopia means no place, and Hythlodays name
means learned in nonsense.12
Another literary device with the same function involves the similarities and
differences between Utopia and England. The Utopian social order differs,
of course, markedly from the English one. But there are some similarities,
apparently insignificant, between Utopia and England: Utopia is an island
like England; Utopia consists of fifty-four cities, while England is made up of
fifty-three counties plus the city of London, and so on.13 Indeed, already in the
notes provided by sixteenth-century editions we find the same attentiveness:
Just like the Thames in England (117), A People not so unlike the Swiss
(209), and so on.
These textual movements are readily translated into a conceptual problematic. Since the Utopian social order is based on the intellectual and material
resources that then existed in Europe, it stands to reason that the ideal society
could be established by humanitythat is, without divine interventionat
that date. The book itself demonstrates that Mores contemporaries had the
necessary intellectual resources. And concerning the material resources, More
goes out of his way to prove that the Utopian order is economically viable
(12933). But there was no obvious way to pass from the existing condition to the Utopian one. More does not discuss the issue, and his analysis of
Europes social ills indicates that a utopian turn is, in fact, impossible. Not by
coincidence, it is precisely when More transcends the traditional humanist
discourse, adding economic and sociological dimensions to the conventional
ethical concerns, that the impossibility of revolutionizing Europe is most
evident. Pride and private property are, in his analysis, bound together in a
vicious circle: in the existing state of things pride is the precondition of private property, and vice versa.14 And indeed, in the very last sentence of Utopia
Morus acknowledges that the Utopian order is not realizable at all (249). Utopia is therefore a vivid and concrete social and political ideal, but one destined
to remain forever on the horizon.15
Utopias literary devices shed new light on the Dialogue on Counsel by
firmly anchoring it on the general question of the relationship between Eras-
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mianism and utopianism. We have seen that the utopian genre is an ideal
instrument for expressing the views of the Erasmian humanists qua universal
intellectuals, and that Mores Utopia fully exploits this potential.16 But now we
see that the relationship is much more ambiguous. The very utopian criticism
of the existing order challenges the traditional means for the implementation
of the Erasmian gradual reform program, namely education and moral persuasion. At the same time, the distancing of Utopia indicates that also the utopian turn is impossible. The Erasmian ideals, in other words, can be realized
neither by gradual reform nor by sweeping structural changethey cannot
be realized at all. Perhaps this conclusion explains why Erasmian humanism
produced only a single utopia.
The reaction of Mores fellow humanists corroborates this interpretation.
As we saw, Bud, Giles, Busleyden and their friends enthusiastically welcomed
the appearance of Utopia as an expression of their views.17 They disregard,
however, the out-of-reach quality of Utopia, so conspicuous in Mores text.
The maps of the island, that represent the Utopian cities like those of Europe,
the Utopian alphabet and its phonetic translation into Latin, and the verses
in which Utopia declares in first person, Freely I impart my benefits; not
unwillingly I accept whatever is better (23)all these draw Utopia closer to
Europe. It therefore should not surprise us that the name of the workthe
clearest textual indication that Utopia nowhere existsbecame a target of
creative humanist reading. The prefatory poem suggests that Utopia was
called No-Place only because it was isolated, while its true name should be
Eutopia, The Good Land (18), and Bud transforms it in his preface into
Hagnopolis, Holy City (15). Given the reading abilities of the humanists,
this blindness provides more than circumstantial evidence for a resistance to
a threatening insight hidden in the text, namely the undermining of the possibility of the Erasmian reform program.
If there is an inherent tension between utopianism and humanism, the
constitution of humanist utopian society must be problematic in the extreme.
In order to explore this hypothesis we must return to Utopia armed with suspicion concerning the explicit argumentation and rhetoric of the text and the
self-presentation of Utopia. We must read the text against the grain of its explicit position and uncover the traces of repressed strains and contradictions.
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exposes the dark side of Utopia.18 Far from being a marginal topic, Utopian
warfare is the subject of one of the longest sections of the book. As with many
other issues, there is a wide gap between the rhetoric of the text and its content. The section on military affairs begins with an unequivocal statement
about the attitude of the Utopians toward war: They utterly despise war as
an activity fit only for beasts (201). And yet they find many reasons to go
to war. They are quick to assist, for example, dubious allies and friends,
in fact subordinated states. They may even initiate war not only to protect
their friends from present danger, but sometimes to repay and avenge previous injuries (203). In these cases, perforce, the border between the just and
the unjust is often blurred. Thus the Utopians waged war in behalf of the
Nephelogetes when, under pretext of right, a wrong (as they saw it) had been
inflicted on some Nephelogete traders. As if to stress the important point,
Hythloday hastens to add: Whatever the rights and wrongs of the quarrel, it
developed into a fierce war (203). The ideal state also conducts colonial wars.
As the population of the island is carefully regulated, the Utopians sometimes
establish new cities on the neighboring continent. The native population is
invited to join the new Utopian city; refusal invites warwhich the Utopians consider perfectly justifiableand expulsion from their own lands
(13537, 203).19
Utopian military practices are not less surprising. The Utopians reject
in Erasmian spirit both the feudal-aristocratic ethos and the republican
ethos, adhering to the view that there is nothing so inglorious as the glory
won in battle (201). They hold that true manliness and bravery consist
of overcoming the enemy by skill and cunning (205). And they indeed
implement this prescription. They try to leave fighting to generously paid
mercenaries and in the worst case to their allies, and even strive to avoid
war altogether by offering rewards for the assassination or extradition of
the enemys king and other high politicians (2057). There is, however, an
irrational kernel at the heart of the Utopian instrumental conception of war,
manifested in their attitude toward the Zapoletes. These rough, rude and
fierce people are Utopias best mercenaries (209). The Utopians exhibit
little gratitude. They intentionally thrust the Zapoletes into the positions
of greatest danger, arguing that they would deserve very well of mankind
if they could sweep from the face of the earth all the dreg of that vicious and
disgusting race (20911).
A similar attitudeinstrumentalism supplemented by irrational excessescan be seen in the treatment of the enemies ferreted out from within,
those citizens who transgress Utopias rigid rules. Enslavement or execution
were immediately meted out to those who committed any of the following
crimes: making plans about public matters outside the senate or the popular
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assembly (123), adultery and seduction (19193) and even leaving the city
twice without permission (145). Even the dead are punished in the ideal
state. Honest persons, it is said, ought to meet their ends serenely and cheerfully, and for this reason Utopian funerals are usually joyous events. Those
who exhibit fear and reluctance when their ends grow near are, by contrast,
grimly and silently buried (22527). And the bodies of suicidesexcept for
those who have suffered from terminal illnessare thrown into a marsh and
refused proper burial (18789).
Utopias treatment of its enemies is by no means the states only puzzling
feature. Several astute readings have exposed the quasi-totalitarian nature of
Utopian society, its rigid and coercive social structure and the regimentation
of its citizens daily life. Most important, these readings show that the unattractive institutions and practices of Utopia are by no means accidental; they
are built into the very logic of the ideal state.20
Utopian social order is actually based on discipline, control and supervision. One of the most striking manifestations of this is the radical uniformity
of the ideal state. Utopias fifty-four cities are exactly alike, except where
geography itself makes a difference (115), and so are the three-storied houses
the Utopians inhabit (119), and the clothes they wear except for the distinction between the sexes and between married and unmarried persons (125).
Since in Utopia there is no sumptuary consumption, the number of occupations is extremely limited: besides agriculture there is only wool working and
linen making (usually assigned for women), and masonry, metal working and
carpentry (usually for men) (12527). The full integration of women into the
Utopian economy is part of a broad attempt to reduce some of the differences
between the sexes. To be sure, in many respects Utopia is a patriarchal society
like the European society: wives serve their husbands (137) and are chastised
by them (193). In other respects, however, Utopia is egalitarian. Women
enjoy equal education (127, 155), for instance, and are even eligible for priesthood (231).21 Efforts aimed at abolishing the differences between town and
country have been even more successful. Each Utopian city is located at the
middle of a rural farming zone, to which all Utopian citizens arrive in rotation
for two-year periods; agriculture is thus a shared occupation of all Utopians,
men and women alike (113). Many other examples could be cited, but those
mentioned are sufficient to prove that the elimination of private property and
aristocracy are only two elements, though the most radical, in a grand attempt
to dismantle social distinctions and differences.
This leveling followed, in part, from the prognosis of book 1. The identification of differences in wealth and status as the source of Europes social
ills leads directly to the elimination of private property and of aristocracy.
But Utopia goes further and tries to eliminate even those differences and
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distinctions between its citizens that are not directly related to recognized
social problems. Utopia prevents, for instance, its citizens even as much as
choosing the color of their garment. It generally prevents its citizens from
expressing their individuality. This insight is significant as it contradicts
the accepted humanist attitude and the rhetoric of Utopia itself. For Utopia
is committed to the happiness of its citizens and to enabling them fully to
realize their humanitas; to encourage them to devote themselves to the
freedom and culture of the mind (135).
The tension between common humanist views and convictions and Utopian reality is even more salient when Utopias control and supervision of its
citizens is considered. The Utopian attitude toward travel may be taken as a
paradigmatic example:
Any individuals who want [desiderium ceperit] to visit friends living in another
city, or simply to see the place itself, can easily obtain permission from their
syphogrants and tranibors, unless there is some need for them at home. They
travel together in groups, taking a letter from the governor granting leave to
travel and fixing a day of return. . . . Wherever they go, though they take nothing with them, they never lack for anything, because they are at home everywhere. If they stay more than a day in one place, each one practices his trade
there. . . . (14445)
As usual, the gap between the rhetoric of the text and the reality it depicts is
an indication of a repressed problem. The explicit policy stated at the outset
suggests a high degree of liberty. Reality turns out to be quite different. Evidently, Utopia finds it hard to cope with an inexplicable desire to travel. Thus
although permission is easily obtainedthe request has to be transmitted
all the way up to the governorit is overloaded with many qualifications and
restrictions. Completing the picture, those who violate the rules and leave the
city zone without permission are severely punished for their first offense
and enslaved for the second (145).
Utopia is not happy, to say the least, with a disruption of the routine pattern of life. And indeed, the ideal state regulates the most minute details of its
citizens lives: their free time (12729), the games they play (129), their sitting
place in the common dining halls (143) and so forth. The ultimate Utopian
means of control is the all-penetrating gaze, which renders Utopian reality
transparent.22 The sitting arrangement in the common dining halls ensures
that nothing said or done at table can pass unnoticed by the old, who are
present on every side (143). As Utopian house doors are never locked, there
is nothing private anywhere (119). Outside the house the situation is no different. Nowhere on the island can one escape observation: Because they live
in the full view of all, they are bound to be either working at their usual trades
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appear to be evidence of their belief in the sanctity of marriage. But the prohibition on divorce is not absolute. When husband and wife are not happy
together, if both manage to find a prospective spouse, the senate sometimes
permits them to divorce. The second condition is the interesting one: the
sanctity of marriage is not the reason for the prohibition on divorce; fears
about subversion of the rigid social order is. In an even more uncompromising spirit, the senate encourages a man and woman who have been betrayed
by their spouses to marry each other (191). The most remarkable custom
associated with Utopian matrimony is undoubtedly the nude inspection.
Before marriage every bride to be is exhibited naked to her future groom
by a responsible and respectable matron, and similarly the groom to be
is exhibited to his future bride by an honourable man. It is argued that
this practice reveals physical shortcomings, thereby avoiding a great risk
(189). The nude inspection is not different from the other Utopian means of
supervision. The supervising gaze cannot be avoided even in what is usually
considered a private and intimate matter. Once more, the force of Utopia is
revealed in its pursuit of its logic to the extreme, even when the conclusions
are most unattractive. But again, there is a contrast between the rhetoric of
the text and Utopian reality. While Utopia highlights the mutual love and
affection between the Utopiansindeed it depicts the island as a single
family (147)the nude inspection cannot but produce suspicion and misanthropy.26
The nude inspection is actually confronted in Utopia with a basic humanist notion, namely virtus. Not all people, say the Utopians, are so wise as
to concern themselves solely with character; and even the wise appreciate
the gifts of the body as a supplement to the virtues of the mind [animi virtutes] (19091). The Utopian practice is presented as a supplement to the
traditional humanist emphasis on the importance of virtue. But this rhetoric
cannot disguise the internal tension. The nude inspection, but not the considerations of virtues of the mind, is fully integrated with the institutional
structure of Utopia. The very redundancy of the last cited passage illustrates
that virtue is not immanently related to the Utopian institution of marriage,
and by extension that it is not relevant at all to the functioning of the Utopian
institutions or to the reproduction of the Utopian social order. This important insight must not be misunderstood: that virtue as a disembodied qualityquality propagated exclusively by persuasion and educationcannot be
the basis of a just and sound social order we already know from Hythlodays
implied rejection of the Erasmian reform program in book 1. But by now we
understand that the Utopian social order does not even necessarily produce
virtuous citizens. This conclusion contradicts the explicit position of Utopia,
which repeatedly depicts the Utopians as virtuous individuals, indeed as the
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most excellent people in the world (179). It also contradicts, of course, one
of the basic elements of humanist thought: the celebration of virtus both as a
means and as an end.
Indeed we can go farther and say the Utopians are not virtuous individuals, at least not in the common, and certainly not in the humanist, sense of
the term. The Utopian social order produces subjects devoid of individuality,
reflective capacity, and inwardness, subjects who exist only insofar as they
are part of the public realm.27 The antithesis between the Utopian subject
and the humanist human ideal is clarified by juxtaposing Mores book with
any related humanist discussion. Humanist educational theory, for example,
was based on the premise that men and women could internalize morality
and become responsible individuals. The various political theories elaborated
or propagated by the humanists shared the notion of man as a potentially
rational and moral citizen. Likewise, humanist religious thought, while it
had many variants, always assumed that Christians could and should express
their internal faith through moral behavior. Stated more abstractly, we may
say that the humanist discourse presupposed a human potential to mold and
fashion itself. As we have seen, such qualities as rationality, responsibility and
morality cannot be attributed to the Utopian subject, a subject who has been
deprived of all interiority.
While Utopia sees itself as embodying the traits associated with an ideal
Erasmian society, many of its important institutions and practices are distinctly anti-Erasmian. The Utopians usually realize in their behavior the Erasmian ethics, but as their practices do not reflect any inner conviction, they
stand in diametrical opposition to the humanist human ideal.
Explanations
The contradiction between the explicit argumentation and rhetoric of Utopia
and Utopian reality is one of the main interpretive problems for readers of
Mores work. In order to illustrate further the profound structural tensions in
Utopia we shall critically examine the most significant attempts to solve this
problem. The discussion will also expose the theoretical issues provoked by
reading this work.
Some readers have simply passed over or brushed aside the tensions in
the text, paying no mind to the Utopians less attractive practices.28 Others
read Utopia, or at least book 2, as a game, a jeu desprit, devoid of any serious philosophical and political content.29 Another approach sees Utopia as a
serious work, but explains away the problematic parts of the text by dubbing
them satirical or idiosyncratic.30
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Still more important, neither Logan nor any of those who share his theoretical assumptions can account for those excesses of this best of states that
transgress the rationalization provided by the text: the excessive supervision
and limits, over and beyond rational calculation, that Utopia imposes on its
subjects, and the irruption of irrational violence against those perceived as
enemies. How can it be that the most excellent people in the world, who enjoy
an excellent education and the best of moral training (185), cannot so much
as choose the color of their garments or where they sit at meals? Why do the
Utopians consume much less than they produce? Why do not these people
simply bury suicides outside of consecrated ground, rather than toss their
bodies into the swamp? Why do they rejoice at the death of the Zapoletes,
their best mercenaries?
In order to answer these questions and to account for the contradictions of
Utopia and the unattractive features of Utopia we must abandon the attempt
to guess (and manipulate) Mores intentions, and instead ground our interpretation in the logic of his discourse. Among the reconstructions of Utopia
that have built on this theoretical premise, three are of special interest.
Shlomo Avineri defines Utopia as a totalitarian society, because of its utopian naturethat is, because it is the utmost attainable political ideal.42
According to Utopian thinking, Avineri argues, human nature is intrinsically
evil and must be purified. But evil as such can never be completely destroyed;
it can only be exorcised and exiled from the utopian realm. Evil, in other
words, is a structural necessity of the utopian quest. The continual warfare
between Utopia and its enemies is therefore not a contingent characteristic of
the ideal state, but is built into its very logic. Moreover, this war is not a normal war waged over contingent interests and partial aims, but by definition a
holy war between Good and Evil. This explains the ruthlessness shown by the
Utopians against their external enemies as well as against the citizen who has
fallen from his state of earthly perfection into a state of sin.43
Avineris interpretation provides important insights for the understanding
of Mores book, but in the last analysis it does not account for its basic problematics. Let us look at his principal assertions, that within the framework
of utopian thought human nature is intrinsically evil and that evil cannot be
eliminated. These are certainly not made explicit by More. Utopian moral
philosophy does not hold that human nature is intrinsically evil, or even that
men and women are more inclined to evil than to good. Hythloday, moreover, explicitly denies this assumption, notably when he rejects the position
that criminals are driven by their innately evil natures (6371). Indeed, the
Utopian assumption is that pride, which lies at the root of evil, is extrinsic to
human nature, a product of a specific social organization. Avineri, however,
does not argue that the Utopians or More adhere to these assumptions; he
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claims only that they are implied by the Utopians attitude toward their enemies. But now we have come full circle and are again face to face with the
contradiction between the implicit assumptions of the Utopian social order
and the explicit argumentation of the text.
From a Marxist perspective, Richard Halpern sees Utopia as an ideological
critique of capitalist (and feudal) ideology. The texts internal tensions and
contradictions are in this view the result of its inability to account for its own
production (since the actual historical forces that could establish and sustain
a communist social order had yet to appear). For this reason, Halpern argues,
the reifying logic of capitalism is reproduced in Utopia at a hidden level of
signification, even though the text explicitly rejects capitalism.44 Halperns
paradigmatic example is the Utopian attitude toward precious metals. The
debasement of gold is represented in the text as an illustration of adherence
to the logic of use value. Halpern convincingly argues, however, that this
reasoning is flawed, for the logic of use value cannot lead to degradation: in
a mode of production based on use value, gold might have little or no value,
but it cannot have a negative value. The ritualistic debasement of gold is
therefore a symptom of repressed desire. Gold is implicitly assigned an innate
value, subverting the Utopian social order, which is allegedly based on utility
alone. According to Halpern this repressed desire and fetishism of gold demonstrates that Utopian society had unconsciously succumbed to the reifying
logic of capital.45
Halpern acknowledges that this is a far-reaching conclusion, for while
the logic of reification is usually all inclusive to the point of obliterating use
value, Utopia succeeds in depicting a more or less coherent social order based
on utility. The strange mixture of consciously communistic vision and unconsciously capitalistic reification, contends Halpern, resulted from Mores
confrontation with the aristocratic ethos. More was not a proto-Marxist after
all: he was a proto-Veblenite, and his employment of use value was opposed
not to capitalistic exchange value but to aristocratic sumptuary consumption.
Utopia thus seeks to anchor its mode of productionand consequently its
entire social organizationin what it sees as natural needs. This is why the
Utopians consume much less than they produce.46
Of course, natural or primary needs are nothing but a myth. Any attempt to define them merely underscores their origin: excess. They are always
already contaminated by wasteful expenditure, by the destruction of use value
in the name of symbolic value, by exchange value and so on. Nature, simply
stated, is always already contaminated by culture. The Utopian attempt to
overcome this is as doomed as any other, and Halpern demonstrates this by
exposing Utopias use of heightened rhetoric as a substitute for its inability to
prevent the eruption of excess, in the form of a quest for pride.47
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Halperns analysis is impressive, but its final terms are problematic: how
can a proto-Veblenite critique of wasteful expenditure combined with capitulation to capitalist reification produce a communistic utopia? To make
his interpretation work, Halpern needs to assume that Utopias critique of
capitalism is conflated with or subordinated to its critique of feudalism. But
the text resists such a reading. In book 1, Hythloday carefully distinguishes
between his criticism of capitalism and his criticism of feudalism, and
the former receives more attentionnotably when the enclosure of land is
discussed (6365)than the latter. He does not use the term exchange value,
but he does state that in non-Utopian societies money is the measure of everything (101), and he even specifically censures the accumulation of riches
for its own sake (rather than for wasteful expenditure) (16971). In other
words, the perils of exchange value are far more evident to the Utopians than
Halpern cares to admit: otherwise, how could we explain the elimination of
private property?
Behind his problematic reading looms the Marxist bias of Halperns analysis. He believes that if the Utopians could have imagined the socialization
of destructive expenditure, instead of its elimination, the pathologies of the
ideal state would have disappeared. In other words, he believes that the Marxist concept of social use value is somehow exempt from the antinomies of
Utopias natural use value. But this is far from evident. Indeed, in view of the
enormous difficulties encountered by Marxist theorists in their attempts to
define use value, one would have wished for a more dialogical encounter with
the text.48 In order to refute the Utopian notion of natural needs, Halpern
invokes Baudrillard and Bataille. But the theoretical insights of these thinkers
suggest that any notion of pure use valueUtopian or Marxist, natural or
socialis a myth.49
Finally, Stephen Greenblatt, who sensitively uncovered the contradictions
and paradoxes of Utopia, interprets Mores work as an expression of internal
conflict. According to Greenblatt, More had an acute perception of the theatrical nature of reality, not only of the heavily theatricalized Tudor political
sphere, but of any role playing, even in the familial context. Even as he
himself played a variety of roles, More was aware of the dangers involved.
The result was a concealed wish for self-cancellation, a wish fully played out
in the fundamental characteristics of the Utopian social order and the Utopian subject: here was a rigid, all-inclusive public sphere which prevented any
kind of role playing and reduced the scope of the ego and of individuality.50
This analysis is ingenious, but not without its problems. First, as Greenblatts
evidence (apart from his reading of Utopia) shows, and as he himself sometimes suggests, More experienced the theatricalization of reality as a threat to
his inner self, which is to say his distinct private self as well as his humanist
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ethics very different from humanist moral philosophy. As for the poetic arts,
what we know about the Utopian regimentation of daily life renders the
very idea of a Utopian poet absurd. The Utopians have diligently preserved
historical records for the past 1,760 years, but their historical writings are
explicitly defined as annales and not as historia (121).56 Indeed, from a humanist perspective, the very notion of a Utopian history is nonsensical. For
apart from the act of its foundationin itself an act more miraculous than
historicalUtopia has not known any development or change: the Utopians
have adopted the foundation of a commonwealth that is not only very happy
but also, so far as human prescience can tell, likely to last forever (247).
What of rhetoric, the most important of the humanist disciplines? Rhetoric
was often perceived by the humanists as an immanently political discipline
thanks to its presumed crucial role in public activity. This was clearly demonstrated by the common humanist division of rhetoric into three types: deliberative, forensic and epideictic. As the bearer of these meanings and functions, however, rhetoric cannot exist in Utopia. The Utopians have very few
laws and no lawyers at all, so that every citizen pleads his own cause (195).
This eliminates forensic rhetoric. The same is true of deliberative and epideictic rhetoric, since the Utopians do not tolerate any controversy or debate. The
very few personal disputes that arise are quickly resolved by the tranibors
(123), and immoderate contentions about religious matters are forbidden
(22123). The Utopians are also anxious to prevent political controversies:
to solicit votes is illegal (195), and it is a capital offence to make plans about
public business outside the senate or the popular assembly (123).
But all this must not surprise us. Because of its very utopian nature, Utopia
is a place without politics. As always, Utopia follows its logic to the extreme:
the state not only forbids institutional change of any sort, but also reduces to
a minimum the need for concrete political decisions. Not by coincidence the
chapter entitled De magistratibus is the shortest in the book, and the description of Utopian political structure is much shorter than the descriptions
of common meals, for example, let alone of warfare. The book does not mention concrete political decisions or events, projecting the image that the ideal
state is run by itself, without being governed in the usual sense of the term.
Unsurprisingly, the only Utopian politics is foreign policy, its dealings with
the non-Utopian world. This is why the chapter on military affairs is so long
and detailed, and this is why we find there a description of the only political event in the whole book: the war that Utopia had waged a little before
[Hythlodays arrival] on behalf of the Nephelogetes against the Alaopolitans
(203). The Utopian ideal is a state without any regime at all. Because this ideal
obviously cannot be achieved, there is need for the class of Utopian scholars,
who are reminiscent of the Platonic class of guardians. But the leaders of Uto-
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pia differ from those of Platos republic, since they are no better than the least
harmful solution to the problem of governing, and consequently their actual
tasks are reduced to a minimum.57
But more must be said about the absence of the humanist disciplines from
Utopia, for the significance of the studia humanitatis in humanist thought
transcended, of course, their political functions. As we have seen, they were
closely related to all aspects of humanist discourse as defined in this study. As
means for communication and persuasion, the studia humanitatis reflected
the humanist ethical convictions, namely the affirmation of the vivere civile
and of public activity. As branches of learning, the humanist disciplines expressed also humanisms perception as knowledge of contingent and changeable historical and political reality rather than of eternal metaphysical truths.
Knowledge was thus understood to be practical and pragmatic, knowledge
that should be employed for social melioration. Bearing these meanings, the
humanist disciplines also reflected the humanist assumption that the human
historical and political world was a human creation. Moreover, as interpretive
disciplines, the studia humanitatis presupposed that human activity was inherently performative, that human beings were principally the producers and
interpreters of meanings and that social institutions and practices were meaningful ones. The studia humanitatis thus ultimately reflected the fundamental
ontological and epistemological presuppositions of humanist discourse,
namely that the social and political world was an inherently symbolic human
artifact and that therefore the meaning of human reality was not contingent
upon their subordination to a transcendent realm.58
We have further seen that More was one of the few humanists who tried
to theoretically ground humanist discourse. In his letter to Dorp he places
grammaras opposed to logicat the basis of the organization of knowledge. He perceived grammar not as reflecting objective extralinguistic reality, but rather as an empirical discipline reflecting the common usage of a
specific linguistic community: Grammar teaches the right way to speak, and
yet it invents no laws of speech in defiance of custom; instead, it simply sees
which constructions appear the most often in speech and points these out to
those who are unschooled in speech so that their speech will not flout common usage (MtD 35). Language, according to this notion, is the contingent
product of historical and social forces.59
We can now return to Utopia. The Utopian language suggests the fundamental problematics of Utopia, for while the Utopians may not have poetry,
history or politics, language they certainly have. And yet it seems that the few
things we can glean about the Utopian perception of language contradict the
humanist notion of language implied in Mores treatment of grammar. A
language similar to the Utopian one is diffused through much of that part of
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181
can see that the true value of gold and silver is lower than that of water, fire or
iron (149). In other words, the high value attributed to gold by foreign societies is a symbolic fiction. The Utopians therefore strive to eliminate completely
all symbolic fictions. But these fictions, they (rightly) argue, are nothing but
the product of the internal logic of systems of signs. Elsewhere, say the Utopians, individuals think themselves finer folk because they wear finer clothes.
Their mistake is twofold: they regard finer thread as a sign of a better coat
(although the true value of the coat, its utility, has nothing to do with the
fineness of its thread), and they regard a persons coat as a sign of the persons
quality (167).61 The same is true of the empty, merely ceremonial honours
that pervade any social order based on distinctions between individuals. If
someone kneels before you bareheaded, well then, ask the Utopians, will the
creaks in your own knees be ceased thereby, or the madness in your head?
(169). Only by completely eliminating signs can the fundamental postulate of
the Utopian order be realized: the abolishment of all social differences. The
Utopian attitude toward law reveals the same belief: they consider the most
obvious interpretation of any law to be the fairest (197). Even in so essentially hermeneutic a field, the Utopians have dramatically abridged, almost
abolished, the play of signs.
Utopian moral philosophy is based on the same assumptions, motivations
and anxieties. It is radically naturalistic ethics, which reduces happiness to
pleasure (159). This ethics seems at the outset singularly unsuited to Utopia. How could a hedonistic philosophy of voluptas, with its affirmation of
sensual and bodily pleasures, serve the disciplined and restrained Utopians?
And, even more troubling, how could so individualistic a moral philosophy,
which approves egotism and self-interested behavior, legitimize the Utopian
collectivist social order? It cannot, and at the end of a tortuous discussion
the philosophy of pleasure is transformed, in contrast to the assertions of
the Utopians, into the strictest philosophy of virtue.62 Why do the Utopians
insist on this naturalistic reductionism, though it entangles them in contradictions and cannot be made to legitimate their social order? The answer lies
precisely in the Utopian desire to eliminate cultural fictions. The discussion
of non-Utopian beliefs and practices illustrates the Utopians preoccupations.
False pleasures, they argue, are unnatural or, more accurately, fictive. They
are defined as phantoms (169), groundless common opinions and perverse
habits of the mob (173). The Utopians believe that whatever men agree to
call delightful only by the emptiest of fictions (as if one could change the real
nature of things just by changing their names), do not . . . really make for happiness (167, emphasis mine). The Utopians consequently want to anchor their
own moral philosophy on the objective realm of pleasure and pain. As usual,
they follow their logic to the extreme. In an effort to eliminate all symbolic
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operate in the ideal state. For that we must return once more to Utopian gold.
We have seen that in peacetime the Utopians use gold for making humble
vessels, for chaining slaves and for stigmatizing criminals. A simpler method
of storage is rejected: If in Utopia these metals were kept locked up in a tower,
it might be suspected that the governor and the senatefor such is the foolish
imagination of the common folk [ut est uulgi stulta sollertia]were deceiving
the people by the scheme and they themselves were deriving some benefit
therefrom.64 The elimination of signs and meanings is not so simple after all.
Golds true value determined, or allegedly determined, the Utopian attitude
toward it, but fictive values and meanings can surface anywhere. So long as
human imagination existsMore uses the word sollertia, that is, human cleverness, inventiveness and ingenuityany institution or custom (anything at
all, in fact) can be integrated into a signifying system that produces meanings
through internal rules. This insight has two far-reaching consequences for our
understanding of the Utopian social order. First, Utopia must combat human
imagination and inventiveness; in keeping with the needs of the ideal state, it
must attempt to produce subjects lacking interpretive capacity. The ideal state,
in other words, must attempt to constitute subjects devoid of inwardness. We
already know this, but now we perceive that the erasure of the subject is not
an accidental by-product of the Utopian institutions of discipline and supervision. Nor does it stem from a mysterious, disguised wish for the cancellation
of identity, the projection of Mores internal psychological conflicts. It is simply a direct result of the ontology of Utopia.
Second, it is clear that Utopia never fully achieves this goal, or at least fears
that it has not achieved it. This inspires a constant struggle between state and
subject: the state must anticipate, identify and neutralize the imaginations and
inventions of its subjects. Here is the source of the suspicion that permeates,
as we have seen, the relations between the subjects and the state. This suspicion verges on paranoia precisely because the total elimination of signification
turns out to be impossible. Therefore, in contrast to Utopias self-image, the
ideal state may not be, after all, completely static and stable. For even if we
ignore the internal dynamics of paranoia, foolish imagination is not easily preempted, and inventiveness is always capable of producing unexpected
meanings. There is no guarantee that Utopia will always have the upper hand
in the struggle against the interpretive capacity of its citizens. On the contrary,
it is reasonable to conclude that the struggle would be unending. This would
lead Utopia to intensify its efforts to erase the inwardness of its subjects by reinforcing its institutions of discipline and supervision. In other words, Utopia
is a totalitarian state not for the reason that Avineri citesthat it dogmatically assumes that some human beings are irredeemably evilbut because its
internal logic necessarily produces subversive subjects.
184
Chapter 6
But if the Utopian social order is not static, we must revisit the question of
government. Who is it that conducts the Utopian struggle against the stulta
sollertia of the common people? Clearly someone must, and clearly the only
candidates are the Utopian scholars. The gulf between the scholars and the
common people widens, contradicting both to the egalitarian rhetoric of the
text and to the attempt to construct a society that is run by itself. After all, to
be able to anticipate the common people, the Utopian scholars must possess
capacities that they want to deny the common subjectsimagination, reflection and interpretive capacity. They cannot arise from the common social
order, but must stand above it and, like Platos guardians, manipulate it.
The Utopian nude inspection best exemplifies both the fundamental assumptions of the Utopian social order and its internal contradictions. Because
of the inspection of his brides body, the Utopian man does not have to estimate her attractiveness from a mere handsbreadth of her person, the face
(189). Earlier I contended that in a society that seeks total transparency there
is nothing illogical about this procedure. But now we can see that the nude
inspection is grounded in an even deeper layer of the Utopian order: a subject
devoid of interpretive capacity simply cannot estimate the value of the whole
by considering a part. The face cannot serve as a sign for the whole body.
And yet the simile the Utopians employ in justifying their practice is rather
surprising. When men go to buy a colt, they say, where they are risking
only a little money, they are so cautious that, though the animal is almost
bare, they wont close the deal until saddle and blanket have been taken off,
lest there be a hidden sore underneath. Yet in a choice of a mate . . . men are
so careless . . . (189). The misanthropy inherent in the analogy should not
surprise us by now. But how is it that the Utopians know anything about buying and selling? While the practice of nude inspection is the most extreme and
uncompromising manifestation of the Utopian effort to eliminate signs and
to base social order on objective values, they justify this effort by referring to
the market, the semiological playing field par excellence. The construction of
an objective, meaningless social order is no simple task. Not only can meanings spring up unexpectedly, undermining the meaninglessness of the order
of things, but the ultimate legitimation of this order is elusive, especially if we
seek it in the terrain of the humanists.
185
cal writings and in Richard III, Utopia also fails to exploit its autonomy and
provide a coherent elaboration of the Erasmian humanist discourse. Indeed,
in the case of Utopia, the failure is particularly striking because the text creates
a utopian space which, by definition, suspends external political and ideological pressures. More, for instance, calmly prohibited private property in his
ideal state, but he could not adopt the studia humanitatis. He could banish
aristocracy but not mold Utopian subjects into humanists. There is another
layer in this insight. On the one hand, Utopia can be read as a humanist work.
Indeed, it explicitly invites such a reading. Many of the Utopian institutions
and practices are presented as humanist institutions and practices, and the
Utopian subjects can be interpreted as embodying the humanist image of
man. On the other hand, when we view Utopia from the inside, this picture
is inverted. From the perspective of its subjects, the Utopian social order is
reified and devoid of meaning. It is an essentially antihumanist world.
We are now ready to fully account for the internal contradictions of Utopiaas well as Erasmuss and Mores other writings under examination in
this studyas inherent to the problematic identity of the universal intellectual, the citizen of the Erasmian Republic of Letters. As we have seen this
identity was created by the Erasmian humanists, and it gave them a considerable measure of autonomy. It allowed them to formulate a reform program
free of the interests and ideologies of any political establishment or specific
social class. It made it possible to reject the ideological basis of existing political and social order and to construct a utopian substitute.
And yet, at the same time, the identity of this universal intellectual disconnected the Erasmian humanists from the concrete social and political reality
and opened a rift between their social role on the one hand and the ethical
convictions and epistemological premises of their discourse on the other. Humanist discourse presupposed that knowledge was embedded in social reality.
It saw knowledge as knowledge of meaningful human artifacts, such as texts
and social institutions, and as inherently practical. The explicitly pragmatic
orientation of humanist knowledge and the humanist affirmation of public
activity issued from these premises. In humanist discourse, thus, it was the
litteratus, and not the philosopher, who produced knowledge, the former
being at once immersed in social reality and inheriting the great cultural heritage of humanity. The humanist intellectual was thus the man of letters who
employed his literary knowledge and skills for the benefit of society. But the
identity of the universal intellectual then detached the Erasmian humanist,
the citizen of the Republic of Letters, from the concrete forces active in society. It thus violated the humanist commitment to the vita activa. More importantly, this separation became an epistemological problem, for it meant that
humanist intellectual activitythe production of knowledgetook place in a
186
Chapter 6
Conclusion
in modern history. Intellectuals have formulated penetrating, critical reflections on the political and
social order. They often present reform programs and offer revolutionary
visions. Some, however, have also allied themselves with the worst kinds of
regimes and subsequently promoted repressive and brutal measures. The
identity of the intellectual has always contained much ambiguity and irony.
And his or her social place has always been an uncertain one. Nor has the basis
of the intellectuals claim on a universally true knowledge and a position of
moral authority ever been satisfactorily accounted for or justified, certainly
not to the satisfaction of the more reflective intellectuals themselves.1
This study explores several of the paradoxes characteristic of the position of
the modern intellectual. It focuses on the early genealogy of the intellectuals
problematic identity, examining both the achievements and predicaments
of those who may be rightly considered to be the first modern intellectuals.
Producers and transmitters of knowledge are found, of course, in all societies,
except perhaps in the most simple. Some societies have produced intellectuals
in a stronger sense, that is, self-conscious dissenters and critics of their society.
Several of the Hebrew prophets and Greek philosophers functioned as such
figures.2 They were, however, premodern intellectuals, acting in a culture that
perceived human reality as part of a rationaldivine or metaphysicalorder
of things. Their moral authority, then, whether that of a philosopher or a
religious figure, was a function of ones knowledge of ultimate religious or
philosophical truths. The premodern intellectual therefore addressed, or
preached to, society from a transcendent position, an Archimedean point
HE FIGURE OF THE INTELLECTUAL LOOMS LARGE
187
188
Conclusion
Conclusion
189
Notes
Introduction
1. Ronald H. Bainton, Erasmus of Christendom (New York: Crossroad, 1982).
2. The term respublica literaria was first used in 1417 in a letter written by the Venetian humanist Francesco Barbaro to his Florentine friend, Poggio Bracciolini. Later,
in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, it was commonly used to refer to the
community of the humanists. See Franoise Waquet, Quest-ce que la Rpublique
des Lettres? Essai de smantique historique, Bibliothque de l`cole des chartes 147
(1989): 47578.
3. For other studies of medieval and early modern intellectuals see Jacques Le Goff,
Intellectuals in the Middle Ages, trans. Teresa Lavender Fagan (Cambridge, Mass.:
Blackwell, 1993); Mariateresa Fumagalli Beonio Brocchieri, Lintellettuale, in Mariateresa Fumagalli Beonio Brocchieri and Eugenio Garin, Lintellettuale tra Medioevo
e Rinascimento (Bari: Laterza, 1994), 362; Beryl Smalley, The Becket Conflict and the
Schools: A Study of Intellectuals in Politics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1973).
4. This image is clearly and passionately depicted by Edward Said in his Representations of the Intellectual (London: Vintage, 1994).
5. Lisa Jardine, Erasmus, Man of Letters: The Construction of Charisma in Print
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993).
6. The gender-specific use reflects contemporary usage and beliefs.
7. Not surprisingly, this interpretation of humanism was developed either by
scholars who took seriously the humanists self-understanding as rhetoricians or by
scholars who subscribed to the linguistic turn taken in the human sciences. My
understanding of humanist discourse is heavily indebted to Nancy S. Struever, The
Language of History in the Renaissance: Rhetoric and Historical Consciousness in Florentine Humanism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970); idem, Theory
191
192
Notes to Pages 46
193
11. W. Scott Blanchard thus argues in Petrarch and the Genealogy of Asceticism,
Journal of the History of Ideas 62 (2001): 40123, that Petrarchs construction of his
intellectual autonomy and critical position were conceptually related to the notions
of otium, asceticism and retreat from the world. Petrarch continued in this respect the
tradition of late medieval heterodox movements. From a different perspective Nancy
Struever argues that the Petrarchan enterprise was primarily an individual ethical
quest (Theory as Practice, esp. 4456).
12. It is not a coincidence that the approach known as new historicism is so
strongly related to Renaissance studies. See, for example, H. Aram Veeser, ed., The
New Historicism Reader (New York: Routledge, 1994); Catherine Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt, Practicing New Historicism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2000).
13. These are the fundamental theoretical insights of the linguistic turn. They
were arrived at by numerous theories in various disciplines. The literature on the
subject is therefore huge and cannot be surveyed here. See, however, the two lucid articles of Dominick LaCapra: Rethinking Intellectual History and Reading Texts, in
Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983), 2371; History, Language, and Reading: Waiting for Crillon,
American Historical Review 100 (1995): 799828. This is, of course, a very general and
abstract methodological statement. It is applicable to many diverse, often contradictory, theories and methodologies. I leave it here at this level of generality as I do not
subscribe to any specific theory, but rather borrow throughout the study theoretical
insights and techniques from various theories.
Chapter 1
1. Kristellers enormously influential interpretation of humanism in its cultural
context is presented in the articles collected in Renaissance Thought and Its Sources
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), especially The Humanist Movement
(2132) and Humanism and Scholasticism in the Italian Renaissance (85105).
2. Ibid., 22, 99.
3. Ibid., 22.
4. Ibid., 85105.
5. Ibid., 91, 103.
6. Ibid., 2425, 9196, 24751; Jerrold E. Seigel, Rhetoric and Philosophy in Renaissance Humanism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968), 200225.
7. Kristeller, Renaissance Thought, 2532.
8. Ibid., 32.
9. Ibid., 2931.
10. Ibid., 24. Kristeller employs the adjectives literary, educational, cultural and
rhetorical more or less interchangeably.
11. Ibid., 28.
12. Ibid., 3031.
13. Ibid., 29.
194
195
196
little that can be known about them is more loveable and excellent than everything
that can be known about lesser things. . . . And it is through the completion of this
knowledge in us after the present life that man is made perfectly happy. . . . Of
course, even Aristotle, notwithstanding his great interest in and appreciation of
political activity, taught that the contemplative way of life was the best. See Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Christopher Rowe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004),
25052 (1177a121179a33).
32. On these issues see also the works of Eugenio Garin, the third great scholar who
laid the foundation of the modern scholarship of humanism. See, for example, Italian
Humanism: Philosophy and Civic Life in the Renaissance, trans. Peter Munz (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1965); La cultura filosofica del Rinascimento italiano: Ricerche e documenti
(Florence: G. C. Sansoni 1961); Medioevo e Rinascimento: Studi e ricerche (Bari:
Laterza, 1961); Science and Civic Life in the Italian Renaissance, trans. Peter Munz
(Gloucester, Mass.: P. Smith, 1978). Garins interpretation is in many respects similar
to that of Baron. I will presently discuss the main difference between them.
33. The literature on the subject is vast. Two surveys of the historiography and
the current literature on the subject are John Jeffries Martin, Religion, in Palgrave
Advances in Renaissance Historiography, ed. Jonathan Woolfson (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2005), 193209, and David Peterson, Out of the Margins: Religion and
the Church in Renaissance Italy, Renaissance Quarterly 53 (2000): 85379. I will further discuss humanist religious thought in chapter 3.
34. It is highly significant that even the humanists who served the Roman curia
and propagated its political theory employed essentially secular language. As John F.
DAmico demonstrates in his Renaissance Humanism, 11543, the Roman humanists
highlighted what they saw as the cultural, particularly the linguistic, unity of papal
and classical Rome, and thus depicted the papacy as the true and legitimate heir of the
Roman Empire.
35. Albertis treatises on painting, sculpting and architecture and Vasaris history
of art (in the form of biographies of great artists) reflected and formed these processes.
See Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting and on Sculpture, trans. and ed. Cecil Grayson
(London: Phaidon, 1972); idem, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, trans. Joseph
Rykwert, Neil Leach and Robert Tavernor (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1988);
Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, ed. William Gaunt,
4 vols. (London: Dent, 1963).
36. Baron, A Defense of the View of the Quattrocento First Offered in The Crisis
of the Early Italian Renaissance, in In Search, 2:199200.
37. In his The Lost Italian Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
2004) Christopher Celenza compares the interpretations of Baron and Kristeller from
a different angle.
38. See the works cited in note 7 of the Introduction.
39. On the theoretical debates between the humanists and scholastics see, for example, Salvatore I. Camporeale, Lorenzo Valla: Umanesimo e teologia (Florence: Nella
sede dellIstituto, 1972), 14971; Erika Rummel, The Humanist-Scholastic Debate
in the Renaissance and Reformation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1995); Lisa Jardine, Humanism and the Teaching of Logic, in The Cambridge His-
197
tory of Later Medieval Philosophy, eds. Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenney and
Jan Pinborg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 797807; Rita Guerlac,
Introduction, in Juan Luis Vives against the Pesudodialecticians, ed. Rita Guerlac
(Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1979), 943; Walter J. Ong, Ramus: Method, and the Decay of
Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason (New York: Octagon Books,
1974); Richard Waswo, Language and Meaning in the Renaissance (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1987), 48113.
40. See James H. Overfield, Humanism and Scholasticism in Late Medieval Germany (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), 3839; L. M. de Rijk, The
Origins of the Theory of the Properties of Terms, in The Cambridge History of Later
Medieval Philosophy, 161; Jan Pinborg, Speculative Grammar, in ibid., 26266; G.
L. Bursill-Hall, Speculative Grammars of the Middle Ages: The Doctrine of Partes Orationis of the Modistae (The Hague: Mouton, 1971), 38. These assumptions were also
shared by William Ockham, the radical critic of Thomist realism. Ockham denied the
reality of universals, arguing that they were only abstractions of the human intellect.
Philotheus Boehner convincingly argues, however, that according to Ockham, the
universals represented a shared quality, in reality and not only in consciousness and
language, of the individual objects. He consequently defines Ockhams philosophy as
realistic conceptualism. See his The Realistic Conceptualism of William Ockham,
in Collected Articles on Ockham, ed. E. M. Buytaert (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan
Institute, 1958), 15674.
41. The two terms have been interchangeable at least since the time of Cicero. See
Geurlac, Introduction, 13.
42. Cited in Overfield, Humanism and Scholasticism, 30.
43. See ibid., 2835, 4344; Gordon Leff, The Trivium and the Three Philosophies, in Universities in the Middle Ages, ed. Hilde de Ridder-Symoens (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992), 3089.
44. Aristotle, Analytica posteriora, trans. G. R. G. Mure, in Introduction to Aristotle,
ed. R. McKeon (New York: Modern Library, 1947), 9109; David Ross, Aristotle, 5th
ed. (London: Methuen, 1964), 2061; John Marenbon, Later Medieval Philosophy
(11501350): An Introduction (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987), 4749.
45. De Rijk, The Origins, 16173; Overfield, Humanism and Scholasticism,
2835; Guerlac, Introduction, 39; Pinborg, Speculative Grammar, 266. From
the same perspective we should understand the second main effort of scholastic dialectic: the attempt to solve the insolubilia, the reflexive paradoxes (the paradoxes that
are logically identical to the liars paradox). The encounter with indicative sentences
that are neither true nor false always produces bewilderment. However, the obsessive
scholastic occupation with the subjectwhose only outcome was, needless to say, the
discovery of more and more paradoxesproves that it contradicted their most cherished belief, namely the assumption of the correspondence between words, concepts
and objects.
46. Cited in Overfield, Humanism and Scholasticism, 38.
47. See ibid., 3540.
48. On Mores Letter to Dorp see Daniel Kinney, Introduction, in CWM 15, xv
cxxxii; idem, Mores Letter to Dorp: Remapping the Trivium, Renaissance Quarterly
198
199
57. Insistence on the crucial importance of the republicanism of the civic humanists is the main difference between Barons interpretation and Garins. The latter
also emphasized the humanists commitment to the vita activa, their historical consciousness, and their creative emulation rather than slavish imitation of the classical
heritage. In Barons view, however, the republican commitmentthe adherence to
values of liberty and equalitywas a precondition for the maturation of those other
humanist innovations. This argument is what made Barons interpretation so fruitful
and suggestive, notwithstanding its reductive tendencies, Whiggish assumptions and
sometimes crude methodologies.
58. See, for example, Paul F. Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 13341; Maria Dowling, Humanism in the Age
of Henry VIII (London: Croom Helm, 1986), 11239.
59. See, for example, Pier Paolo Vergerio, The Character and Studies Befitting a
Free-Born Youth; Leonardo Bruni, The Study of Literature; Aneas Silvius Piccolomini,
The Education of Boys; Battista Guarino, A Program of Teaching and Learning. All four
works are reproduced with an English translation in Humanist Educational Treatises,
ed. and trans. Craig W. Kallendorf (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
2002). See also Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy, 110271; Benjamin G. Kohl,
Humanism and Education, in Renaissance Humanism, 1:522; Eugenio Garin,
Leducazione in Europa, 14001600: Problemi e programmi (Bari: Laterza, 1957); William H. Woodward, Studies in Education during the Age of the Renaissance 14001600
(New York: Teachers College Press, 1967).
60. Vergerio, The Character, 29, 49, 55. See also Piccolomini, The Education, 247.
61. Vergerio, The Character, 7. See also Piccolomini, The Education, 129, 15759
and Guarino, A Program, 26165.
62. The paradigmatic works in the genre of vera nobilitas are Buonaccorso da Montemagno, Treatise on Nobility, Poggio Bracciolini, On Nobility and Bartolomeo Sacci
(known as Il Platina), On True Nobility. Together with the other ten works dedicated
to the subject by fifteenth-century Italian humanists they are reprinted in English
translation in Knowledge, Goodness, and Power: The Debate over True Nobility among
Quattrocento Italian Humanists, ed. and trans. Albert Rabil (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1991). See also Rabils Introduction.
63. See, for example, Vergerio, The Character, 5.
64. Lauro Martines, The Social World of the Florentine Humanists 13901460 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963), 27186; John Najemy, Civic Humanism and
Florentine Politics, in Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections, ed.
James Hankins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 3074. On the traditional political language of Florentine populism see idem, Corporatism and Consensus in
Florentine Politics, 12801400 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982).
65. Anthony Grafton and Lisa Jardine, From Humanism to the Humanities (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986). See also Lauro Martines, Power and
Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy (New York: Knopf, 1979), 191217.
66. See my Florentine Civic Humanism, 33542. This analysis makes clear why
Barons Whiggish conception of modernity blinded him to important aspects of the
thought as well as the social role of civic humanism.
200
67. Baldesar Castiglione, Il libro del Cortigiano, ed. Walter Barberis (Turin: Einaudi, 1998). The different interpretations of the relationship between Castiglione
and humanism reflect the different potentials inherent in humanist discourse. Thus
Arthur F. Kinney, who analyzes in his Continental Humanist Poetics (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989), 87134 the poetics of Il Cortigiano, sees Castiglione as humanist pure and simple. Wayne A. Rebhorn, who reads in his Courtly
Performances: Masking and Festivity in Castigliones Book of the Courtier (Detroit:
Wayne State University Press, 1978), 2628 the work from the general perspective of
court culture, is more cautious. He points out the humanist dimensions in Castigliones book, but also the essential differences. On court society, see Norbert Elias, The
Court Society, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983).
68. The discussion may provide a fruitful angle to evaluate mannerism. Mannerist
art was characterized by qualities its adherents described as grace, variety and difficulty,
while its opponents evaluated it as preference for form over content, excessive stylization, artificiality, and affectation. See John Shearman, Mannerism (London: Penguin,
1990). See also Margaret D. Carroll, The Erotics of Absolutism: Rubens and the Mystification of Sexual Violence, Representations 25 (1989): 330; Charles Burroughs, The
Altar and the City: Botticellis Mannerism and the Reform of Sacred Art, Artibus et
historiae 36 (1997): 940, which stress mannerisms relationship to absolutism.
69. See the works cited in note 8 of the Introduction.
Chapter 2
1. See, for example, Dale Kent, The Rise of the Medici: Faction in Florence, 1424
1434 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978); Werner L. Gundersheimer, Patronage
in the Renaissance: An Exploratory Approach, in Patronage in the Renaissance, eds.
G. F. Lytle and S. Orgel (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981), 323; F.
W. Kent with Patricia Simons, Renaissance Patronage: An Introductory Essay, in
Patronage, Art, and Society in Renaissance Italy, eds. F. W. Kent and P. Simons with J.
C. Eade (Canberra: Humanities Research Centre, 1987), 121; Mary Hollingsworth,
Patronage in Renaissance Italy: From 1400 to the Early Sixteenth Century (London: J.
Murray, 1994); David Howarth, Images of Rule: Art and Politics in the English Renaissance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 191260.
2. In order to understand how this system functioned we can examine Thomas
Mores income as undertreasurer of the exchequer during the first half of the 1520s.
Mores official salary was a little less than 174 while his total annual income was
between 400 and 500. The supplementary income came from various sources, all
of them directly dependent on Mores position and most deriving directly from the
Crown. Among other sources, More was granted a monopoly of money exchange in
London, a license to export one thousand woolen cloths, two land plots and three
wardships (two for minors, who eventually married Mores son and daughter, and
one for a lunatic). Besides that he received a pension from the king of France, Francis I, for his assistance in drafting the treaty of 1525 and an annual retainer from the
Earl of Northumberland. This rather large income was unusual only in that, unlike the
201
vast majority of his contemporaries, More did not exploit his position to extort money
from those requiring his services. See John Guy, The Public Career of Sir Thomas More
(Brighton: Harvester Press, 1980), 2426.
3. This is, of course, only a schematic description. A more detailed analysis would
naturally expose important differences between the various monarchies and within
the same state during different periods. The following studies illustrate the gap between the theoretical and symbolic absolute power of the king and his dependence
on the political classes for the actual praxis of government: Hugh R. Trevor-Roper,
The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century, in Crisis in Europe 15001600, ed.
T. Aston (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965), 5995; G. R. Elton, Reform and
Reformation: England 15091558 (London: E. Arnold, 1977), 1829; idem, England
under the Tudors (New York: G. P. Putnams Sons, 1954), 27; David Starkey, Court,
Council, and Nobility in Tudor England, in Princes, Patronage and the Nobility, eds.
R. G. Asch and A. M. Birke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 175203; J. Russell Major, The French Renaissance Monarchy as Seen through the Estates General,
Studies in the Renaissance 9 (1962): 11325; idem, The Crown and the Aristocracy in
Renaissance France, American Historical Review 69 (1964): 63145; J. M. H. Salmon,
Society in Crisis: France in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1979), 1626, 5962, 92113.
4. Trevor-Roper, The General Crisis.
5. As the patronage system was hardly theorized by contemporaries, evidence for
its importance appears not in the Renaissance canonical historical and political writings but in relatively marginal works. The biography of Cardinal Wolsey, for example,
written by his protg George Cavendish, is attentive to the patronage system. See
George Cavendish, The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey, in Two Early Tudor Lives,
eds. R. S. Sylvester and D. P. Harding (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,
1962). See, for example, Cavendishs description of Wolseys relationship with his first
patron, the Marquis of Dorset (ibid., 47). Perhaps the best source for understanding the crucial role filled by the patronage system, as well as precise mechanisms, are
personal letters. The collection of Lisle letters is a wonderful example. Lord Arthur
Lisle, the bastard of Edward IV, was involved, in his capacity as governor of Calais
and against his own inclination, in the devious and dangerous English politics of the
1530s. His correspondence reveals how political standingand, during this period,
sometimes mere survivaldepended on relations of patronage. Indeed, creating
these relations and developing them were the focus of Lisles activity. Interminable
streams of gifts to permanent and occasional patrons and paid agents at the hubs of
power were his main instruments. See The Lisle Letters, ed. M. St. Clare Byrne, 6 vols.
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981). Trevor-Roper analyzes these aspects of
patronage. See Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Lisle Letters, in Renaissance Essays (London: Secker & Warburg, 1985), 7693.
6. That is not to say that humanism did not establish itself in important institutions. As mentioned, it dominated nonuniversity education and it firmly instituted
itself also in the universities. See, for example, Paul F. Grendler, The Universities of
the Italian Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 199248;
Charles G. Nauert, Humanist Infiltration into the Academic World: Some Studies of
202
203
22. The work was first published, after numerous revisions and adventures, only
in 1520 (CWE 23, 26).
23. There are no indications that he attended classes after 1497. See James D. Tracy,
Erasmus: The Growth of a Mind (Geneva: Droz, 1972), 58.
24. See Cornelius Augustijn, Erasmus: His Life, Works, and Influence, trans. J. C.
Grayson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 36.
25. Erasmus made a clumsy attempt to dissuade van Borssele from marrying by
pointing out that he considered her not a widow but rather a virgin determined to
remain chaste (Ep 145: 16476).
26. Erasmuss specific model was Plinys panegyric of the emperor Trajan. See
Pliny, Panegyricus Plinii secondi dictus Traiano imp., in Letters and Panegyricus, 2 vols.,
trans. Betty Radice (London: W. Heinemann, 1969), 2:322547.
27. James D. Tracy, The Politics of Erasmus: A Pacifist Intellectual and His Political
Milieu (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978), 1718.
28. Tracy, The Politics, 1819.
29. There is a famous lacuna in our knowledge of Erasmuss life, from the end of
1508 until April 1511. He most probably spent the bulk of this period in London,
most likely in Mores house. See J. K. Sowards, The Two Lost Years of Erasmus: Summary, Review, and Speculation, Studies in the Renaissance 9 (1962): 16186.
30. See Margaret Mann Phillips, The Adages of Erasmus: A Study with Translations
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964), 7586.
31. Epp 187, 191, 192, 193, 197, 199, 205.
32. A similar though less detailed account is provided in a letter to Antoon van
Bergen (Ep 288).
33. See CWE 12, 639.
34. The letter to Riario was published about three months after it was written.
35. See Tracy, The Politics, 9294, 104.
36. See Lewis W. Spitz, The Course of German Humanism, in Itinerarium Italicum: The Profile of the Italian Renaissance in the Mirror of Its European Transformations, eds. H. A. Oberman and T. A. Brady (Leiden: Brill, 1975), 371436; Humanism
in Germany, in The Impact of Humanism on Western Europe, eds. A. Goodman and
A. MacKay (London: Longman, 1990), 20219; Overfield, Humanism and Scholasticism.
37. See Spitzs articles cited in the previous note.
38. See Istvn Bejczy, Erasmus Becomes a Netherlander, Sixteenth Century Journal 28 (1997): 38799; Tracy, The Politics, 67. In a letter to Latimer in June 1516
Erasmus describes the warm reception he enjoyed in Upper Germany and in his
own country, namely the Low Countries (Ep 417).
39. See James D. Tracy, Erasmus Becomes a German, Renaissance Quarterly 21
(1968): 28188.
40. See Lewis W. Spitz, The Religious Renaissance of the German Humanists (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963).
41. Spitz, Humanism in Germany, 208.
42. Tracy, Erasmus Becomes a German, 286.
43. Ibid., 28788.
204
Chapter 3
1. The term, coined by Margaret Mann Phillips, appropriately indicates the first
appearance of several long adagesincluding One ought to be born a king or fool
(I iii 1); To exact tribute from the dead (I ix 12); Sparta is your portion; do your best
for her (II v 1); The Sileni of Alcibiades (III iii 1); A dung-beetle hunting an eagle
(III vii 1); and War is a treat for those who have not tried it (IV i 1)that expressed
Erasmuss utter dissatisfaction with the existing cultural, religious and political state
of things and his radical ideas of reform. See The Adages of Erasmus (Cambridge,
1964), 96.
205
2. Elias, The Civilizing Process, 4267. Although my perspective and my conclusions are different from Eliass, the following reading of De civilitate is greatly indebted
to his celebrated study.
3. Ibid., 4849.
4. Baldesar Castiglione, Il libro del Cortigiano, ed. Walter Barberis (Turin: Einaudi
1998); Giovanni della Casa, Galateo, ed. Stefano Prandi (Turin: Einaudi, 1994). See
Elias, The Civilizing Process, 6166; Wayne A. Rebhorn, Courtly Performances: Masking
and Festivity in Castigliones Book of the Courtier (Detroit: Wayne State University
Press, 1978); Daniel Javitch, Il Cortegiano and the Constraints of Despotism in Castiglione: The Ideal and the Real in Renaissance Culture, eds. Robert W. Hanning and
David Rosand (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1983), 1728.
5. Elias, The Civilizing Process, 56.
6. Ibid., 5759.
7. Ibid., 63.
8. Ibid., 4850.
9. Norbert Elias, The Court Society, trans. E. Jephcott (Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1983)
provides the best theoretical model of court society.
10. For insightful analyses of these characteristics, see Elias, The Court Society,
78116; Michel Jeanneret, A Feast of Words: Banquets and Table Talk in the Renaissance, trans. Jeremy Whiteley and Emma Hughs (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1991), 4549.
11. See above, 3233.
12. See Albert Rabil, Introduction, in Knowledge, Goodness, and Power: The
Debate over Nobility among Quattrocento Italian Humanists (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1991), which he edited; Francesco Tateo, Tradizione e realt nellUmanesimo italiano, 2nd ed. (Bari: Dedalo libri, 1974), 355421;
Lauro Martines, Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy (New York:
Knopf, 1979), 21014.
13. Elias rightly attributes great importance to Erasmuss independence, which he
views as a characteristic of humanism in general. He argues that the humanists were
a class of intellectuals uncommitted to any specific social group. In his analysis, this
independence was the result of a temporary dislocation of power born of the fact that
the feudal aristocracy was already in eclipse while the new absolutist aristocracy had
not yet fully come to power (The Civilizing Process, 5859). We have seen in the previous chapter that this description is not adequate of most humanists, whose intellectual
activity was closely tied to the interests and ideologies of the ruling social classes and
political establishments. It is true, however, of Erasmus and the circle of humanists
around him. (It is worthwhile mentioning that Elias does not refer to other humanists
besides Erasmus in this context.) What Elias considers to be a general characteristic
of humanism turns out to be a specific and quite exceptional feature of Erasmian
humanism. Humanisms autonomy, which Elias ascribes to external causesthe
social and political structureis, from my perspective, a result of specific dynamics
that distinguished just one version of humanism. In short, what Elias views as a fully
explained phenomenon is now seen as a problem.
14. Elias, The Civilizing Process, 4344.
206
15. Erasmus refers to syphilis not less than three times in the improbable context
of a discussion of liberal education (Puer 307, 324, 325).
16. Erasmus, Inns, CWE 39, 36880; Elias, The Civilizing Process, 5758.
17. See, for example, Erasmus, Hunting, CWE 39, 10912.
18. For the attitude of the Italian humanists see, for example, Pier Paolo Vergerio, The Character and Studies Befitting a Free-Born Youth, in Humanist Educational
Treatises, ed. and trans. Craig W. Kallendorf (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 2002), 6682.
19. It is perhaps worthwhile to note that my perspective diverges from Elias, from
whom many of the above observations and insights are taken. Elias emphasizes the
unmotivated and impersonal dimensions of a long civilizing process. He reads Erasmuss works as expressions of this process. In my analysis the civilizing dimensions of
Erasmuss works are an integral part of an articulated worldview that constitutes the
basis for a program for reforming society.
20. Erasmuss numerous educational works include a general depiction of and appeal for liberal education (Puer), a description of the methods of study and the curriculum of liberal studies (RS), a full presentation of the rhetorical theory of writing
(Co), a description of the right way of writing letters (On the Writing of Letters, trans.
C. Fantazzi, CWE 25, 12254) and work on the correct Latin and Greek pronunciation (The Right Way of Speaking Latin and Greek: A Dialogue, trans. M. Pope, CWE
26, 365475). Many others of his works, the Colloquies for example, were written as
textbooks for schools. On Erasmuss educational thought see, for example, William
Harrison Woodward, Desiderius Erasmus concerning the Aim and Method of Education
(New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1964);
James D. Tracy, Erasmus: The Growth of a Mind (Geneva: Droz, 1972), 5782; James
McConica, Erasmus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 1829.
21. See above, 3233.
22. These words are, of course, reminiscent of Giovanni Pico della Mirandolas
famous Oration on the Dignity of Man, trans. Elizabeth Livermore Forbs, in The
Renaissance Philosophy of Man, eds. Ernst Cassirer, Paul Oskar Kristeller and John
Herman Randall (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), 22354. Picos image
of man, however, is drawn from a religious and metaphysical perspective, Erasmuss
from a practical and social one. This difference is indicative of the difference between
humanism (as I understand the term) and Renaissance Neoplatonism.
23. Vergerio, The Character, 2829.
24. See, for example, Vergerio, The Character, 5153. Aneas Silvius Piccolomini,
The Education of Boys (in Humanist Educational Treatises, 126259), was written for
Ladislas, King of Hungary and Bohemia, and is naturally explicit about the political
aims of education from the first page.
25. For a discussion of this subject in the context of Erasmuss educational writings
see Wayne A. Rebhorn, Erasmian Education and the Convivium religiosum, Studies
in Philology 38 (1972): 14041.
26. Nancy Bisaha, Creating East and West: Renaissance Humanists and the Ottoman
Turks (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).
27. See ibid., 17475.
207
28. See Erika Rummel, The Confessionalization of Humanism in Reformation Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Charles G. Nauert, Humanism and
the Culture of Renaissance Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995),
16063.
29. See chapter 1, note 33 for articles that review the current literature. Among the
classical studies of humanist religious thought are Charles Trinkaus, In Our Image and
Likeness, 2 vols. (London: Constable, 1970); Salvatore I. Camporeale, Lorenzo Valla:
Umanesimo e Teologia (Florence: Nella sede dellIstituto, 1972); idem, Renaissance
Humanism and the Origins of Humanist Theology, in Humanity and Divinity in
Renaissance and Reformation, eds. J. W. OMalley, T. M. Izbicki and G. Christianson
(Leiden: Brill, 1993), 10124; Lewis W. Spitz, The Religious Renaissance of the German
Humanists (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963).
30. See, for example, James Kelsey McConica, English Humanists and Reformation
Politics: Under Henry VIII and Edward VI (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), 1341;
Marjorie ORourke Boyle, Erasmus on Language and Method in Theology (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1977); idem, Christening Pagan Mysteries: Erasmus in
Pursuit of Wisdom (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981); idem, Rhetoric and
Reform: Erasmus Civil Dispute with Luther (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983); Jacques Chomarat, Grammaire et rhetorique chez Erasme, 2 vols.
(Paris: Belles Lettres, 1981), 1:3151, 587710; Brendan Bradshaw, The Christian
Humanism of Erasmus, Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. 33 (1982): 41147; Jerry
H. Bentley, Humanists and Holy Writ: New Testament Scholarship in the Renaissance
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983), 11293; Charles Trinkaus, Erasmus, Augustine and the Nominalists, in The Scope of Renaissance Humanism (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1983), 274301; Cornelis Augustijn, Erasmus:
His Life, Works, and Influence, trans. J. C. Grayson (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1991), 71145; Manfred Hoffmann, Rhetoric and Theology: The Hermeneutic of
Erasmus (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994); James D. Tracy, Erasmus of
the Low Countries (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 53126; Mary Jane
Barnett, Erasmus and Hermeneutics of Linguistic Praxis, Renaissance Quarterly 49
(1996): 54272; Erika Rummel, Erasmus (London: Continuum, 2004), 73105.
31. These reconstructions, however, do not always fully appreciate the tensions
between Erasmuss humanist assumptions and conviction and traditional Christian
beliefs. At the structural level, there was a tension between humanisms historical
consciousness, which tended to expose central aspects of Christianitythe church,
the doctrine, and scripture itselfas human products, and Christianitys self-understanding as being divinely instituted. Humanist discourse, in other words, problematized the distinction between the human and the divine. At a more concrete level,
we shall presently see, for example, a tension between the positive image of human
being of Erasmus (and of most other humanists) and the Pauline one. This does not
mean, of course, that Erasmus and the other humanists were not good Christians. On
the contrary, the fact that many humanists since Petrarch experienced these tensions
attests to their sincere Christian beliefs. Indeed, these tensions were fruitful and productive, in the sense that engaging with them was a central motive for the continuous
re-elaboration of humanist religious thought.
208
32. The letter became the preface to the revised edition of the Enchiridion first
published by Froben in 1518.
33. As Albert Rabil, Jr., argues, Erasmus succeeded beyond all others in combining the classical ideal of humanitas and the Christian ideal of Pietas (Desiderius
Erasmus, in Renaissance Humanism, 2:216).
34. See also Istvn Bejczy, Erasmus and the Middle Ages: The Historical Consciousness of a Christian Humanist (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 812; Bradshaw, The Christian
Humanism of Erasmus, 41129.
35. Kathy Eden, Friends Hold All Things in Common: Tradition, Intellectual Property, and the Adages of Erasmus (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001),
832.
36. See Boyle, Language and Method, 2526. Tracy, in Erasmus: The Growth of a
Mind, goes so far as to conclude that Erasmus readily accepted Christ as the supreme
teacher of wisdom, but had difficulty in believing the world to be so constituted that
man could be delivered from his own wickedness only by the death of Gods only
Son (236).
37. See also Bradshaw, The Christian Humanism of Erasmus, 425.
38. Erasmus, Paraphrase on Romans, trans. John B. Payne, Albert Rabil and Warren
S. Smith, CWE 42, 9.
39. Ibid., 55. In later editions the last sentence was replaced by a more ambiguous
one: However, it does not follow that God is unjust to anyone, but that he is merciful
towards many.
40. Robert Coogan, The Pharisee against the Hellenist: Edward Lee versus Erasmus, Renaissance Quarterly 39 (1986): 49293, demonstrates that Erasmuss central
notion of imitation was conceptually related to his Pelagian views appearing in his
interpretation of Romans 5:12 and 14. While the traditional interpretation of these
verses emphasized that Adams original sin is inherited, Erasmus argued that human
beings sin only inasmuch as they voluntarily imitate Adams disobedience.
41. See Tracy, Erasmus of the Low Countries, 7173.
42. Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, trans. Henry Cole (Grand Rapids,
Mich.: Baker Book House, 1976), 54.
43. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, eds. T. Gilby et al. (London: Blackfriars,
1964), 1:1, 16 (1a1ae,1,4).
44. See Frederick H. Russell, The Just War in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), esp. 17, 25891.
45. Augustine, Political Writings, eds. E. M. Atkins and R. J. Dodaro (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2001), 37. Thomas Aquinas and the Spanish neoscholastic Francisco de Vitoria are among those who cite this letter in their discussion of
just war. See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 35:8084 (2a2ae,40,1); Francisco
de Vitoria, On the Law of War, in Political Writings, eds. A. Pagden and J. Lawrence
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 29598.
46. Augustine, Political Writings, 38.
47. Here lies the fundamental difference between my reconstruction of Erasmian
humanism and the reconstruction offered by Constance M. Furey in her Erasmus,
Contarini, and the Religious Republic of Letters (New York: Cambridge University
209
Press, 2006). Furey argues that Erasmuss pervasive wish was to be part of a community that was oriented toward the sacred rather than the profane (29). In my analysis
the orientation of the Erasmian Republic of Letters toward the sacred was inherently
related to its wish to reform Christendom.
48. All three elaborated the ideology of secular authority. The ideologists of the
church, including Giles of Rome and James of Viterbo, are less known. Whether it is
because of their intrinsic inferiority compared to their rivals or because the church
lost its battle is another question altogether.
49. Quentin Skinner, Visions of Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002), 2:124.
50. See Lorenzo Valla, On the Donation of Constantine, trans. G. W. Bowersock
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007).
51. See James McConica, Erasmus and the Grammar of Consent, in Scrinium
Erasmianum, ed. J. Coppens (Leiden: Brill, 1969), 2:7799.
52. This is also the conclusion of C. Augustijn, who systematically studied the
ecclesiology of Erasmus. See his The Ecclesiology of Erasmus, in Scrinium Erasmianum, 2:13940, 14351.
53. It is significant that in the letter to Volz Erasmus does not assign any sacramental role to the clergy. To be sure, if pressed, Erasmus would have undoubtedly
presented a more orthodox view of the church, and would have interpreted the letter
in an orthodox fashion. It may be argued that Erasmus never denied, indeed sincerely
believed in, the sacramental role of the church. It is also true, however, that in a
general description of the churchsuch as the one offered in the letter to Volzhe
did not consider it necessary to mention the most fundamental dimension of the
churchs self-understanding. Nor is this omission an accidental one. On the contrary,
as we have already seen, his religious discourse tended to systematically devaluate the
sacramental, doctrinal and institutional aspects of Christianity.
54. Dante, Monarchy, trans. Prue Shaw (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996); Marsilius of Padua, The Defender of Peace, trans. Alan Gewirth (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1956); William of Ockham, A Short Discourse on Tyrannical Government, ed. Arthur Stephen McGrade (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1992).
55. Tracy notes that the eagle was the distinct symbol of the empire, and concludes
that the adage was an expression of Erasmuss animosity toward the emperor Maximilian. See James D. Tracy, The Politics of Erasmus: A Pacifist Intellectual and His Political Milieu (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1978), 3739. This may be true, but
must not obscure the fact that the main target of Erasmuss text is kingship as such.
56. Erasmus, To exact tribute from the dead, trans. R. A. B. Mynors, CWE 32,
18387.
57. Ibid., 18586.
58. Ibid., 18485.
59. See Tracy, The Politics of Erasmus, 5153.
60. Among the important Italian humanists who produced mirrors for princes
are Petrarch and Pontano. See Francesco Petrarca, How a Ruler Ought to Govern
His State, trans. Benjamin G. Kohl, in The Earthly Republic: Italian Humanists on
210
Government and Society, eds. Benjamin G. Kohl and Ronald G. Witt (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978), 3578; and Giovanni Pontano, Ad
Alfonsum Calabriae ducem de principe liber, in Prosatori latini del quattrocento, ed.
Eugenio Garin (Milan: R. Ricciardi, 1952), 102363. See also Lester Born, Introduction, in Erasmus, The Education of a Christian Prince (New York: W. W. Norton, 1936), 94130; Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 1:11328.
61. In fact, more than one, as Christian Prince played a part in subsequent episodes
of patronageor, rather, hopes of patronageconcerning Henry VIII in 1517 (Ep
657) and Prince Ferdinand in 1518 (Ep 853). About the English episode see Cecil H.
Clough, Erasmus and the Pursuit of English Royal Patronage in 1517 and 1518,
Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook 1 (1981): 12640.
62. See also Eden, Friends, 15455.
63. Richard F. Hardin, The Literary Conventions of Erasmus Education of a
Christian Prince: Advice and Aphorism, Renaissance Quarterly 35 (1982): 15657.
64. For example, IP 206, 208, 222, 224, 232, 278, 284.
65. Tracy, The Politics, 58.
66. See Skinner, The Foundations, 1:23641.
67. Thomas Elyot, The Book Named the Governor, ed. S. E. Lehmberg (London:
Dent, 1962).
68. See Alistair Fox, Sir Thomas Elyot and the Humanist Dilemma, in Alistair
Fox and John Guy, Reassessing the Hentician Age: Humanism, Politics and Reform
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), 5273.
69. Elyot, The Book Named the Governor, 112.
70. Ibid., 14.
71. Leon Battista Albertis preface to Della Famiglia, trans. Guido A. Guarino
(Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1971), 2734, is one of the canonical expressions of this ethos.
72. Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, trans. S. G. C.
Middlemore (London: Phaidon, 1944).
73. The perception of fame and glory as the highest human end to be achieved in
the public arena appears practically on every other page of Albertis Della Famiglia
(e.g., 13849, 15355, 18288, 30507). See also Eugenio Garin, Italian Humanism,
trans. Peter Munz (Oxford: Blackwell, 1965), 4546; Skinner, The Foundations, 1:80,
99101, 11821.
74. See, for example, Leonardo Bruni, Oration for the Funeral of Nanni Strozzi,
in The Humanism of Leonardo Bruni, eds. Gordon Griffiths, James Hankins and
Davis Thompson (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies,
1987), 12127; idem, Panegyric to the City of Florence, trans. Benjamin G. Kohl, in
The Earthly Republic: Italian Humanists on Government and Society, eds. Benjamin
G. Kohl and Ronald G. Witt, 13575. See also Hans Baron, The Crisis of the Early
Italian Renaissance, 2nd ed. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966),
199211, 41239; Skinner, The Foundations, 1:7784; idem, Visions of Politics,
2:13034. The humanists serving the princely regimes naturally employed a different strategy. Ignoring the subjects, they concentrated on the political virtus of the
211
prince and his majesty, which they presented as compatible with the Christian and
cardinal virtues. See, for example, Elyot, The Book Named the Governor and Pontano, Ad Alfonsum. See also Skinner, The Foundations, 1:11821; idem, Visions of
Politics, 2:12123, 13637.
75. Bruni, Oration, 124; idem, Panegyric, 150. See also Mikael Hrnqvist, The Two
Myths of Civic Humanism, in Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections, ed. James Hankins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 10542.
76. See, for example, Niccol Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, trans. Harvey C.
Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), I.9,
I.2627, II.2, III.41 (2830, 6163, 12933, 30001); idem, The Prince, eds. Quentin
Skinner and Russell Price (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), chaps.
1518 (5463). The literature on the subject is vast. See, for example, Isaiah Berlin,
The Originality of Machiavelli, in Against the Current (New York: Viking Press,
1980), 2579; Mark Hulliung, Citizen Machiavelli (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983); Harvey C. Mansfield, Machiavellis Virtue (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1996); Vickie B. Sullivan, Machiavellis Three Romes: Religion, Human
Liberty, and Politics Reformed (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1996), esp.
1555; Emanuele Cutinelli-Rndina, Chiesa e religione in Machiavelli (Pisa: Istituti
editoriali e poligrafici internazionali, 1998).
77. See Robert P. Adams, The Better Part of Valor: More, Erasmus, Colet, and Vives,
on Humanism, War, and Peace, 14961535 (Seattle: University of Washington Press,
1962), 2428; Tracy, The Politics, 3233.
78. Clear expressions of Erasmuss staunch opposition to war appear in his early
writings, notably Panegyricus ad Philippum, discussed in the previous chapter. But
only after his return to the continent in 1514 did he publish several works exclusively
devoted to the subject. The first important composition is a long letter to Antoon
van Bergen (Ep 288). The letter served as a draft for the famous adage Dulce bellum
inexpertis, which was first published in the Froben edition of 1515 and was republished separately in dozens of editions in Latin and in translations into European
vernaculars (Phillips, The Adages, 29899). The same edition includes another pacifistic adage, Sparta is your portion; do your best for her, trans. R. A. B. Mynors, CWE
33, 23743, which includes Erasmuss obituary of his pupil and patron Alexander
Stewart, Archbishop of St. Andrews and the bastard son of James IV of Scotland, who
died at the age of twenty at the battle of Flodden. The last chapter of The Education of
a Christian Prince (IP 28288) is also dedicated to this subject. Finally, in December
1517, Erasmus published the Querela pacis (QP), one of the sharpest and most bitter
denunciations of war ever published. This work too enjoyed immediate success. More
than twelve editions appeared in the twelve years following its publication, and it was
translated into French, Spanish, Dutch, German, and English (CWE 27, 291).
79. On the religious basis of Erasmuss pacifism, see Hilmar M. Pabel, The Peaceful People of Christ: The Irenic Ecclesiology of Erasmus of Rotterdam, in Erasmus
Vision of the Church, ed. Hilmar M. Pabel (Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth Century Journal
Publishers, 1995), 5793.
80. See also Jose A. Fernandez, Erasmus on the Just War, Journal of the History
of Ideas 34 (1974): 20926; Rummel, Erasmus, 6367.
212
81. The allusions are to the French claims of Milan and Naples, and to the complaints of Maximilian against Charles VIII. The stolen bride is Anne of Bretagne,
who was engaged to the emperor but finally married the French king. It is interesting
to note that Erasmuss scholastic enemies tried to use his pacifism in order to vilify
him in the eyes of his royal patrons. See Erika Rummel, Erasmus and His Catholic
Critics (Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1989), 2:45.
82. See Ronald G. Musto, Just Wars and Evil Empires: Erasmus and the Turks,
in Renaissance Society and Culture: Essays in Honor of Eugene F. Rice, Jr., eds. John
Monfasani and Ronald G. Musto (New York: Italica Press, 1991), 197216.
83. Erasmus was criticized for his pacifist stance, particularly concerning the Turks,
and subsequentlyafter Mohcs and the siege of Viennahe published in 1530 De bello
Turcico, in which he reformulated his position. See A Most Useful Discussion Concerning
Proposals for War against the Turks, Including an Exposition of Psalm 28, trans. Michael
J. Heath, CWE 64, 21166. Here Erasmus explicitly rejects as absurd the position that
the right to make war is denied totally to Christians (233). He also argues that the right
to make war is logically derived from the magistrates right to punish offendersan
argument he explicitly rejected in Dulce bellum (427). The general attitude of the De
bello Turcico and its conclusions are, however, similar to Erasmuss earlier writings on
war. Erasmuss main argument in De bello Turcico is that the Turks were sent by God to
castigate Christendom for its sins (for example, 213, 220, 237, 241). He concludes therefore that the prospects of successful war are meager unless a complete and conspicuous
reformation of life takes place throughout Christendom (260), implying that in this
case Gods anger, the cause of the war in the first place, would vanish.
84. See above, 2631.
85. In fact, three of the lettersto Dorp (MtD), to Oxford (MtO), and to Edward
Lee (MtL)were not originally written for publication but to deter Erasmuss adversaries. On the background of these letters see Daniel Kinney, Introduction, CWM
15, xixxliv.
86. The same is true for Julius exclusus, the furious attack on the late Pope Julius
II. See Julius Excluded from Heaven: A Dialogue, trans. Michael J. Heath, CWE 27,
15597. Ever since the publication of Julius there has been a controversy concerning
Erasmuss authorship of the work. Be that as it may, like Erasmus himself, More never
admitted that his friend was the author of the work (although, perhaps in a lawyers
habit of referring to all possible arguments, he employed the somewhat incriminating
phrase, now suppose that he did write the book). More, however, did not express
any reservations about the books contents and even justified its composition under
the circumstances (MtM 263).
87. See above, 3031.
88. There are strongly conflicting interpretations concerning the intellectual (and
even the personal) relationship between More and Erasmus, the roots of which go
back to the sixteenth century. The interpretative line adopted here emphasizes the
affinities between Mores and Erasmuss thought. This was the view expressed by
Erasmus and More themselves: together with Mores humanist letters, Erasmuss
biographical portraits of his friend (Ep 999, 1233) strongly substantiate this view.
Reproduced in Frederic Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers of 1498: Being a History
213
of the Fellow-Work of John Colet, Erasmus, and Thomas More (London: Longmans,
Green, 1867), the interpretation of More, and to a large extent of English humanism
as a whole, as essentially Erasmian became the mainstream view. Among the many
important studies that elaborated this view are R. W. Chambers, Thomas More (London: J. Cape, 1938); McConica, English Humanists; E. E. Reynolds, Thomas More and
Erasmus (New York: Fordham University Press, 1965); Fritz Caspari, Humanism and
the Social Order in Tudor England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954); Martin Fleisher, Radical Reform and Political Persuasion in the Life and Writings of Thomas
More (Geneva: Droz, 1973). The opposing interpretation was first developed within
English Catholicism, and its primary source is the famous biography of More written
by his son-in-law, William Roper. This tradition emphasized Mores piety, orthodoxy
and loyalty to the church, and depicted his life as a journey toward his martyrdom.
Mores humanism and, in particular, his relationship with Erasmusregarded at least
with suspicion by the post-Trendentine churchwere downplayed and sometimes
misrepresented. The interpretation that sets More apart from Erasmus was recently
revived, notably by Alistair Fox. See William Roper, The Life of Sir Thomas More, in
Two Early Tudor Lives, eds. R. S. Sylvester and D. P. Harding (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 1962); Alistair Fox, Facts and Fallacies: Interpreting English Humanism and English Humanism and the Body Politics, in Reassessing the Herician
Age, 933, 3451, respectively. See also Richard Marius, Thomas More: A Biography
(New York: Knopf, 1984), 82, 9197, 23738, 3025.
89. Among the readings of Utopia along this line, to which I am indebted, are
J. H. Hexter, Mores Utopia: The Biography of an Idea (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1952) and his Introduction, CWM 4, xvcxxiv; David Wootton,
Friendship Portrayed: A New Account of Utopia, History Workshop Journal 45
(1998): 2947; idem, Introduction in his new translation of Utopia with Erasmuss
The sileni Alcibiadis (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999); Dominic Baker-Smith, Mores
Utopia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000).
90. The following discussion assumes that Utopia affirms the abolition of private
property. Hexter convincingly demonstrated this point (Mores Utopia, 3348).
91. See above, 22.
92. Erasmus, Between friends all is common, trans. Margaret Mann Phillips, CWE
31, 2930.
93. Wootton, Friendship Portrayed.
94. Hexter goes further, underscoring the similarity between the practical ethics
of the Utopians and of Erasmus, and between the common creed of the Utopian
religionsbelief in divine providence, immortality of the soul, and judgment in
the afterlife (22325)and the Erasmian antidogmatic faith, he concludes that the
Utopians were true Christians even though they had not enjoyed the benefit of revelation (Introduction, lxxivlxxvii). Hexter seems to identify the religious thought
of Erasmus with natural religion, something resembling the Enlightenments deism.
(How else could someone be a true Christian without revelation?) I argue that Erasmus integrated Christianity and classical learning and saw fundamental similarities
between them concerning practical ethics. But I do not claim that his religiosity can
be reduced to natural religion.
214
95. See J. C. Davis, Utopia and the Ideal Society: A Study of English Utopian Writing 15161700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 4142; Dorothy F.
Donnelly, Patterns of Order and Utopia (New York: St. Martins, 1998), 6177; and my
The Humanist Critique of Metaphysics and the Foundation of the Political Order,
Utopian Studies 13 (2002): 119.
96. Against this background we should understand many of the Utopian customs.
The Utopians might decide, for instance, to uproot a whole forest and to move it to
another place (179). Utopian hens, by the same token, do not brood over their eggs,
but leave the task to farmers who keep the eggs alive and hatch them, maintaining
them at an even, warm temperature. And the outcome: As soon as they come out
of the shell, the chicks recognise the humans and follow them around instead of their
mothers (115). And in fact Utopian humans behave in the same manner: the Utopian child regards its nurse as its natural mother (141).
97. Plato, The Republic, trans. Tom Griffith (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2000).
98. Notwithstanding their avowed religious tolerance, the Utopians enforce a religious creed of divine providence, immortality of the soul and reward and punishment
in the afterlife because they deem it socially necessary (161, 22325).
99. I shall return to this subject in chapter 6. See also my, The Humanist Critique
of Metaphysics.
100. This fundamental difference does not preclude an intertextual play with
Platos works. In fact, Utopia contains many explicit references and implicit allusions
to Plato and his works, particularly to The Republic and The Laws (e.g., 4345, 8183,
10103), as well as to other numerous classical authors and texts. Baker-Smith, Mores
Utopia, is particularly sensitive to this aspect (3855, 8893, 14143, 17379).
101. See Peter R. Allen, Utopia and European Humanism: The Function of the
Prefatory Letters and Verses, Studies in the Renaissance 10 (1963): 99107.
Chapter 4
1. See chapter 1.
2. Most readings of Christian Prince ignore or at least marginalize its incoherency
and internal tensions. See, for example, Tracy, The Politics of Erasmus: A Pacifist Intellectual and His Political Milieu (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978), 4969;
Margaret Mann Phillips, Erasmus and the Northern Renaissance, rev. ed. (Woodbridge, U.K.: Boydell Press, 1981), 90106; Richard F. Hardin, The Literary Conventions of Erasmus Education of a Christian Prince: Advice and Aphorism, Renaissance
Quarterly 35 (1982): 15163. This kind of reading reflects, I believe, the dogmatic
assumption that a text is coherent or at least that it can be made coherent if the true
intentions of its author are discovered.
3. Erasmus alludes to the fact that the emperor was chosen by election. This custom has increasingly become, however, a mere formality as the Habsburg heir was
always elected (as Charles himself succeeded his grandfather Maximilian in 1519).
215
216
Ideas in Antiquity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 2353; Robert
P. Adams, The Better Part of Valor: More, Erasmus, Colet, and Vives, on Humanism,
War, and Peace, 14961535 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1962), 57.
20. Cited in Lovejoy and Boas, Primitivism, 4647. This description of course
alludes to the Christian view concerning the existence in paradise before the Fall.
21. See above, 7980.
22. Brendan Bradshaws definition in The Christian Humanism of Erasmus,
Journal of Theological Studies, n.s., 33 (1982): 447.
23. See also Istvn Bejczy, Erasmus and the Middle Ages: The Historical Consciousness of a Christian Humanist (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 812.
24. The Colloquies of Erasmus, trans. Craig R. Thompson (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1965), 47. In most respects the Convivium religiosum is not typical at
all. It is much longer than most other dialogues, and it is devoid of the lighthearted,
satiric and often thorny tone of the others. It can be described as typical only in the
sense that it expresses the true spirit of Erasmian humanism.
25. Geraldine Thompson, Under the Pretext of Praise: Satire Mode in Erasmus Fiction (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973), 34.
26. Johan Huizinga, Erasmus and the Age of Reformation, trans. F. Hopman (New
York: Harper & Row, 1957), 104.
27. Walter M. Gordon, Humanist Play and Belief: The Seriocomic Art of Desiderius
Erasmus (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 14752.
28. Marjorie ORourke Boyle, Erasmus on Language and Method in Theology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), 12941.
29. Ibid., 131.
30. William Harrison Woodward, Desiderius Erasmus concerning the Aim and
Method of Education (New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia
University, 1964), 226.
31. Wayne A. Rebhorn, Erasmian Education and the Convivium religiosum,
Studies in Philology 69 (1972): 13147.
32. Michel Jeanneret, A Feast of Words: Banquets and Table Talk in the Renaissance,
trans. Jeremy Whiteley and Emma Hughs (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1991), 179.
33. See also 184, 18687, 189, 196, 200. See Terence Cave, The Cornucopian Text:
Problems of Writing in the French Renaissance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 1045.
34. See Jeanneret, A Feast of Words, 17273.
35. There are of course significant differences between the Platonic dichotomy of body
and soul and the Pauline dichotomy between flesh and spirit. However, as J. B. Payne
demonstrates in Toward the Hermeneutics of Erasmus, in Scrinium Erasmianum, ed. J.
Coppens (Leiden: Brill, 1969), 2:1920, Erasmus collapsed them into one dichotomy.
36. In the March 1522 edition this introductory part consisted of the whole dialogue. The dialogue in its present form (besides minor changes) was published later
in the year (CWE 39, 171).
37. Rebhorn, Erasmian Education, 14043.
38. Ibid., 13840.
39. Ibid., 14349.
217
Chapter 5
1. F. J. Levy, Tudor Historical Thought (San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library,
1967), 3378; Polydore Vergil, Three Books of Polydore Vergils English History, Comprising the Reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV, and Richard III, ed. H. Ellis (New York:
Johnson Reprint, 1968).
2. Levy, Tudor Historical Thought, 69.
3. See above, 2637, 9899.
4. See, for example, A. F. Pollard, Sir Thomas Mores Richard III, History, n.s.,
17 (1933): 32021.
5. Paul Murray Kendall is the twentieth centurys most prominent representative
of this approach. See his Richard the Third (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1955), esp.
42125.
6. Alison Hanham, Richard III and His Early Historians, 14831535 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975).
7. See, for example, Pollard, Sir Thomas Mores Richard III; Leonard F. Dean,
Literary Problems in Mores Richard III, PMLA 58 (1943): 22; A. R. Myers, The
Character of Richard III, History Today 4 (1954): 51121; Arthur N. Kincaid, The
Dramatic Structure of Sir Thomas Mores History of King Richard III, Studies in English Literature, 15001900 12 (1972): 22342.
8. See the pertinent remarks of Judith H. Anderson, in Biographical Truth: The
Representation of Historical Persons in Tudor-Stuart Writing (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 1984), 7577.
9. In addition to the works cited in note 7, see R. W. Chambers, Thomas More
(London: J. Cape, 1938), 11517; Kendall, Richard the Third, 42125; Richard S.
218
219
level, however, he finds that the text accommodates even the most horrible events in
order to dramatize the ultimate goal of divine Providence. In Foxs interpretation,
Mores model was not classical-humanist history, but rather Augustines De civitate
Dei (Thomas More, 8596). It is, however, hard to imagine two more different books,
whether considered in terms of their style or their content, than The City of God and
Richard III. Moreover, no monograph, not even one that describes more fortuitous
times and events than those of Richard III, can demonstrate the work of Providence.
Only a universal history, such as Augustines, provides the scope within which are
revealed the providential powers that direct the history of mankind. In this respect
Richard III is distinctively humanist secular history: it depicts the political world as
fashioned by human intentions, motivations and actions.
22. See chapter 1.
23. Concentrating solely on the moral lessons of the text implies the reduction of
humanist discourse to ethics. This is the case with Alistair Foxs interpretation in his
Politics and Literature.
24. The importance to Richard III of theatrical allusions and similes and of actual
theatrical performances is universally acknowledged. Some were actually tempted to
read Mores work as a play. See, for example, Kincaid, The Dramatic Structure;
Dean, Literary Problems, 3234.
25. In many cases the Latin version is sharper in its use of theatrical tropes and
connotations, no doubt because of the readier allusions to the classical canon.
26. The association of food and death, already established when the Duke of Clarence was drowned in a barrel of wine, marks the scenes preceding Hastingss downfall: the strawberries of the Bishop of Elye and, more grimly, Richards dinner. This
association contradicts the association universally made between food and plenitude,
fertility (the Dionysiac feast) and holiness (the Eucharist). As we saw in the previous chapter, Erasmuss Convivium religiosum beautifully exemplifies the traditional
symbolic values of food. The inversion of this symbolism is yet another indication of
Richard IIIs subversive nature.
27. Her Christian name is not given in the text. She was later known as Jane, but it
seems that her real name was Elizabeth (CWM 2, 21920, 314).
28. See James L. Harner, The Place of Shores Wife in Mores History of Richard III,
Moreana 74 (1982): 69. Shores wife is not mentioned at all in Vergils Historia. Hanham
argues that More invented her connection to Hastings, and concludes that the story was
included in Richard III for purely literary reasons (Richard III, 179).
29. Kendall, Richard III, 147n4.
30. See, for example, the ironic remarks of the schoolmaster and the merchant,
who exposed the fact that the proclamation concerning Hastingss alleged crimes and
conspiracy that was said to be written after his execution was prepared before (54). On
Mores positive attitude toward the common people, see Peter C. Herman, Henrician
Historiography and the Voice of the People: The Cases of More and Hall, Texas Studies in Literature and Language 39 (1997): 26070; Hanham, Richard III, 184.
31. Stephen Greenblatt emphasizes this aspect of Mores work in his Renaissance
Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1980), 1315.
220
221
Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975), 3148; Peter Burke, The Renaissance
Sense of the Past (London: E. Arnold, 1968); Donald Kelley, Foundation of Modern
Historical Scholarship: Language, Law, and History in the French Renaissance (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1970).
48. I am referring to the self-understanding of positivist history. There are
many reasons to believe that nineteenth-century historiography was more literary and rhetorical than it cared to admit and indeed that literary and rhetorical
characteristics of the historical narrative cannot be suppressed at all. The seminal
statement to this effect is, of course, Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical
Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1975).
49. Nancy S. Struever, The Language of History in the Renaissance: Rhetoric and Historical Consciousness in Florentine Humanism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1970), 539, 10143.
50. Ibid., 125.
51. Thus Struever emphasizes that in the histories of the Florentine civic humanists, rhetoric is skillfully used both by the Florentines and by their enemies (ibid.,
14041).
52. Vergil, Three Books, 17678.
53. Ibid., 178.
54. See above, 3031.
55. Story Donno sees these techniques as unique characteristics of Mores work
(Thomas More and Richard III, 418).
56. Kendall demonstrates the unintelligibility of the story (Richard the Third,
398406), and Hanham convincingly argues that More did not intend it to be read as
a factual report (Richard III, 18688).
57. See Alfred Duggan, Thomas Becket of Canterbury (London: Faber & Faber,
1967), 202.
58. Leonardo Bruni, History of the Florentine People, 3 vols., ed. and trans. James H
Hankins (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 20012007).
59. Angelo Poliziano, The Pazzi Conspiracy, trans. Rene Neu Watkins, in Humanism and Liberty: Writings on Freedom from Fifteenth-Century Florence, ed. Rene Neu
Watkins (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1978), 17183.
60. See above, 3440.
61. See, for example, Lauro Martines, The Social World of the Florentine Humanists 13901460 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963), esp. 11723, 26386; Peter
Godman, From Poliziano to Machiavelli: Florentine Humanism in the High Renaissance (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998), 330; Levy, Tudor Historical
Thought, 55.
62. It is perhaps worthwhile repeating that the fact that when completing Richard
III More was already in the service of Henry VIII is beside the point. I argue only that
the history (as all other of Mores humanist works) was not written in behalf of the
crown and the dominant ideology.
222
Chapter 6
1. See above, 99104.
2. See, for example, David M. Bevington, The Dialogue in Utopia: Two Sides
to the Question, Studies in Philology 58 (1961): 496509; Elizabeth McCutcheon,
Denying the Contrary: Mores Use of Litotes in the Utopia, Moreana 3132
(1971): 10721; Alan F. Nagel, Lies and Limitable Inane: Contradiction in Mores
Utopia, Renaissance Quarterly 26 (1973): 17380; William J. Kennedy, Rhetorical
Norms in Renaissance Literature (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1978),
94105; Arthur F. Kinney, Humanist Poetics: Thought, Rhetoric, and Fiction in
Sixteenth-Century England (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986),
5788; Louis Marin, Utopics: The Semiological Play of Textual Spaces, trans. Robert
A. Vollrath (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press International, 1990); James
Romm, Mores Strategies of Naming in the Utopia, Sixteenth Century Journal 22
(1991): 17383.
3. See above, 2223, 3738. See also Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern
Political Thought, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 1:21622.
This is not to say that all humanists held this view. There were those who adhered
to the traditional view. See, for example, Skinners discussion of the issue in his new
reading of Utopia in Visions of Politics, 3 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2002), 2:21424. The evaluation of the relative weight of the two groups depends on the precise definition of humanism. If the Florentine Neoplatonists are excluded, for example, and if Petrarchs generations ambivalence concerning the active
life is attributed to the incomplete character of its humanism, then the weight of the
second group decisively shrinks. In any event, my contention is that the affirmation
of the vita activa was conceptually derived from the premises of humanist discourse
as reconstructed in chapter 1.
4. Cicero, De Officiis, trans. Walter Miller (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1913), 7075, 11417 (I.xx.69xxii.73, I.xxxi.113114). See also Skinner, Visions of Politics, 2:21722.
5. See Bevington, The Dialogue in Utopia; John M. Perlette, Irresolution as
Solution: Rhetoric and the Unresolved Debate in Book 1 of Mores Utopia, Texas
Studies in Literature and Language 29 (1987): 2833.
6. See J. H. Hexter, Mores Utopia: The Biography of an Idea (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1952), 3348.
7. Besides Hythlodays stories in Utopia see Mores artful use of anecdotes in his
Letter to Dorp, 5155, 6769.
8. See above, 14147.
9. Skinner, The Foundations, 1:23841.
10. D. B. Fenlon, England and Europe: Utopia and Its Aftermath, Transactions of
the Royal Historical Society 25 (1975): 11535.
11. In his prefatory letter to Jrme de Busleyden, Giles offers a more elaborated
explanation for failing to pinpoint Utopias location. There the surprising ignorance
is attributed to communication disturbances (27), a statement that might be read as a
metaphorical allusion to the incommensurability between Utopia and Europe.
223
224
civil way; for they have near every town a couple of pools (which they call Adam
and Eves pools) where it is permitted to one of the friends of the man, and another
of the friends of the woman, to see them severally bathe naked. See Francis Bacon,
New Atlantis, in The Advancement of Learning and New Atlantis, ed. Arthur Johnson
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), 237. Faced with the same anatomical curiosity the
Utopians succumbed to, the Atlanteans also deal with it by gratifying it. But despite
their prudish moralizing, their practice manages to rid the Utopian practice of its
more misanthropic and ugly characteristics.
27. See Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning, 3845.
28. In his first reading of Utopia Skinner responded to the regimentation of life
in Utopia by stating that More sometimes appears to be commending a remarkably
unimaginative way of life in a strangely solemn style (The Foundations, 1:256). In his
second reading (in Visions of Politics, vol. 2) he simply ignored the issue altogether.
29. See, for example, C. S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century:
Excluding Drama (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954), 16773. Needless to say, many
passages of Utopia are very funny, but this does not mean that they are not serious as
well. In contrast to some modern readers, the humanists simply did not recognize an
incommensurability between a light, ironic style and serious content. Indeed, part of
the original title of Utopia reads: A Truly Golden Handbook, No Less Beneficial than
Entertaining (3). See also the pertinent remarks of Bracht R. Branham in his Utopian Laughter: Lucian and Thomas More, Moreana 86 (1985): 25. The combination
of seriousness and humor was a well-known characteristics of More, and John Guys
observation that More was most witty when least amused suggests a fruitful attitude
toward Utopias playfulness. See The Public Career of Sir Thomas More (Brighton, Sussex: Harvester Press, 1980), 23.
30. See, for example, Karl Kautsky, Thomas More and His Utopia, trans. H. J.
Stenning (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1979), 232; R. W. Chambers, Thomas More
(London: J. Cape, 1938), 14041.
31. Alistair Fox, Utopia: An Elusive Vision (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993);
idem, Politics and Literature in the Reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), 93107.
32. Ibid., 100, 102.
33. Ibid., 105; Fox, Utopia: An Elusive Vision, 63.
34. Fox, Politics and Literature, 105.
35. George M. Logan, Interpreting Utopia: Ten Recent Studies and the Modern
Critical Traditions, Moreana 118/119 (1994): 23031. For example, Hythlodays
most forceful defense of Utopia appears at the very end of the book.
36. The formidable Letter to Dorp (MtD) was written during the second half of
Mores embassy to Flanders in 1515, precisely at the same time as the composition
of book 2 of Utopia. The other three humanist lettersLetter to the University of
Oxford (MtO), Letter to Edward Lee (MtL) and Letter to a Monk (MtM)were
written later, in the second half of the decade. See Daniel Kinney, Introduction,
CWM 15:xixxlv.
37. Chambers, Thomas More, 128; Edward L. Surtz, The Praise of Wisdom: A Commentary on the Religious and Moral Problems and Backgrounds of St. Thomas Mores
225
Utopia (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1957); idem, The Praise of Pleasure: Philosophy, Education, and Communism in Mores Utopia (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1957).
38. See above, 7982.
39. Surtz, The Praise of Wisdom, 11.
40. George M. Logan, The Meaning of Mores Utopia (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1983); idem, The Argument of Utopia, in Interpreting Thomas
Mores Utopia, ed. John C. Olin (New York: Fordham University Press, 1989),
735.
41. Fox distances himself from this approach in Utopia: An Elusive Vision,
2021. But the only difference between his interpretation and those of the others is
that he reads Utopia as a reflection of Mores conscious ambivalence rather than as a
reflection of a committed and coherent position. Fox does not make the crucial step
of differentiating between the text and the author. Indeed, as we just saw, his entire
argument hinges on speculation about Mores gradual disillusionment.
42. Avineri, War and Slavery, 287.
43. Avineri, War and Slavery, 28690 (citation in 288).
44. Halpern, The Poetics of Primitive Accumulation, 13675.
45. Ibid., 14448.
46. Ibid., 16263.
47. Ibid., 16869.
48. Halperns reading of Utopia is, however, preferable to most other Marxist
readings, the essence of which is exemplified by Fredric Jameson, Of Islands and
Trenches: Neutralization and the Production of Utopian Discourse, in The Ideologies of Theory: Essays, 19711986 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988),
2:75102. These readings are based on an a priori distinction between the true utopian
kernel and the ideological shell of the utopian text (The Poetics of Primitive Accumulation, 13641). They are therefore essentially circular: the positive qualities of the
utopia are seen as an expression of the pure utopian quest, postulated as immune
from historization, materialization and demystification, while the utopias negative
features, especially its rigidity and totalitarian tendencies, are automatically attributed
to the texts yielding to ideological pressures.
49. The journey of Jean Baudrillard from his still-Marxist For a Critique of the
Political Economy of the Sign, trans. C. Levin (St. Louis: Telos Press, 1981), on which
Halpern draws, to his critique of Marxism and of the notion of use value in particular,
in The Mirror of Production, trans. M. Foster (St. Louis: Telos Press, 1975), originally
published one year later, is most significant. On the impossibility of a pure use value,
see also Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International, trans. Peggy Kamuf (New York: Routledge, 1994),
15962.
50. Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning, 3358.
51. Ibid., 3132, 4547.
52. Commenting on a letter to Giles in which More unequivocally states that
learning is his true self, Greenblatt says: There is also, it seems, a real self
humanist scholar or monkburied or neglected, and Mores nature is such that one
226
suspects that, had he pursued wholeheartedly one of these other identities, he would
have continued to feel the same way. For there is behind these shadowy selves still
another, darker shadow: the dream of cancellation of identity itself (ibid., 32). This
reading seems to me too impressionistic and speculative.
53. See Richard Strier, Resistant Structures: Particularity, Radicalism, and Renaissance Texts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 6779; Marina Leslie,
Renaissance Utopias and the Problem of History (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,
1998), 21.
54. See Paul Oskar Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and Its Sources (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), 22 and the discussion in chapter 1.
55. See above, 100.
56. On the distinction, see above, 147.
57. See also the discussion above of the fundamental differences between Utopia
and The Republic (1034).
58. See above, 2431.
59. See above, 2830.
60. The only signs with positive value in Utopia are the statues the Utopians set up
to great men who have done conspicuous service to their country and the modest
distinctions granted the governor and the high priest of each city: a handful of grain
for the former and a wax candle for the latter (195).
61. The first part of the Utopian reasoning is patently falsethe fineness of the
thread is certainly related to the utility of the coat. This is yet another indication that
a desire exceeding rational considerations lies at the base of the Utopian order.
62. See Surtz, The Praise of Pleasure, 40. Logan tries to save the coherence of Utopian moral philosophy (The Meaning of Mores Utopia, 14481). His reasoning is,
however, flawed, as he argues that natural reason leads both to a naturalistic ethics and
to its ultimate transcendence.
63. See also my The Humanist Critique of Metaphysics and the Foundation of the
Political Order, Utopian Studies 13 (2002): 815.
64. I use here the translation of CWM 4, 151. The original Latin reads: Ergo haec
metalla si apud eos in turrim aliquam abstruderentur. Princeps ac senatus in suspicionem uenire posset (ut est uulgi stulta sollertia) ne deluso per technam populo, ipsi
aliquo inde commodo fruerentur.
Conclusion
1. There is a vast literature, written from various theoretical and ideological perspectives, on the modern intellectual and its problematic identity and social role. See,
for example, Julian Benda, The Betrayal of the Intellectuals, trans. Richard Aldington
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1955); Antonio Gramsci, Gli intelletuali e lorganizzazione della
cultura, 3rd ed. (Rome: Editori riuniti, 1996); Raymond Aron, The Opium of the Intellectuals, trans. Terence Kilmartin (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday); Edward Shils, The
Intellectuals and the Powers and Other Essays (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
227
1972); Michel Foucault, Truth and Power, in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), 5175; Pierre Bourdieu, The Corporatism of the
Universal: The Role of Intellectuals in the Modern World, Telos 81 (1989): 99110;
Michael Walzer, The Company of Critics: Social Criticism and Political Commitment
in the Twentieth Century (London: P. Halban, 1989); Shlomo Sand, Mirror, Mirror
on the Wall, Who Is the True Intellectual of Them All? Self-Images of the Intellectual
in France, in Intellectuals in Twentieth-Century France: Mandarins and Samurais, ed.
Jeremy Jennings (New York: St. Martins Press, 1993), 3358.
2. See Walzer, The Company of Critics, 38; S. N. Eisenstadt, Fundamentalism,
Sectarianism, and Revolution: The Jacobin Dimension of Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 57.
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Index
245
246
Index
Index
247
248
Index
Grey, Thomas, 45
Guarino, Battista, 199n59, 199n61
Guerlac, Rita, 197n39, 197n45
Gundersheimer, Werner, 200n1
Guy, John, 192nn910, 201n2, 202n11,
224n29
Halpern, Richard, 17576, 223n20
Hanham, Alison, 13435, 218nn1314,
218n16, 219n28, 219n30, 221n56
Hardin, Richard, 91, 214n2, 215n8
Harner, James, 219n28
Hay, Denys, 194n19
Henry of Burgundy, 7273
Henry II, 156
Henry VI, 136, 138
Henry VII, 39, 48, 157
Henry VIII, 3941, 46, 48, 58, 97, 192n9,
210n61, 221n62
Herman, Peter, 219n30
Hermans, Willem, 49
Hexter, J. H., 213nn8990, 213n94,
222n6, 223n23
Hilgert, E., 204nn5455
History of King Richard III, 10, 1213,
69, 108, 13359, 162, 18586;
criticism of aristocratic culture in,
158; equivocal political lesson of,
13640; and Erasmian humanism,
15758; and humanist history, 133,
14757; and humanist political
thought, 11, 14041, 14647;
theatrical metaphor in, 14147;
undermining of the humanist
concept of rhetoric in, 1112, 15154
Hoffmann, Manfred, 207n30
Hollingsworth, Mary, 200n1
Hrnqvist, Mikael, 211n75
Howarth, Davis, 200n1
Huizinga, Johan, 122
Hulliung, Mark, 211n76
humanism: and affirmation of active
life, 4, 2223, 3233; and the classical
heritage, 1922, 29, 194n55; as a
coherent discourse, 35, 1718,
Index
249
250
Index
Index
251