Between Utopia and Dystopia: Erasmus, Thomas More, and the Humanist Republic of Letters

BETWEEN UTOPIA 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

Published by Lexington Books A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 http://www.lexingtonbooks.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom Copyright © 2010 by Lexington Books This book was published with the support of the Israel Science Foundation. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Yoran, Hanan, 1963– Between utopia and dystopia : Erasmus, Thomas More, and the humanist Republic of Letters / Hanan Yoran. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7391-3647-8 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7391-3649-2 (electronic) 1. Erasmus, Desiderius, d. 1536. 2. More, Thomas, Sir, Saint, 1478–1535. 3. Humanism—History. 4. Autonomy (Philosophy)—Europe—History—16th century. I. Title. II. Title: Erasmus, Thomas More, and the humanist Republic of Letters. B785.E64Y67 2010 199'.492—dc22 2009048742

⬁ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence 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

1

Part I: The Erasmian Republic of Letters 1 2 3

Humanism as Form The Construction of the Erasmian Republic of Letters Erasmian Humanism: The Reform Program of the Universal Intellectual

17 37 69

Part II: The Erasmian Republic and Its Discontents 4 The Politics of a Disembodied Humanist 5 More’s Richard III: The Fragility of Humanist Discourse 6 Utopia and the No-Place of the Erasmian Republic

107 133 159

Conclusion

187

Notes

191

Bibliography

229

Index

245

— vii —

Acknowledgments

S

RENAISSANCE GENEALOGY of the modern intellectual during the early years of the twenty-first century has been a riveting, ambivalent and enlightening endeavor. This book was written during a period dominated by the eroding position of the humanities and by an often blatant anti-intellectualism aggressively promoted by an ever-more intellectually impoverished neoliberal ideology. Such times call for a determined response. At first glance, this book does not provide such a response. Indeed, it reveals the problems inherent in any attempt to employ humanist knowledge and skills on behalf of a vision of a better society. It examines the internal strains and paradoxes that are no less characteristic of the identity of the intellectual than are his or her achievements. These troubles cannot be evaded. They must be contemplated and confronted. The experience of the past several centuries surely confirms this insight. Recognition of the inherent strains in the intellectual’s identity is, in fact, the only viable path available today. For only by turning the self-examination of the contradictions of their own position into an essential part of their intellectual activity can modern intellectuals hope to make a difference. The invaluable aid I’ve received from others during the course of writing this work has also proved to be related to my subject. My teachers, colleagues and friends have proved to be true intellectuals. Their scholarly activity is both self-reflective and informed by wider social and political concerns. My greatest debt is to Rivka Feldhay, who introduced me to the human sciences and the wonders of the Renaissance. She then followed every step of my research. Long discussions with Igal Halfin, true friend and true scholar, always TUDYING THE

— ix —

x

Acknowledgments

provided new insights. Miri Eliav-Feldon, Joseph Mali, Yahuda Elkana, my brother Noam, Michela Turno, Ofer Gal, Raz Chen-Morris, Michael Zakim and Gur Zak read parts of the study (and listened to my protracted monologues about other parts) and their critical responses greatly improved my arguments and sharpened my thinking. A Yad Hanadiv fellowship enabled me to quietly pursue my research for two years. The beautiful Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center of Italian Renaissance Studies, where I spent a year as a visiting scholar, was an ideal place to conduct that research. There, in Fiesole, the late Salvatore Camporeale and John Najemy showed me how much I still needed to learn about the Renaissance. This book was published with the support of the Israel Science Foundation. Earlier and abridged versions of chapters 5 and 6 were published as “Thomas More’s Richard III: Probing the Limits of Humanism” in Renaissance Studies 15 (2001) and “More’s Utopia and Erasmus’s No Place” in English Literary Renaissance 35 (2005), respectively. My warmest gratitude goes to my wife, Limor, who patiently endured all the moods invariably involved in writing (not to mention other aspects of academic life), and to my daughter, Anat, who at the age of three already knows that “daddy works in books.”

Abbreviations

Works of Erasmus AB Civ Co CR CWE DB E EtV FD FW IP

The Antibarbarians. Translated by Margaret Mann Phillips. In CWE 23, 16–122. On Good Manners for Boys. Translated by Brian McGregor. In CWE 25, 273–89. Copia: Foundation of the Abundant Style. Translated by B. Knott. In CWE 24, 296–659. The Godly Feast. Translated by Craig R. Thompson. In CWE 39, 171–243. Collected Works of Erasmus. Various editors. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974–. War Is a Treat for Those Who Have Not Tried It. Translated by Denis L. Drysdall. In CWE 35, 399–440. The Handbook of the Christian Soldier. Translated by Charles Fantazzi. In CWE 66, 8–127. “Letter to Paul Volz.” Translated by Charles Fantazzi. In CWE 66, 8–23. A Fish Diet. Translated by Craig R. Thompson. In CWE 40, 675– 762. A Discussion of Free Will. Translated by Peter Macardle. In CWE 76, 5–89. The Education of a Christian Prince. Translated by Neil M. Cheshire and Michael J. Heath. In CWE 27, 203–88. — xi —

xii

LB P

Puer Pan QP RS SA Scar

Abbreviations

Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami opera omnia, 10 vols. Edited by Jean Leclerc. Leiden, 1703–6. The Paraclesis. Edited by J. C. Olin. In Christian Humanism and the Reformation: Selected Writings of Erasmus, 93–106. New York, 1965. A Declamation on the Subject of Early Liberal Education for Children. Translated by Beert C. Verstraete. In CWE 26, 295–346. Panegyric for Archduke Philip of Austria. Translated by Betty Radice. In CWE 27, 6–75. A Complaint of Peace. Translated by Betty Radice. In CWE 27, 289–322. On the Method of Study. Translated by B. McGregor. In CWE 24, 665–91. The Sileni of Alcibiades. Translated by R. A. B. Mynors. In CWE 34, 262–82. A Dung-Beetle Hunting an Eagle. Translated by Denis L. Drysdall. In CWE 35, 178–214.

Works of Thomas More CWM MtD MtL MtM LtO R RL U

The Complete Works of St. Thomas More. Various editors. 15 vols. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1963–1986. “Letter to Martin Dorp.” Edited by Daniel Kinney. In CWM 15, 1–127. “Letter to Edward Lee.” Edited by Daniel Kinney. In CWM 15, 151–95. “Letter to a Monk.” Edited by Daniel Kinney. In CWM 15, 197– 311. “Letter to the University of Oxford.” Edited by Daniel Kinney. In CWM 15, 129–49. The History of King Richard the Third. Edited by Richard S. Sylvester. In CWM 2, 1–93. Historia Richardi Tertii. Edited by Daniel Kinney. In CWM 15, 313–485. Utopia. Edited by George M. Logan, Robert M. Adams and Clarence H. Miller. Cambridge, 1995.

Introduction

A

S WE LOOK BACK ON THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY,

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 children’s 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—

2

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 theologians—with whom the humanists struggled for cultural hegemony—the 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 Erasmus’s enemies, to provide a theoretical grounding for his friend’s 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 Erasmus’s 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-à-vis power. Even if the exceptional nature of Erasmian humanism, compared to contemporary groups of humanists and literati, is noted—indeed, especially in this case—Erasmus and More are seen as the “true” intellectuals. The most notable exception to this attitude is to be found in Lisa Jardine’s 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 Jardine’s approach is its resulting denaturalization of Erasmus’s 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 humanism’s self-presentation is problematic if less than the uncritical embrace of the same. Moreover, there is a structural ambiguity within Jardine’s argument: while she (correctly) assumes that social identities are constructed,

Introduction

3

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 assumption—perhaps the most fundamental assumption of mainstream classical and medieval intellectual tradition—that behind the diversity of phenomenal appearances stood intelligible and unchanging substance. Humanist discourse consequently denied that the meaning of human reality—human history, social institutions, political events—was contingent upon its subordination to a transcendent realm. Instead the humanists presupposed that the human

4

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 entities—institutions, interactions, practices—as 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 More’s 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 man’s 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 sense—that is, knowledge of universally valid truths, based on evident axioms—but 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

5

transmitter of knowledge only inasmuch as he was part of society and part of the great tradition of human knowledge (effectively, the classical and the Christian heritages as the humanists understood them). In other words, for humanism there was no essential epistemological and ethical (as opposed to professional) difference between intellectuals and other social subjects, and there was no privileged Archimedean point outside and above society from which knowledge could be produced. The definition of humanist discourse as a way of understanding and representing human reality also permits an accurate theoretical and historical account of humanism in context. My definition of humanism does not entail specific content, and leaves out any talk of inherently humanist social and political views. The humanists could accommodate to a range of different social and political realities. And humanism indeed flourished in republican Florence, in aristocratic Venice, in theocratic Rome, in monarchical Naples, in many Italian principalities and, later, in the great monarchies of northern Europe.8 No generalization regarding the social position of the humanists may be made, for their cultural significance varied a great deal, as did their social and political status. It would be safe to say, however, that wherever a center of humanism emerged it was connected to the dominant political establishment and the humanists usually adhered to and represented the hegemonic ideology.

The Erasmian Republic The foregoing definition of humanist discourse as form rather than content allows us to reconstruct Erasmian humanism as one distinct version of humanism. Erasmian humanism was a more or less coherent body of knowledge, values and attitudes, based on more or less coherent assumptions. Though it inherited from preceding generations of humanists a specific idiom, imagery, themes, a canonical corpus and scholarly techniques and methodologies, its emphasis was distinctive and its proposals for religious, intellectual and cultural reform differed in many respects from the notions elaborated and propagated by other groups of humanists. The most distinct characteristic of Erasmian humanism was, however, its relative autonomy. I hope to substantiate this claim from two complementary perspectives. From a social perspective, I shall analyze Erasmian humanism in its social context, focusing on the construction of the identity of the autonomous intellectual and its social space, the Erasmian Republic of Letters. I examine first the patronage system, which determined the social place and the social existence of intellectuals in the Renaissance, and to a large extent fashioned

6

Introduction

their thought. Once the multifaceted dependencies—economic, social, political but also symbolic—of the humanists on their patrons have been uncovered it becomes apparent why most humanists were in league with a political establishment and actively reproduced the ideology that went with it. Against this social and cultural background it becomes clear that the establishment of the Erasmian republic cannot be seen as a natural outgrowth of humanism, that the autonomy of Erasmian humanism was not a given. The Republic of Letters was rather an artificial construction, the response by a specific group of humanists to specific social, political, professional and even personal circumstances. To account for the creation of the humanist republic I look to the various discursive and rhetorical strategies used by Erasmus and the humanists gathered around him. I examine how through their engagement with scholastic philosophy and the aristocratic ethos, the Erasmian humanists reshaped their relation to their patrons and to the various social and political establishments and gained the legitimacy and authority to speak as independent intellectuals. I explore how they accumulated symbolic capital by appropriating the classical heritage, by presenting their philological skills as the key to secular knowledge and religious truth, by establishing the image of Erasmus as an impartial reformer, whose only interest was the well-being of Christendom as a whole and by representing the community of the humanists as a spiritual commonwealth floating above chaotic political realities. Erasmus’s vast correspondence—in itself a collective monument of Erasmian humanism—provides us with a view of the construction of the Republic of Letters and clearly reveals the central issues involved: the patronage system, Erasmus’s dissatisfaction with the careers and social opportunities traditionally open to the humanist and the various strategies he and his friends used in creating their own social space. In contrast to Erasmus, Thomas More chose, of course, to enter royal service, and it could be argued therefore that the humanist with perhaps the most brilliant public career cannot be seen as a universal intellectual, a citizen of a Republic of Letters. One possible response to this argument is to turn More’s biography into a morality play, evaluating his alleged reluctance to enter politics and his fatal confrontation with his sovereign as proofs of the irresolvable conflict between the political world and the Erasmian Republic of Letters. 9 Under my theoretical assumptions, however, the important point is that regardless of More’s alleged ambivalence toward royal service and the motives for ultimately choosing this career, there is a strict separation between his works and the ideology of the establishment he served. My contention, in other words, is that More’s humanist writings do not reflect the ideology of any existing political establishment (least of all that of the English throne); instead they resemble Erasmus’s writings, namely they were the products of the Erasmian humanist qua universal intellectual.10

Introduction

7

From a different perspective, examining the writings of Erasmus and More, I assert the notion of intellectual autonomy by analyzing Erasmian humanism as an intellectual system. I argue that Erasmian humanism differed from other humanisms because it stood apart from any concrete sociopolitical context, by and large. In Erasmian humanism the city-state and the court ceased to be points of reference. The Erasmian humanists, as universal intellectuals, spoke on behalf of a not-yet-existent Christian and humanist commonwealth. Erasmus’s and More’s political and social writings clearly attest to this. The Italian humanists sometimes criticized such social and political phenomena as factionalism, the excessive accumulation of wealth and the use of mercenaries, but they never challenged the existing social and political order. The same is true of the great majority of northern humanists. As suggested above, most humanists shared the basic values of the dominant social groups in their areas. More and Erasmus, by contrast, not only criticized powerful establishments and long-standing customs, but sometimes also questioned the very basis of the existing order. Utopia is, of course, the best-known example. But Erasmus almost equaled More’s nonconformity, what with his pacifist views, his rejection of the Church’s claims to temporal authority and especially his condemnation—in one text after another, and often in the most strident language—of court culture and the aristocratic ethos. The clearest expression of Erasmus’s autonomy is his success in elaborating and presenting a comprehensive reform program that reflected only the values of Erasmian humanism. The Republic of Letters of the beginning of the sixteenth century was the conclusion of forces channeled and released by Erasmian humanism. It was constituted as an autonomous social and intellectual space by the Erasmian humanists, and it provided them a self-conscious distance from which to address their readers and preach to the powerful. It might be argued, however, that by attributing intellectual autonomy to Erasmian humanism I fall into idealist reductionism, that I see Erasmian humanism as a disembodied discourse hovering in an autonomous sphere of ideas. But so long as I insist that intellectual autonomy was not given I should be immune to such imputations. My theoretical assumption is that intellectual autonomy is always a discursive construction: its constitution and reproduction are part of the discourse. Consequently, while intellectual autonomy, as I use the term, certainly created a critical distance between the Erasmian humanists and their society, it did not provide them with a privileged perspective. Indeed, one of my central arguments is that the identity of the Erasmian humanist as universal intellectual was most problematic in terms of humanist discourse itself. Once the notion of intellectual autonomy is thus demystified, it becomes clear that I am not arguing that Erasmian humanism was of necessity devoid

8

Introduction

of ideological meanings or lacking in ideological effects and consequences (from my perspective the very notion of a perfect point of view impervious to the taint of ideology is hardly possible). It is easy to demonstrate that in some ways Erasmian humanism reflected the dominant ideology. At the most obvious level one may think of the scorn and fear inspired in the humanists by the “vulgar masses,” which reflected, of course, the sentiments of the upper classes. Also, Erasmian humanism certainly contained themes, images and views that served the interests of specific social and religious groups and were consequently assimilated into their ideologies. Erasmus’s attacks on the ecclesiastical establishment, on scholastic philosophy and on monasticism, for example, were certainly exploited by the reformers; and by the same token, his blunt rejection of the aristocratic ethos was easily assimilated into what may be impressionistically termed “bourgeois ideologies.” But as I do not defend any idealist notion of autonomy, these affirmations should not affect my argument. My examination focuses on the identity of the Erasmian humanist, the status of Erasmian discourse and the social space that sustained them. My central argument is that the Erasmian humanists constructed the social space from which they could conceive and present their views as their own views. This identity and social space were exceptional and historically significant in the political and social context of the sixteenth century. They were also highly problematical. Some would contend that Erasmus and More enjoyed no monopoly on intellectual autonomy. Important humanists, notably Petrarch and Valla, avoided forming permanent alliances to specific political or religious establishments, and their writings—at least if we consider their complete works— demonstrate an attempt to guard their independence. Valla, however, for all his prestige remained an isolated figure and in this sense his position was very different from that of Erasmus. Petrarch was more similar to Erasmus, and indeed Petrarchan humanism prefigured Erasmian humanism in many respects. Like Erasmus, Petrarch created around himself, notably by means of carefully constructed correspondence, a community of humanists. Nevertheless, even in this case there were significant differences. Erasmian humanism was much more conclusive in its rejection of key medieval notions than Petrarchan humanism. Erasmian humanism, for instance, emphatically affirmed the vita activa—Petrarch and his followers were ambivalent concerning the issue—and could therefore elaborate a much more self-confident, comprehensive and radical reform program.11

The No-Place of Erasmian Humanism A discrete set of images and discursive strategies were routinely rehearsed in the construction and presentation of the identity of the universal intellectual,

Introduction

9

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 discourse’s 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 text—silences 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

intellectual whose vocation is to reform Christendom. Finally, it reads the same texts as bearers of symptoms of internal tensions of Erasmian discourse and through close textual analysis tries to decipher these symptoms. All these methods of reading are “historicist”—in the broadest sense of the term, as opposed to “formalist”—as they assume that the literary work is imbedded in its context, or more accurately various contexts, rather than belonging to an enclosed and self-sufficient realm of literature or art. In the past few decades a good many theoretical reasons for this attitude were elaborated in practically every discipline of the human sciences. At any rate, formalist reading of the literary products of humanism in general and of Erasmian humanism in particular verges upon anachronism as these works had explicit social, political and religious references. The Erasmian texts were indeed written with clear reforming zeal.12 Contextual reading, at least as applied by this study, does not mean however that the context is taken to be a fixed objective background against which texts are examined. Any context—from the most local configuration to social reality or culture as a whole—is contested not only because it is pervaded with conflicts and ambiguities, but ultimately because it is inherently given to diverse significations. The context, any context, consists of meaningful entities: human actions, social interactions and institutions and texts. This insight blurs the distinction between text—or other cultural product or any social fact or action for that matter—and context. The text pervades the context even as it is pervaded by it; it is produced within a context, but at the same time it participates in reproducing, interrogating, challenging and subverting it.13 While the reconstruction of Erasmian humanism in the first part of the present study proves the discursive necessity of the Republic of Letters as an autonomous humanist space, the close textual analysis offered in the second part exposes the republic’s problematic status. In the latter part I therefore concentrate on a limited number of works, written in the decade or so after 1514, when Erasmian humanism was at its height. Since I want to expose the tensions within Erasmian humanism as such, I have intentionally chosen works that vary in genre and subject matter; they include the important political works of Erasmus, Institutio principis christiani (The Education of a Christian Prince), the pacifistic writings, those on the temporal authority of the Church, the “utopian” colloquy Convivium religiosum (The Godly Feast), and the two major works More produced during this period, The History of Richard III and Utopia. In each case, my reading brings to the fore a disguised and repressed meaning that contradicts fundamental aspects of Erasmian humanism and violates basic presuppositions of humanist discourse. These gaps and contradictions in the writings of Erasmus and More, I argue, reflect the structural inability of Erasmian humanists to control their own discourse and ultimately demonstrate their inability to legitimize the identity of universal intellectuals implied by their discourse.

Introduction

11

The major political writings of Erasmus make a suitable point of departure since in the domain of political thought (narrowly defined), political and ideological pressures may be expected to be stronger, the boundaries of the Republic of Letters most fragile and the tensions within Erasmian humanism closest to the surface. Erasmus’s political writings certainly demonstrate the considerable autonomy of Erasmian humanism and the reality of the Republic of Letters. The Erasmus of these writings is the universal intellectual who stands apart from, or rather above, any social estate or political establishment. Preaching to the powerful from a position of unquestioned moral and intellectual authority, Erasmus presents only the political views and opinions of the independent humanist, sternly criticizing the dominant classes, their culture and their ideology. Erasmus, however, is unable to formulate a coherent political conception. In The Education of a Christian Prince he moves uneasily between contradictory arguments: from political evangelism to the classical inheritance (reduced to a disembodied and ahistorical collection of moralistic imperatives), from an egalitarian ethos to the image of the absolutist and omnipotent prince and so on. Whenever he tries to endow his assertions with something more than moralistic pathos, that is, when he tries to give his discussion a theoretical grounding, we watch him tumble outside of the humanist discourse. More importantly, the political writings undermine the fundamental notions of Erasmian humanism. In Christian Prince the humanist notion of liberal education—the education worthy of a free man—is ultimately replaced by process of indoctrination and compared with the taming of wild beasts. By the same token, the pacifist writings subvert the basic humanist distinction between the studia humanitatis and scholastic studies, and conclude with a condemnation of learning as such. Ultimately, these writings locate the origin of war, and by extension all other social and moral evils, in civilization itself. With the rejection of learning and civilization—perhaps the two most important principles of Erasmian humanism—the Erasmian reform program falls apart. When he found himself unable to elaborate a coherent political program Erasmus created a utopia run according to humanist ideals: the rural estate of Eusebius depicted in the Convivium religiosum. The colloquy is Erasmus’s grand attempt to appropriate and refashion nature and culture alike into a distinctively humanist social order, though one devoid of politics. The dialogue further presents the fundamental principles of Erasmian humanism with clarity and succinctness and brings them to life in the most beautiful and harmonious fashion. There is, however, a cleavage between the Erasmian program as presented in the dialogue and its realization in the rural estate. While the program ought to be applied to all of Christendom, the Erasmian philosophers who inhabit the rural estate can exist only in a garden segregated

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 divine—a “no-place” in humanist discourse. In the concluding chapters of this study I analyze Thomas More’s 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 More’s 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 More’s 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 book’s 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 man’s humanitas. Furthermore, in More’s 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

epistemological basis of humanist discourse. This explains the uncontrollable centrifugal forces that operate in the text, which at crucial moments threaten to transform Richard III from an exemplum of humanist historiography into something more like a parody of it. The bleak picture of the political world in Richard III may partly explain the radical remedies offered in Utopia. Any attempt to present a new interpretation of such a familiar text may seem presumptuous. And yet it seems to me that reading Utopia, alongside other works by More and Erasmus, as both a product of the Republic of Letters and a symptom of its profound contradictions, may provide a fertile perspective. Utopia is the most remarkable product of the Republic of Letters—typical and unique at the same time. Indeed, the invention of the utopian genre must be understood as a product of the Republic of Letters, the vehicle par excellence for constructing and presenting the ideas and ideals of the universal intellectual. Specifically, Utopia is apparently the embodiment of an ideal Erasmian social order, the realization of the Erasmian reform program. It is a stable republic, ruled by virtuous scholars, who enjoy a popular mandate, rather than an aristocracy. As an Erasmian society, Utopia assigns the highest value to learning, and has in fact abolished the distinction between the vita activa and the vita contemplativa. Most importantly, Utopia exists to promote the material welfare and moral improvement of its citizens, whose character and behavior reflect the ideals of Erasmian humanism. A careful reading reveals however that there is no room for the studia humanitatis in Utopia: this is the key to the structure of the Utopian social order and its contradictions. The humanist disciplines cannot exist in Utopia, and not only because their public functions have no place in a social order devoid of politics and history. These disciplines, inherently concerned with production and interpretation of signs, do not have a place in Utopia because the ideal state strives to eliminate the very possibility of a social activity based on interpretation. Ultimately, the Utopian social order is based on the abolition of signification as such. It is therefore a reified social order, meaningless in the literal sense of the term: Utopian social institutions and practices exist as objective entities outside the symbolic order. In spite of the explicit position of the text, the ontology of Utopia contradicts the fundamental humanist presupposition that the social is inherently symbolic and that political institutions and interactions are meaningful ones. The inevitable failure of the attempt to eliminate signification generates the totalitarian dynamic that operates within Utopian society. For all their differences, the texts that I analyze share one structural similarity: all demonstrate that the withdrawal from concrete social and political reality necessarily undermines humanist discourse. I believe that this insight

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

R

EFERRING TO HIS MANY JOURNEYS,

the unrelenting traveler Erasmus stated that, “To Italy alone, I have journeyed of my own free will” (Ep 809: 142–43). The image of the French soldieries carrying humanism (along with syphilis) northward, returning from their kings’ disastrous Italian adventures had lost its popularity. But Italy—“the country where the very walls are more scholarly and articulate than human beings are with us” (Ep 118: 4–5)—is still the point of departure for the understanding of humanism, including the thought of Erasmus, More and their fellow northern humanists. Today this assertion is almost universally accepted, but it is perhaps the only such affirmation concerning humanism. The various interpretations of humanism differ not only regarding the overall evaluation of the social and cultural significance of humanism but also regarding the very definition of the term. In the following pages, I will attempt to define humanist discourse— discourse and not thought, as humanism cannot be defined as a homogeneous body of knowledge or shared views. It can, however, be defined as a distinct attitude toward the understanding and representation of human reality, based on usually implicit ontological and epistemological presuppositions. This definition of humanism, as form rather than content, provides a firm theoretical basis for acknowledging the great variety of humanist intellectual and literary activity without dissolving the term humanism altogether. It can account for the fact that different humanists held contradictory views, some utterly conventional and some highly original and innovative, on a range of subjects—all still distinctively humanist. The definition of humanist discourse as an attitude toward human reality also provides a firm basis for — 17 —

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.

Literature and Politics In numerous works, the first of which were published in the forties, Kristeller argued that employing the nineteenth-century vague notion of humanism— as “almost any kind of concern with human values”—for understanding Renaissance humanism is anachronistic and misleading.1 Instead, Kristeller begins by determining the meanings of terms related to humanism—the term itself was not used in the Renaissance—for the humanists themselves and for their contemporaries. He showed that the term humanista emerged in the Italian universities as student slang denoting umanista—like jurista, artista, legista—a teacher or student of the studia humanitatis. The term studia humanitatis was used by Cicero and his contemporaries as a name for the disciplines that had comprised Roman liberal education, and the humanists began to use it in this sense at the end of the fourteenth century. In the first half of the fifteenth century, the meaning of the term stabilized as the general name for a specific group of disciplines—grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history and moral philosophy—which were studied according to the canonic classical texts.2 Kristeller thus arrived at the often-quoted definition of humanism: “Thus Renaissance humanism was not as such a philosophical tendency or system, but rather a cultural and educational programs which emphasized and developed an important but limited area of studies. This area had for its center a group of subjects that was concerned essentially neither with the classics nor with philosophy, but might be roughly described as literature.”3 This definition enabled the refutation of erroneous conceptions concerning humanism and the Renaissance in general. Kristeller convincingly argued,

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 Kristeller’s 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 Movement”—arguably the article most referred to by scholars of humanism—Kristeller 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

exhausted, and it is this process of intellectual fermentation which characterizes the period and which accounts at least in part for the difference between Thomas Aquinas and Descartes. For only after this process had been completed, did the seventeenth-century philosophy make its new beginning on the basis of early physical science. . . .8

The contribution of the humanists to this development was indirect in a double sense. First, the revived Greek intellectual heritage led to further development only in a negative sense: its termination at a dead end enabled the new beginning of the seventeenth century. Secondly, Kristeller goes out of his way to emphasize that it was not the humanists—at least not the humanists qua humanists—who actually tried out and exhausted the Greek heritage; they only transmitted it.9 The key distinction in the passage is, of course, between humanism on the one hand, and philosophy and science on the other; between mere transmitters of preexisting ideas and notions and those who invent their own. Behind this comparison lies Kristeller’s fundamental theoretical premise, namely the dichotomy between philosophy and rhetoric, or in Kristeller’s definition: between the rhetorician who “offers to speak and write about everything” and the philosopher who “tries to think about everything.”10 Philosophy and science—from their Greek beginnings through their medieval re-elaboration to their seventeenth-century modernity—are the core of Western intellectual tradition, indeed of Western civilization. Their development was essentially internal (including fresh beginnings after running into dead ends); they were influenced by other cultural movements only through the external contingencies of cultural transmission (which played an important role in determining the availability of texts). Kristeller, moreover, measures rhetoric against the standards of philosophy. Since the humanists were rhetoricians, he argues, they were necessarily dilettantes regarding serious thought: “They often seem to lack not only originality, but also coherence, method, and substance, and if we try to sum up their arguments and conclusions, leaving aside citations, examples, and commonplaces, literary ornaments, and digression, we are frequently left with nearly empty hands.”11 Significantly, Kristeller’s text itself cannot ultimately sustain the dichotomy between humanism and philosophy. Notwithstanding this dichotomy, he does try to expose “the pervasive influence of humanism on all aspects of Renaissance culture and especially on its philosophical thought” and the “important philosophical implications and consequences” of humanism (which, he repeats, “in its substance was not philosophical” but rather “a broad cultural and literary movement”).12 Unsurprisingly, given Kristeller’s assumptions, this search does not fare well. Thus, Kristeller mentions that the more prominent humanists adhered to Cicero’s ideal of the combination of wisdom and eloquence, and

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 Kristeller’s 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 humanism—one 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 Baron’s 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 man’s familial and social position.23 Later, Bruni, who translated the pseudo-Aristotelian Economics in 1420–1421, 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 man’s 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 Alberti’s 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. Petrarch’s and even Salutati’s 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

by the assimilation of Cicero and Aristotle, succeeded in elaborating a theory, which fused intellectual activity with the vita activa and unconditionally affirmed the vivere civile, that is, man’s civic and political life. The basis of this view lay in the notion of a human being, or rather of a free man, as a political animal who can fully realize his humanitas only by means of activity in the political body.27 Baron further maintains that the civic humanists created the modern discipline of history and, in fact, modern historical consciousness. Leonardo Bruni’s path-breaking History of the Florentine People demonstrates a critical sensibility as it demolishes the fabulous medieval historical tales and realistically evaluates historical events.28 In Baron’s analysis, beyond these characteristics lies the fundamental modern dimension of humanist historical thought: the refusal to subordinate history to theology and the consequent perception and representation of the past in secular categories. This analysis made it possible to weave discrete historical facts into a coherent narrative and link historical events by postulating causal relationships between them. History was born as an organic concept, and notions of historical distance and anachronism emerged.29 Baron and those who sharpened his insights and developed his conceptualizations argue that these humanist attitudes and values—historical consciousness, the affirmation of the vivere civile, and the nonfetishistic attitude toward the classical heritage—were based on distinct presuppositions. The originality and modernity of humanist discourse lay in its nonmetaphysical nature. It understood and represented human reality by concrete, historical and pragmatic categories. It thus rejected the perception of social and political reality as being part of, or reflecting, a transcendent—metaphysical and divine—order of things. Rather, humanist discourse assumed, though often only implicitly, that human reality is a historical and contingent product of human actions, intentions and desires.30 The affirmation of the vivere civile makes sense under the assumptions that political reality is changeable and that fashioning it is an activity worthy of man. If reality is perceived as essentially static, then the worthiest human activity would be understanding and contemplating it, as was indeed the assumption that lay behind the traditional—classical and medieval—superiority attributed to the vita contemplativa over the vita activa.31 And the same assumption may easily generate historical consciousness, that is, the perception that there are essential differences between the past and the present.32 By now we can also accurately account for humanism’s secular character. The once prevailing notion of the humanists as antireligious and of humanism as a revival of paganism is today rightly defunct. Numerous works have demonstrated not only the sincere religiosity of most humanists, but also great contributions of some of them to religious and theological thought.33 Humanism was certainly not secular, if we use the term to mean atheistic or

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-à-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

Rhetoric: Literature as Politics Their contradictory views notwithstanding, Kristeller and Baron agree on one point. The former defines humanism as a literary and rhetorical movement, and consequently denies its philosophical importance, reducing its cultural and social significance. The latter does not deny that the humanists attributed great importance to rhetoric, but rejects the claim that civic humanism was “only a rhetorical and philological” movement and states that he wants to expose “another facet” of humanist thought.36 A devaluation of rhetoric is therefore the common denominator between the two central interpretations of Italian humanism.37 This agreement is not surprising, considering the theoretical approaches that dominated the humanities when Baron and Kristeller elaborated their interpretations. Since then the intellectual climate has changed. Most importantly, the theoretical insights of the “linguistic turn” in the human sciences has enabled better understanding of the rhetorical and literary aspects of humanist thought.38 Perhaps the most convenient way to employ these insights is to approach humanism through an analysis of its debate with scholastic philosophy. This

Humanism as Form

25

is true not only because scholasticism was a distinctively “philosophical,” as opposed to “rhetorical,” manner of thought, but above all, because the controversy with the scholastics played a major role in the construction of the self-image of humanism as a cultural movement, and because it forced some humanists to sharpen their arguments and to expose the presuppositions of their discourse. Of course, we cannot regard scholastic philosophy as a homogeneous discourse. It was riddled with internal divisions, notably the famous controversy between the realists and the nominalists, concerning the existence of universals. This, however, should not hinder a comparison between humanism and scholasticism, first, because the humanists elaborated their views against what they saw as the common characteristics of scholastic philosophy. As far as the reconstruction of humanist thought is concerned, the question of whether they were right or wrong is less consequential. Second and more importantly, the great variety in scholastic philosophy notwithstanding, we can identify some basic presuppositions shared by most currents within this movement. Humanism assailed precisely these presuppositions. It challenged not only the scholastic organization of knowledge, but also the notion of Aristotelian science and indeed the perception of reality accepted in mainstream Western philosophical tradition since Plato.39 One of the fundamental assumptions of mainstream Western philosophy was that behind phenomenal reality there was an intelligible and unchangeable substance. Knowledge, consequently, was defined as knowledge of universal, eternal and logically valid truths. Perhaps the most distinct expression of this assumption within medieval scholasticism was the universally accepted assumption—ontological and epistemological alike—that there was a correspondence between the structure of reality, the structure of consciousness and the structure of language—between the modi essendi, the modi intelligendi, and the modi significandi in scholastic terminology.40 This assumption was implied by the definition as well as the scope of scholastic logic or dialectic,41 the discipline that provided the basis for the scholastic organization of knowledge. In the words of Peter of Spain, the future Pope John XXI, at the beginning of his Summulae logicales — the most important textbook in medieval universities—dialectic was defined as “the art of arts and the science of sciences, possessing the way to the principles of all curriculum subjects.”42 Logic was the central, sometimes practically the only, discipline studied in the medieval art faculties.43 The meaning of the term logic in the Middle Ages was much broader than its modern meaning; it included many subjects that today belong to metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, semantics and linguistics. Aristotelian logic itself dealt, of course, with inferences of valid conclusions—that is, syllogisms—but it also provided the basis of Aristotelian science in a much broader sense. It sought to provide the basic categories of

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 Zütphen, 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. Zütphen’s 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 More’s 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 humanists—Lorenzo Valla, Rudolf Agricola, Juan Luis Vives, Petrus Ramus and Marius Nizolius are other prominent names—who 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 purpose—it put an end to Dorp’s attack on Erasmus—it 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 nature’s 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). More’s sarcasm and scorn echo more than 150 years of bitter humanist polemics against scholasticism. But even this aspect of More’s 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

28

Chapter 1

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 More’s 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. More’s 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 science—scientia—as the term was understood from Aristotle onward. The greatest importance of More’s 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

of the traditional humanist approach, which emphasized the importance of the disciplines of “signs,” grammar and rhetoric, over those of “things,” natural philosophy and metaphysics, or at least balanced the scholastic stress of the latter. Nizolius, for example, stated that “philosophy and rhetoric are not two separate faculties but one composed of words and things just as living beings are composed of body and soul.”53 Valla went further and tried to develop what might be termed a “linguistic dialectic” by substituting three categories that correspond to the basic linguistic categories—noun, verb and adjective—for the ten Aristotelian categories. Emphasizing actual linguistic usage as the basis of reasoning, he could therefore have declared that sometimes even housewives understand the meaning of words better than the great philosophers, since they use them for a concrete purpose and not as a game.54 The humanists, as Valla’s words indicate, attributed great importance to the pragmatic and contingent aspects of language. Their idealization of the classical world and literature, however, often brought them to decree the Latin of the canonical authors as the universal standard for correct language. They thus clouded their theoretical linguistic insights with cultural mystification. More would have none of this. He clearly and succinctly defines grammar as a strictly empirical discipline, that is, a discipline that seeks to describe the linguistic usage of a community of speakers: “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” (35). This definition is diametrically opposed to the scholastic conception of a universal grammar. It sees language as a contingent entity determined by the circumstances of a specific community, or to use modern terminology, it sees language as determined by its historical, cultural and social context. According to More, grammar forms the basis for the organization of knowledge, and hence any knowledge would have the same characteristics: it would be bound to and imbedded in specific historical and social circumstances. Knowledge would be knowledge of contingent human reality. Indeed, the reality to which humanist knowledge is applied becomes, by definition, a human artifact constructed by human motivations, desires and actions. Moreover, More’s empirical definition of grammar implicitly denies the traditional concept of language as nomenclature that reflects objective reality. The meaning of linguistic terms, as implied by More’s notion of grammar, is not determined by their correspondence to extralinguistic entities, but is instead—at least in part—the product of language as a system of rules and conventions. This understanding of language implies a different ontology from that assumed by scholastic philosophy and mainstream Western philosophical thought in general. It denies the

30

Chapter 1

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 it—social institutions and interactions, political and historical events and so on—as 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 Dorp’s 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 litteratus—as the term itself suggests—is 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 activity—just like intellectual activity—as 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

More’s depiction of Erasmus, the ideal litteratus, clearly illustrates his notion of intellectual activity. Throughout the letter to Dorp and the other three “humanist letters,” More repeatedly emphasizes that Erasmus’s aim is not the acquisition of knowledge for its own sake, but rather the use of his intellectual expertise for the reform of Christendom. Only in this context does the erudition of Erasmus acquire its importance, indeed its meaning. Erasmus, says More, is the man whom all Christendom cherishes, because his “unceasing exertions have done more to advance all students of sound intellectual disciplines everywhere in both secular and sacred learning than virtually anyone else’s exertions for the last several centuries”; he is “the man whom no material expense and no physical illness or danger could tear from the virtuous labors which he was performing for the good of the entire world” (MtL 161, 167).

The Diversity of Humanism Taking rhetoric seriously thus provides the key for uncovering the presuppositions of humanist discourse. It constitutes the basis for reconstructing this discourse as a way of understanding reality rather than as a body of knowledge or a set of shared views. This reconstruction, in turn, makes it possible to give a theoretical account of the various possibilities that were inherent in humanism. The realization of these possibilities depends on specific circumstances and particularly on the different cultural and political contexts in which humanism flourished. The rest of the book is dedicated to a close examination of one specific group of humanists in its distinct, and very peculiar, context. I would like to begin, however, with a preliminary discussion, designed to highlight some of the possibilities that were latent in humanist discourse, particularly those that have direct bearing on the interpretations already discussed above. Baron’s analysis of the novel aspects of humanism—the affirmation of the vivere civile, the nonfetishistic attitude toward the classical heritage, and the emergence of historical consciousness—is by no means indifferent to the rhetorical character of humanism. When seen as manifesting the premises of humanist discourse, rhetoric grounds and unifies the intellectual contributions and innovations made by the humanists, for the rhetorical nature of humanism meant that humanist discourse perceived human reality as an inherently symbolic human artifact. Rhetoric thus undermines the notion of human reality as a reflection of a metaphysical and divine order of things. It provides, in other words, the theoretical basis for the antimetaphysical nature of humanist discourse.

32

Chapter 1

This perspective allows us to more fully account for humanism’s originality and modernity. Humanism’s refusal to subordinate human reality to a transcendent order of Being brought about a break with high medieval intellectual culture, indeed with mainstream Western intellectual tradition. Humanism rejected the assumptions of a culture that positioned the universal above the particular, the eternal above the temporal, the abstract above the concrete, the transcendent above the worldly, and the contemplative above the active. It elaborated a new theoretical language that could account for the temporality, contingency and mutability of the social and political order. It was able to perceive the essential dissimilarities—the historical distance—between different periods of human endeavor. In employing this language, the humanists were also able to affirm the power of human activity to transform reality. It is not surprising therefore that humanism produced highly original thinkers. Figures such as Petrarch, Salutati, Bruni, Valla, Lefèvre d’Etaples, Erasmus and More elaborated original, and sometimes radical, ideas concerning intellectual, religious and cultural issues. More specifically, and crucial to Baron’s interpretation, is how humanist discourse potentially posed a challenge to prevailing political values and social visions. Medieval high culture perceived the social order as essentially hierarchical, a hierarchy that reflected the order of Being. As such, human beings were seen to be inherently unequal. What’s more, all human beings, including the most powerful, were ultimately subordinated to an objective, unalterable order of things. All men and women were ultimately subjects and not citizens. Humanism undermined this vision. It thus presented a potential threat to the social and political values that were derived from traditional thought. In other words, humanism could theoretically view men as free citizens taking equal part in fashioning the body politic and determining its course. The notions of liberty and equality are consequently inscribed, if not always actually realized, in the humanist discourse in a way that medieval thought and imagination could never have done.56 Such political potential was realized in the republican language of civic humanism, as reconstructed by Baron and those who followed him.57 Such potential was also realized in humanist thought about education. This is especially important since the humanists gained control over and reshaped nonuniversity education in Italy during the fifteenth century and in northern Europe during the following century.58 The humanists believed that the principal aim of education was not the acquisition of professional skills or of knowledge for its own sake but, rather, the fashioning of a moral person and a responsible and active citizen. As a consequence, the humanists who wrote on education always insisted that liberal education was crucially important for the vivere civile.59 Pier Paolo Vergerio, for instance, draws a distinction be-

Humanism as Form

33

tween liberal education as the only education worthy of a free man—indeed, the only education that makes a man free—and the professional disciplines, such as medicine, which are not suitable “for the noble mind.”60 Most importantly for this discussion, humanist thought regarding education rested on egalitarian assumptions. Liberal education was open, in principle, to everyone as a universal means to acquire virtue. Vergerio, again: “Everyone acquires for himself the liberal arts and virtue itself, and these are the most desirable things a person can seek. For wealth, glory, pleasures—these are transitory and fleeting. Character, however, and the fruits of the virtues endure undiminished and last forever.”61 The humanists repeatedly explained that true nobility did not depend on lineage or wealth but solely on an individual’s virtue, that is, his character and personality.62 A humanist education was thus explicitly made a means of social mobility.63 When this egalitarian possibility within humanism is examined in its concrete contexts, however, a more complicated picture emerges. As Lauro Martines and John Najemy demonstrate, the republicanism of the civic humanists constituted the political ideology of the Florentine oligarchy, which was busy consolidating its hold on power at the beginning of the quattrocento. In creating the appearance of widespread political participation, republicanism actually disguised the true nature of the Florentine oligarchic regime, making it possible to attract the support of important segments of the public. Republicanism, it turns out, was the ideological instrument in the defeat of traditional Florentine populism.64 A critical examination of the actual social role of humanist education may provoke similar conclusions. In their iconoclastic study, From Humanism to the Humanities, Anthony Grafton and Lisa Jardine argue that the humanist insistence on Ciceronian Latin and on a thoroughgoing knowledge of the canon—and, more generally, the normative status that the humanists assigned to texts written in a foreign language and produced by cultures different from their own—generated an ideological mystification. The egalitarian rhetoric of liberal education disguised the fact that this education functioned as an instrument of social differentiation, distinguishing between those who spoke the “correct” language and read the “right” literature and those who did not. Liberal education became a status symbol and a precondition for lucrative administrative employment and prestigious positions at the courts. And since only the upper classes could usually afford the great cost of such education, they were the ones who enjoyed its social, economic and symbolic benefits.65 In these contexts humanist discourse functioned, at least in part, as ideology; it legitimized social inequalities and hierarchies by veiling them. It must be emphasized that it is a distinctively modern form of legitimation, to be contrasted to premodern discourses that, regardless of the various differences

34

Chapter 1

between them, generated legitimacy by presenting and celebrating existing power relations. This difference can be easily accounted for. Premodern discourses explicated and legitimized power relations—political and social hierarchies—by anchoring them in an objective, that is, a natural, cosmic or divine hierarchic order of things. The replacement of this vision with the perception of political reality as a human artifact was a precondition for the development of notions of liberty and equality. But when these notions actually came to prevail, the nature of the legitimizing discourse was necessarily transformed. And in this case social and political inequalities needed to be disguised. Even those humanist theories that did realize the liberating potential of humanist discourse were therefore often caught in the distinctively modern dialectic of liberation and domination.66 In any event, by no means did all humanists actually realize the liberating potential inherent in humanist discourse. The intellectual activity of many humanists never extended beyond a technical preoccupation with the humanist disciplines and routine educational and administrative occupations. The professional, social and political pressures felt by the humanists often strengthened these tendencies. Many humanists became the docile servants of powerful patrons. An examination of the literary production and social positions of these humanists, clearly the majority of the humanists, provides the basis of the interpretations of Kristeller and of Grafton and Jardine. Moreover, the humanist enchantment with words and the manner of expression may easily lead to an emphasis on form at the expense of content and to an immersion in stylistic and formalized literary enterprises, as emergence of historical consciousness could lead to antiquarianism. Perhaps the most distinct manifestation of this potential was the sixteenth-century court literature, of which Castiglione’s immensely popular book, Il libro del Cortigiano, is the best example.67 The courtly writings were, of course, closely related to political absolutism. In contrast to the civic ideals of the quattrocento humanists, the books for courtiers were obviously centered at court, revolving as it did around the figure of the absolute prince and developing a fetishistic attitude toward courtly manners and etiquette. The virtuoso replaced the virtuous citizen as the human ideal.68 My understanding of humanism as form rather than content therefore accounts for its many faces. Its multifaceted nature also serves as the starting point for examining the social position and social role of humanism. As humanism was itself devoid of any intrinsic content, and particularly of any intrinsic political views, humanists could consequently adapt themselves to various political and social contexts. Furthermore, we have observed that humanist discourse assumed that knowledge was socially embedded and pragmatically oriented. The humanists’ actual intellectual activities thus

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 humanism’s 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

T

HE PREVIOUS CHAPTER’S RECONSTRUCTION OF HUMANIST DISCOURSE

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, Erasmus’s response to the

— 37 —

38

Chapter 2

professional opportunities traditionally open to humanists and his general reflections on the social place of the humanist vis-à-vis the powerful.

The System of Patronage Because of its crucial importance for the social position of the humanists (and of literati and artists in general) in early modern Europe, our analysis begins with the system of patronage. Since it was usually not conceptualized by contemporaries, the significance of patronage has only recently been acknowledged. In fact, patronage was a structural characteristic of life in early modern Europe. It was a central sociological feature of the emerging absolutist monarchies that replaced the feudal order in northern Europe and of the Italian city-states.1 From one perspective (an admittedly anachronistic one), the system of patronage can be understood as a substitute for the lack of a modern bureaucracy. Lacking a system of offices financed by the state budget, the government of the early modern state relied on the members of political classes for effective rule. The monarch had to reward the latter by various means: through handouts of money or land, endowment of status symbols, allotment of economic monopolies, the authorization of various economic activities and the nomination to lucrative offices. Moreover, holders of offices used their position to derive a private income, doing so by collecting payments or “presents” from those in need of their services.2 To complete the picture, it should be emphasized that this same system was replicated farther down the social structure as powerful nobles and churchmen maintained their own large households and supported their clients by similar means.3 According to Trevor-Roper, the patronage system was structurally flawed, because it tended to put an ever-growing burden on the productive classes of society. In the long term it was the cause of “the general crisis” of the seventeenth century.4 Contemporaries, however, were not in a position to notice such defects. For the members of the political classes and their clients, the patronage system was an aspect of the normal social order. It shaped their professional relations and their social behavior, as well as their image of society. The social intercourse that rested on patronage was intensely personal, anxious and insecure. It was characterized by incessant efforts to win and keep patrons and by relentless struggles between peers over positions, favors and status symbols.5 The social status and professional identity of Renaissance literati and artists were also determined by the patronage system. This meant that the livelihoods of many humanists as well as their social position and public careers depended on finding and developing their relations with patrons. To a great extent, the

The Construction of the Erasmian Republic of Letters

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 England’s 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 VII’s 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 king’s coronation.9 Urgent letters from Erasmus’s 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 Mountjoy’s Latin secretary and Erasmus’s friend, Andrea Ammonio (Ep 215: 5–6). 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 prince’s 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 king’s heart is set not upon gold or jewels or mines of ore, but upon virtue, reputation, and eternal renown. (ibid.: 13–20)

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 protégé 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., 20–24).

40

Chapter 2

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 king’s chaplain. Richard Pace was nominated to be a royal secretary. Andrea Ammonio was nominated as Henry’s Latin secretary. And Cuthbert Tunstal became the master of the rolls.10 Thomas More participated in two commercial missions—in 1515 to Bruge and in 1517 to Calais—and in March 1518 was appointed a royal councillor.11 These appointments were matched by the king’s 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 king’s 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 humanism’s 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. John’s 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 Dowling’s 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 VIII’s 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

The Construction of the Erasmian Republic of Letters

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, Ammonio’s only extant literary production is a volume of poetry, published by Erasmus in Paris in 1511. All in all, Ammonio’s 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 More’s home from 1509 to 1511. During Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s character—“Erasmus in slippers,” in Augustin Renaudet’s 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 Mountjoy’s “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 Erasmus’s advice and wrote a new dedication, authorizing his friend—already an expert in the field—to 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 lord’s previous reservations. He adds that, as his poverty prevents him from returning the favor, he “entered upon the one

42

Chapter 2

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 humanist’s “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 Erasmus’s 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: 60–61; 245: 44–46). Ammonio’s 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 friend’s “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: 27–36). 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: 46–54)

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 Erasmus’s vaguer-than-usual complaints about his situation (Ep 240: 11–13), Ammonio refers to his friend’s fame and learning and concludes that Erasmus “cannot fail to find powerful patrons everywhere.” Ammonio is

The Construction of the Erasmian Republic of Letters

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: 20–41). Erasmus initially seeks to avoid any direct communication on the subject, resorting to clichés 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 friend’s lot will change for the better, and then tries to end the conversation by jokingly suggesting that Ammonio’s 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 friend’s 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 Erasmus’s 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.

44

Chapter 2

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. Ammonio’s 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.

Poets and Princes This glance at the early modern system of patronage and the place the humanists found in it serves as the background for examining the construction of the identity of the universal intellectual, the citizen of the Erasmian Republic of Letters. This entails a study of Erasmus’s relations with his patrons, his reflections on those relations, and his conclusions concerning the actual and the desirable place of the intellectual in society. I will also analyze how Erasmus managed, with the assistance of those humanists who followed him, to reshape his relations with the powerful and create a unique place of Erasmian humanism. The period that concerns us can be schematically divided into two phases. The first phase lasted from the moment an unknown Augustinian monk left the monastery of Steyn in 1493 until he became the acknowledged leader of the humanist Republic of Letters in about 1514. This was a period of homelessness as Erasmus was in constant movement from country to country, and from house to house where he found temporary lodging as a guest. He had several patrons and was disappointed with practically all of them. More significantly, he became dissatisfied with the traditional relationship between the humanist and his patron. He had no permanent position or occupation and

The Construction of the Erasmian Republic of Letters

45

he disliked any position he happened to hold temporarily. Most importantly, he was dissatisfied with the professional possibilities open to humanists. Erasmus was out of place, both literally and metaphorically. During the second phase, in the decade or so that witnessed the ascendancy of Erasmian humanism before its marginalization by the Reformation’s struggles, Erasmus found his place.19 He continued to move all the time albeit less errantly than before. He continued to rely on patrons and to complain about them. However, he managed to restructure and, to a certain extent, invert the traditional relationship between the humanist and his patrons. He did this by situating himself in a position of clear moral superiority. He still avoided the traditional occupations of humanists but now he transformed this detachment into a virtue. He became a full-time intellectual whose “place” was in the Republic of Letters. Erasmus’s years as a student in Paris were a period of scarcity and uncertainty, but from a later perspective he referred to France as the country “who gave me my freedom” (Ep 194: 21). That remark clearly reflects Erasmus’s loathing of monastic life, which he succeeded in leaving at age twenty-seven only after he found himself a patron-employer.20 Hendrik van Bergen, bishop of Cambrai, required a secretary for a journey to Rome, for which Erasmus qualified because of his proficiency in classical Latin. The trip never took place since the bishop’s hopes to be made cardinal were thwarted. Instead Erasmus traveled for several months in the Low Countries with van Bergen’s entourage. This is when he became acquainted with Jacob Batt, who was to be one of his closest friends until the latter’s death in 1502. Apparently, Batt, through his connections with the van Bergen family, was instrumental in convincing the bishop to send Erasmus to study theology in Paris in 1495. A scholastic education, let alone a scholastic career, was never a part of Erasmus’s plans for his future and he never completed a university degree.21 In his Compendium vitae Erasmus summarizes his studies in one ironic sentence: “Theology repelled him, for he felt himself not disposed to undermine all its foundations with the prospects of being branded as a heretic” (Ep 1437: 358–60). A similar irony characterizes Erasmus’s only direct reference to his studies during his student years. In a letter from August 1497 to his pupil Thomas Grey he jokingly described his transformation into a “Scotist” theologian: “So I am trying with might and main to say nothing in good Latin, or elegantly, or wittily; and I seem to be making progress” (Ep 64: 87–89). Intellectually, Erasmus found his way at an early age. This much is attested to by his first important work, Antibarbarorum liber, which he began before he was twenty years old.22 Not surprisingly, instead of attending university classes,23 Erasmus associated himself in Paris with the small circle of humanists gathered around Robert Gaguin. His closest associate was the Italian humanist Fausto Anderlini. This

46

Chapter 2

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 Erasmus’s 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 Collège 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: 9–18)? To where will he flee the plague, Flanders or Orléans (Ep 129: 2–21)? Will he return to England or visit Italy (Ep 159: 59–71)? 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. Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s 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: 43–46). 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, Batt’s patroness and employer and Lord Mountjoy, together with

The Construction of the Erasmian Republic of Letters

47

several prominent figures in the court of Philip the Fair, the duke of Burgundy. Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s first patron, the bishop of Cambrai. “His principles are admirable but he gives nothing while promising much,” was Erasmus’s repeated complaint (Ep 81: 18–19). 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 protégé he often gave vent to his feelings—“Anti-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: 20–24). The text once again highlights the position of the Renaissance literati vis-à-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 Erasmus’s 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 lady’s 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: 46–56). 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: 17–18). 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 scholar’s 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: 107–11). In concrete terms,

48

Chapter 2

Erasmus demanded that Batt obtain from van Borssele “at least two hundred francs as an advance on next year’s salary.” This would allow him to travel to Italy and earn a doctorate there. He also wanted a benefice—“the first choice among a large number of livings”—so that “when I come back from Italy I may have a literary retreat” (ibid.: 37–39, 55–69). 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.: 41–48)

Erasmus evidently believed that economic independence was a precondition for fulfilling his literary and cultural mission. He also believed that support from patrons—specifically, the provision of benefices that ensured a fixed, steady income—was necessary for achieving this independence. Erasmus was willing to return the debt with the standard humanist currency, namely by conferring glory on his patrons. Ideally, however, he hoped that the patron’s reward would be inherent in the relations of patronage without making any specific demands on the humanist. The mere association of the patron’s name with Erasmus should suffice. In such a case, of course, patronage relations would remain external to literary activity and would not compromise in any way his intellectual independence. This vision of the patronage system is expressed in a letter to a trusted friend. Other statements made by Erasmus on the subject suggest how much he was aware that in reality conditions might not be so simple. During his first visit to England, Erasmus was taken by Thomas More to Eltham Palace to visit Prince Henry, the future Henry VIII. Several days later he sent the eight-year-old prince a poem “in praise of Britain and King Henry VII and the royal children.” In his dedicatory letter he reiterated the role of the litteratus, in this case the poet, as the engineer of his patron’s glory: “Kings may indeed earn such fame by their glorious deeds, but poets alone can confer it, in their learned lays; for whereas waxen effigies, and portraits and genealogies, and golden statues, and inscription on bronze, and pyramids laboriously reared, decay one and all with the passing of long years, only the poets’ memorials grow stronger in the lapse of time, which weakens all things else” (Ep 104: 17– 22). In writing a laudatory poem and a dedicatory letter Erasmus performed the typical acts of a protégé toward his patron. In this context, Erasmus’s de-

The Construction of the Erasmian Republic of Letters

49

piction of the patronage relationship is slightly different from that expressed in his letter to Batt. By composing laudatory poems and dedications, for example, the humanist is expected to actively promote his patron’s fame and glory. This difference notwithstanding, the basic conception of patronage is consistent. In particular, Erasmus continues to perceive his intellectual activity, on the one hand, and his relations with his patrons, on the other hand, as two mutually exclusive spheres. This is not, however, how his contemporaries understood the workings of the patronage system and certainly not how most patrons perceived it. A far more concrete, direct and continuous service was usually expected from the humanist. Moreover, no separation was to characterize the humanist’s intellectual activities and his service. On the contrary, he was precisely to employ his literary and intellectual skills and talents on behalf of his patron (who was expected, in turn, to support his protégé by using his own “capacities,” namely wealth and power). Erasmus’s most revealing experience with patronage during this period was indicative of his initial willingness to enter into such a relationship, but was no less revealing of his deep dissatisfaction with it. The remarriage of Anna van Borssele (“worse than slavery,” according to Erasmus)25 and Batt’s death (by poison, in Erasmus’s paranoid judgment) put an end to his hopes for support from that source (Ep 172). In the summer of 1502 he traveled to Louvain, where he remained for two years. Through his host, Jean Desmarez, and through Jèrôme de Busleyden, he became acquainted with Nicolas Ruister, the bishop of Arras and the chancellor of the University of Louvain, and one of the most powerful figures in the court of Philip the Fair. In 1503 Erasmus dedicated to Ruister three orations of Libanius, which he published with his Latin translation. The dedicatory letter was a thinly disguised request for patronage (Ep 177). In a September 1503 letter to Willem Hermans, a friend from the monastery, Erasmus was unusually high spirited and optimistic, relating that Ruister had invited him to dinner, offered him his help, and then given him “ten gold pieces.” He also wrote that he was currently composing a panegyric for Philip the Fair, on the occasion of his return from his journey to Spain, and that Busleyden promised him that if the duke arrived safely Erasmus’s fortune would be secured (Ep 178). Erasmus delivered his panegyric in the court in Brussels in January 1504 and the edited text was printed a month later by Theiry Martens in Antwerp. On the whole, the Panegyricus ad Philippum Austriae ducem fits the formal and thematic conventions of the genre of laudatory orations.26 Erasmus’s praises are hyperbolic. At the beginning he declares: I wished to give special fame and publicity to this day of all days, the brightest and most auspicious for our country, and for any nation up to the present day

50

Chapter 2

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)

He continues by describing the paralyzing grief that took hold of Philip’s subjects when he departed, the love with which he was received wherever he visited, and the great joy caused by his return home. Philip’s undramatic journey is compared to the exploits of Hercules and Ulysses (28), and the virtues of the twenty-six-year-old duke are judged to be superior to those of Solon, Scipio, Julius Caesar and Augustus, among others (e.g., 12, 19–20, 29). Indeed, “there has been no prince in living memory, and, may I say, in recorded history, who has been loved by his country so warmly and sincerely, and who has loved his people so earnestly in return” (16). Moreover, Erasmus’s panegyric is filled with praises for aristocratic culture and the chivalric ethos, including its military aspects, which (as we shall amply see in the next chapter) he deeply loathed (e.g., 10, 19–20, 60–64). To that extent, the Panegyricus is a generic product and typical expression of the relationship between humanist and patron in which the literary activity of the former is subordinated to the aims of the latter. Erasmus was dissatisfied with this kind of relationship. That much is clear from the text itself, its accompanying letters, and additional statements made by Erasmus. As Tracy notes, Erasmus’s text is, in fact, a hybrid of two genres: the Panegyricus and the advice book known as “mirror for princes” (speculum principis).27 The result is an uneasy blend of flattery and exhortation, of courtly values and humanist moralistic discourse. Somewhere toward the middle of the work Erasmus begins to describe the correct behavior of the good prince but then hastens to ascribe it to Philip. The prince should avoid falterers and Erasmus would have called Philip to do that—if there was a need for such exhortation. The prince should act within the boundaries of the law and reject the suggestions of courtiers that he can do just as he wishes. Philip entirely discards such advice. The prince ought not to overtax his subjects and, indeed, Philip spends his own money on behalf of the public good (39–45). This tension between exhortation and praise becomes particularly acute in that section of the work dedicated to questions of war and peace, an issue close to Erasmus’s heart (as we shall learn in detail in the following chapter). Erasmus begins with a discussion of the role of the litteratus: We have described Philip up to now as peace-loving and fortunate—may he always be so. . . . This is what all of us desire, and above all, that chorus of learned and eloquent men [doctorum & eloquentium nominum] which is even now eagerly preparing to defend your glory against jealous oblivion. As this chorus has always been the nursling of peace and flourishes only in happy times, it prefers

The Construction of the Erasmian Republic of Letters

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 prince’s eternal fame and glory, but he now demands—politely but unmistakably—a 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 (50–60). The tone of his discourse is also changed. The common hierarchy between patron and protégé 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 Erasmus’s 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 Philip’s 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 Philip’s forefathers, Burgundians and Habsburgs alike. Thus, an aristocratic military ethos replaces Erasmus’s humanist pacifism. Erasmus’s 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.: 188–203). He mentions that he lacked “three essential ingredients” for the success of this assignment: “subject-matter” (that is, precise information concerning Philips’s 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.: 135–68). The

52

Chapter 2

essence of his apologetics, however, is devoted to arguing that it is permissible “to tell a lie in order to do good.” What appeared as flattery is, in fact, a disguised exhortation. The portrait of the prince contained in the Panegyricus is actually a depiction of the ideal prince. As such, it is intended to persuade its addressee to emulate that ideal. The need for concealment is obvious: “Do you really believe that one could present kings, born in the purple and brought up as they are, with the repellent teachings of Stoicism and the barking of the Cynics?” Erasmus does not avoid the logical conclusion of his line of argumentation, namely that it would be most expedient to compose laudatory declamations even for tyrants (ibid.: 42–95, 114–17). He is apparently unbothered by the nature of his conclusion as a reductio ad absurdum. Nevertheless, he understands the implications of his reasoning in relation to Duke Philip and thus finds himself forced to begin again the circle of praise. His Panegyricus is by no means a disguised exhortation, but a faithful depiction of reality. Duke Philip, his young age notwithstanding, “is already a shining example of great virtues” (ibid.: 117–25). Erasmus’s explanations notwithstanding, the apologia certainly attests to his dissatisfaction with his role as the writer of laudatory declamation. This is indeed what he intimated in a letter to John Colet: “I was so reluctant to compose the Panegyricus that I do not remember ever doing anything more unwillingly; for I saw that this kind of thing could not be handled without some flattery” (Ep 181: 62–65). The evidence thus far enables us to reconstruct Erasmus’s attitude or, rather, the absence of a coherent attitude on his part, toward patronage. Akin to contemporaries, Erasmus considered those relations as given aspects of the social order. Like most other humanists and literati, he actively sought patrons. Explicit remarks, together with his consistent rejection of alternative routes opened to humanists, suggest how much he viewed the support of patrons as a prerequisite for his literary and intellectual vocation. Erasmus’s indecision and vacillation were only directed toward the actual terms of his relationship with patrons. Ideally, Erasmus sought support that would not demand an active advancement of his patron’s interests and ideology. He knew however that, at this stage of his career, this was no more than a pipe dream. Patronage as a social institution required substantial commitment and effort on the part of the protégé. The Panegyricus for Philip attests to Erasmus’s attempts to accommodate himself to this reality. The apologetic character of his discourse is indicative of how much more difficult it was for him than he expected. The principal problem did not lie in the praises he felt obliged to bestow on Philip the Fair. As embarrassing as these praises may seem for the modern reader, they caused only slight uneasiness in the cultural context of the early sixteenth century. The real problem for Erasmus was his discovery that the customary relations of patronage did not allow one to separate service and intellectual activity. This was because writing laudatory declamations meant to endow fame and glory necessarily tied Erasmus to the

The Construction of the Erasmian Republic of Letters

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: 19–20) but that he had declined the offer of becoming a courtier.28 In the same year he wrote the Panegyricus, a new aspect of Erasmus’s 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 Valla’s 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 Valla’s work in Paris the following spring. His introductory letter to Christopher Fisher, an English churchman (and Erasmus’s 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: 119–226). Of most significance to the present discussion is Erasmus’s conviction that pursuing the enterprise of biblical philology required the support of powerful patrons. As a consequence, he generously—too generously, one suspects—assigned most of the responsibility for the decision to publish Valla’s work to Fisher, whom he defined as his “patron and defender” (ibid.: 19). It was Fisher who not only lent his considerable support to Erasmus’s decision to publish the Adnotationes, but who actually deafened him with importunities not to “deprive countless students” of the “enormous advantage” of Valla’s work (ibid.: 11–15). Fisher was Valla’s “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 Fair’s courtier, Erasmus left Louvain at the end of 1504 and traveled to Paris. He spent most of the next decade in England

54

Chapter 2

and Italy.29 His intellectual activity continued unabated. In 1508, after months of strenuous work in Aldo Manuzio’s 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 Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s 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. Erasmus’s 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 Boerio’s 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: 87–91). Once he arrived in England by the latter’s 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). Erasmus’s 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 namesakes—Dido’s sister, Samuel’s mother, and the Virgin Mary’s mother (Ep 145: 3–40). 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 Fortune’s gift, infinitely prefers virtue, and virtue’s companion, good letters” (Ep 187: 11–13). 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

The Construction of the Erasmian Republic of Letters

55

Aldington, which he commuted to an annuity of slightly more than £20. In a letter to his one-time friend and now the prior of Steyn, Servatius Rogerus, written immediately after he left England in 1514, Erasmus recounted that he had received an annual pension of a similar size from Mountjoy, and gifts amounting to more than £165 from Warham and other English bishops (Ep 296: 127–38).32 It was not such a petty sum considering that Erasmus was unmarried and that the annual income of an Oxford master mason probably amounted to £5 15s.33 How did Erasmus perceive his place in the patronage system during his years in England? There is no clear-cut answer to this question since he changed his mind in accordance to his changing situation and mood. He was, more often than not, dissatisfied. His correspondence with Ammonio between 1511 and 1514, discussed above, clearly reveals his frustration. Other correspondents were privy to the same grievances. In November 1511, for instance, Erasmus bitterly complained to an English friend, Roger Wentford, that “I am, so far as promises of gold are concerned, unmistakably wealthy, apart from which I live in stark hunger!” (Ep 241). Sometimes, however, a different assessment is in the offing. Three months after the letter to Wentford he wrote to Antoon van Bergen, with whom he sought to resume his relationship, stating that he was “almost entirely transformed into an Englishman, so extremely kind have many persons been to me” (Ep 252). Several months later, however, his mood again swung as he grumbled in a letter to Adolf of Burgundy about shattered hopes for “mountains of English gold” (Ep 266). Approximately a year later, at the end of 1513, he informed Ammonio of his plans to leave England, repeating the usual grievances and resentfully denouncing Mountjoy (without mentioning his name) as having defrauded him with earlier promises (Epp 281, 283: 17–37). But just four months later, once again, in another letter to van Bergen, Erasmus suddenly recalled the “great many friends” he had made in England and the generous support they had extended him. He explained that his decision to leave the country was made only because of imminent war with France, which “brought about a sudden change in the character of this island” (Ep 288: 8–18). How is this chronic indecision to be explained? It may reflect, in part, Erasmus’s ulterior motives. But it seems that his ambivalence runs deeper than that. Two letters, one composed just before and the other just after leaving England, provide a clue to the roots of his ambivalence. In the former letter, written to van Bergen in March, Erasmus describes the generosity of his patrons and then adds that “there could be much more if I were in the slightest degree ready to beg” (ibid.: 16–17). In a more detailed letter written to Servatius four months later Erasmus is more precise. “Everyone is aware that I should only have to spend a few months at court to heap upon myself as many

56

Chapter 2

benefices as I cared to have” (Ep 296: 124–26). He also recounts his rejection of Queen Catherine’s offer to serve as her tutor, as well as of offers from both English universities (ibid.: 123–24, 140–41). 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 contribution—his unwillingness to fulfill his patrons’ expectations—to the frustration of his hopes. Another indication of Erasmus’s 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: 16–18). 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.: 18–31). 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.: 40–44). Erasmus was doubtless referring to Mountjoy’s letter from May 1509 (Ep 215), which, as we have already seen, does paint Erasmus’s 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 Warham’s name, was a benefice (ibid.: 73–80). The cardinal kept this promise, albeit three years later. More importantly, Mountjoy’s letter makes absolutely no mention of “complete leisure” or freedom to choose one’s 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 protégé. A letter sent from Warham to Erasmus, which was written under the same circumstances as Mountjoy’s, 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 cardinal’s 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 patron—he actually

The Construction of the Erasmian Republic of Letters

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 Erasmus’s 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: 53–57). This is Erasmus’s 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 refused—and publicly stated so34—any kind of service or commitment that would compromise his leisure and freedom and that would interfere with his intellectual activity.

The Erasmian Republic of Letters Erasmus left England in July 1514 for Basel, where he published over the next several years those works he and his associates considered to be most important, first and foremost the Novum Testamentum project. Erasmus’s mood was unusually optimistic during this period. His humanist reform program seemed to be gathering steam, the opposition of scholastic theologians and church conservatives notwithstanding. In February 1517 Erasmus wrote to his disciple, Wolfgang Capito, that “at this moment . . . I should almost be willing to grow young again for a space, for this sole reason that I perceive we may shortly behold the rise of a new kind of golden age” (Ep 541: 11–13). His optimism rested on what Erasmus perceived to be the fervent support for “the reformed and genuine study of literature and the liberal disciplines” on the part of almost all of Europe’s rulers: Pope Leo X, the kings of France, England, and Spain, the emperor and numerous other German princes and bishops (ibid.: 11–51). Perhaps the most striking feature of this letter when compared to Erasmus’s correspondence prior to 1514 is the complete identification of the writer and the cause of humanist reform. Erasmus assumes a modest stance—“I have been allotted, as was to be expected, a very humble

58

Chapter 2

part in this enterprise” (ibid.: 80–81)—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.: 86–87). Indeed, Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s 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 protégé. 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.: 34–51). The previously cited letter to Antoon van Bergen from March 1514 provides further insight into this transformation of Erasmus’s status and position. Van Bergen, abbot of St. Bertin at Saint-Omer and the brother of the bishop of Cambrai, was one of Erasmus’s 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: 6–8). 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 letter—which served as a draft for the famous adage Dulce bellum inexpertis—is given over to a diatribe against war. Erasmus’s 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: 3–6), 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: 144–52). The relations between the humanist and his

The Construction of the Erasmian Republic of Letters

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 Bergen’s private interests. “You already know from experience how expensive even one’s 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.: 149–52). 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 Erasmus’s prestige increased—due, in large part, to the efforts of the Erasmian humanists themselves—many 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

60

Chapter 2

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 Erasmus’s 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. Erasmus’s 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, Nürnberg, and Erfurt,44 but for Erasmus the most important region of all was that which he called “Upper Germany” (Ep 414). The symbiosis and

The Construction of the Erasmian Republic of Letters

61

collaboration between Erasmus and the humanists living and working in the cities of the Upper Rhine, Strasbourg, Sélestat, 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. Erasmus’s 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 Sélestat 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 latter’s visit to the city. The short correspondence is a quasi-official one, written as it was on behalf of Strasbourg’s 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 humanism’s attempt to create some kind of institutional structure for their shared identity.45 Wimpfeling’s concluding words, prefacing his enumeration of the society’s members, attest to Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s unique position. The language employed in addressing Erasmus is closer to the language of a protégé addressing a patron or a subject addressing his sovereign than it is to the language the

62

Chapter 2

humanists employed among themselves. Thus, in September 1514, Udalricus Zasius, professor of law at the University of Freiburg and an imperial councillor, introduced himself to Erasmus in a short letter pleading that he be enrolled as a footman or sweeper for Erasmus, whom he considered to be the “glory of the world,” if not, in fact, a “god among mortals” (Ep 303: 8–15). Ulrich Zwingli, then a parish priest with humanist inclinations in Glarus, described how he enhanced his reputation by simply boasting of his meeting with Erasmus, “the man who has done so much for liberal studies and the mysteries of Holy Scripture, and who is so filled with the love of God and men that he considers anything done for the cause of the humanities as a personal service to himself” (Ep 401: 28–31). For Zwingli and for the German humanists in general, Erasmus was the embodiment of humanism. He was the universal intellectual whose sole objective was the common good. Most telling in this respect is a letter from Georgius Precellius, an otherwise anonymous priest from Ulm. Precellius reminds Erasmus in a letter dated April 1516 that he had claimed that the English humanist Richard Pace was about to publish a collection of classical metaphors. The work did not appear and the “lovers of literature” who were badly in need of it approached Precellius about the matter. “Night and day their cry is ‘Georgius Precellius, why is your Erasmus’ (for I claim you entirely as my own, I love and cherish and respect you as a father; whenever your name is mentioned, I exalt you above the starry night)—‘why’, they say, ‘is he so slow in bringing out this little book of Notable Metaphors?’” (Ep 398: 19–23). The humanist priest, who probably never met Erasmus, had no hesitation in claiming Erasmus as his own. He gave accurate expression to the common attitude of German humanism: Erasmus belonged to the lovers of bonae literae, whoever they were.46 The ongoing correspondence between Erasmus and his followers became an instrument in constructing Erasmus’s position. Most communications, including those whose apparent sole purpose was personal aggrandizement of Erasmus, were published in the various collections of Erasmus’s correspondence. Not coincidentally, these works began to appear right after 1514. Johann Froben published the first such collection, which included only four letters, in August 1515. By 1519 he and Martens in Louvain had published another five ever-expanding collections.47 Erasmus lent his name only to the last of these—the famous Froben’s Farrago edition—while distancing himself from the others. Peter Giles, who edited the Martens collections, and Beatus Rhenanus, who edited two of Froben’s collections, both emphasized the “unofficial” character of their editions as well as Erasmus’s personal reservations regarding this kind of publicity.48 But Giles and Rhenanus were two close associates of Erasmus, and Jardine has shown that their statements should not be read for their literal meaning, but as a part of a strategy in constructing the image of the leader of the Republic of Letters.49

The Construction of the Erasmian Republic of Letters

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 substitution—a partial one to be sure—of the scholastic university.50 During his career Erasmus closely collaborated with several printers—Manuzio, Martens and Froben were already mentioned—who 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 Erasmus’s arrival were Rhenanus, Capito, Gerard Lyster, Heinrich Loriti (Glareanus), Ludwig Bear, and

64

Chapter 2

the Amerbach brothers. Erasmus’s presence further attracted other young humanists to Basel, including the future reformer of the city, Johannes Oecolampadius, Nikolaus Gerbel and Conardus Pellicanus.54 Erasmus at once commenced a dizzying pace of work. Over the next several years old works, including the Moria, De copia, the Enchiridion and an enlarged edition of the Adagia, were republished. Some of Erasmus’s most important writings were published for the first time, including The Education of a Christian Prince, Jerome’s collected works, and, of course, the Novum Testamentum (initially entitled Novum instrumentum). These works, especially the great editing projects, could not have been accomplished without the participation of large numbers of individuals, and as such they should be seen as collective undertakings of Erasmian humanism. Jerome’s collected works encompassing nine volumes, published in September 1516, was explicitly defined as such.55 Other works that were attributed solely to Erasmus were also collective efforts, to one extent or another.56 This was not only true of a massive project such as the Novum Testamentum, but of Seneca’s Lucubrationes, for example, published in August 1515. Erasmus’s correspondence gives us insight into the crucial role played by his assistants in this project, Rhenanus and Wilhelm Nesen, as well as into the relationship between them and Erasmus. In the spring of 1515 Erasmus departed Basel to visit England. He left behind a dedication letter for the Lucubrationes, addressed to Bishop Ruthall, in which he dramatically described his success in correcting more than four thousand errors in Seneca’s text by himself (Ep 325). The work, however, was far from being finished and Erasmus left the job to Rhenanus and Nesen. About a month after Erasmus’s departure Nesen wrote a deferential letter to London asking permission to cut out passages from the text that Erasmus had marked as spurious (Ep 329). On the same day, Rhenanus sent Erasmus an informative letter reporting on Nesen’s efficient proofreading and detailing the numerous corrections he had made. An undertone of uncertainty concerning the procedure of the work is discernable in his message. He mentions that “the copy is still disfigured by many mistakes” and wonders aloud about the ways to complete the work. “If only we had an ancient copy, there is nothing I should enjoy more than to emend this text in the places that are still left uncorrected, for by so doing I should be of use to scholars and advance your reputation, although you do say in your preface that you have removed most of the mistakes but not all” (Ep 328: 2–35). Rhenanus was apparently surprised by the gap between Erasmus’s claims made in the dedication letter and the actual state of the text left in Basel. He did not challenge Erasmus’s claims, and certainly not his position. On the contrary, as he himself states, his purpose was to enhance Erasmus’s reputation, which he identifies with the advancement of good learning.

The Construction of the Erasmian Republic of Letters

65

Not surprisingly, the edition of Seneca turned out to be full of errors. In later years Erasmus denied any responsibility for the mess, placing the blame on Nesen and even going so far as to accuse the latter of destroying a manuscript in an effort to conceal his failures (Ep 1341A: 449–63). The accusation was most likely false, if only because in the years following Seneca’s publication Erasmus and Nesen enjoyed a warm relationship, the latter continuing to edit Erasmus’s works. In 1516, for example, he worked on a new edition of De copia. Events surrounding this work reveal another layer in the relationship between Erasmus and his young assistants. Erasmus had in September sent Nesen, who was then at the Frankfurt Book Fair on Froben’s behalf, the dedication letter for the new edition. In that letter he offered high praise for his assistant, even stating that De copia had become Nesen’s work rather than his own (Ep 462). However, Nesen wrongly concluded that Erasmus intended to formally dedicate the work to another. This misunderstanding triggered an emotional outbreak. “I am sorry, heartily sorry, that the immortality which you alone would have been able to bestow has been pre-empted by some distinguished good-for-nothing,” he opened his letter to Erasmus, adding: “How can it be mine, my dear Erasmus, when it does not acknowledge me, who am a man of no account in the literary way, by any letter at the beginning?” (Ep 469: 2–18). Learning upon his return to Basel that Erasmus had in fact dedicated the work to him, Nesen was overjoyed: “That you should have thought of dedicating to me your notes on the ornate style, your Copia, fills my heart with a pleasure and secret joy that I can hardly express. It is a wonderful thing, a glory that will make my name immortal” (Ep 473). The relationship between Erasmus and Nesen was exceptional perhaps on the level of its intensity and emotions. But it was also reflective of the general character of the relationship between Erasmus and the humanists of the Upper Rhine. It indicates the crucial contribution made by these humanists to Erasmus’s works, and demonstrates the extent to which they identified both their own fortunes and the destiny of the humanist movement with Erasmus’s success. Erasmus’s personal glory became synonymous with the success of humanism’s struggle for cultural hegemony. There is in this respect a clear contrast between Erasmus’s isolation in Cambridge, the friendship and admiration of the English humanists and supporters of humanism notwithstanding, and his standing in Basel at the head of a group determined to consolidate his position as a leader of a Republic of Letters. It is important, therefore, to examine how the German humanists perceived and defined themselves as a distinct movement, how their self-definition informed Erasmus’s position and how they imagined their republic. Erasmus often referred to the community of humanists as a spiritual community. In a letter of dedication to Giles from October 1514 he distinguished

66

Chapter 2

between friendship “of the common and homespun sort,” between people “attached to material things” and intellectual friendship, which “rests wholly in a meeting of minds and the enjoyment of studies in common.” While friends of the former sort keep their friendship by exchanging material things, the literati exchange tokens of a literary sort (Ep 312: 3–17). In a dedication letter to Rhenanus several months later, Erasmus developed the distinction between the “ordinary and uneducated people” and “those who pursue the humanities” by superimposing on it another distinction. Referring to Rhenanus’s Christian name, he states that “this name Beatus, blessed, recurs so often in the mysteries of Scripture, and never do we find it given to a rich man, never to monarchs, never to Sardanapalus and his like” (Ep 327: 23–30). The fundamental distinction is, therefore, that between the humanists as universal intellectuals and all the rest: the common, the rich and the powerful. The latter, regardless of their means and station in life, pursue material and earthly things while the former direct their energies toward spiritual and intellectual values. This suspiciousness toward economic and political activity was certainly reflective of Erasmus’s biography. We have already examined his refusal to pursue any of the professional routes open to the humanist. This was not the case with most other humanists, not even those in Erasmus’s circle, who often aspired to public careers. But what is significant here is that the Erasmian humanists perceived and presented Erasmus’s choices as the right ones. His detachment from power was understood and celebrated as the humanist ideal. What defines the Erasmian humanists, in other words, was not necessarily actual imitation of Erasmus’s refusal to pursue a public career but, rather, their belief that this represented the purest form of humanism. The correspondence between Erasmus and Willibald Pirckheimer is illustrative of this point. Pirckheimer, the son of a Nürnberg patrician family, was a prominent German humanist. He also enjoyed an extensive administrative and diplomatic career in his native city and was a member of the imperial council.57 As keen as most German humanists to meet Erasmus, Pirckheimer asked Rhenanus in December 1514 to arrange a meeting with the “great man” (Ep 318). No meeting took place but Erasmus responded with a friendly letter, saying that he had already developed a feeling of affection for Pirckheimer by reading his works, praising him for his success in combining “a distinguished position in the world and literary gifts” (Ep 322: 2–8). Pirckheimer in turn also addressed the relations between learning and a public career. He had already noted in his letter to Rhenanus that he enjoyed the “emperor’s approval” and was “on good terms with various magnates.” Nevertheless, Erasmus’s friendship would be valued above all else. He repeated this expression in successive letters to Erasmus (Ep 326A, 359). Eventually, he directly

The Construction of the Erasmian Republic of Letters

67

compared Erasmus’s 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). Pirckheimer’s 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 views—that is, those who created the social role of the universal intellectual—as 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 Erasmus’s letter, discussed above, to Strasbourg’s 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: 237–38). 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 Erasmus—“the great scholar of Rotterdam,” “the man of universal learning,” the “great champion of humane studies”—offered 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

68

Chapter 2

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 freedom—“If my freedom is endangered, I resign everything”—and 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

E

RASMUS THUS CAME TO BE 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 children’s 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 Erasmus’s 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, Erasmus’s prestige and influence reached their zenith in these years while More’s commitment to humanist values and to — 69 —

70

Chapter 3

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.

Manners, Education and Civilization Erasmus’s guidebook of manners for children, De civilitate morum puerilium, may serve as a point of departure for a reconstruction of the Erasmian worldview and reform program. The apparently trivial subject of children’s manners makes possible a deeper comprehension of a layer of Erasmian humanism that is often neglected in studies addressing weightier and more controversial issues. De civilitate presents a clear picture of Erasmus’s conception of the civilized individual and his vision of civilized society. In addition, the work reveals Erasmus’s self-understanding as an intellectual and reformer. Perhaps for these reasons Norbert Elias, who put Erasmus’s guidebook at the center of his study of the civilizing process, succeeded in exploring a central dimension of Erasmian humanism that was relatively neglected in most other studies.2 Erasmus’s De civilitate is by no means the only work dedicated to polite behavior. Numerous guides to manners were written during the Middle Ages.3 The genre only grew in elaboration and social importance in later centuries. Works such as Giovanni Della Casa’s Galateo and Castiglione’s Il libro del Cortegiano expressed the self-understanding and central values of aristocratic culture in the second half of the sixteenth century and after.4 A comparison of Erasmus’s work with those of his predecessors and successors thus provides important insights for reconstructing Erasmian humanism. There are obvious similarities between De civilitate and the medieval guidebooks. Many of Erasmus’s rules of behavior are adopted from the medieval writers.5 The differences between Erasmus and his predecessors over the author’s position and relation to the text are, however, significant. The medieval works were instruments for the transmission of a given collective tradition. Their usually anonymous authors simply and briefly listed the desired rules of conduct without providing any reasoning or justifications. Erasmus’s authorship and personality, in contrast, are unmistakably present in his work. It is obvious how carefully he observed those around him. His text is based on personal impressions and attests to an intense personal involvement.6 The accuracy and insightfulness of his descriptions are testament to this. A person’s state of mind, Erasmus claims, is most strongly reflected in the face. The eyes of a well-ordered mind should, therefore, “be calm, respectful and steady: not grim, which is a mark of truculence; not shameless, the hallmark of insolence; not darting and rolling, a feature of insanity; nor furtive, like those of suspects

Erasmian Humanism

71

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 Europe’s leading intellectual to busy himself with children’s manners, a subject usually left to minor figures. Erasmus’s treatment of manners as part of his reform program determined his very conception of polite behavior and had far-reaching social implications. Erasmus’s 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 manners—as opposed to power based on land ownership and military power—that 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

72

Chapter 3

This is indeed how Erasmus viewed—and strongly deplored—the aristocratic manners of his day. At the very beginning of De civilitate he is apprehensive about “the present climate of opinion” (273) and his objections become more accurately defined as the work progresses. He thus argues that “things which are useless to the function of an article of dress, for example, are in bad taste” and to make his point he refers specifically to “long trains” dragged behind the dress (279). In the same vein he contends that “grasping the bread in the palm of the hand and breaking it with the fingertips is an affected practice which should be left to certain courtiers” (281). Erasmus’s rejection of such mannerism is the most outstanding characteristic of his guidebook. He argues instead that proper behavior must accord with nature, and that consequently no imperative of conduct should compromise health (275, 277). More importantly, he insists that polite behavior ought to be anchored in ethics. He prohibits, for instance, conceit over one’s elegant dress, arguing that a measure of vanity is permitted to the poor as a sort of compensation but is strictly forbidden to the rich (279). The code of manners is meaningful only to the extent that it reflects universal moral values. Indeed, “The essence of good manners consists in freely pardoning the shortcomings of others although nowhere falling short yourself: in holding a companion no less dear because his standards are less exacting. For there are some who compensate with other gifts for their roughness of manners” (289). Erasmus’s insistence on modesty, prudence, diligence, self-control, and self-restraint issue, thus, from his general image of men and women in society. Erasmus’s insistence that ethics, as opposed to maniera, ought to be the basis of polite behavior was therefore inherently antiaristocratic. It was universal and egalitarian, and thus potentially undermined any attempt to construct social distinctions and hierarchies on lineage or status. Any person can behave properly. Indeed, at the beginning of De civilitate, Erasmus states that his aim is to instruct “all boys” (273). The fact that the text was dedicated to the eleven-yearold Henry of Burgundy, son of a noble family that patronized the yet unknown Erasmus at the beginning of the century, only underscores this point. At the basis of Erasmus’s egalitarianism lay his humanist assumptions, and in particular the humanist notion of vera nobilitas: “Now everyone who cultivates the mind in liberal studies must be taken to be noble. Let others paint lions, eagles, bulls, and leopards on their escutcheons; those who can display ‘devices’ of the intellect commensurate with their grasp of the liberal arts have a truer nobility” (274). This view is not original to Erasmus. We have seen that humanist educational thought lay on egalitarian assumptions. For liberal education was open, in principle, to everybody and thus was explicitly presented as a means for social mobility. Furthermore, the Italian humanists often argued that vera nobilitas did not depend on lineage or wealth but solely on the individual’s virtue, his character and personality.11 The social and cultural context of Erasmus’s view was,

Erasmian Humanism

73

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 individuals—rich merchant families, popolani, condottieri—acquired 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 states—and 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 legitimacy—and 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 Erasmus’s 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)

Erasmus is the educator of Christendom whose views do not reflect any particularistic ideology or interest but are rather the views of the humanist qua universal intellectual. For Erasmus the city-state and the court cease to function as points of reference, which they were for most other humanists. He speaks in the name of civilization itself—the as yet nonexistent Christian and humanist civilization. In fact, as Elias mentions, the title of Erasmus’s guidebook for manners gave the French term civilité (civility in English, civiltà in Italian) its specific meaning of appropriate conduct in society from which the modern term civilization emerged.14 The concept of civilization enables us to understand the connection between several themes and preoccupations in the writings of Erasmus that at first seem unrelated. Even themes that appear to be entirely derived from his personal disposition and idiosyncrasies acquire new meaning when examined in the context of a coherent discursive structure provided by this notion of civilization. Erasmus’s demand in De civilitate for respectability, politeness, self-restraint, and, above all, regard for others may now be appended with a heightened hygienic

74

Chapter 3

sensibility—his aversion to fish and putrid air, for example, which he reveals at the outset of a theological discussion (FD 677–80)—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, Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s explicit contempt for physical education, which stood in stark contrast to the classical and Italian humanist ethos (Puer 323).18 Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s educational writings. Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s 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 adequate—that is, humanist—education. “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 Erasmus’s 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

Erasmian Humanism

75

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 humanitatis—in humanitatis literas—comes 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” (304–5); and lastly, “a man without education has no humanity at all” (298). The Italian humanists sought to prepare the educated individual—practically upper- or middle-class man—for life in the Italian city-state. Erasmus’s 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-à-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 Erasmus’s 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,

76

Chapter 3

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 Erasmus’s 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 (325–34). 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 (327–28). 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 distance—that is too often explained in psychological terms—that 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 Erasmus’s 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 Europe’s 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 tyrant’s, 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 432–33).

Erasmian Humanism

77

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).

Philosophia Christi—Erasmus’s Humanist Theology As we have seen, Erasmus regards religious education as the most important part of the “task of fashioning the young” (Civ 273). Religion certainly occupied a central place in Erasmus’s thought. This is evident in his vast production of religious works: writings of pietas and spiritualia, theological and exegetical works, sermons and hymns, editions of the Fathers, paraphrases of scripture, and, above all, the Novum Testamentum, the edited text of the New Testament accompanied by thousands of critical annotations and a Latin translation. Indeed, Erasmus did not hesitate to argue that “I have such high regard for theological learning that it is the only learning to which I normally allow the name” (Ep 337: 367). A reconstruction of Erasmian humanism consequently requires a clear elucidation of Erasmus’s religious thought. But the reconstruction of humanist religious thought (not just that of Erasmus) proves to be a difficult task. The hardening of religious doctrines during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation not only put an end to humanist religious thought as a concrete historical option,28 but may have also impeded our understanding of the tradition that lost the battle. This is perhaps the main reason for the misinterpretation of humanist religious thought that prevailed in the past. Until a few decades ago, the image of humanists as atheists and of humanism as a revival of paganism still circulated. Today such notions are appropriately defunct, as many scholars have demonstrated not only the deep personal religiosity of most humanists but their important contribution to religious thought as well.29 This is no less true of Erasmus. Anachronistic perspectives of the subject—Protestant, post-Trendentine, and liberal—have been rejected over the past several decades as Erasmus’s theology has been reconstructed in its own terms. By now, many studies have presented Erasmus’s religious thought as a humanist theology.30 They demonstrate how Erasmus employed his philological and literary skills in an attempt to restore what he saw as the genuine Christianity of the fathers, the apostles and Christ himself. They also showed how he combined his classical and humanist ideals with Christian pietas. They further demonstrated the role of the humanist disciplines of grammar

78

Chapter 3

and rhetoric in Erasmian theology, analyzing the central importance Erasmus attributed to language as the medium between the profound and mysterious divine essence of the Christian gospel and its concrete and never-ending process of human interpretation and application in a specific social and cultural context.31 For the purposes of the present study the most significant dimension of Erasmus’s theology is its close link to his other important interests and enterprises. For Erasmus the reform of Christianity—through the application of his philosophia Christi—was the cornerstone of a general reform program for Europe. Reformed Christianity was for Erasmus a civilizing religion. This notion can be considered an organizing concept from which the specific tenets of Erasmus’s religious thought were derived: the affinities he saw as existing between Christianity and the classical heritage; his emphasis on practical ethics and the social dimension of religion; his opposition to what he considered to be the excessive ceremonial and dogmatic characteristics of contemporary religiosity; his positive evaluation of human nature and potential and the corollary lessening of the importance of original sin and so forth. The aim of theology, Erasmus says, is to create “a genuine race of Christians . . . a people who would restore the philosophy of Christ not in ceremonies alone and in syllogistic propositions but in the heart itself and in the whole life.” These words are taken from one of the clearest and most succinct expressions of Erasmian theology, the Paraclesis, the preface to the Novum Testamentum (P 99). The same ideas—the importance of internal belief and the spiritual dimension of Christianity, and the way of life and of practical ethics—appear in various formulations hundreds of times throughout the writings of Erasmus. They are reflective of the humanist rejection of the distinction between the vita activa and the vita contemplativa, and, specifically, of Erasmus’s desire for reforming society and culture. These convictions also lay at the basis of Erasmus’s hostility toward scholastic theologians and monks. Professional interests and even personal animosities played their share in intensifying this attitude, but essentially Erasmus loathed scholasticism and monasticism for representing what he saw as intellectualist, formalistic, dogmatic, and sterile religiosity, detached from the concrete needs of Christians. Monasticism further exemplified the assumption that life in the secular world was incompatible with true religiosity. Erasmus, on his part, was convinced that “the good life is everybody’s business, and Christ wished the way to it be accessible to all men,” as he expressed himself in the letter to Volz, another vivid expression of his mature religious thought (EtV 9).32 The simplification of doctrine, in fact, the devaluation of the dogmatic dimension of Christianity, was a corollary of his notion of religiosity. “What concerns the faith should be set out clause by clause, as few as possible,” writes

Erasmian Humanism

79

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 Christ’s 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 Virgin’s 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 Erasmus’s 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 96–97). 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 shouldn’t 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)

Some of the assumptions and implications of Erasmus’s theology come close to the surface here. Erasmus’s sustained attempt, a central aspect of his religious and his intellectual activity throughout his life, to integrate Christianity with secular wisdom, specifically with the classical heritage, is clearly argued.33 At the very least, Erasmus insists on the compatibility of classical and Christian ethics. Erasmus goes on to enumerate those classical philosophers whose teachings resembled those of Christ’s. In fact, he finds a place in his list for all Greek philosophical currents (101). No essential differences are noted in a text that, we must remember, prefaced Erasmus’s most important religious work, and which served as a summary of his religious thought. This was only possible because Erasmus almost exclusively emphasized general intellectual and

80

Chapter 3

ethical convictions and moral behavior—“that no one was wise unless he was good,” “that nothing can be a delight for us . . . except virtue alone,” and so forth—at the expense of dogmatic concerns. Even closer affinities between Christianity and the classical heritage are to be found in some of Erasmus’s 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 (59–61). 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, Erasmus’s 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 enemy’s property—the spoils of the Egyptians was their favorite metaphor—Erasmus 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). Erasmus’s 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 (262–64). 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 (264–65). Erasmus thus employs the same categories to describe Jesus and classical philosophers

Erasmian Humanism

81

who became proverbial for leading an ethical life. This is revealing of his general attitude toward Christ, which focused on Jesus’s human nature while disregarding Christ’s divine nature, or at least not coherently integrating it into his theology. Christ’s 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 84–86; LB 5, 39B, 40C). In the Paraclesis, which is entirely constructed around the character of Jesus, Christ’s 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). Erasmus’s disregard of the God on the cross—the image that best encapsulates the entire conceptual and symbolic universe of medieval Christianity—is 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 Erasmus’s 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 Paul’s 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 Erasmus’s uneasiness with them. Sometimes Erasmus was even more creative in undermining notions he disliked. In paraphrasing Paul’s 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

82

Chapter 3

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 29–30). The notion of predestination is thus inverted.40 Erasmus’s 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 308–9, 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 Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s 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

Erasmian Humanism

83

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 Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s 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

84

Chapter 3

representative of his ideas. However, this would miss the point on several accounts. First, the image of the human being in Erasmus’s 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, Erasmus’s 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. Erasmus’s 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 Augustine’s discussion—and his religious thought as a whole—rests on the all-important distinction between the objective and subjective, between the individual’s 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 dominate—then 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,

Erasmian Humanism

85

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 city—a fully civilized humanist and Christian society—was the aim of the utopian Erasmian reform program. Erasmus’s 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 considerations47—all 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 More’s apt description, a litteratus, a man of letters, “whose area of study extends across every variety of literature” (MtD 13). Erasmus’s mastery of the literary heritage—religious and secular—and 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.

The Politics of the Universal Intellectual An examination of Erasmus’s political writings may provide further insights concerning the discourse of Erasmian humanism, for the universal, even utopian, nature of the Erasmian reform program—the desire for a comprehensive reform of Christendom as a whole, inspired by a vision of a fully civilized society—is expected to be at odds with the era’s reigning ideologies, both secular and ecclesiastical. This is certainly the case regarding Erasmus’s views on the secular authority of the church. This question occupied a central place in the late Middle

86

Chapter 3

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 church’s 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 Church’s 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 Erasmus’s 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? Erasmus’s 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 Christ’s disdain of any involvement in worldly politics (14–15).53

Erasmian Humanism

87

In the polemical Sileni Alcibiadis Erasmus is explicit and outspoken. Denial of the church’s temporal authority, and of any coercive power for that matter, is the central theme of the adage. Erasmus employs a wide range of arguments. Some are narrowly pragmatic. He argues, for instance, that immersion in political affairs consumes time and energy and would therefore come at the expense of the priests’ true educational and spiritual mission. From a wider ethical-political perspective, he argues that temporal power is corrupting and ought therefore to be shunned by the church, even though it might offer some advantages (SA 278–79). Erasmus’s main argument, however, is more general and abstract, and its implications are much more far reaching. The religious and the worldly, he claims, are inherently incompatible spheres. This means that spiritual authority is inherently incompatible with temporal power. He often employs imagery here that is reminiscent of the Augustinian two cities: “In this world there are, as it were, two worlds, which fight against each other in every way, one gross and corporeal, the other heavenly and already practising with all its might to become what it one day will be” (276). In elaborating this argument, Erasmus forcefully uses the analogy between Christ and the church—the church as it should be. Christ could have been king of the world if he had so chosen. But he decided to renounce temporal power, riches and pleasure (264, 272). Thus must the church do as well. “Christ openly denied that His kingdom was of this world, and can you think it proper for Christ’s successor not merely to accept an earthly rule but even to seek it as desirable . . .” (276). Time and again, Erasmus declares that the church must renounce any and all temporal power and assume its true essence as a noncoercive spiritual and educational institution. He also condemns the ideology and actual practices of the church, that is, its pursuit of riches and temporal power, which are the roots of its corruption (271–77). When churchmen “are bidden to array themselves in purple and silk” and are put “on the level of Eastern potentates” (271), it is little wonder that Christendom has sunk to such a low point. Such radical views of one of the central political issues of late medieval and early modern Europe give rise to questions about Erasmus’s social role and identity; the place from which he speaks, the interests he represents, the ideology he shares and so forth. In this context, the differences between Erasmus and the great thinkers who opposed the church’s temporal ambitions in the late Middle Ages are revealing. First, while Dante, Ockham and Marsiglio were avowed political enemies of the church, Erasmus was during this period—the enmity of conservative circles notwithstanding—the church’s dear son, a protégé of popes and eminent cardinals. Secondly, while the fourteenthcentury thinkers opposing the church represented the secular authorities that struggled with the popes, Erasmus conducted his struggle independently. This difference should be further investigated.

88

Chapter 3

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 position—the result of the need to be protected from the anger of the popes, for example—but was rather conceptually built into their discourse. Within the framework of the discourse—which they shared with the ideologists of the church—ultimate political authority lay either in the secular or in the spiritual authority. Erasmus’s rejection of the church’s 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 kings—all 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” (184–85). 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). Erasmus’s 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

Erasmian Humanism

89

is critical of popes. He does not reject the church’s claims for temporal authority in the name of secular authority. He censures the church—as well as the state—as 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 Erasmus’s 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 relates—the 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 one—naturally 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

90

Chapter 3

more than integrity, bodily endowments more than intellectual gifts; true religion takes second place to ceremonies, Christ’s 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 Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s payment for the appointment—the 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 prince—as opposed to a tyrant—each 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, Erasmus’s 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 man’s advice, least of all mine,” and that he only uses Charles’s 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 Erasmus’s position visà-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

Erasmian Humanism

91

in which the humanists usually acknowledged in the strongest possible terms their inferiority in relation to their patrons, is equivocal. Together with the requisite praises, Erasmus does not shy away from mentioning that Charles (who was fifteen years old at the time) “is still very young and recently invested with government, and so has not yet had the opportunity to do very much that in other princes is matter for praise or blame.” He even implies that the future emperor ought to “voluntarily hand over” part of his vast dominions (204). Erasmus’s interpretation of the emblematic encounter between Alexander the Great and Diogenes is indicative of his vision of the correct relationship between intellectual and ruler. Noting Alexander’s famous remark that, if he were not himself, he would like to be Diogenes, Erasmus comments that “in fact, the more severe the storms that must be faced by great power, the more he well might wish for the mind of a Diogenes” (203).62 These characteristics become all the more conspicuous in the body of the text. Erasmus declares that he has arranged his work “in aphorisms for the reader’s convenience” (204), and Richard Hardin convincingly argues that the use of this literary genre was a mark of self-confidence and authority.63 And indeed, Christian Prince is read as a collection of moral imperatives, not to say commands, that the prince himself, his parents, his educators, and Christians generally ought to memorize and fulfill. One example will demonstrate the tone of the work: “Discipline yourself according to the rule of honour, and judge yourself by that,” Erasmus preaches to the prince, and adds: “and if there is nobody left for you to outdo, then compete with yourself, since the finest contest of all, and one truly worthy of an invincible prince, is to struggle daily to improve upon oneself” (228). Erasmus’s work abounds with moral imperatives. The traditional distinction between a true king and a tyrant—the former rules for the general good while the latter for his own benefits—for example, is repeated in the text numerous times.64 The force of Erasmus’s work lies, however, in its translation of these abstract moral imperatives into concrete social observations and criticism. In this manner Erasmus reviews the accepted artistic representations of kings: “There is a certain implicit flattery in portraits, statues, and inscriptions. Thus Apelles flattered Alexander the Great by painting him brandishing a thunderbolt; and Octavius enjoyed being painted in the likeness of Apollo.” He admits that this phenomenon “may seem trivial to some people,” but insists that it is “nevertheless of considerable importance,” and that “artists should represent the prince in the dress and manner that is most worthy of a wise and distinguished prince” (248). The very attention of such customs differs not only from the schematic and abstract nature of scholastic political writings but from most humanist ones as well. In his chapter entitled “The business of princes in peacetime,” Erasmus dwells on several princely duties.

92

Chapter 3

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 (280–81). As always, the concrete discussion is imbued with moral dimension. In concluding the list of the prince’s 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 Erasmus’s 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 Charles’s journey to Austria. The most striking example of this type is Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s 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. Erasmus’s 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

Erasmian Humanism

93

position is related to his aversion to the aristocratic ideals. Kingdom ought to be entrusted to a person with the qualities of a true king, says Erasmus. “Family trees, gold, and jewels are no more relevant to governing a state than they are pertinent to a sea-captain in steering his ship,” he adds in sharpening his point (206). The attacks on aristocracy, its values, and its way of life become even more bitter and violent later on in the text. Explaining why the education of the prince ought to begin at an early age, Erasmus gives clear expression of his views concerning the nature of chivalric culture: How can you expect anything but evil from a prince who, whatever his nature at birth (and a good lineage does not guarantee a mind as it does a kingdom), is subjected from the very cradle to the most stupid ideas and spends his boyhood among silly women and his youth among whores, degenerate comrades, the most shameless flatterers, buffoons, street-players, drinkers, gamblers, and pleasure-mongers as foolish as they are worthless. (209)

The censure of aristocratic culture is an all-pervading theme of Institutio principis. Only when taking it into account can we understand, for instance, the relation between Erasmus’s rejection of political marriage and his criticism of the reigning artistic representations of princes. The same assumptions informed his disapproval of the common honorary titles of “Highness,” “Sacred Majesty” and even “the Invincible” and “the Famous,” which seem to him overly flattering. He prefers titles that “remind the prince in some way of his office.” These include “Most Wise,” “Most Merciful” and “Most Temperate” (248). Similarly, Erasmus utterly condemns sumptuous consumption (268) and chivalric literature: “the stories of Arthur and Lancelot and other legends of that sort, which are not only tyrannical but also utterly illiterate, foolish, and on the level of old wives’ tales” (250). Erasmus repeatedly attacks the cherished emblems of aristocracy, most particularly the historical and mythological heroes embodying aristocratic values. Achilles, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and their likes are, for Erasmus, “raging bandits.” Taking them as models of behavior is nothing short of “madness” (216, 250–52). However, the statement most revealing of Erasmus’s estrangement from aristocratic culture is a much less aggressive one, namely his suggestion that the nobles instruct their sons “in some sedentary occupation.” There is a twofold advantage in this idea he carefully elaborates. First, “young men preoccupied with their studies will be kept away from many temptations.” Secondly, the vagaries of fortune may make the acquired skill necessary (268). Erasmus does not understand—or perhaps pretends not to understand—that the nobility’s own self-understanding precludes occupation, being based, rather, on a “natural” quality incommensurable with utilitarian considerations.

94

Chapter 3

Erasmus’s rejection of the aristocratic ethos was based on the humanist identification of nobilitas with virtus rather than with lineage. We have already noted that, while the humanist conception of vera nobilitas was compatible with the political ideology of most fifteenth-century Italian states in which humanism flourished, it was obviously contrary to the hegemonic political ideology in northern Europe. Most northern humanists, in contrast to Erasmus, sought to reconcile the tenets of humanist discourse with the dominant ideology. One strategy was to formally retain the humanist notion of nobility as virtue but to argue that virtue is usually to be found among the members of the aristocracy.66 This neutralized the egalitarian antiaristocratic dimension of humanist discourse. Such a strategy is employed, for example, by Thomas Elyot in his important work, The Book Named the Governor. 67 Elyot, the most “Erasmian” of the English humanists in the generation succeeding Erasmus,68 was also a strong supporter of dynastic monarchy and aristocratic values.69 He subscribes to the humanist position that virtue and humanist education are the precondition for public service. Indeed, much of his book is dedicated to the propagation of liberal education. At the same time, however, he seeks to restrict public service to the upper classes. He therefore argues, for instance, that persons with “stable possessions” can invest more in their children’s education and that, because they have their own revenues, they are less likely to be “desirous of lucre” (disguising, of course, the fact that these alleged advantages belong to the rich in general, and not only owners of “stable possessions”). Elyot’s rhetoric clearly reveals both the tensions between humanist and aristocratic values as well as the author’s determination to defuse them: “it is of good congruence that they which be superior in condition or haviour should have also pre-eminence in administration.” And “Moreover where virtue is in a gentleman it is commonly mixed with more sufferance, more affability and mildness, than for the more part it is in a person rural or of a very base lineage; and when it happeneth otherwise, it is to be accounted loathsome and monstrous.”70 Erasmus’s attitude toward the aristocratic ethos attests to his independence vis-à-vis the dominant classes. In fact, the difference between Erasmus and the other northern humanists in this respect is only one manifestation of deeper differences concerning politics. Erasmus’s identity as the universal intellectual put him in a position to detect negative possibilities inherent in humanist discourse that were ignored by other humanists and to challenge views that were universally accepted by them. Most significant in this respect is Erasmus’s rejection in Institutio principis of any political virtue, imperative, or even analytical concept that is not reducible to ethics. There is neither majesty nor glory in Erasmus’s vision of monarchy. Indeed, there is no place at all for power in his vision of politics. Erasmus often employs evangelical language in

Erasmian Humanism

95

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 Erasmus’s 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 humanist’s ideal was a man, who, by his virtù, overcomes all obstacles—all of Fortuna’s vagaries—in fashioning reality according to his will.71 This was, of course, a central insight of Burckhardt, who explored the various expressions of this virile—virtù is derived from the Latin vir, or “man”—creative 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

96

Chapter 3

A comparison to Machiavelli enables us to precisely identify the unique nature of Erasmus’s 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 author’s unequivocal choices, are the source of the Florentine’s fame and notoriety. Erasmus shares Machiavelli’s fundamental insights concerning the implications of perceiving the political realm as autonomous. Erasmus’s choices, though as clear as Machiavelli’s, 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 principis—like Il principe and the Discorsi, but from an inverted perspective—ought 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.

Erasmian Humanism

97

Erasmus’s pacifist writings best exemplify his humanism. As distinctive products of the Republic of Letters, they provide sharp insight into the Erasmian image of man and society and into his projects for social enlightenment and melioration. They are also the clearest expression of Erasmus’s position of intellectual and moral superiority vis-à-vis Europe’s rules and dominant classes. Erasmus was not alone in his distress over the continuous wars in Europe, which escalated after 1494, when Italy became a battleground of the major European powers. He was undoubtedly encouraged by the opposition of some of his English friends—notably, Cardinal Warham and John Colet—to Henry VIII’s war against France in the second decade of the sixteenth century.77 But Erasmus was the most decisive and prominent pacifist among his contemporaries, publishing his views in several works that enjoyed a wide circulation.78 We have already seen how his pacifist writings gave expression to Erasmus’s rehabilitation of human nature, to his rejection of the Augustinian distinction between internal disposition and external behavior and to his consequent conviction that a fully civilized, Christian and humanist society could be established, at least in principle, by human efforts. Erasmus’s struggle against the doctrine of “just war”—a central issue in his pacifist writings—demonstrates additional aspects of Erasmian humanism, namely its independence and opposition to the dominant ideology. In Dulce bellum he flatly rejects the doctrine accepted by mainstream Christian thought after Augustine. Without any hesitation, he censures the theologians (referring to “the church fathers” and mentioning Bernard and Aquinas by name) who propagated the just war doctrine and the popes who accepted it (DB 426–7).79 Erasmus does not argue that waging war is prohibited under any circumstances (a position difficult to defend indeed). Instead, like a good humanist, he undercuts centuries of abstract discussion about “just war” by showing that the notion, as it was elaborated by philosophers and theologians, is simply irrelevant to European reality in the sixteenth century: If some claim or other seems to constitute a cause for war, then human affairs are in such a confused state, and there have been so many changes, that there can be no one who does not have a claim. What nation has not at some time both been driven out of its homeland and driven others out? . . . How many times has there been a transfer of power this way or that, either by chance or by treaty? (428)

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 rulers—the desire for power, glory and territory—and the flattery and hypocrisy of their counselors.80

98

Chapter 3

It is not surprising, then, that the pacifist writings are such a forceful testament to Erasmus’s 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 320–21). 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 years—the wars of the League of Cambrai, the Holy League, and the French invasion of Italy in 1515—were 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 Erasmus’s 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 431–34). 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 (432–33).83 Unsurprisingly, the internal dynamics of Erasmus’s 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.

Thomas More’s Erasmian Utopia We have seen that Thomas More’s four “humanist letters,” particularly the formidable letter to Dorp, sought to ground humanist discourse and present it as a comprehensive substitute for the Aristotelian-scholastic organization of knowledge.84 These letters, it must be emphasized, were written for the sole purpose of supporting Erasmus’s reform program.85 More vigorously defended all aspects of his friend’s activity, sometimes more forcefully than did Erasmus himself. While Erasmus was apologetic in responding to Dorp’s

Erasmian Humanism

99

censures of Praise of Folly, for example, More wholeheartedly defended the work (Ep 337; MtD 105–27).86 As to be expected, the brunt of More’s efforts was devoted to a defense of the most controversial aspect of the Erasmian reform program, namely religious reform. Large parts of the four humanist letters sought to vindicate Erasmus’s Novum Testamentum project and the humanist assumptions that underlie it. Personal friendship apart, this exhibition of loyalty was based on shared beliefs, specifically, More’s view of Erasmus as the ideal intellectual, or litteratus (MtD 13).87 Indeed, according to More, Erasmus has “done more to advance all students of sound intellectual disciplines everywhere in both secular and sacred learning than virtually anyone else’s exertions for the last several centuries” (MtL 161). As a true man of letters in the humanist sense, Erasmus did not pursue learning for its own sake. It was, rather, a means of cultural and social melioration of Christendom. Like the sun, Erasmus “spreads his bounty all over the world” (MtM 299). He is “the man whom no material expense and no physical illness or danger could tear from the virtuous labors which he was performing for the good of the entire world” (MtL 167). More’s personal commitment to Erasmus and intellectual commitment to the Erasmian reform program, particularly during the period on which this study focuses, are therefore clearly established.88 More’s most famous work, Utopia, should be read as an Erasmian work.89 Erasmian humanism is the framework for accounting for the radical criticism of the European social and political order in book 1 of the work. The denunciations of injustice and immorality, of the abuse of power and authority, of the oppression of the poor and the weak, and of the self-serving behavior that had begotten endless factionalism and war reproduce both the content and the moral pathos of Erasmus’s works. More attacks the same social groups as Erasmus. Most importantly, Utopia, like Erasmus’s writings, rejects in toto the aristocratic ethos and court culture. When More speaks about the “great many noblemen who live idly like drones off the labour of others, their tenants whom they bleed white by constantly raising their rents”; when he depicts the King of France, “surrounded by all his most judicious councillors hard at work devising a set of crafty machinations” for capturing Italy and Burgundy; when he describes typical councillors who recommend a hypothetical king to increase “the value of money when [he] pays his debts” and to devalue it “when he collects his revenues” or to set up “make-believe war, so that money can be raised under that pretext”—his voice is hardly distinguishable from Erasmus’s (U 57–59, 83, 89). Similarly, the Utopian social organization, depicted in book 2, and the philosophy that legitimizes it exemplify the ideas and values of Erasmian humanism. The ultimate purpose of Utopian institutions is the material welfare

100

Chapter 3

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). Utopia’s 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 (121–23, 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, More’s 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 Hythloday’s narrative, and the clearest manifestation of the Erasmian nature of Utopian society. Love

Erasmian Humanism

101

of peace, industriousness, modesty, prudence, altruism, and the love of one’s neighbor—the same qualities that characterize a truly Christian and humanist society, according to Erasmus—distinguish the Utopians and are embedded in the principal institutions and practices of society. In Utopia More certainly transcends Erasmus’s essentially moralistic attitudes toward politics and explores the structural, social and economic, causes of Europe’s troubles and calls for comprehensive social changes. This divergence informs the basis of Utopia’s originality and greatness. It does not contradict, however, the ideals and aims of Erasmian humanism. Utopia’s sociological and economic approach does not replace the moral one but supplements it. The ethical aspect of Utopia—More’s desire to construct a moral social order—is central to the work. It leads, for instance, to bitter condemnations of enclosure or of the English penal system. And it informs More’s analysis of private property as the basis for a system which amounts to “a conspiracy of the rich,” (245) and of pride as the source of all social evils (247). In the last analysis, Utopia’s “scientific” aspect is clearly subordinated to its ethical one: the Utopian order is conceived of and presented as being the realization of the Erasmian reform program. Such a conclusion provides a key for evaluating the place of Utopia within Erasmian humanism. We have seen that More was a far more theoretically oriented and reflective thinker than was Erasmus. It is no surprise, then, that he sought to provide a more coherent expression of Erasmus’s broad, and at times haphazard, vision. It is also no surprise that he was aware of what was missing in Erasmus’s discourse: the gap between the desire for a radical change and the conventionally moralistic perception of social and political issues, between the sweeping condemnation of reigning institutions and ideologies and the inability to imagine a social order without them. More understood, in other words, that radical reform necessitates a far more radical change than his friend imagined. This perspective allows us to approach the thorny issues of Utopian communism and religion.90 Abolition of private property was certainly not typical of humanist political and social thought. Most humanists accepted property as part of the given order, while some actively championed economic activity, which included the accumulation of wealth, against medieval idealizations of poverty.91 Erasmus, on the other hand, could regard communism in a positive light, most notably in the adage Amicorum communia omnia, which he placed as the opening piece of the Adages.92 David Wootton has consequently argued that Utopian communism was a central tenet of Erasmus’s reform program.93 This would seem to overstate Erasmus’s commitment to communism. His invocation of communism was more a literary flight of imagination than a carefully considered vision of social organization (although admittedly in humanist

102

Chapter 3

discourse the distinction was rather blurred). The more probable source of Utopia’s communism is, again, More’s evaluation of the preconditions for the Erasmian reform program, or, more specifically, his conclusion that without the abolition of private property—together with the elimination or reduction of other distinctions between citizens such as status and profession—a 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 More’s work, Guillaume Budé 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 Erasmus’s 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 Christianity’s 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 (245–47). 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, Utopia’s 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 discourse—regardless of its many variants and the contradictory political views and theories elaborated and propagated by different humanists—was 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

Erasmian Humanism

103

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 radical—given contemporary mentality—abolition of the difference between town and country and reduction of the differences between men and women (e.g., 113–15, 125–27, 211–13). All aspects of the Utopian order, conversely, are a consciously constructed human artifact. This is as true for Utopian cities and houses (115–21) as for the Utopian political structure; for the Utopians’ daily routine (127–29) as for their sitting order in common dining halls (141–43).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 Plato’s 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 (159–79).99 One of the strongest manifestations of the difference between More’s work and Plato’s 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 Utopia’s political structure. It is mentioned only later, and then only in a single sentence (131). While both The Republic and Utopia depict

104

Chapter 3

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 More’s 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, Budé, 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 Plato’s republic.101 More than any of Erasmus’s 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

T

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-understanding—shared by many contemporaries—as 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 activity—“ordinary” social activity as well as intellectual activity—was 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

— 107 —

108

Chapter 4

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 humanism’s 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 Erasmus’s political writings discussed in the previous chapter, together with one “utopian” work. In the next two chapters I will read Thomas More’s History of Richard III and Utopia.

Christian Prince and the Ambiguities of Humanist Education We have examined Institutio principis christiani as a clear expression of Erasmian humanism. In the text, Erasmus unmistakably assumes the position of the universal intellectual. From this position he criticizes numerous accepted customs and institutions and, most importantly, ridicules and rejects the hegemonic aristocratic culture and chivalric values. But this reconstruction is not exhaustive, as can be readily seen when the work’s inability to elaborate a coherent political view, let alone theory, is highlighted.

The Politics of a Disembodied Humanist

109

Indeed, acknowledging this characteristic of the text, rather than attempting to enforce on it a spurious consistency, is a precondition for understanding its full significance.2 Some of the internal tensions of Institutio principis are close to the surface of the text. They are indicated already in Erasmus’s inability to formulate a coherent opinion concerning the preferable kind of government. A dynastic monarchy was clearly not to his liking, and he was not shy to indicate it in the opening sentences of the work dedicated to the Burgundian prince (IP 206).3 Throughout the text his suspicion of one man’s rule and his acute awareness of the inevitable abuse of power inherent in it are evident. But this attitude does not lead him to espouse a nonmonarchical regime. On the contrary, in a passage strangely at odds with his diagnosis of the ills of monarchy Erasmus argues that “it is pretty well agreed among the philosophers” that monarchy is “the most healthy” form of government (231). Moreover, Erasmus is unable to translate his suspicion of power into a concrete program. Thus, notwithstanding his perception of the corrupting nature of power and belief that there would probably never be a prince “complete with all the virtues” (231), he always falls back on the goodwill of the absolute monarch. Ultimately, it is up to the prince to accept and implement the moral imperatives dictated by the intellectual: “The people are unruly by nature, and magistrates are easily corrupted by avarice or ambition. The blameless character of the prince remains, as it were, the sheet-anchor for the ship of the state” (220). By the same token, notwithstanding his conviction that “monarchy should preferably be checked and diluted with a mixture of aristocracy and democracy” (231), Erasmus cannot even envisage any concrete—institutional or social—checks to the prince’s power. Erasmus’s ambivalences are reproduced in the text’s imagery. As we have seen, Erasmus reduces the prince to an administrator by denying him any distinctively princely quality such as majesty or imperial authority (233).4 His similes and metaphors, on the other hand, tend to depict a different picture. Throughout Christian Prince Erasmus repeatedly equates the prince to a captain, a shepherd, a doctor, the king of the bees, the sun, a father, the mind, and above all to God (e.g., 220–23, 233, 241, 244). To take one example: “As God set up a beautiful likeness of himself in the heavens, the sun, so he established among men a tangible and living image of himself, the king” (221). What is conceptually taken from the king is figuratively given back to him with interest. Institutio principis is incoherent in a still deeper conceptual level, namely in its inability to consistently ground its fundamental assertion: the unequivocal reduction of politics to ethics. Sometimes it seems that Erasmus’s political conceptualization is a form of political evangelism (understood

110

Chapter 4

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 thought—dominium, imperium, regnum, majestatem, potentiam—as “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 Prince—based as it is on the assumption of incommensurability of Christianity and secular wisdom— stands in stark contradiction to Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s 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

The Politics of a Disembodied Humanist

111

the prince’s authority over a people is the same as that of the mind over the body,” and that therefore the mind’s 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 liberty—“what a mockery it is to regard as slaves those whom Christ redeemed with the same blood as redeemed you”—Erasmus 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 work—that Erasmus’s aim was to convince and exhort rather than to present a coherent political theory—and 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 Prince—for example, the educational works, notably De pueris—were basically coherent. In any case, humanism’s rhetorical nature must not be automatically invoked in order to explain away conceptual tensions. If the text’s tensions and disruptions have their own internal logic—as, I suggest, is the case with Institutio principis—it must be assumed that they are symptoms of an underlying problem. And indeed, Christian Prince’s conceptual inconsistencies are reproduced in the literary form of work. Erasmus defines his text as a collection of aphorisms (204). This form suited Erasmus’s 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 author’s 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

112

Chapter 4

moral maxims. This attitude is especially significant as it is strikingly different from Erasmus’s attitude toward the classical heritage in other fields. In his works on education, for instance, Erasmus thoroughly and conceptually assimilates the classical theories and bodies of knowledge and consequently uses them as a basis for his own original and coherent contributions. The different attitude toward the classical heritage is yet another indication of the problem, even threat, which political thought posed for Erasmus. Of even greater significance than the failure to elaborate a coherent political theory in Christian Prince is the text’s undermining of key notions of Erasmian humanism, namely learning and liberal education. At first glance this affirmation may appear strange, as Christian Prince attributes an extravagant importance to education. Indeed, education is presented at the beginning of the work as politically crucial: in hereditary monarchies the proper education of the prince is the only way to ensure good government. “When the prince is born to office,” Erasmus claims, “the main hope of getting a good prince hangs on his proper education, which should be managed all the more attentively, so that what has been lost with the right to vote is made up for by the care given to his upbringing” (206). Hence the name of the work and the large part it dedicates to education.10 But a close reading reveals that this explicit attitude hides an antihumanist and anti-Erasmian skepticism and suspicion concerning education. This disguised distrust regards a whole spectrum of humanist concepts and beliefs, from specific educational themes and methods to the appreciation of the importance of learning to the fundamental notion of education as the means for fashioning a moral and responsible individual. The attitude of Institutio principis toward the discipline of history is one example. It must be stressed at the outset that Erasmus did not share the unbounded enthusiasm of many humanists to this discipline, and did not produce any historical work.11 His appreciation of history was rather bookish. In his De ratione studii, for example, while reviewing the long list of disciplines which a good educator ought to master, he refers to history in one short passage: “Above all, however, history must be grasped. Its application is very widespread and not confined to the poets” (RS 675). And, as Peter Bietenholz notes, Erasmus significantly mentions only one historian, the didactic collector of exempla, Valerius Maximus.12 In De copia, by the same token, the treatment of history is utterly technical: for the humanist writer (for whom Erasmus composed the work) history is a pool of positive and negative examples (Co 608–10). In sum, Erasmus was usually rather indifferent toward the discipline of history. In Institutio principis, however, this attitude is changed. Now—from the political perspective—the discipline seems problematical and dangerous.

The Politics of a Disembodied Humanist

113

The defensive tone of Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s list is surprisingly short. It includes, in fact, only Plutarch’s Apophthegms and Moralia, Seneca, Plato’s The Republic15 (and its restatement in Cicero’s The Laws) and “good many extracts” from Aristotle’s Politics and Cicero’s Offices. That’s all. This list stands in stark contrast to Erasmus’s 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 learning—that is, the stage of learning the classical languages—Lucian, 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

114

Chapter 4

does Herodotus’s paganism and his wont of depicting “the worst image of a prince” disturb Erasmus. By the same token, while in Christian Prince, Caesar—together with other classical historical and mythological heroes such as Achilles, Xerxes and Cyrus—is 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 Erasmus’s 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 ideal—which could not be achieved by any student, but should at least characterize the teacher—is 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

The Politics of a Disembodied Humanist

115

education has no humanity at all” (298).16 Education is perceived as a process of the moral and intellectual fashioning of personality. It is a transformative process in which the child gradually internalizes the Christian and humanist moral values and becomes a humane and Christian individual. This strong belief in the power of education and the presupposed assumption concerning the positive potential inherent in men and women were often conveyed in humanist educational writings by agricultural and nutritional metaphors. Human beings are easily taught virtue, says Erasmus in De pueris, since “the seeds that nature has implanted in us to attain to this goal are bursting with life; the only thing that is required, in addition to this natural inclination, is the effort of a dedicated teacher” (310). And by the same token he calls the father to carefully choose a teacher “to whose care you may safely entrust your son to receive the proper nourishment for his mind and to imbibe, as it were, with the milk that he suckles, the nectar of education” (299). This organic imagery was common for the description of humanist education as it clearly expressed two central and related humanist notions. First, it implied that the educational process was a “natural” one, in the sense that men and (in a different way) women were predisposed by nature toward the aims of liberal education. The seeds, as Erasmus says, are already in the human soul, and all the educator does is help them to run their natural course. Secondly, it presents education as a process of internalization: the imparted values and precepts of conduct become an immanent, organic part of the mature educated individual.17 Similar metaphors appear also at the beginning of Institutio principis. The mind of the future prince must be filled “from the very cradle with healthy thoughts,” says Erasmus, and continues: “And from then on the seeds of morality must be sown in the virgin soil of his infant soul so that, with age and experience, they may gradually germinate and mature and, once they are set, may be rooted in him throughout his whole life” (IP 206). In other passages, however, the organic imagery turns out to be more equivocal. The richer the soil, the more readily it is invaded by useless grasses and weeds, Erasmus discovers when he thinks about the upbringing of the prince: “So it is with a man’s character: the more promising, the more noble, the more upright it is, the more it is at the mercy of many shameful vices unless it is nourished by wholesome teachings” (211). In other places the organic imagery is replaced by a different one, which betrays a very different attitude toward education. The prince’s educator must encourage the future ruler’s good inclination and “fortify the young mind with healthy precepts” against his bad ones, Erasmus says, and adds: “But it is not enough just to hand out the sorts of maxims which warn him off evil things and summon him to the good. No, they must be fixed [infigenda sunt] in his mind, pressed in [infulcienda sunt],

116

Chapter 4

and rammed [inculcanda sunt] home” (210; LB 4: 563F). The assault on the prince’s 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 ambiguity—between conscious self-fashioning and coercive molding from the outside—may be immanent to liberal education, which aspires to fashion the individual’s character and personality. But from our perspective the important point is the difference between Erasmus’s 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.

Pacifism and Primitivism We have seen that Erasmus’s pacifist writings are the distinctive manifestation of Erasmian humanism. The author of these works is the universal intellectual, the educator of Christendom. As such, Erasmus’s condemnation of the dominant classes, ideology and culture is most clear as his own vision of fully civilized human beings and society.18 In contrast to the incoherency and the loose literary structure of Christian Prince, the pacifist writings—concentrating on one issue, closest to the heart of Erasmus—singlemindedly consistent.

The Politics of a Disembodied Humanist

117

For these reasons they are a particularly interesting test case for the examination of the internal tension within Erasmian humanism. At the base of Erasmus’s 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 individual’s 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 Ovid’s 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 skins—“the first murders”—and 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 421–22). 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).

118

Chapter 4

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 life—the attacks of the savage beasts—which led in turn to civilization. Primitivism simply cannot be defended in Erasmian discourse. Ultimately, the disturbing conclusion of Erasmus’s 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” (407–8). 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]” (409–10; 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. Erasmus’s 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

The Politics of a Disembodied Humanist

119

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 men’s 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 conquered—by raving bandits whose only ambition was glory—in 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. Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s 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 Erasmus’s time, “the greater part of a lifetime”

120

Chapter 4

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 learning’s subversion of Christian religion is read almost as a parody on works like Antibarbari. In the latter work, “Erasmianism’s 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 59–64). 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 (23–24).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 nature’s moral imperatives are taken to be identical to God’s (e.g., DB 406–7, 416–18). 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 (419–20). 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.

The Politics of a Disembodied Humanist

121

While Erasmus’s important political writings clearly demonstrate the author’s identity of the universal intellectual, they turn out to be highly problematical from the perspective of Erasmian humanism itself. Erasmus is unable to elaborate a coherent political theory. When he tries to conceptually ground his convictions he slides out of humanist political language. Christian Prince oscillates between incompatible positions. It employs the language of political evangelism—in itself foreign to the intellectual and religious assumptions of Erasmian humanism—only to withdraw at the last moment and take resort in the classical heritage, reduced to a reservoir of moralistic imperatives. Dulce bellum ends up by adopting a most un-Erasmian primitivism. Moreover, Erasmus’s political writings unwittingly highlight the weaknesses, ambiguities and fragility of humanist discourse. They subvert the fundamental humanist notions of learning, the studia humanitatis and liberal education, and thus undermine the Erasmian reform program. It is the combination of these two conclusions—the autonomy of Erasmus expressed in his political writings and the internal strains in the same writings—that is most surprising. For it might be expected that his independent position—a position of immunity from direct external political and ideological pressures—would make it easier for Erasmus to formulate his vision in the most coherent manner. But this does not happen. Erasmus allowed himself to censure kings and popes, to condemn the court culture and the aristocratic ethos and to define the planned crusade against the Turks as a conspiracy of Europe’s rulers, but his texts undermined the basic humanist notions. The inevitable conclusion is that the strains in these writings are not effects of external pressures, but rather symptoms of an internal problematic of Erasmian humanism. Before trying to account for this problematic, let us examine yet another work—a “utopian” work—of Erasmus.

The Enclosed Utopia of Erasmian Humanism The colloquy Convivium religiosum is often portrayed as one of the most beautiful expressions of Erasmian humanism. In particular the colloquy is seen as an example of perfect integration of content and form. The ideas and views the text elaborates, the means of this elaboration—a conversation that mainly consists of interpretation of scriptural passage—and the setting of dialogue—a feast in a rural house—are organically interrelated. From any angle scholars choose to look at The Godly Feast they find that it captures the true spirit of Erasmian humanism. Craig Thompson, for instance, describes The Godly Feast as “in some ways the most typical” of all the colloquies.24 Geraldine Thompson sees it as “a compendium of almost all Erasmus’s theories

122

Chapter 4

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 Erasmus’s notions of the good man and the good life in the secular world (that is, outside the cloister).27 Marjorie O’Rourke 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 Eusebius’s villa, the setting of the dialogue, is, in her words, “an earthly fiction of paradise.”29 Examining Erasmus’s 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 life—from theology to prostitution—and addresses Christendom as a whole. The collection clearly expresses Erasmus’s 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 civilized—Christian and humanist—individuals and social relations. The dialogue succinctly presents and dramatizes the central notions of the Erasmian reform program. The “philosophers”—as 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 Erasmus’s views concerning the essential compatibility, even similarity, between the moral teachings of Christianity and of the classical heritage. Eusebius firmly expels a feigned doubt

The Politics of a Disembodied Humanist

123

concerning the use of profane writers in religious conversation: “whatever is devout and contributes to good morals should not be called profane,” he states, and goes on to compare the classical writers with the “modern” ones, concluding that he “would much rather let all of Scotus and other of his sort perish than the books of a single Cicero or Plutarch.” He further relates his belief that some of the classical authors “were moved by some divine power” (192), while his friend Chrysoglottus intimates his hope that “the souls of Vergil and Horace are sanctified.” And Nephalius sums up the Erasmian conviction with the famous exclamation, “St Socrates, pray for us” (194). More generally, the kind of religiosity the dialogue preaches for is quintessentially Erasmian. The ceremonial and doctrinal dimensions of Christianity are devalued, while the notions of the pure internal belief and its manifestation in moral behavior and way of life are moved to the center. The true Christian is therefore the true civilized individual. The Convivium religiosum thus focuses on a religious reform as the key for a comprehensive cultural reform. It touches also other issues related to Erasmus’s civilizatory worldview. Thus Eusebius suggests that those who suffer from contagious diseases should be isolated (206). A longer discussion is dedicated to the question of poverty. The literal interpretation of the evangelical imperative to give to everyone who asks is carefully rejected (and unsurprisingly the issue is used as a platform for yet another attack on the extravagant wealth of the church). Instead a moderate and prudent generosity toward the poor is recommended. Moreover, poverty is seen as a social problem that needs a social care. The authorities are enjoined to take care of the legitimate beggars, but “not to tolerate vagabonds roaming hither and yon—particularly the able-bodied ones, who . . . need a job rather than a dole” (199). The great merit of the Convivium religiosum is, as mentioned, the way it integrates the tenets of the Erasmian reform program with the literary form of the text and the setting of the dialogue. The numerous Hebrew and Greek inscriptions and pictorial emblems in the gardens of the villa illustrate the humanist imperative ad fontes (177). The moral lessons taught by these means are thoroughly Erasmian. The scorpion, entrapped by a poisonous plant, for example, reminds the visitors in Greek that “God hath found out the guilty” (181). The dialogue form of The Godly Feast is significant in itself. Many dialogues of the Colloquies are satirical, often bitingly so. They serve Erasmus to condemn everything he did not like in contemporary culture. The Convivium religiosum is very different. Here the dialogue is an interhumanist one. The open-minded, noncontentious and consensus-oriented conversation demonstrates the right way to interpret the divine word and illustrates the ideal social relations. Much of the dialogue takes place during a meal Eusebius offers his guests, and the conversation is intermingled with eating and drinking. Indeed

124

Chapter 4

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 humanist—rather than a schoolboy—who 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 6:24–25; 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 individual’s obligations, especially the religious duties (201–2). 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.

The Politics of a Disembodied Humanist

125

But Eusebius rejects his friends’ interpretation. “You misrepresent Christ’s meaning,” he argues in the only case in the dialogue that an opinion of one of the interlocutors is decisively discarded. Instead Eusebius offers a diametrically opposed reading: “What remains then but, using this world as though we use it not, we turn our whole care and zeal to the love of heavenly things and, utterly rejecting earthly riches together with Satan and all his wiles, with a whole and fervent heart serve God alone, who will not forsake his children?” (202). Eusebius, who strongly endorsed the humanist affirmation of human activity, now turns the tables, rejecting the world and underscoring the unbridgeable chasm between Christianity and secular thought. It is an indication of the text’s internal strains that in the next sentence he unconsciously undermines his new position: “But meanwhile nobody touches the dessert. Surely it’s permissible to enjoy this, which is produced for us at home without great toil” (202). Just after so resolutely repudiating all earthly things, specifically the care for food, Eusebius unwittingly returns to it, highlighting of all things the refined dessert and the mundane production of food. A similar incoherency characterizes the Convivium religiosum’s attitude toward the body. The setting of the dialogue, convivium or symposium, indicates a positive value attributed to the bodily pleasures and particularly connects them to intellectual activity. The associations the dialogue repeatedly makes between eating and interpreting scripture strengthen of course this attitude.34 Eusebius explicitly formulates this position when he insists, “Our bodies; aren’t they partners of our minds? For I prefer ‘partners’ to ‘instruments’ or ‘dwellings’ or ‘tombs’” (189). This rejection of the Platonist and Pauline dichotomy may be seen as a radicalization of Erasmus’s humanist critique against the traditional Christian hierarchies between clergy and laity and between celibacy and marriage.35 But again The Godly Feast puts forward also the contrary view. Thus Chrysoglottus approvingly cites Cato’s willingness (reported by Cicero) to “depart from this life as from an inn, not from a home” (192). In the conclusion of the discussion the traditional dichotomy between body and soul is resolutely formulated, as Nephalius paraphrases and interprets Phaedo: “The human soul is placed in this body as if in a garrison which it must not abandon except by the commander’s order, or remain in longer than suits him who stationed it there.” It is the more significant that Plato said “garrison” instead of “house,” since we only inhabit a house; in a garrison we are assigned some duty by our commander. Nor is this out of keeping with our Scriptures, which tell us human life is sometimes a warfare, sometimes a battle. (194)

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.

126

Chapter 4

In order to account for these tensions a further interpretive discussion must be examined. In a key moment in the text, at the very beginning of the meal, just after a tour of the rural house, Eusebius presents his guests with the first interpretive assignment, asking them to explicate the famous first three verses of Proverbs 21: “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will. Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the Lord pondereth the hearts. To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice” (184). The second and the third verses are expectedly understood to convey the common Erasmian notions of the importance of internal belief and practical ethics as opposed to external ceremonies. The first verse, however, raises a political question that complicates the discussion. Eusebius himself opens the discussion: “Other mortals can be swayed by warnings, scoldings, laws, and threats; the king’s heart, if you oppose it, is annoyed rather, since it fears nobody. And therefore, whenever princes have their minds set on anything they should be left to their whims, not because they always desire what is best but because God sometimes uses their madness or wickedness to correct sinners” (184). We have already noted Erasmus’s suspicion of monarchy. What is new here is the frank admission that all the remedies against the prince’s unlimited power he offered in Institutio principis and other political writings are worthless. That Erasmus ambivalently slides to a theological “solution”—the king is “sometimes” God’s rod—highlights his inability to account for politics in humanist terms. The embracement surfaces again in even more heightened form when he answers the question of what can be done after all “against the unbridled fury of wicked kings?”: The first, perhaps, will be not to receive the lion into the city. Next, by authority of senate, magistrates, and people, to limit his power in such a way that he may not easily break out into tyranny. But the best safeguard of all is to shape his character by sacred teaching while he’s still a boy and doesn’t realize he’s a ruler. Petitions and admonitions help, provided they are polite and temperate. Your last resort is to implore God without ceasing to incline the king’s heart to conduct worthy of a Christian prince. (185)

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

The Politics of a Disembodied Humanist

127

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 Christians—indeed most men and women—could 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 Eusebius’s rural house and the external world. The philosophers gathered in Eusebius’s villa are the kings of which Timothy talks, and indeed Eusebius defines himself as king and his house as kingdom (176, 183). Erasmus—in contrast to Augustine and Luther—does externalize, therefore, the Christian inner freedom and faith. His city of God is fictionally realized: Eusebius’s 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 house—the Erasmian utopia—and 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,

128

Chapter 4

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 God’s 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. Eusebius’s 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: That’s callous, so help me! EUSEBIUS: Callous, unless the goodness of the eternal Will had made it for this use. (178–79)

The contact between such different realms cannot but be contaminating. The invocation of God’s 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 Eusebius’s 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, Erasmus—in contrast to the Italian humanists of the quattrocento—was 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, Erasmus’s solution to this predicament. Eusebius’s 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

The Politics of a Disembodied Humanist

129

the very real problem of alienation of the Erasmian humanist? At best, the dialogue may be said to provide a fictive—but ultimately deceptive—refuge 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 dialogue’s 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 Eusebius’s 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 foundations—and legitimization—of the rural estate is examined. Eusebius’s 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 (180–1). 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 wasn’t 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 Eusebius’s villa integrates nature with culture. Thus, besides the pictures of natural objects

130

Chapter 4

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 Eusebius’s house (205). Moreover, already at the beginning of their visit the guests learn that the Garden’s plants and animal are full of life: “nothing inactive, nothing that’s 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 (180–1). The very nature of Eusebius’s house thus illustrates the fundamental tenet of Erasmus’s humanist theology, namely the notion of a never-ending interpretive process of elucidating—but never exhausting—the unfathomable Word of God.41 But the Convivium religiosum also constitutes Eusebius’s 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 Eusebius’s 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 Timothy’s “kings,” namely the perfect men who are ruled solely by the Holy Spirit. Moreover, this interpretation can also account for the text’s ambivalence concerning the relation of body and soul. The dichotomy between flesh and spirit disappears only to the extent that Eusebius’s 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 Eusebius’s house, from this perspective, is not a human artifact but rather paradise inhabited by the elect. The Erasmian utopia—the truly reformed society—turns out to be paradise. The neverending play of signs and interpretations of the human garden is replaced by a

The Politics of a Disembodied Humanist

131

paradisiacal garden of fixed eternal meanings. The unfathomable depth and eternal quest are replaced with transparency and fullness of meaning. The Convivium religiosum is thus ambivalent about the nature of the perfect garden, the utopia, it constructs; it is undecided whether it is ultimately divine or human.43 Or more accurately, it fails to account for the ideal Erasmian social order in the terms of the Erasmian discourse. Eusebius’s estate sees itself as a microcosm of the ideal Erasmian society. It transforms nature and culture alike by removing and sublimating all their negative aspects and by incorporating them into a perfect order of things. It is a fully Christian and humanist society which integrates Christianity and the classical heritage, pietas and eruditio. It is in contact with the divine by means of a continuous process of interpretation and elaboration of the profound Word of God. Its inhabitants are the Erasmian philosophers whose behavior and manners reflect their deep inner faith. But ultimately the text cannot sustain this order of things. Particularly, in order to legitimize the Erasmian utopia the Convivium religiosum resorts to a religious language of the kind that contradicts the tenets of Erasmian humanism. By employing the paradisiacal images the text wrests the rural house from the human world and places it in the realm of the divine. It thus implies that the Erasmian ideal cannot be constructed and sustained by human effort, but only by divine intervention. The Erasmian philosophers convened in the rural villa indeed interpret scripture and the canonical classical texts and distilled their religious and moral lessons. But the social realization of these lessons were ultimately achieved not by human effort. Indeed the philosophers, who fashion themselves as moral agents and responsible individuals through dialogical interpretation of scripture, are replaced by the perfect men, who are directly ruled by the Holy Spirit. Looked at from this angle it seems as if The Godly Feast’s whole point was to exclude the possibility of the Erasmian reform program. It divides humanity in two unequal parts, those in the rural house and those outside it. But this division leaves no place precisely for the Erasmian reform program: the outside world cannot be reformed at all while the ideal humanist garden is a perfect place, a paradise, which does not need to be reformed. The Convivium religiosum thus undermines Erasmian humanism. This is the repressed secret of the text, its fundamental aporia that prevents a coherent closure and produces fractures and strains. How can we account for the tensions and contradictions in Erasmus’s political writings: For Erasmus’s inability to elaborate a coherent political program, for his repeated tendency to slip out of humanist discourse when attempting to conceptually ground his views, for his own subversion of the key notions

132

Chapter 4

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 More’s Richard III: The Fragility of Humanist Discourse

I

TUDOR HISTORICAL THOUGHT, F. J. Levy identifies Thomas More’s The History of King Richard the Third as one of the two significant representatives of humanist historiography written in England (the other is Polydore Vergil’s Anglica historia).1 And yet, he adds, “in Thomas More, indeed, one has continually the feeling that he was engaged in his own renaissance; that while he was perfectly well aware of the work of his immediate predecessors and his contemporaries, he nonetheless discovered the classical past for himself and, more especially, made his own decisions on how to use it.”2 Levy clearly captures the ambivalent relationship of Richard III to Renaissance humanism, but does not try to account for it. Like much of the scholarship on More, he leaves the impression that the ambivalence is a manifestation of the author’s psychological makeup or personal idiosyncrasy. We have seen that Thomas More was the most reflective citizen of the Erasmian Republic of Letters. In his four “humanist letters” he forcefully defended the Erasmian reform program. Moreover, he was one of the few humanists who tried to provide a careful theoretical basis for the humanist organization of knowledge, notably in the formidable letter to Martin Dorp.3 Richard III, by contrast, is an untamed work, indeed one of the most untamed works ever written by a humanist. The differences between Richard III on the one hand and the letter to Dorp and a typical humanist history on the other hand are remarkable. We may find it hard to believe that the same person wrote both Richard III and the letter to Dorp during the same period. It is also hard to believe that a work from a genre usually didactic and moralistic, a genre generally known today only to specialists, could achieve so prominent a place in N HIS STUDY OF

— 133 —

134

Chapter 5

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 More’s 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 book’s 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 Edward’s 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 categories—its notion of historical truth and its criteria for distinguishing fact from fiction, for example—are foreign to More’s 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 III—in the modern sense of literature—they 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 text’s 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

More’s Richard III

135

that More’s basic intention was to condemn tyranny, Hanham suggests that the book’s 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 Kinney’s 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 More’s 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 More’s 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 text—its argumentation and its moral and political lessons—to 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

136

Chapter 5

essential difference between the Latin and the English versions. The former ends with Richard’s 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 82–83). 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 More’s 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. More’s sources included two early chronicles—The Chronicles of Fabyan and The Great Chronicle of London—the “oral tradition” and possibly some legal documents. Most importantly, Hanhan and Alistair Fox convincingly argue that More was acquainted with Vergil’s account of the affair in his historia.14 The differences between More’s account and that of his sources, especially Vergil’s, 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.

The Lesson of Conspiracy Richard III is circumscribed in terms of its duration, space and cast, beginning with the death of King Edward IV on April 9, 1483, and ending (in the Latin versions) with the seizure of the throne by his brother, Richard, duke of Gloucester, on June 26 of the same year. The very framework of the narrative, built around the dissimulations, betrayals and crimes of the protagonist, naturally lends itself to a moralizing interpretation. Richard III has thus traditionally been interpreted as the condemnation of an unscrupulous tyrant who, on his way to power, broke every divine and human law, violating the most sacred traditions and institutions.15 However, a more careful examination of the text indicates that Richard III may be more than a portrayal of unique and diabolical evil. Time and again More finds it necessary to describe past events. Three long flashbacks—describing the struggle between Richard’s father and Henry VI, the speech of the dying Edward and Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville—together with numerous brief clues scattered throughout the narrative—strongly suggest that the roots of the tragedy lie deep in the past. As

More’s Richard III

137

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 Richard’s 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.” Richard’s 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 protagonist’s 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 Richard’s virtuous brother, and the state of the realm under his reign. Edward’s appearance, generosity, courage in battle and political wisdom endear him to all his subjects, commoners and nobles alike (3–4). 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, Edward’s petty vices and personal faults, apparently unimportant, acquire a different significance once we learn their consequences. More hints that Edward’s 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 (60–65). 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 Richard’s much praised predecessor had been less than perfect, More’s text reveals its reluctance to make Richard out to be uniquely immoral—this turns out to be a salient feature of More’s narrative as a whole.

138

Chapter 5

More states that in order to understand his protagonist’s horrendous acts, we must understand his character. In his next sentence, however, he begins to narrate the family history (6). The meaning of this shift in focus is clear: the tragedy can only be understood within a broader context, a political one involving all of the kingdom’s leading figures. These grim events further mitigate the abnormality of Richard’s crimes. We learn, for instance, that Richard’s father was impelled by a lust for power to rebel against his sovereign, Henry VI (6–8). Edward’s reign is also shown from a less-than-forgiving perspective, and we discover that killing of relatives was not unknown in the realm. When More describes the execution of George, Duke of Clarence, the brother of Richard and Edward, he wields an obfuscatory technique used repeatedly in the text. More withholds a decisive judgment on the question of whether Clarence plotted against Edward or was falsely accused by the queen. But he convinces us that both Clarence and the queen were capable of such skullduggery—the very opacity that prevents a decisive condemnation of one person implicates everyone. In any case, the final result is clear: Edward ordered his brother to be drowned in a barrel of sweet wine (7–8). Richard III does not leave it to the reader to conclude that Richard and his brothers had much in common: “Al three as they wer great states of birhte, soo were they greate and statelye of stomacke, gredye and ambicious of authoritie, and impacient of parteners” (6). Nor were these characteristics unique to the House of York (a convenient idea for those who interpret Richard III as Tudor propaganda). All the participants in the drama share the same vices: Edmund Shaa, mayor of London, and his brother John, who preached against the late king and his sons in St. Paul; Catesby, who betrayed Hastings; Radcliff, who executed the queen’s relatives; and Tyrrell, who murdered the children, to mention only a few of the lesser characters. The picture becomes bleaker as we climb toward the apex of political power. More suggests the possibility, for example, that the Duke of Buckingham knew about Richard’s conspiracy from the beginning, or even initiated it himself (42–43). It is clear in any case that the he played a crucial role in the plot, and was a full accomplice in its final stage. His rebellion against the new king simply adds a new crime to old sins (90–93). Two of the most important participants in the drama, Lord Hastings and Queen Elizabeth, are worth special attention since they seem at first reading more complex than the other figures. Following the description of Hastings’s execution, More composes a short elegy to his memory, particularly emphasizing his good humor, his loyalty to Edward and the innocence that eventually led to his downfall (52). But there is a strong current of irony in the elegy, especially in the Latin version. Hastings’s popularity was due to a “jovial nature,” but the only manifestation of this characteristic turns out to be the

More’s Richard III

139

lord’s “somewhat loose living.” Hastings’s loyalty to his sovereign is conveyed largely by being “not unentertaining as a partner or confident in [the king’s] pleasures” (RL 421). Similarly, he is praised for having refrained from courting Edward’s mistress while the king was alive, out of “reuerence towarde hys king, or els of a certaine kinde of fidelite to hys frende” (R 48). Not exactly high praise. Sexual promiscuity and high politics become intertwined, and Hastings’s “loyalty” and “innocence” begin to look ridiculous. Even more important, Hastings was already deeply involved in political intrigues during Edward’s reign, and was clearly an active partner in the plot against the queen’s faction. To underline the point, More’s text reschedules the executions so that the queen’s relatives and Hastings are put to death on the same day. Richard III can thus claim—contrary to what actually happened—that Hastings gave his consent for the execution of innocent people, “hastly without iugement, processe, or maner of order” (57–58).16 This invention of More’s—which he mentions not less than three times (47–48, 52, 57)—creates, of course, the desired ironic effect. Added to what we already know about Hastings’s deeds and personality, it also renders More’s elegy equivocal at best. The treatment of Queen Elizabeth is as equivocal as Hastings’s. Again, at first it seems most emphatic. Elizabeth’s defeat at the hands of Richard is preordained. Consequently, in all the events that follow she is portrayed in a tragic light. Imprisoned in the Westminster sanctuary, mourning the imminent doom of her relatives and conscious of the threat to her two sons, she struggles proudly against the nobles sent by Richard to persuade her to leave the sanctuary, and in a dialogue with the cardinal exposes both the protector’s plots and Buckingham’s empty rhetoric (37–40). But this presentation diverges sharply from the description More offers of the queen’s behavior while in power. The long struggle between her faction and the old nobility set the stage for the subsequent tragedy, and its traces appear throughout Richard III. We have touched on her possible involvement in the Clarence affair, and More also assigns her primary responsibility for the machinations against Hastings (10–11). In any event, it was her rash attempt, following the death of her husband, to exploit her influence over the heir and see her opponents toppled from power that enabled Richard to recruit his supporters (14). More’s treatment of Elizabeth’s marriage to Edward is another instance of the employment of both irony and ambiguity. Difference in rank made such an alliance a gross political impropriety. A long dialogue between Edward and his mother underlines this point, as the latter explains the grave consequences bound to result from such a union (61–62).17 With the description of the king’s courtship of Elizabeth, the narrative slips a few notches below the elevated plane of high politics. While the king had been smitten at first sight by his future wife, he had not been particularly interested in marrying her.

140

Chapter 5

Elizabeth’s stubborn protection of her honor in the face of Edward’s aggressive advances had been widely admired by More’s contemporaries. The Italian Dominic Mancini, who composed the first account of Richard’s 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 More’s take is much more ambiguous. He does underline Elizabeth’s 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). More’s account, in contrast to Mancini’s, allows the possibility that Elizabeth intentionally aroused Edward’s 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 king’s 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 Richard’s 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 Richard’s 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 man’s 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 discourse—understood as the shared assumptions underlying the various political views and theories elaborated and advocated by the humanists—presupposed that a stable and just political order could be established, at least in principle.22 This formulation highlights the differences

More’s Richard III

141

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 More’s work is in keeping with humanist ethical and political thought. If Richard appears as an aberration, then Richard III is an example—albeit a rather idiosyncratic one—of the moralistic and didactic humanist literature. If, on the other hand, Richard’s 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 More’s 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 Richard’s 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 Hastings’s demise is one of the most elaborately theatrical scenes in More’s Richard III. A dynamic tension arises as More contrasts Hastings’s total lack of understanding with Richard’s meticulous direction and control of events. The scene opens with the protector’s 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 protector’s 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

142

Chapter 5

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 Shore’s wife—Edward’s former mistress and, according to More, Hastings’s paramour at the time of the dialogue—of 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 queen’s 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 Hastings’s downfall not to his sins, but to his innocence, to his being “very faithful, & trusty ynough, trusting to much” (52). But then again, Hastings’s 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 protector’s 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 lord’s demise is therefore not a punishment of his sins, but rather the result of his lack of theatrical—that is, political—skills. 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.

More’s Richard III

143

More dedicates many pages to the stratagems employed to extract the younger brother of the heir, the Duke of York, from the Westminster Sanctuary (26–42). This was, of course, a crucial stage in the conspiracy, but no more important than other events described far more succinctly. Dedicating roughly one-fifth of the text to the subject creates a literary imbalance, and to what end? Since the account of the affair is made up largely of fabricated speeches by Richard and Buckingham and of a fabricated dialogue between the queen and the cardinal More was not motivated by a quest for factual precision. In fact, Buckingham’s long speech amounts to a dissertation upon the general juridical aspects of the institution of the sanctuary, a strange exception in More’s compact narrative. The importance of the digression is due to the paradigmatic role of the sanctuary as a sacred institution representing the traditional, natural order of things. In his defense of sanctuary rights, the cardinal stresses this point, mentioning that there never was “so vndeuowte a Kinge, that durst that sacred place violate, or so holye a Bishoppe that durste it presume to consecrate” (28). Against this background, when Buckingham manages, in an elaborate rhetorical speech, to convince even the senior English clergy of the necessity of violating sanctuary we have seen the triumph of theatricality. The second textual imbalance occurs with the long digression on “Shore’s wife.”27 At first sight the motives for granting so much space to this story are even more unclear than they were for the sanctuary affair. This is the story of a woman who is only marginally relevant to the narrative, and it is the only point along More’s narrative when he abandons the time of Richard and hastens forward into the present. As a result, the impact of the woman’s story is much magnified.28 It is Richard himself who first mentions Shore’s wife, describing her as an accomplice to the queen in her attempt to cast a spell on him. After Hastings has been executed the woman is arrested, but when Richard is frustrated in his attempts to prove his absurd accusations, he decides to charge her with the “thing yt her self could not deny,” namely that “she was nought of her body” (54); the best he could do was subject her to a humiliating penance procession. At this point More abandons the line of his narrative to relate the woman’s story: her early and unhappy marriage, her position in the court as Edward’s concubine and later as Hastings’s. He then describes the misery of her present situation, an old beggar in the streets of London. Here the tone of More’s narrative shifts: the sarcastic descriptions and the ironic exposure of hidden dark motives are replaced by a sympathetic and moving portrait: “Proper she was & faire: nothing in her body yt you wold haue changed, but if you would haue wished her somewhat higher. . . . [N]ow is she old lene, withered, & dried vp, nothing left but ryuilde skin & hard bone. And yet being

144

Chapter 5

euen such: whoso wel aduise her visage, might gesse & deuise which partes how filled, wold make it a faire face” (55–56). The digression on Shore’s 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 . . .” (54–55). What is the meaning of this empathy and saintly description? After all, sanctity has little enough to do with Jane Shore’s behavior, which More does not try to attenuate. Jane Shore is contrasted to all the characters in Richard III. More stresses the woman’s 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 deathbed—all 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 Richard’s 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 protector’s 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. (80–81)

More’s Richard III

145

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 protector’s 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 bishop’s 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 More’s day, the depiction of the human world as a stage—famously expressed by the emblem of the theatrum mundi—had 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 Erasmus’s Moriae encomium: If anyone tries to take the masks off the actors when they’re playing a scene on the stage and show their true, natural faces to the audience, he’ll 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

146

Chapter 5

costume, so that now he plays a king in purple and now a humble slave in rags. It’s all a sort of pretense, but it’s 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 More’s 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 More’s 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 protector’s 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 interpretation—that is, that theatricality is simply a disguise of reality—denies the symbolic dimension of social reality, and thus contradicts the presuppositions of humanist discourse. Richard III is equivocal precisely on this matter, as

More’s Richard III

147

the theater stands both for reality as such and for reality’s 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.

Richard III and the Subversion of Humanist History Richard III is referred to by its author as “this hystorye” (9), and it was read by later generations as such. Roger Ascham, for example, prominent among the English humanists of the later sixteenth century, mentions Richard III as a rare example of worthy history written by an Englishman.34 More’s interest in the genre is well documented. Thomas Stapleton, one of the early biographers, informs us that More “studied with avidity all the historical works he could find.”35 History was one of the studia humanitatis and the classical historians provided the humanists’ model. Sylvester, who analyzed in detail the relationship between Richard III and its classical models, demonstrated that More drew on Sallust, Suetonius and especially Tacitus, and assimilated into his own narrative some of their language, themes and literary techniques. Richaqrd Sylvester argues, however, that More did not ape the Roman historians—he derived from the classical discipline the general rules of the genre.36 Classical and humanist historians considered historiography to be closely related to rhetoric, and the fullest classical treatment of the historical discipline appears in Cicero’s De oratore.37 The humanists believed that Cicero had exhausted the subject. Most humanist historians did not discuss methodology at all, and those who did, Vergil and Ascham for example, simply paraphrased De oratore.38 What was Cicero’s understanding of the writing of history?39 For him there were two basic types of historical writings, differing in scope, content, style and methodology. The first kind, the annales or chronicle form, was the basis of the second, the historia as a truly humanist production. Annales were only “bare records of dates, personalities, places and events,” and their composition did not require specific talents or qualifications.40 The chronicler’s only commitment was to truth: he had to write the whole truth without bias or prejudice.41 The chronicle was considered unproblematic, since the classical and humanist historians considered the status of the “historical fact” and the “historical event” unproblematic. The chronicle provided the foundations (fundamenta), the factual skeleton, on which the historian constructed the rhetorical superstructure or exaedificatio.42 It was the rhetorical superstructure that set the historia apart from the chronicle and gave the work its quality.

148

Chapter 5

This rhetorical superstructure Cicero divides into two elements: “content” (res) and “style” (verbum).43 What Cicero meant by verbum is identical to what we mean when we use the word style today in discussing writing, and his remarks on this subject are of no interest for the present discussion. The meaning of res, on the other hand, is not so simple, and we must try to grasp it in order to understand the classical and humanist notion of history. It is the content of the exaedificatio that transformed the dry chronicle into a mimetic and credible narrative, in accordance with rhetorical criteria. Thus, for example, Quintilian maintains, in an often-quoted passage, that the dry factual statement “The town was stormed” must be replaced by a description detailed and vivid enough to permit the reader to see in his mind’s eye houses and temples in flames, panic-stricken inhabitants, looting conquerors and so forth.44 This example illustrates one of the most important characteristics of the history practiced both by classical and humanist writers, namely the obligation to add “content” to the “facts.” In this manner the historian is obliged to explicate the actions of historical figures through credible psychological descriptions of their personalities and motives, and to explain the causal relation between events and their possible implications. And finally, since history, like all humanist disciplines, has an educational purpose, the historian has to evaluate the behavior of the historical actors, praise the worthy, condemn wrongdoers and draw the appropriate moral lessons.45 As he composed the historical superstructure, the historian was not limited to a bald recounting of facts; his descriptions were not true in the positivist sense of the term. The description of the storming of a town did not need to be based on the reports of eyewitnesses; common sense and general human experience ought to be used to add details and to create the desired mimetic effect. The same is true for causal and psychological inferences and judgments. In technical terms, the historian was expected to rely on inventio, that is, “the discovery of valid or seemingly valid arguments to render one’s cause plausible.”46 This aspect of the rhetorical superstructure in classical and humanist historiography appears most clearly in their characteristic reliance upon lengthy speeches. Such fictional speeches not only render fateful episodes dramatic and vivid, they serve as the means for presenting the personalities and motives of the leading characters and for explaining the causal relations between events. We have seen that in many crucial respects Renaissance humanism gave birth to the modern historical discipline. Humanism rejected the subordination of history to theology and represented the past through secular categories. It developed critical philological methods that enabled refuting medieval historical legends. The humanist historical writings wove together discrete historical facts into a coherent narrative, by postulating causal relations

More’s Richard III

149

between historical events. Behind these characteristics lay the emergence of historical consciousness itself. History was born as an organic concept and as an autonomous discipline.47 From our perspective, however, the characteristics of humanist history that set it apart from nineteenth-century positivist historical theory are no less important.48 The reliance on inventio, far from being some sort of marginal “literary” supplement to an otherwise “scientific” historical writing, is indicative of the essential rhetorical self-understanding of humanist history. The practical implications of this self-understanding can be seen in any aspect of the humanist historical narratives. First, for the humanists, history, like any other humanist discipline, had an explicit and important ethical and political dimension: it existed to persuade and to motivate men to action. That does not mean that humanist history was necessarily mere propaganda (though some of it certainly was). Nancy Struever has shown that, at its best, humanist historiography dissected historical junctions, describing the confluence of forces in all of its complexity and noting the alternative courses history might have taken. Such thorough historical reconstruction did not hinder the historian from taking sides, but it did prevent him from endowing one side with a monopoly on truth and justice. Precisely because they provided all sides with the opportunity to air their views, debates and orations were the humanist literary devices par excellence.49 In any case, whether the historian adopted a monocular and propagandistic position or chose a more subtle and complex perspective, humanist historical writings were politically involved—and invited the reader’s involvement—in the sense that they exposed and dramatized the ethical dimensions of historical decisions and actions. Secondly, humanist history expressed the antimetaphysical presuppositions of humanist discourse. Against the prevailing notions of medieval culture and indeed of mainstream Western intellectual tradition, humanist history concerned itself exclusively with the phenomenal world of contingency and flux. It thus rehabilitated the intelligibility of the particular and the temporal. Furthermore, it represented political reality as a human creation, the product of human desires, intentions and actions. Most important, humanist history highlighted—though not explicitly stated—the symbolic dimension of human reality. It presented social institutions, interactions and practices as meaningful entities and human activity as interpretive and performative. Also from this perspective it is clear why the fictive orations—and particularly the antilogies, two consecutive orations of opponents who put forth opposed points of view—were the paradigmatic literary device for the humanists. They underscored the fact that the very perception of reality—of the political actors as well as of the historian—was not objective but was rather a product of a

150

Chapter 5

specific representation. What Struever says about the humanist discipline of history was true of all humanist enterprises: “The humanists assumed that the model for the structure of history is the structure of discourse.”50 Now we can return to Richard III and examine the work within the framework of humanist history. At first glance, More’s history fulfills the criteria established by classical and humanist historians. More grounds his history on a solid base of facts, on a series of events with which his contemporaries were already familiar and which they (as well as modern historians) had no reason to doubt. On this foundation he constructs a detailed superstructure, employing a variety of rhetorical devices to make it appear convincing, to explain the causal connection between the events and to reveal the hidden motives of the protagonists. This exaedificatio is clearly fictitious, but that in no way distinguishes Richard III from other humanist histories. However (as usual with Richard III), a closer reading reveals a more complex picture. More’s text conforms to the rules of the humanist historical genre, but at the same time undermines and subverts them. Consider, for example, the question of psychological credibility. Following Cicero’s imperative, More pledges at the beginning of his history to explicate Richard’s behavior according to his character and personality (6). And as we saw, he fulfills his promise, not only for his principal protagonist. The actions of the book’s entire cast of characters are attributed to a single motive: an unbounded lust for power. The explanation is complete and coherent, and in this sense fulfills the formal criteria of the genre. And yet the reduction of human behavior to one and only one motive contradicts the essential humanist commitment to psychological credibility and realistic description. Far from exposing the intricate considerations and motives involved in any decision, the descriptions of the actors in Richard III verge on caricature. Far from emphasizing the complexity of any concrete situation, More’s text renders reality one-dimensional. As it was the rhetorical character of the exaedificatio that made a humanist history, it is important to examine more closely the meaning and function of rhetoric in Richard III. In More’s history rhetoric is one of the most important instruments exercised by Richard and his allies in their quest for power. The eloquent and carefully organized orations given by the protector himself, by John Shaa and especially by Buckingham occupy a large part of the work and underscore the negative function of rhetoric. Far from being the means for rational deliberation and ultimately the best way to express the individual’s humanitas, in More’s work rhetoric is almost exclusively placed in the service of evil. We must be careful, however, in evaluating the meaning of this observation. The humanists never claimed that the “good guys” would always win, and were certainly aware that rhetoric was vulnerable to abuses.51

More’s Richard III

151

We must instead try to examine rhetoric in Richard III in light of the discipline’s more fundamental epistemological meanings and functions. For this purpose we can bracket rhetoric’s 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 Richard’s 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 speech’s 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 desires—outside 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. Edward’s 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 protector’s speech to the nobles and especially on the differences between More’s version and Vergil’s Angelica Historia.52 Addressing the nobles, Richard promises to accept their counsel; he complains about the harm the affair has done to the kingdom’s 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

152

Chapter 5

send a delegation to persuade the queen to leave the sanctuary with her son (25–27). In these respects his speech closely resembles that attributed to him in Vergil’s narrative. However, there are differences. First, in More’s version the protector insists—and the nobles finally agree—that if the queen refuses to let her son leave the sanctuary he must be forcibly taken from her—this does not happen in Vergil’s account. Secondly, in More’s version, Richard dwells at length upon one argument that does not appear in Vergil’s: without a playmate will not the heir see his health suffer? And do not considerations of rank and age make the prince’s 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 More’s text the nobles decide that the sanctuary is violable and then send a delegation to the queen. But as the child’s 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 (40–41). 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 prince’s need for a playmate may be shown to ridicule the very idea of rhetoric, especially when integrated with the protector’s reasonable arguments. Apparently the nobles and the prelates must have guessed the protector’s 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 protector’s proposal because they deemed it “both mete and honest.”53 We ought not to be surprised by More’s 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.

More’s Richard III

153

The sermon John Shaa gives at St. Paul’s, 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. Paul’s 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)

No more successful were Buckingham’s speeches at the Guildhall, in which he repeated the accusations of adultery, generally defamed King Edward and demanded that the Londoners offer the crown to the protector. More presents us with an eloquent and elegantly articulated speech by Buckingham, but the audience’s reaction is far from enthusiastic: “all was husht and mute, and not one word aunswered therunto.” The surprised duke is informed that he had not been understood. He quickly gathers himself, and “by somewhat louder, he rehersed them the same matter againe in other order and other wordes, so wel and ornately, & natheles so euidently and plaine, with voice gesture and countenance so cumly and so conuenient.” Alas, this speech too was received with stony silence: “not one woorde was there aunswered of all the people that stode before, but al was as styl as ye midnight.” Now the duke is informed that the people were accustomed to hearing proposals only through the official known as the recorder. The latter, new to his office and quite terrified, is then forced to repeat the proclamation. He does so, but “so tempered his tale, that he shewed euery thing as the dukes wordes and no part his owne” (75). When this performance too fails to win an enthusiastic response, an angry Buckingham declares that Richard would be king whether the assembly approved it or not. At this moment the audience’s silence is at last broken, but not by words: from the audience comes a sound that “was neyther loude nor distincke, but as it were the sounde of a swarme of bees” (76).

154

Chapter 5

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 rhetoric’s 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 Struever’s 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 text’s 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 people’s 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 midnight”—and the inarticulate, inhuman sounds—“neyther loude nor distincke, but as it were the sounde of a swarme of bees”—are 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 More’s 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 versions—dark and darker—of events.55 Had, for

More’s Richard III

155

example, Richard long contemplated a putsch, or had he simply exploited the opportunity created by Edward’s premature death? What had Buckingham’s part been? Had he instigated the plot, or only been let in on it at a later stage? More does not presume to know the details, and invites us to share his doubts. The events surrounding Clarence’s execution make up an even more pronounced example. More does not even pretend to know whether it was a plot or only a slanderous accusation. Any one of these gaps in More’s understanding is not by itself problematic—the humanists did not purport to know all the answers—but not so their accumulated impact. They create an impenetrable wall between the historian and large segments of reality. Using Ciceronian terminology, we can say that Richard III questions the very notion of inventio, or more accurately the possibility of constructing a credible exaedificatio atop factual fundamenta. The undermining of the humanist concept of historical fact is the inevitable outcome of the text’s ambiguity concerning the relation between reality and theatricality, between performativity and dissimulation. For this reason More allows himself even to tamper with the “bare records of dates, personalities, places and events” of the affair—notably when he reschedules the date of Hastings’s execution to implicate him in the murder of the queen’s relatives—violating the distinction between fundamenta and exaedificatio and the humanist historian’s commitment to truth. The subversion of the humanist discourse explains why the text cannot control and contain the centrifugal forces that threaten to transform it into a parody of humanist history. The most striking example of this is undoubtedly the description of the murder of the two princes, which wildly violates the conventions of humanist historiography. The factual skeleton of the murder story is straightforward enough: Richard, More tells us, first ordered the constable of the Tower of London, Robert Brackenbury, to kill the children. When Brackenbury flatly refused, the new king sent to London James Tyrrell, who carried out the mission. Clear as that basic outline may be, the exaedificatio built on this factual platform includes an excess of marginal, senseless and highly improbable details, which manage to transform the supposedly mimetic narrative into a burlesque.56 We learn, for instance, that the original order to Brackenbury was sent in a written letter carried by a messenger. When he learned of Brackenbury’s refusal Richard summoned to his bathroom—“for this communicacion had he sitting at the draught, a conuenient carpet for such a consaile” (84)—a “secrete page.” Taking the advice of the page, Richard decided on Tyrrell, personally woke him up and, after scolding him for daring to go to bed so early, explained his errand. As Tyrrell “founde . . . nothing strange” in his instructions, he was sent to London with special written authorization to receive “all ye kayes of the Tower for one nyght, to ye ende he might there accomplish

156

Chapter 5

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 Tyrrell’s 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). Richard’s 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 king’s metamorphosis begins with a sober and melancholic reflection on (of all subjects) loyalty, occasioned by Brackenbury’s 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 resemblance—whether this is an intentional allusion is, of course, a matter of conjecture—adds an ironic touch to Richard’s 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 priest—only this man and the “secrete page” go unnamed in the murder story—in 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 More’s 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 Edward’s death, More tells us,

More’s Richard III

157

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)

Historical memory, like political reality, is constituted by the powerful. The skeleton of the history of Edward IV appears at the beginning of the work, but this history, this humanist history, is not the true one, or at least not the only one. The flashbacks and the allusions scattered among the episodes of the history of Richard III—the king who did not reign long enough to consign his crimes to oblivion—assemble themselves into the skeleton of an alternative history. But this history, like The History of King Richard III, could never be a humanist history. Richard III is a product of the Erasmian Republic of Letters. It is written by the Erasmian humanist in the position of universal intellectual. Comparison with other humanist histories confirms this claim. We have learned that humanist historiography—like humanist intellectual activity in general—was politically engaged. Humanist history was explicitly written on behalf of a particular polity and political ideology. Leonardo Bruni’s Florentine Histories, as the first example of a humanist history, thus embraces the dominant political ideology in Florence, namely republicanism.58 Closer to More’s work in time and subject is Angelo Poliziano’s The Pazzi Conspiracy, which presents the failed conspiracy against the Medici rulers from their perspective.59 Still closer to More is Vergil, who wrote his Anglica Historia for Henry VII, espousing Tudor interests as well as the dominant aristocratic and monarchical ideology. We have examined the relationship between the humanists and the ruling establishment from complementary perspectives, that is, social and intellectual.60 The former point of view has underscored the economic and professional dependence of the humanists on the patronage of the powerful. Bruni was accordingly integrated into the Florentine elite. Poliziano became a protégé of the Medici. And Vergil wrote his history in the service of Henry VII.61 An intellectual perspective allows us to understand how the alliance with the political establishment issued from the humanist commitment to the vivere civile, and ultimately from the humanist perception of knowledge as socially embedded and practical. More’s history, in contrast, was not written on behalf of the interests or the ideology of any specific political group or social class. It was created by the humanist as a universal intellectual, a citizen of the Republic of Letters, from a position of conscious detachment from structures of political power. 62 This is the source of the critical weight—and, arguably, the literary quality as

158

Chapter 5

well—of More’s work. Indeed, Richard III is a condemnation of the dominant monarchical ideology. Furthermore, it denounces aristocratic culture for its values, its false self-image, and for the violence and destruction that are in its nature. Richard III, in other words, rejects the ideological foundation of the social and political order of the European monarchies. But Richard III should not just be read as a critique of the dominant mode of political values and behavior. It challenges many aspects of humanist discourse as well. It raises questions about the humanist commitment to public activity by arguing that political engagement is dangerous as well as futile. It further challenges humanist political thought by doubting the possibility of a morally legitimate political order. Rather than offering a solution to this bleak diagnosis of the political reality, Richard III projects evil into the political world as such. The text is, in this respect, as categorical—and problematical, from the point of view of humanist discourse—as the more pessimistic expressions found in Erasmus’s political writings, such as defining learning and civilization as the source of evil in Dulce bellum, or his depiction of kingship in Scarabeus aquilam quaerit. At a still deeper layer, More attacks here the fundamental humanist notion of rhetoric, consequently undermining the very foundation of humanist discourse and questioning the possibility of comprehending reality, by either the ordinary social agent or the humanist historian. Richard III thus shares those same perplexing characteristics of Erasmus’s political writings. More’s work asserts the author’s position as universal intellectual, that which grants him immunity from external political and ideological pressures. At the same time, however, it fails to exploit that position. Far from elaborating a coherent Erasmian discourse, in fact, Richard III no less than undermines this discourse. And so the identity of the universal intellectual is revealed to be most problematic in terms of humanist discourse itself. In accounting for this problem, we need to return, once more, to Utopia.

6 Utopia and the No-Place of the Erasmian Republic

T

in Richard III may explain why More, unique among the humanists, tried to visualize a society radically different from the existing one. In any event, we have already examined More’s Utopia as the most distinctive product of the Erasmian Republic of Letters. More than any other work, Utopia, and indeed the invention of the utopian genre, attest to the identity of the universal intellectual constructed by Erasmian humanism.1 If therefore this identity turns out to be problematic in terms of humanist discourse itself—as I tried to show in the previous two chapters—then the utopian enterprise must have been fraught with difficulties. In the concluding chapter of this study I will examine Utopia from this perspective. The current interpretive debate concerning Utopia has been driven by two discussions. Both are central to my own reading of the work. The first revolves around the crucial question of the work’s actual position regarding Utopian society. It stems from what appears to be a tension between Utopia’s explicit argumentation and rhetoric, which presents the Utopian order as an ideal, and the presence in Utopia of many unattractive institutions and practices. The second, and related, debate centers on the literary qualities of Utopia, and, specifically, its ambiguities, contradictions and paradoxes. Many readings have noted Utopia’s pervasive use of irony and other destabilizing linguistic techniques, its reflexivity, its repeated references to classical literature that exploit the heterogeneity of this intertextual space (in playing the views of Lucian, Plato and Cicero against each other, for example), its construction and utilization of a tension between reality and fiction and its complex narrative that generates more than HE BLEAK DIAGNOSIS OF THE POLITICAL WORLD

— 159 —

160

Chapter 6

one point of view while simultaneously undermining the credibility of each.2 Utopia’s literary structure and its use of literary devices thus seem to frustrate any attempt to assign the work a fixed meaning. My aim is to conceptualize and account for these contradictions and paradoxes from the perspective developed in this study. My central contention is that while the explicit argumentation of Utopia provides a vision of the ideal Erasmian social order, there is also a hidden level of meaning, one which contradicts central notions of Erasmian humanism and subverts, moreover, the premises of humanist discourse. This ambiguous character of More’s work, I argue, reflects the fundamental tension immanent to Erasmian humanism I have traced throughout this study, namely the contradiction between the identity of the Erasmian humanist as an autonomous intellectual and the ontological and epistemological presuppositions of humanist discourse. My reading can resolve the debate over the work’s own attitude toward Utopia, as well as explain why that debate has persisted for so long. For while Utopia’s humanist perspective and rhetoric invite us to view Utopian society as an ideal society, the text subverts its own explicit positions and consequently undermines any attempt to capture an ideal. My reading also confers a measure of coherence to many of the text’s literary paradoxes and ambiguities as it relates them to distinct tensions within the discourse of Erasmian humanism.

Erasmianism and Utopianism Later I shall examine the gap between the argumentation of Utopia and the Utopian reality it conjures up. It may be useful, though, to approach the subject indirectly by examining Utopia’s explicit challenge to an accepted humanist position found in what is known as the Dialogue of Counsel in book 1. Public career, in court or in administration, was the aspiration of many, perhaps most, humanists. We have seen that the pursuit of public career was also related both to the humanists’ dependence on their patrons and to their affirmation of the vita activa and their perception of knowledge as practical and pragmatic. It is not surprising, therefore, that many humanists sought to advance this position against the traditional medieval preference of the vita contemplativa. In their works they rehearsed the arguments in favor of public service: the humanist must sacrifice his own interests for those of society; he must utilize his knowledge and intellectual expertise for the benefit of the public; unable to make philosophers kings, at least he should try to make the kings philosophers, and so forth.3 Against this background the debate between Hythloday and Morus, More’s fictional counterpart, in Utopia is of great significance. Peter Giles,

Utopia and the No-Place of the Erasmian Republic

161

cast here as the naïve, 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 people’s welfare or misery flows in a stream,” is particularly important (53). In response, Hythloday describes three situations—one “actual” and two hypothetical—in 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 order—the 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 rulers—and offers remedies drawn from the societies he came to know in his voyages. In all three cases, the structure of Hythloday’s 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 (53–95). But the debate does not end at this point. Morus accepts Hythloday’s diagnosis of the existing state of things, but continues to adhere to the humanist affirmation of public career, employing the full range of Cicero’s canonical arguments in De officiis.4 He argues that the philosopher’s 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 Hythloday’s “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 Hythloday’s 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 Seneca’s speech to Nero from the Octavia. Wouldn’t 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

162

Chapter 6

as best as you can, and don’t spoil it all just because you happen to think of a play by someone else that might be more elegant. (97)

Hythloday is unmoved, however. On the contrary, he totally rejects Morus’s indirect approach and reformulates his criticism of European society in more general and abstract terms. Instead of his former suggestions for limited reforms, he now employs a clinical terminology in a new argument. Partial legislative reforms, he says, “may have as much effect as poultices continually applied to sick bodies that are past cure.” A real cure requires a structural change of the social order and particularly the abolition of private property. And this insight opens the way to the description of Utopia (103). Can we determine which of the debaters has prevailed in the Dialogue of Counsel? Some readers have noted that both sides present logically and conceptually sound arguments and that neither side gives in, and concluded that the debate ends without resolution.5 Though this conclusion may be formally correct, it seems that the text presents Hythloday’s case in a more favorable light. First, Hythloday argues at far greater length than Morus. Second, Morus accepts most of Hythloday’s arguments, and consequently his resort to the “indirect approach” seems somewhat arbitrary. Third, the debate ends with Hythloday’s case for the abolition of private property, which he describes as the only possible solution to the existing social ills, and Morus’s practical arguments against communism (101–7). By implication, the result of the debate on counsel hinges on whether or not a communist social order can work, and its feasibility is taken up and proved by Hythloday in book 2.6 Utopia becomes the case study that validates Hythloday’s position. Moreover, two characteristics of the debate further strengthen Hythloday’s case. First, only he employs the humanist method by endowing his abstract reasoning with a concrete dimension: he tells the stories and cites the examples from his travels. This fact is particularly revealing, since More (in contrast to Morus) was one of the humanists who brought this technique to perfection.7 Hythloday’s use of the theatrical metaphor is no less significant. The metaphor was, as we have seen, a central literary device in More’s History of Richard III, where its employment flatly contradicts Morus’s conclusions. The History demonstrates that even the most brutal and criminal political events are nothing but “Kynges games . . . for the more part plaied vpon scafoldes,” and concludes, in a truly Hythlodayian spirit, that any intervention is not only futile but also dangerous (R 81).8 In any case, even if we deem the dialogue as a whole inconclusive, Utopia at the very least strongly challenges a commonly held humanist view. What is the significance of this criticism? Skinner evaluates it vis-à-vis one of the fundamental principles of the humanist political discourse, namely the postulate

Utopia and the No-Place of the Erasmian Republic

163

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 dogmatic—and convenient—position. 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 Skinner’s 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 More’s 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 one’s 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 posed—and dramatized—by some of Utopia’s 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 More’s 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

164

Chapter 6

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 didn’t 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 Hythloday’s 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 humanity—that is, without divine intervention—at that date. The book itself demonstrates that More’s 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 (129–33). 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 Europe’s 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 Utopia’s literary devices shed new light on the Dialogue on Counsel by firmly anchoring it on the general question of the relationship between Eras-

Utopia and the No-Place of the Erasmian Republic

165

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 More’s 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 change—they cannot be realized at all. Perhaps this conclusion explains why Erasmian humanism produced only a single utopia. The reaction of More’s fellow humanists corroborates this interpretation. As we saw, Budé, 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 More’s 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 work—the clearest textual indication that Utopia nowhere exists—became 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 Budé 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.

Brutality, Supervision and Discipline The self-image of Utopia is indeed misleading. Most obviously, many of the ideal state’s practices are oppressive and brutal even by nonutopian standards. The state’s attitude toward its enemies, external as well as internal, clearly

166

Chapter 6

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 war—which the Utopians consider “perfectly justifiable”—and expulsion from their own lands (135–37, 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 enemy’s king and other high politicians (205–7). 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 Utopia’s 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” (209–11). A similar attitude—instrumentalism supplemented by irrational excesses—can be seen in the treatment of the enemies ferreted out from within, those citizens who transgress Utopia’s 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

Utopia and the No-Place of the Erasmian Republic

167

assembly (123), adultery and seduction (191–93) 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 (225–27). And the bodies of suicides—except for those who have suffered from terminal illness—are thrown into a marsh and refused proper burial (187–89). Utopia’s treatment of its enemies is by no means the state’s 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. Utopia’s 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) (125–27). 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 Europe’s 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

168

Chapter 6

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 Utopia’s 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. . . . (144–45)

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” obtained—the request has to be transmitted all the way up to the governor—it 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 (127–29), 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

Utopia and the No-Place of the Erasmian Republic

169

or enjoying their leisure in a respectable way.” Therefore, in Utopia there are “no wine-bars, or ale-houses, or brothels . . . no hiding places; no spots for secret meetings” (145). The supervising gaze is in principle everywhere. For this reason there is no such thing as “spots for secret meetings,” however harmless the meeting. And finally the gaze becomes a metaphysical entity in the guise of religious belief. The Utopians “believe the dead come frequently among the living, to observe their words and acts . . . and the belief that their forefathers are present keeps them from any secret dishonourable deed” (227). Utopia’s extreme means of control and supervision betray the fundamental suspicion the ideal state harbors toward its citizens. As such, Utopia markedly differs from its self-image as well as from the humanist image of the good political body. The humanists, and even more so the Erasmian humanists, emphasized that government should be founded on mutual understanding between the rulers and subjects, based in turn on common values of reason and morality. Within this framework a considerable measure of freedom—at least as the humanists understood the term—for the citizens could be guaranteed. Hythloday formulates these ideas: a ruler is incompetent if he “knows no other way to reform his people than by depriving them of all life’s benefits.” Indeed, “such a king openly confesses his incapacity to rule free men” (93). Who are the subjects constructed by the Utopian social order? A look at the Utopian family, the central social institution that mediates between the private and the public, provides a first indication.23 The Utopian household is at first sight similar to the European patriarchal family. But the similarity is only superficial; or rather it holds mainly for the family’s functions of supervision and control. Although the household “consisting generally of blood-relations,” Utopia does not hesitate to fragment the family’s unit. In order to keep the numbers within defined limits—between ten and sixteen adults per household—the state transfers people from one family to another (137). By the same token, if the son is not enthusiastic about the traditional family occupation, in which he ought to be trained by his father, he may easily transfer to another household (123). As Harry Berger notes, the Utopian family does not take care of its sick—Utopia has well-equipped hospitals (139–41)—and its members do not prepare and eat their meals separately.24 And Stephen Greenblatt convincingly argues that the Utopian family lacks the cultural significance of the contemporaneous European family; it does not inherit property and does not even own a house. Though they are exactly alike, the Utopian houses are redistributed between the families every ten years (119). The Utopian family lacks a name, a unique tradition, and a feeling of generational continuity and shared destiny.25 A look at marriage may illustrate even more forcefully the nature of the Utopian subject. The Utopians are strictly monogamous and do not generally permit divorce (as mentioned, adultery is punished by slavery). This would

170

Chapter 6

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 Utopians—indeed 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]” (190–91). 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” quality—quality propagated exclusively by persuasion and education—cannot be the basis of a just and sound social order we already know from Hythloday’s 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

Utopia and the No-Place of the Erasmian Republic

171

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 More’s 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 More’s 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 d’esprit, 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

172

Chapter 6

Alistair Fox’s account of the ambiguities of Utopia is more elaborated, and has the further advantage of relating the textual aporias and contradictions to humanist discourse.31 Fox believes that, for More, “humanist rationality” stood in contrast to “the reality of human desire,” or in other words “the rational law of nature can work directly against the law of human nature.”32 This produced a utopia inherently ambiguous, often closer to dystopia.33 All of this arose from an internal tension at the heart of the Christian-humanist synthesis (exposed also in Erasmus’s The Praise of Folly), that is, the “contradiction between the rational idealism of the pagan philosophers and the Christian view of the world.”34 The humanist attempt to integrate Christianity and secular wisdom, like other syntheses of this kind, was certainly riddled with internal tensions. But by postulating an inherent contradiction between humanist thought and “the law of human nature” or “human desire,” Fox anachronistically attributes to humanism an inappropriate notion of “rationalism.” Indeed, attributing to More and Erasmus so negative an attitude toward secular wisdom would amount to placing them—notwithstanding their own explicit positions and any reasonable reconstruction of Erasmian humanism—at the extreme edge of Christian fundamentalism. Fox’s reading method is not less problematical. He believes that More’s original intention was to describe an ideal, secular, humanist social order, but that while writing Utopia he discovered the above-mentioned impediments to the attempt, and that he subsequently decided to surrender his doubts to his readers. It is hard to see what theoretical assumptions could justify so naïve a reading, and in any case, as George Logan demonstrates, the text itself does not support the interpretation of gradual disillusionment.35 However, there is a still bigger problem: if, as Fox argues, More discovered that a synthesis of Christianity and humanism was impossible, why did he continue to defend and to elaborate this very synthesis in his later polemics against the enemies of Erasmian humanism?36 Like Fox’s, the “neo-Catholic” interpretation of Utopia is based on the distinction between Christianity and secular wisdom. According to this interpretation—first suggested by R. W. Chambers and subsequently elaborated in great detail by Edward Surtz—the Utopian social order is the best that can be constructed through the application of natural reason. But because it is based only on that, and not based on revealed Christian truths, it is deeply flawed.37 We are reminded by this interpretation that Erasmian humanism was far from attributing to secular wisdom or natural reason the destructive effects that Fox finds in Utopia. However, the opposition between Christian and secular ethics that Surtz attributes to Erasmian humanism is anachronistic in its own right. Erasmian humanism emphasized the similarity between the practical ethics and its social and political consequences, of the classical heri-

Utopia and the No-Place of the Erasmian Republic

173

tage and of Christianity.38 In his reconstruction of Erasmian humanism, Surtz unwittingly adopts the argumentation and rhetoric of the sixteenth-century enemies of humanism. The internal logical and conceptual difficulties of his interpretation are indicative, and nowhere are they more apparent than when Surtz deals with the problematical Utopian institutions and practices. As soon as natural reason and revealed truth are juxtaposed, it becomes clear that Utopia violates even some of the imperatives of the former—by permitting divorce, euthanasia, and assassination, for example—at least as they were understood at the time. Surtz is thus reduced to circular reasoning: these errors, he argues, simply prove that natural reason needs the guidance of revelation even in its own domain, and therefore the unguided Utopians “are justified and blameless in following their conscience even if in some few points it happens to be erroneous.”39 George Logan systematically elaborates what is perhaps the most commonsensical solution to the contradictions of Utopia. Like the neo-Catholics, Logan takes the adjective optimus in the work’s title to mean not “ideal” or “perfect,” but “the best.” He argues that what “the best” really means is the best possible given some reasonable assumptions about external reality and human nature, and concludes that the unattractive practices and institutions described in Utopia are simply the price More felt obliged to pay for realizing more important aims. Thus, the brutal foreign policy of Utopia seemed to More a price worth paying for the security and self-sufficiency of the commonwealth; by the same token, for achieving the all-important goal of an egalitarian as well as a stable social order, the freedom and even the individuality of the citizens had to be compromised.40 Here we encounter in its most acute form the basic problem shared by all of the interpretations I have discussed: the assumption that Utopia reflects the intentions of its author; that in the plentitude of More’s consciousness the contradictions of the text are resolved.41 This assumption has been exposed as theoretically indefensible in practically every discipline of the human sciences; there is no need to rehearse the arguments here. Concerning Utopia in any case, one wonders: why does More never explicitly state the conclusions attributed to him? Moreover, such an approach cannot account for the kind of problems we identified in the work, namely the gaps and aporias that crop up in the text itself, between the explicit positions of Utopia and the reality it conjures. While Logan does identify the Utopian institutions and practices that contradict the positions attributable to Thomas More as a humanist, as a Christian and so on, he sets out to account for these contradictions through the author’s rational and conscious decisions. But his theoretical assumptions blind him to an inescapable fact: far from presenting the unattractive aspects of Utopia as compromises, the text tries to disguise their true nature.

174

Chapter 6

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) More’s 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 nature—that 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 Avineri’s interpretation provides important insights for the understanding of More’s 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 (63–71). 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

Utopia and the No-Place of the Erasmian Republic

175

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 text’s 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 Halpern’s 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 More’s 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 production—and consequently its entire social organization—in 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 Utopia’s 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

176

Chapter 6

Halpern’s 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 Utopia’s 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 attention—notably when the enclosure of land is discussed (63–65)—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) (169–71). 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 Halpern’s 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 Utopia’s 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 value—Utopian or Marxist, “natural” or “social”—is a myth.49 Finally, Stephen Greenblatt, who sensitively uncovered the contradictions and paradoxes of Utopia, interprets More’s 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 Greenblatt’s 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

Utopia and the No-Place of the Erasmian Republic

177

and Christian selves—these he perceived as authentic, not just more roles to play.51 But on this account More’s postulated desire to obliterate his identity is inexplicable.52 Second, and more important, despite all of its sophistication, Greenblatt’s interpretation is based on psychological reductionism.53 Even if we accept the contention that Utopia is an expression of internal drama, the fact remains that it was acted out in the language of political theory, that is, in terms that had shared public meanings very different from the ones they had in More’s psyche. Greenblatt, however, cannot systematically account for Utopia’s relation to any contemporary political discourse, and symptomatically, his analysis ignores any distinct intellectual context. Utopia, including its unattractive side, should be analyzed against the background of its own explicit argumentation and rhetoric. Having established that evil cannot be entirely exiled from Utopia, that the Utopian social order is reifying and unable to prevent eruptions of excess, and that the ideal state effectively obliterates human individuality, I will try to account for these characteristics against the background of Erasmian humanism and of humanist discourse in general.

Utopia and the Destruction of Signification A systematic analysis of the Utopian social order in light of humanist discourse may begin by examining the place of the studia humanitatis in the ideal state, for these disciplines—grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry and moral philosophy—provided the basis for the humanist enterprise.54 We have already reviewed the importance assigned to learning in Utopia, and the governing role played by a chosen group of three hundred scholars in each Utopian city.55 But what do these scholars actually study? Hythloday assures us that they “study all the branches of learning” (155). As he gives more details, however, a different picture emerges. “In music, dialectic, arithmetic and geometry they have found out just about the same things as our great men of the past,” he says, and mentions also their astronomical expertise (157). The humanist disciplines do not merit mention as a distinct group, and of the seven liberal arts, the Utopian scholars study only the five—dialectic, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy—that traditionally belonged to the scholastic sphere and ignore the two distinctively humanist ones, grammar and rhetoric. The scholars of the ideal humanist state, resolute in pursuing the advancement of learning and education, disregard the studia humanitatis. The same picture emerges when we examine the place—or rather the no-place—of the humanist disciplines within Utopian social reality. The Utopian ethics is highly elaborated, but as we shall presently see it is a naturalistic

178

Chapter 6

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 foundation—in itself an act more miraculous than historical—Utopia 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 (221–23). 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 [Hythloday’s 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-

Utopia and the No-Place of the Erasmian Republic

179

pia differ from those of Plato’s 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 humanism’s 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 grammar—as opposed to logic—at 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 More’s treatment of grammar. A language similar to the Utopian one “is diffused through much of that part of

180

Chapter 6

the world, except that everywhere else it is corrupted to various degrees” (U 155–57). Admittedly, this is not much, but the general direction seems clear: in the ideal state language must not change. The very perfection of Utopia elevates its language to a transhistorical plane. This distinguishes Utopia from its neighbors, whose fallen condition led to the corruption of their language. A consideration of the use of signs in Utopia provides much more information for understanding the nature of the internal strains of the ideal state. The Utopians know how to manipulate signs. Book 2 begins with a short geographical description of the island that quickly focuses in on the grand bay. This is the principal entryway to the state, and its many shallows and hidden rocks make it treacherous: “The channels are known only to the Utopians, so hardly any strangers enter the bay without one of their pilots; and even they themselves could not enter safely if they did not direct their course by some landmarks on the coast. Should these landmarks be shifted about, the Utopians could easily lure to destruction an enemy fleet, however big it was” (109–11). The use of signs—landmarks, in this case—is directed outward against the enemies of Utopia. The Utopians understand how to use signs for offensive ends as well. Immediately following a declaration of war, Utopian “secret agents simultaneously post many placards, each marked with their official seal, in the most conspicuous places throughout enemy territory. In these proclamations they promise immense rewards to anyone who will do away with the enemy prince” (205). Signs are also employed by the Utopians in their struggle against internal enemies. Precious metals and jewels have little value in the communist state, but in wartime they are useful, and for that reason they are collected in large amounts. In peacetime gold and silver are used in Utopia to make “their chamber pots and all their humblest vessels,” and pearls and diamonds are given to children for toys. Precious metals are also used for “the chains and heavy shackles of slaves.” And, to make the point clear, gold is given an explicit stigmatizing function: Utopian criminals “are forced to wear golden rings in their ears and on their fingers, golden chains around their necks, and even golden headbands” (149–51). Signs are perceived in Utopia as connected to danger, and their effects, always negative and potentially destructive, are directed outward at the enemies of the ideal state. Except for their use in stigmatizing criminals, signs have been almost completely eliminated from internal use.60 The destruction of signification is the most consistent of all Utopian desires. It lies at the basis of the Utopian order and confers coherence on seemingly heterogeneous institutions and practices. The Utopian criticism of non-Utopian societies clearly exposes the conceptual basis of this attitude. The Utopians contend, for example, that anyone

Utopia and the No-Place of the Erasmian Republic

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 person’s coat as a sign of the person’s 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

182

Chapter 6

meaning, they venture on a radical mechanistic reduction of pleasure itself, which they define as a “state or movement of body or mind in which we find delight” (167).63 And finally, both private property and pride, those roots of all evil, amount to cultural fictions, products of semiotic systems—or rather, autonomous and “wild” systems of signs without any relation to reality. Private property begets money, and money is, of course, the example par excellence of a fictive symbolic system, for money has no objective value or use value at all, but only a fictive symbolic value. In a social order based on private property, “money is the measure of all things” (101). In other words, a social order based on money is one in which signs reign without challenge, a social order in which all signification is the effect of a closed system of signs. Pride, in Hythloday’s analysis, is the product of the same logic: “Pride measures her prosperity not by what she has but by what others lack. Pride would not deign even to be made a goddess if there were no wretches for her to sneer at and domineer over. Her good fortune is dazzling only by contrast with the miseries of others; she displays her riches to torment and tantalise the poverty of others” (247; see also 139). Pride stems from a system of differences. Had individuals only sought to maximize their own selfish utility by pursuing material goods with objective value, pride would not have appeared. But this is impossible, because this hypothetical practice, prideless as it is in itself, inevitably leads to differences in material possessions. And these differences comprise a system of internal values—a system of signs—with its own logic, which always already replaces the innocent quest for objective interests. In simple words, the internal differentiation between “more” and “less” begets pride. By eliminating all signs—collapsing the signifier into the signified—Utopia eliminates all cultural fictions. This produces a transparent social order—and explains the existence of the all-pervading gaze—based on objective values and facts uncontaminated by symbols; as a result, this order is immune from interrogation, reinterpretation, negotiation and change. It is a reified order, meaningless in the literal sense of the word. For this reason the studia humanitatis, those disciplines inherently concerned with the production and interpretation of signs, have no place in Utopia. But for the same reason, the ontology of Utopia contradicts the ontology of humanist discourse, for humanist discourse assumed, as we have seen, that the social and the symbolic were inseparable, or in other words that social reality was a meaningful reality. Here we arrive, I believe, at the basis of Utopia’s antinomies: the attempt to construct an ideal humanist social order is ultimately based on distinctively antihumanist presuppositions. Now we can more fully account for the various paradoxes and contradictions we encounter in Utopia. Let us look first at the “totalitarian” dynamics that

Utopia and the No-Place of the Erasmian Republic

183

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 senate—for 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. Gold’s true value determined, or allegedly determined, the Utopian attitude toward it, but fictive values and meanings can surface anywhere. So long as human imagination exists—More uses the word sollertia, that is, human cleverness, inventiveness and ingenuity—any 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 More’s 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 Utopia’s 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 cites—that it dogmatically assumes that some human beings are irredeemably evil—but 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 subjects—imagination, reflection and interpretive capacity. They cannot arise from the common social order, but must stand above it and, like Plato’s 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 bride’s 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 won’t 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.

The No-Place of the Erasmian Universal Intellectual Utopia envisages a utopian social order that expresses the values and ideals of Erasmian humanism. And yet the ideal humanist state is revealed as essentially anti-Erasmian and antihumanist. As evidenced in Erasmus’s politi-

Utopia and the No-Place of the Erasmian Republic

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 Utopia—as well as Erasmus’s and More’s other writings under examination in this study—as 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 activity—the production of knowledge—took place in a

186

Chapter 6

disembodied sphere. Such a privileged point of reference external to concrete reality does not, in fact, exist in humanist discourse. It is certainly not a location for the production of knowledge. Such quasi transcendence subverts, in other words, the humanist view of knowledge as socially embedded, as well as the perception of social reality as inherently symbolic and, consequently, of human activity as inherently performative. That is why Erasmus failed to elaborate a coherent political theory in The Education of a Christian Prince, having to step outside the boundaries of humanist discourse whenever he sought to ground his social and political vision in theory. For the same reason, he could not sustain such fundamental notions of Erasmian humanism as learning, liberal education, civilization, and reform in his political writings. Nor could he lay the foundations for and legitimize that ideal place so beautifully depicted in the Convivium religiosum. More’s Richard III similarly undermined the basic premises of humanist discourse. In this respect, Utopia emerges as the outstanding example of the invisible truth about Erasmian humanism. More constructed an ideal Erasmian social order out of the Republic of Letters. But since his privileged perspective does not exist in humanist discourse, Utopia cannot sustain its explicit argumentation. Thus, what is presented as a utopia is often closer to being a dystopia. More’s great work, in other words, shows that Utopia and the Republic of Letters—each term paradoxical—are both located in the same place, a humanist no-place.

Conclusion

T

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 intellectual’s 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 intellectual’s 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 rational—divine or metaphysical—order of things. Their moral authority, then, whether that of a philosopher or a religious figure, was a function of one’s 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

outside of social and political reality. There were, certainly, disagreements of an often furious and violent nature over who filled such a position. However, the position itself was taken for granted. This was particularly true of the scholastic philosophers-theologians with whom the humanists vied for cultural hegemony. Unifying religious and metaphysical discourses, the scholastics saw their activity as an elaboration of logically valid knowledge of an objective and unchanging reality. In fact, the scholastics were primarily oriented toward the transcendent realm. That is why they attributed superiority to the vita contemplativa over the vita activa. That is to say, their interest in social and political reality was derivative and secondary. The moral and political instructions issued by the scholastic philosopher were simply elucidations of what he believed to be religious and philosophical truths. He could consequently ignore—as, in fact, most scholastic political writings did—questions about the actual realization of his discourse as a practical program. If nevertheless pressed to address this issue, he would have probably responded that if concrete human reality refused to fully accommodate itself to the divine and metaphysical imperatives, all the worse for it. He would have certainly argued that the gap between the real and the ideal was not the philosopher’s problem. Humanism rejected the premodern vision of reality. It severed the connection between human reality and the transcendent order of being, perceiving social and political reality to be a human artifact. This ushered in the modern condition, the modern sense of human empowerment and values of liberty and equality, as well as the uncertainty and perplexities, including most significantly doubts over the very possibility of providing a firm theoretical basis for personal morality and the social order. Humanism also created the conditions that gave birth to the modern intellectual. By detaching the human realm from an objective order of things, it undermined the superiority of the vita contemplativa while orienting the activity of the intellectual toward social and political realities. Moreover, the intellectual’s views and ideals were no longer grounded in eternal, metaphysical and religious truths. This widened the scope for the critique of existing institutions, customs and beliefs. It also dramatically increased the intellectual’s ability to formulate new visions of social and political organization that sometimes radically diverged from existing ones. At the same time, however, it provoked difficult questions concerning the authority of the intellectual, the theoretical basis of his or her teachings, and the very position from which the intellectual addressed society. Equally serious questions arose over the status of that knowledge which was produced by the intellectual, and over its applicability to social life. In particular, the breach between theory and praxis, between the ideal and the real (in the event that such a gap was no-

Conclusion

189

ticed), ceased to be an unpleasant aspect of external reality and emerged as an immanent problem within the intellectual discourse itself. Humanism actually produced the first modern intellectuals. The difference, as we have noted throughout this study, between most humanists and Erasmian humanists is broadly representative of two different types of modern intellectuals. The former subscribed to the dominant social values and served to promote them. Whenever a significant center of humanism emerged, it was related to a powerful establishment and advanced the dominant social and political values. This was an entirely conscious mode of action, and humanist discourse justified it, most notably by defining knowledge as socially embedded and as practical, and by affirming the value of public activity. Erasmian humanism was the exception. We have studied the strategies employed by Erasmian humanists in creating the universal intellectual, an identity that was unattached to the powers that be. The intellectual production of Erasmus and More did not serve the specific interests of any political establishment or social estate but, rather, the well-being of society as a whole, as they understood it. In their role as universal intellectuals, Erasmus and More censured the powerful and condemned prevailing customs and institutions. More importantly, they rejected the aristocratic worldview, which was the ideological foundation of the contemporary social order in northern Europe. They also offered—Erasmus in his numerous writings and More in Utopia—a comprehensive program of reform of Christendom. Their activity and their literary products constituted a great accomplishment and pointed to the social significance of the figure of the modern universal intellectual. At the same time, a close reading of their works reveals the fundamental ambiguity and instability of this identity, one that proved to be problematic from the point of view of the humanist discourse itself. The identity of the universal intellectual no less than separated the Erasmian humanist from concrete social and political forces and, in so doing, infringed on the humanist commitment to the vita activa, that is, to the production of practical knowledge for the melioration of society. Ultimately, the identity of the universal intellectual threatened to lock the Erasmian humanist in a disembodied intellectual sphere, a literally utopian location, which could not be legitimized in humanist terms.

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 Françoise Waquet, “Qu’est-ce que la République des Lettres? Essai de sémantique historique,” Bibliothèque de l`Ècole des chartes 147 (1989): 475–78. 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, “L’intellettuale,” in Mariateresa Fumagalli Beonio Brocchieri and Eugenio Garin, L’intellettuale tra Medioevo e Rinascimento (Bari: Laterza, 1994), 3–62; 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 4–6

as Practice: Ethical Inquiry in the Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Salvatore I. Camporeale, Lorenzo Valla: Umanesimo e teologia (Florence: Nella sede dell’Istituto, 1972); Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle, Erasmus on Language and Method in Theology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977); Victoria Kahn, Rhetoric, Prudence, and Skepticism in the Renaissance (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985); idem, Machiavellian Rhetoric: From the Counter-Reformation to Milton (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994); Charles Trinkaus, “Lorenzo Valla as Instaurator of the Theory of Humanism,” Hellas 7 (1996): 75–101. 8. See, for example, Hans Baron, In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism: Essays on the Transition from Medieval to Modern Thought, 2 vols. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988); Lauro Martines, The Social World of the Florentine Humanists 1390–1460 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963); Margaret King, Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician Dominance (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986); Jerry Bentley, Politics and Culture in Renaissance Naples (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987); John D’Amico, Renaissance Humanism in Papal Rome (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983); Gary Ianziti, Humanistic Historiography under the Sforzas: Politics and Propaganda in Fifteenth-Century Milan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988). 9. The idea of More’s “reluctance” to enter royal service was conveyed by both Erasmus and William Roper, More’s son-in-law and first biographer. See Ep 999: 234–43, CWE 7 (here and in the body of the text, the reference to Erasmus’s letters includes the number of the epistle and, in case of long letters, the lines’ numbers); 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), 200–1. However, Erasmus’s and Roper’s accounts cannot be uncritically accepted as both had their own agendas: Erasmus’s own dislike of political involvement (which I shall examine in detail in chapter 2) and Roper’s attempt to portray More as a saint. Other evidence may tell a different story. Thus in a letter from February 1516 Andrea Ammonio recounted to Erasmus the appointment of Henry VIII’s closest councilor, the Archbishop of York, Thomas Wolsey, to chancellor, adding that More “haunts those smoky palace fires in my company. None bids my lord of York good morrow earlier than he”(Ep 389: 64–70). As John Guy convincingly argues in Thomas More (London: Arnold, 2000), “At a minimum, More’s transition from legal and City [of London] career to a political one was seamless” (58). For obvious reasons (and perhaps also some less obvious ones), More always aroused strong feelings, to which many modern scholars proved far from immune. More’s personality is consequently at the center of controversy, and is habitually either idealized or disparaged, often by means of far-reaching speculations, psychological and otherwise. Against this background Guy’s critical autobiographical study, which critically and dispassionately examines the evidence relevant to the many controversies concerning More’s biography and career, is refreshing and valuable. 10. This is not to say that More thought that realizing reforms was impossible. Most likely, the belief that some reforms were possible was a reason for his decision in favor of royal service. See ibid., 57. More, of course, dramatizes the issue in Book I of Utopia, which I discuss in chapter 6.

Notes to Pages 8–21

193

11. W. Scott Blanchard thus argues in “Petrarch and the Genealogy of Asceticism,” Journal of the History of Ideas 62 (2001): 401–23, that Petrarch’s 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. 44–56). 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), 23–71; “History, Language, and Reading: Waiting for Crillon,” American Historical Review 100 (1995): 799–828. 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. Kristeller’s 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” (21–32) and “Humanism and Scholasticism in the Italian Renaissance” (85–105). 2. Ibid., 22, 99. 3. Ibid., 22. 4. Ibid., 85–105. 5. Ibid., 91, 103. 6. Ibid., 24–25, 91–96, 247–51; Jerrold E. Seigel, Rhetoric and Philosophy in Renaissance Humanism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968), 200–225. 7. Kristeller, Renaissance Thought, 25–32. 8. Ibid., 32. 9. Ibid., 29–31. 10. Ibid., 24. Kristeller employs the adjectives literary, educational, cultural and rhetorical more or less interchangeably. 11. Ibid., 28. 12. Ibid., 30–31. 13. Ibid., 29.

194

Notes to Pages 21–22

14. Ibid., 30. 15. Kristeller’s initial distinction between Renaissance humanism and modern humanism also eventually collapses. He begins, as we saw, by warning that employing the broad definition of humanism as a thinking concerning human values is anachronistic and defines instead Renaissance humanism in terms of a distinct group of disciplines (ibid., 21–22). Evaluating the cultural significance of humanism, he concludes, however, that “the emphasis on man, on his dignity and privileged place in the universe . . . was undoubtedly implied in, and connected with, the concept and program of the studia humanitatis” (ibid., 30). The two kinds of humanism are therefore conceptually related after all. This tension in Kristeller’s interpretation is related to his strained dichotomy between philosophy and rhetoric. Kristeller could not initially accept the broad definition of humanism because it implies a distinct anthropology, which in turn implies at least some distinct philosophical premises and implications. From this perspective, his ultimately contradictory conclusion is yet another indication of his inability to sustain the dichotomy between philosophy and rhetoric. 16. Hans Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance, 2nd ed. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966); idem, From Petrarch to Leonardo Bruni: Studies in Humanistic and Political Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968); idem, In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism: Essays on the Transition from Medieval to Modern Thought, 2 vols. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988). 17. Baron, The Crisis, xxv–xxviii, 3–11. 18. Ibid., 12–46. 19. See Gennaro Sasso, “‘Florentina libertas’ e rinascimento italiano nell’opera di Hans Baron,” Rivista storica italiana 69 (1957): 250–76; Albert Rabil, “The Significance of ‘Civic Humanism’ in the Interpretation of the Italian Renaissance,” in Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms, and Legacy, ed. A. Rabil, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), 1:152–54, 1:160–63; Denys Hay, “The Place of Hans Baron in Renaissance Historiography,” in Renaissance Essays (London: Hambledon Press, 1988), 133–49. The reader of the first, dramatic, part of The Crisis immediately recognizes the origin of the narrative framework and imagery: dynamic, ruthless and expansionist dictatorship which overcomes its small neighbors by means of threats and psychological terror; foreign powers which shortsightedly refrain from helping the victims of aggression; and one democratic state which survives against all odds. Baron, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, was taken by a simplistic analogy (spelled out in The Crisis, 40), which lent a somewhat anachronistic atmosphere to his book. 20. For this reason, for our discussion Baron’s more important works are the articles collected in In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism. These articles are not based on the problematical political reduction of The Crisis and therefore are more interesting as far as the reconstruction of the wide cultural importance of humanism is concerned. Many of the articles were originally written in the 1930s and revised in the 1960s and 1970s. They thus represent Baron’s mature views of issues that engaged him throughout his career. 21. Baron, The Crisis, 273–353. 22. Hans Baron, “Franciscan Poverty and Civic Wealth in the Shaping of Trecento Humanistic Thought: The Role of Petrarch” and “Franciscan Poverty and Civic

Notes to Pages 22–23

195

Wealth in the Shaping of Trecento Humanistic Thought: The Role of Florence,” in In Search, 1:158–90 and 1:191–225, respectively. 23. Francesco Barbaro, De re uxoria liber, in Prosatori latini del Quattrocento, ed. Eugenio Garin (Milan: R. Ricciardi, 1951), 104–36. 24. Hans Baron, “Civic Wealth and the New Values of the Renaissance: The Spirit of the Quattrocento,” in In Search, 1:226–57. 25. Ibid., 226–30. 26. Leon Battista Alberti, Della famiglia, trans. Guido A. Guarino (Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1971). In other respects, notably in his political views, Baron finds Alberti ambivalent concerning the views of the civic humanists. See “Leon Battista Alberti as an Heir and Critic of Florentine Civic Humanism,” in In Search, 1:258–88. 27. See Hans Baron, “The Memory of Cicero’s Roman Civic Spirit in the Medieval Centuries and the Florentine Renaissance” and “The Florentine Revival of the Philosophy of the Active Political Life,” in In Search, 1:94–133 and 1:134–57, respectively. It must be emphasized that the civic humanists did not simply “revive”—a theoretically problematical notion in any case—the philosophies of Cicero and Aristotle, but integrated some of their notions in an elaboration of an original synthesis. First, the humanist naturally chose several texts—notably Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics, and Cicero’s De officiis, De oratore and other works—from the complex and not always coherent corpus of the two classical thinkers and practically ignored others, including Aristotle’s metaphysical works and Cicero’s stoic writings. Secondly, the humanists interpreted, and in some cases misinterpreted, these texts. Thus, Richard Tuck demonstrates in his “Humanism and Political Thought,” in The Impact of Humanism on Western Europe, eds. A. Goodman and A. MacKay (London: Longman, 1990), 51–55, that in his translation of the Politics and the Ethics, Bruni employed a Ciceronian terminology that systematically reduced the metaphysical dimensions of Aristotle’s moral and political philosophy and gave it a distinctly practical and “rhetorical” twist. By the same token, Baron shows in “The Florentine Revival,” 142–47, that the civic humanists utilized peripatetic notions in order to rehabilitate human emotions, appetites and passions that had been degraded by Cicero’s stoicism. 28. Leonardo Bruni, History of the Florentine People, 3 vols., ed. and trans. James H. Hankins (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001–2007). 29. Hans Baron, “New Historical and Psychological Ways of Thinking: From Petrarch to Bruni and Machiavelli,” “The Changed Perspective of the Past in Bruni’s Histories of the Florentine People” and “Bruni’s Histories as Expression of Modern Thought,” in In Search, 1:24–42, 1:43–67 and 1:68–93, respectively. 30. See, for example, J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975), 1–81; William J. Bouwsma, Venice and the Defense of Liberty: Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter Reformation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), 1–51; Tuck, “Humanism and Political Thought.” 31. As Thomas Aquinas formulates it in “The Order of Learning the Sciences,” in The Division and Methods of the Sciences, trans. Armand Maurer (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1986), 100: “The ultimate happiness that man can have in this life must consist in the contemplation of the first causes; for the

196

Notes to Pages 23–25

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), 250–52 (1177a12–1179a33). 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). Garin’s 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), 193–209, and David Peterson, “Out of the Margins: Religion and the Church in Renaissance Italy,” Renaissance Quarterly 53 (2000): 853–79. 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. D’Amico demonstrates in his Renaissance Humanism, 115–43, 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. Alberti’s treatises on painting, sculpting and architecture and Vasari’s 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, 2:199–200. 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 dell’Istituto, 1972), 149–71; 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-

Notes to Pages 25–27

197

tory of Later Medieval Philosophy, eds. Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenney and Jan Pinborg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 797–807; Rita Guerlac, “Introduction,” in Juan Luis Vives against the Pesudodialecticians, ed. Rita Guerlac (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1979), 9–43; 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), 48–113. 40. See James H. Overfield, Humanism and Scholasticism in Late Medieval Germany (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), 38–39; 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., 262–66; 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 Ockham’s 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), 156–74. 41. The two terms have been interchangeable at least since the time of Cicero. See Geurlac, “Introduction,” 1–3. 42. Cited in Overfield, Humanism and Scholasticism, 30. 43. See ibid., 28–35, 43–44; Gordon Leff, “The Trivium and the Three Philosophies,” in Universities in the Middle Ages, ed. Hilde de Ridder-Symoens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 308–9. 44. Aristotle, Analytica posteriora, trans. G. R. G. Mure, in Introduction to Aristotle, ed. R. McKeon (New York: Modern Library, 1947), 9–109; David Ross, Aristotle, 5th ed. (London: Methuen, 1964), 20–61; John Marenbon, Later Medieval Philosophy (1150–1350): An Introduction (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987), 47–49. 45. De Rijk, “The Origins,” 161–73; Overfield, Humanism and Scholasticism, 28–35; Guerlac, “Introduction,” 3–9; 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 liar’s paradox). The encounter with indicative sentences that are neither true nor false always produces bewilderment. However, the obsessive scholastic occupation with the subject—whose only outcome was, needless to say, the discovery of more and more paradoxes—proves 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., 35–40. 48. On More’s Letter to Dorp see Daniel Kinney, “Introduction,” in CWM 15, xv– cxxxii; idem, “More’s Letter to Dorp: Remapping the Trivium,” Renaissance Quarterly

198

Notes to Pages 27–32

34 (1981): 179–210; Salvatore I. Camporeale, “Da Lorenzo Valla a Tommaso Moro: Lo statuto umanistico della teologia,” Memorie dominicane n.s. 4 (1973): 9–102. 49. About half of More’s examples are taken from Peter of Spain’s Summulae logicales, and the other half from later scholastic literature (Kinney, “Introduction,” liii–liv). The scholastic logicians were led into these awkward discussions precisely because they were unable to resolve the fundamental problem of the field of proprietates terminorum, that is, they did not succeed in fully stabilizing the meaning of each semantic unit. Considering the humanist critique of scholastic logic and grammar (and the insights of Saussure and Wittgenstein), we have good reasons to believe that this failure was inevitable. 50. Ong, Ramus, 166. 51. See Rummel, The Humanist-Scholastic Debate, 153–92. 52. See ibid., 153–54. 53. Quoted in ibid., 175. 54. See Camporeale, Lorenzo Valla, 149–71; Waswo, Language and Meaning, 95. 55. The reconstruction offered here does not regard the classicism of humanism as its defining feature. As such it is similar to most other important definitions of humanism and of the Renaissance, including those of Burckhardt, Garin and Baron (Kristeller is ambivalent: as we saw he defines humanism as a literary movement not “essentially” concerned with the classics, but he certainly sees the recovery of the classical heritage as the humanists’ main intellectual activity and their main contribution to Western civilization). See Robert Black, “The Renaissance and Humanism: Definitions and Origins,” in Palgrave Advances in Renaissance Historiography, 97–117. This is not to say, of course, that the Renaissance’s admiration and imitation of classical antiquity were not important. It is to say that these attitudes and practices must be examined and accounted for within the framework of humanist discourse as defined here. The best interpretations of the Renaissance in terms of its attitude toward classical antiquity, Erwin Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art (New York: Harper & Row, 1972) and Ronald G. Witt, “In the Footsteps of the Ancients”: The Origins of Humanism from Lovato to Bruni (Leiden: Brill, 2000), prove the point. At the basis of Panofsky’s reconstruction lies not the admiration and imitation of classical heritage, but rather the awareness that the classical world is gone forever. His interpretation therefore brings to the fore the same notions which emerged from the reconstruction offered here, namely temporality, change and human agency. Witt’s uncompromising reconstruction of humanism in terms of the imitation of the classical Latin style arrives at the same conclusions: the humanists’ practices brought “into relief the character of the humanists’ own world and revealing the historically contingent nature of both [contemporary ancient] societies.” They moreover rendered the classical writers “more human” and thus “problematized their authority,” and this “historical perspective pointed to a future replete with possibilities and encouraged human effort at reform” (ibid., 22–23). See also Kenneth Gouwens, “Perceiving the Past: Renaissance Humanism after the ‘Cognitive Turn,’” American Historical Review 103 (1998): 55–82. 56. See Bouwsma, Venice and the Defense of Liberty, 1–12 and my “Florentine Civic Humanism and the Emergence of Modern Ideology,” History and Theory 46 (2007): 330–35.

Notes to Pages 32–34

199

57. Insistence on the crucial importance of the republicanism of the civic humanists is the main difference between Baron’s interpretation and Garin’s. 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 Baron’s view, however, the republican commitment—the adherence to values of liberty and equality—was a precondition for the maturation of those other humanist innovations. This argument is what made Baron’s 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), 133–41; Maria Dowling, Humanism in the Age of Henry VIII (London: Croom Helm, 1986), 112–39. 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, 110–271; Benjamin G. Kohl, “Humanism and Education,” in Renaissance Humanism, 1:5–22; Eugenio Garin, L’educazione in Europa, 1400–1600: Problemi e programmi (Bari: Laterza, 1957); William H. Woodward, Studies in Education during the Age of the Renaissance 1400–1600 (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, 157–59 and Guarino, A Program, 261–65. 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 Rabil’s Introduction. 63. See, for example, Vergerio, The Character, 5. 64. Lauro Martines, The Social World of the Florentine Humanists 1390–1460 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963), 271–86; John Najemy, “Civic Humanism and Florentine Politics,” in Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections, ed. James Hankins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 30–74. On the traditional political language of Florentine populism see idem, Corporatism and Consensus in Florentine Politics, 1280–1400 (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), 191–217. 66. See my “Florentine Civic Humanism,” 335–42. This analysis makes clear why Baron’s Whiggish conception of modernity blinded him to important aspects of the thought as well as the social role of civic humanism.

200

Notes to Pages 34–38

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), 87–134 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 Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1978), 26–28 the work from the general perspective of court culture, is more cautious. He points out the humanist dimensions in Castiglione’s 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): 3–30; Charles Burroughs, “The Altar and the City: Botticelli’s ‘Mannerism’ and the Reform of Sacred Art,” Artibus et historiae 36 (1997): 9–40, which stress mannerism’s 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), 3–23; 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), 1–21; 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), 191–260. 2. In order to understand how this system functioned we can examine Thomas More’s income as undertreasurer of the exchequer during the first half of the 1520s. More’s 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 More’s 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 More’s 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

Notes to Pages 38–39

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), 24–26. 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 1500–1600, ed. T. Aston (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965), 59–95; G. R. Elton, Reform and Reformation: England 1509–1558 (London: E. Arnold, 1977), 18–29; idem, England under the Tudors (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1954), 2–7; 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), 175–203; J. Russell Major, “The French Renaissance Monarchy as Seen through the Estates General,” Studies in the Renaissance 9 (1962): 113–25; idem, “The Crown and the Aristocracy in Renaissance France,” American Historical Review 69 (1964): 631–45; J. M. H. Salmon, Society in Crisis: France in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 16–26, 59–62, 92–113. 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 protégé 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, Cavendish’s description of Wolsey’s relationship with his first patron, the Marquis of Dorset (ibid., 4–7). 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 standing—and, during this period, sometimes mere survival—depended on relations of patronage. Indeed, creating these relations and developing them were the focus of Lisle’s 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), 76–93. 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), 199–248; Charles G. Nauert, “Humanist Infiltration into the Academic World: Some Studies of

202

Notes to Pages 39–45

Northern Universities,” Renaissance Quarterly 43 (1990): 799–812; Maria Dowling, Humanism in the Age of Henry VIII (London: Croom Helm, 1986), 75–111; James H. Overfield, Humanism and Scholasticism in Late Medieval Germany (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), 298–330. My contention is that none of these institutions encompassed the full intellectual and social activities of humanism and therefore did not define the identity of humanism in the way that the medieval university defined the identity of scholasticism. 7. See Gordon Kipling, “Henry VII and the Origins of Tudor Patronage,” in Patronage in the Renaissance, 117–64. 8. Polydore Vergil, The Anglica Historia of Polydore Vergil, A.D. 1485–1537, ed. and trans. D. Hay (London: Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1950); idem, Three Books of Polydore Vergil’s English History, Comprising the Reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV, and Richard III, ed. H. Ellis (New York: Johnson Reprint, 1968). See also Alistair Fox, Politics and Literature in the Reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), 15–19. 9. Poems 19–23, eds. Clarence H. Miller, Leicester Bradner, Charles A. Lynch and Revilo P. Oliver, CWM 3, Part II. See Fox, Politics and Literature, 114–16. 10. See Dowling, Humanism, 18. 11. In his Thomas More (London: Arnold, 2000), 42–58, John Guy convincingly argued that More was appointed to the royal council in March 1518. His arguments should finally settle the controversy over this date. 12. See Dowling, Humanism, 22, 28–32. 13. See James Kelsey McConica, English Humanists and Reformation Politics: Under Henry VIII and Edward VI (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), 76–105; Dowling, Humanism, 23–33, 75–111. 14. Ibid., 176–218. The most famous English work to present liberal education as the appropriate education for the upper classes is Thomas Elyot, The Book Named the Governor, ed. S. E. Lehmberg (London: Dent, 1962). 15. Dowling, Humanism, 1–5. 16. See Fox, Politics and Literature, 20–23. 17. See Clemente Pizzi, Un amico di Erasmo, l’umanista Andrea Ammonio (Florence: F. Le Monnier, 1956). 18. Cited in H. C. Porter, “Introduction,” in Erasmus and Cambridge: The Cambridge Letters of Erasmus, trans. D. F. S. Thomson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963), 65. 19. The last event Erasmus recounts in his autobiographical sketch, the Compendium vitae, written in 1524, is his honorific nomination to be councillor of Prince Charles in 1515. “The rest is known to you,” he adds to the addressee of the work, his friend Conrad Goclenius (CWE 4, 409). The autobiography seems to reflect a division between an earlier period and a mature one when Erasmus’s life became public and known. 20. Erasmus’s date of birth is, of course, uncertain. Harry Verdeveld’s claim for 1466 seems to me to be the most convincing. See “The Ages of Erasmus and the Year of His Birth,” Renaissance Quarterly 46 (1993): 754–809. 21. He was, however, awarded a doctorate in theology from the University of Turin in 1506.

Notes to Pages 45–60

203

22. The work was first published, after numerous revisions and adventures, only in 1520 (CWE 23, 2–6). 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: 164–76). 26. Erasmus’s specific model was Pliny’s 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), 2:322–547. 27. James D. Tracy, The Politics of Erasmus: A Pacifist Intellectual and His Political Milieu (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978), 17–18. 28. Tracy, The Politics, 18–19. 29. There is a famous lacuna in our knowledge of Erasmus’s life, from the end of 1508 until April 1511. He most probably spent the bulk of this period in London, most likely in More’s house. See J. K. Sowards, “The Two Lost Years of Erasmus: Summary, Review, and Speculation,” Studies in the Renaissance 9 (1962): 161–86. 30. See Margaret Mann Phillips, The ‘Adages’ of Erasmus: A Study with Translations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964), 75–86. 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, 92–94, 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), 371–436; “Humanism in Germany,” in The Impact of Humanism on Western Europe, eds. A. Goodman and A. MacKay (London: Longman, 1990), 202–19; Overfield, Humanism and Scholasticism. 37. See Spitz’s articles cited in the previous note. 38. See István Bejczy, “Erasmus Becomes a Netherlander,” Sixteenth Century Journal 28 (1997): 387–99; Tracy, The Politics, 6–7. 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): 281–88. 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., 287–88.

204

Notes to Pages 60–69

44. Spitz, “The Course,” 401–14. 45. See Spitz, “Humanism in Germany,” 206, 209. 46. There are odder examples. Thus, Pius Hieronymus Baldung, the dean of the law faculty in Freiburg, wrote to Erasmus in April 1516 that he heard “many things” about him “which were remarkable, but true nonetheless.” This fired his desire to make himself “somehow known” to Erasmus (Ep 400). 47. See CWE 3, 348–50. 48. See ibid., 350–53. 49. Jardine, Erasmus, 148–64. 50. See Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communication and Cultural Transformation in Early-Modern Europe, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 1:163–302. I do not accept, however, Eisenstein’s more extravagant claim that the printing press was a necessary precondition for the emergence of central aspects of Renaissance worldview, notably its historical consciousness. 51. This is one of the main themes of Jardine’s book. See Erasmus, 39–48, 99–128, 180–87. 52. Erasmus, Make haste slowly, trans. R. A. B. Mynors, in Adages in CWE 33, 10. 53. Ibid., 9. 54. See Tracy, “Erasmus Becomes a German,” 281–83; E. Hilgert, “Johan Froben and the Basel University Scholars 1513–1523,” Library Quarterly 41 (1971): 141–69. 55. In fact, Johannes Amerbach, Froben’s predecessor as the head of the printing press, initiated the project without Erasmus’s knowledge already in 1507, investing considerable resources in the collection of manuscripts and recruitment of scholars, including Johann Reuchlin, Pellicanus, Johannes Kuno and Gregor Reisch. Erasmus, who as early as 1500 decided to publish the letters of the Church father, enrolled in the project and edited the first four volumes, which included, besides the letters, several polemical writings, other texts, and a short biography of Jerome. The sons of Johannes Amerbach, Bruno, Basilius and Bonifacius, were in charge of the other five volumes—their education had been intended to prepare them for precisely such projects (see Hilgert, “Johan Froben,” 145). 56. See Jardine, Erasmus, 25–26. 57. See Overfield, Humanism and Scholasticism, 151–58.

Chapter 3 1. The term, coined by Margaret Mann Phillips, appropriately indicates the first appearance of several long adages—including 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 Erasmus’s 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.

Notes to Pages 70–73

205

2. Elias, The Civilizing Process, 42–67. Although my perspective and my conclusions are different from Elias’s, the following reading of De civilitate is greatly indebted to his celebrated study. 3. Ibid., 48–49. 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, 61–66; Wayne A. Rebhorn, Courtly Performances: Masking and Festivity in Castiglione’s 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), 17–28. 5. Elias, The Civilizing Process, 56. 6. Ibid., 57–59. 7. Ibid., 63. 8. Ibid., 48–50. 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, 78–116; 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), 45–49. 11. See above, 32–33. 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 realtà nell’Umanesimo italiano, 2nd ed. (Bari: Dedalo libri, 1974), 355–421; Lauro Martines, Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy (New York: Knopf, 1979), 210–14. 13. Elias rightly attributes great importance to Erasmus’s 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, 58–59). 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. Humanism’s autonomy, which Elias ascribes to external causes—the social and political structure—is, 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, 43–44.

206

Notes to Pages 74–76

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, 368–80; Elias, The Civilizing Process, 57–58. 17. See, for example, Erasmus, Hunting, CWE 39, 109–12. 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), 66–82. 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 Erasmus’s works as expressions of this process. In my analysis the civilizing dimensions of Erasmus’s works are an integral part of an articulated worldview that constitutes the basis for a program for reforming society. 20. Erasmus’s 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, 12–254) and work on the correct Latin and Greek pronunciation (The Right Way of Speaking Latin and Greek: A Dialogue, trans. M. Pope, CWE 26, 365–475). Many others of his works, the Colloquies for example, were written as textbooks for schools. On Erasmus’s 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), 57–82; James McConica, Erasmus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 18–29. 21. See above, 32–33. 22. These words are, of course, reminiscent of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s 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), 223–54. Pico’s image of man, however, is drawn from a religious and metaphysical perspective, Erasmus’s 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, 28–29. 24. See, for example, Vergerio, The Character, 51–53. Aneas Silvius Piccolomini, The Education of Boys (in Humanist Educational Treatises, 126–259), 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 Erasmus’s educational writings see Wayne A. Rebhorn, “Erasmian Education and the Convivium religiosum,” Studies in Philology 38 (1972): 140–41. 26. Nancy Bisaha, Creating East and West: Renaissance Humanists and the Ottoman Turks (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). 27. See ibid., 174–75.

Notes to Pages 77–78

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), 160–63. 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 dell’Istituto, 1972); idem, “Renaissance Humanism and the Origins of Humanist Theology,” in Humanity and Divinity in Renaissance and Reformation, eds. J. W. O’Malley, T. M. Izbicki and G. Christianson (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 101–24; 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), 13–41; Marjorie O’Rourke 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), 1:31–51, 587–710; Brendan Bradshaw, “The Christian Humanism of Erasmus,” Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. 33 (1982): 411–47; Jerry H. Bentley, Humanists and Holy Writ: New Testament Scholarship in the Renaissance (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983), 112–93; Charles Trinkaus, “Erasmus, Augustine and the Nominalists,” in The Scope of Renaissance Humanism (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1983), 274–301; Cornelis Augustijn, Erasmus: His Life, Works, and Influence, trans. J. C. Grayson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 71–145; 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), 53–126; Mary Jane Barnett, “Erasmus and Hermeneutics of Linguistic Praxis,” Renaissance Quarterly 49 (1996): 542–72; Erika Rummel, Erasmus (London: Continuum, 2004), 73–105. 31. These reconstructions, however, do not always fully appreciate the tensions between Erasmus’s humanist assumptions and conviction and traditional Christian beliefs. At the structural level, there was a tension between humanism’s historical consciousness, which tended to expose central aspects of Christianity—the church, the doctrine, and scripture itself—as human products, and Christianity’s 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

Notes to Pages 78–85

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 István Bejczy, Erasmus and the Middle Ages: The Historical Consciousness of a Christian Humanist (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 8–12; Bradshaw, “The Christian Humanism of Erasmus,” 411–29. 35. Kathy Eden, Friends Hold All Things in Common: Tradition, Intellectual Property, and the Adages of Erasmus (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001), 8–32. 36. See Boyle, Language and Method, 25–26. 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 God’s 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): 492–93, demonstrates that Erasmus’s 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 Adam’s original sin is inherited, Erasmus argued that human beings sin only inasmuch as they voluntarily imitate Adam’s disobedience. 41. See Tracy, Erasmus of the Low Countries, 71–73. 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, 258–91. 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, 35:80–84 (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), 295–98. 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

Notes to Pages 85–90

209

Press, 2006). Furey argues that Erasmus’s 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), 2:77–99. 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, 2:139–40, 143–51. 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 church—such as the one offered in the letter to Volz—he did not consider it necessary to mention the most fundamental dimension of the church’s 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 Erasmus’s 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), 37–39. This may be true, but must not obscure the fact that the main target of Erasmus’s text is kingship as such. 56. Erasmus, To exact tribute from the dead, trans. R. A. B. Mynors, CWE 32, 183–87. 57. Ibid., 185–86. 58. Ibid., 184–85. 59. See Tracy, The Politics of Erasmus, 51–53. 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

Notes to Pages 90–95

Government and Society, eds. Benjamin G. Kohl and Ronald G. Witt (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978), 35–78; and Giovanni Pontano, Ad Alfonsum Calabriae ducem de principe liber, in Prosatori latini del quattrocento, ed. Eugenio Garin (Milan: R. Ricciardi, 1952), 1023–63. See also Lester Born, “Introduction,” in Erasmus, The Education of a Christian Prince (New York: W. W. Norton, 1936), 94–130; Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 1:113–28. 61. In fact, more than one, as Christian Prince played a part in subsequent episodes of patronage—or, rather, hopes of patronage—concerning 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): 126–40. 62. See also Eden, Friends, 154–55. 63. Richard F. Hardin, “The Literary Conventions of Erasmus’ Education of a Christian Prince: Advice and Aphorism,” Renaissance Quarterly 35 (1982): 156–57. 64. For example, IP 206, 208, 222, 224, 232, 278, 284. 65. Tracy, The Politics, 58. 66. See Skinner, The Foundations, 1:236–41. 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), 52–73. 69. Elyot, The Book Named the Governor, 1–12. 70. Ibid., 14. 71. Leon Battista Alberti’s preface to Della Famiglia, trans. Guido A. Guarino (Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1971), 27–34, 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 Alberti’s Della Famiglia (e.g., 138–49, 153–55, 182–88, 305–07). See also Eugenio Garin, Italian Humanism, trans. Peter Munz (Oxford: Blackwell, 1965), 45–46; Skinner, The Foundations, 1:80, 99–101, 118–21. 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), 121–27; 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, 135–75. See also Hans Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance, 2nd ed. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966), 199–211, 412–39; Skinner, The Foundations, 1:77–84; idem, Visions of Politics, 2:130–34. The humanists serving the princely regimes naturally employed a different strategy. Ignoring the subjects, they concentrated on the political virtus of the

Notes to Pages 95–97

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, 1:118–21; idem, Visions of Politics, 2:121–23, 136–37. 75. Bruni, Oration, 124; idem, Panegyric, 150. See also Mikael Hörnqvist, “The Two Myths of Civic Humanism,” in Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections, ed. James Hankins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 105–42. 76. See, for example, Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), I.9, I.26–27, II.2, III.41 (28–30, 61–63, 129–33, 300–01); idem, The Prince, eds. Quentin Skinner and Russell Price (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), chaps. 15–18 (54–63). 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), 25–79; Mark Hulliung, Citizen Machiavelli (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983); Harvey C. Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996); Vickie B. Sullivan, Machiavelli’s Three Romes: Religion, Human Liberty, and Politics Reformed (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1996), esp. 15–55; Emanuele Cutinelli-Rèndina, 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, 1496–1535 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1962), 24–28; Tracy, The Politics, 32–33. 78. Clear expressions of Erasmus’s 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’, 298–99). The same edition includes another pacifistic adage, Sparta is your portion; do your best for her, trans. R. A. B. Mynors, CWE 33, 237–43, which includes Erasmus’s 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 282–88) 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 Erasmus’s 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), 57–93. 80. See also Jose A. Fernandez, “Erasmus on the Just War,” Journal of the History of Ideas 34 (1974): 209–26; Rummel, Erasmus, 63–67.

212

Notes to Pages 98–99

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 Erasmus’s 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), 197–216. 83. Erasmus was criticized for his pacifist stance, particularly concerning the Turks, and subsequently—after Mohàcs and the siege of Vienna—he 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, 211–66. 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 magistrate’s right to punish offenders—an argument he explicitly rejected in Dulce bellum (427). The general attitude of the De bello Turcico and its conclusions are, however, similar to Erasmus’s earlier writings on war. Erasmus’s 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 God’s anger, the cause of the war in the first place, would vanish. 84. See above, 26–31. 85. In fact, three of the letters—to Dorp (MtD), to Oxford (MtO), and to Edward Lee (MtL)—were not originally written for publication but to deter Erasmus’s adversaries. On the background of these letters see Daniel Kinney, “Introduction,” CWM 15, xix–xliv. 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, 155–97. Ever since the publication of Julius there has been a controversy concerning Erasmus’s 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 lawyer’s 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 book’s contents and even justified its composition under the circumstances (MtM 263). 87. See above, 30–31. 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 More’s and Erasmus’s thought. This was the view expressed by Erasmus and More themselves: together with More’s “humanist letters,” Erasmus’s biographical portraits of his friend (Ep 999, 1233) strongly substantiate this view. Reproduced in Frederic Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers of 1498: Being a History

Notes to Pages 99–102

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 More’s piety, orthodoxy and loyalty to the church, and depicted his life as a journey toward his martyrdom. More’s humanism and, in particular, his relationship with Erasmus—regarded at least with suspicion by the post-Trendentine church—were 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, 9–33, 34–51, respectively. See also Richard Marius, Thomas More: A Biography (New York: Knopf, 1984), 82, 91–97, 237–38, 302–5. 89. Among the readings of Utopia along this line, to which I am indebted, are J. H. Hexter, More’s “Utopia”: The Biography of an Idea (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1952) and his “Introduction,” CWM 4, xv–cxxiv; David Wootton, “Friendship Portrayed: A New Account of Utopia,” History Workshop Journal 45 (1998): 29–47; idem, “Introduction” in his new translation of Utopia with Erasmus’s The sileni Alcibiadis (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999); Dominic Baker-Smith, More’s “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 (More’s “Utopia,” 33–48). 91. See above, 22. 92. Erasmus, Between friends all is common, trans. Margaret Mann Phillips, CWE 31, 29–30. 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 religions—belief in divine providence, immortality of the soul, and judgment in the afterlife (223–25)—and the Erasmian antidogmatic faith, he concludes that the Utopians were “true Christians” even though they had not enjoyed the benefit of revelation (“Introduction,” lxxiv–lxxvii). Hexter seems to identify the religious thought of Erasmus with natural religion, something resembling the Enlightenment’s 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

Notes to Pages 103–109

95. See J. C. Davis, Utopia and the Ideal Society: A Study of English Utopian Writing 1516–1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 41–42; Dorothy F. Donnelly, Patterns of Order and Utopia (New York: St. Martin’s, 1998), 61–77; and my “The Humanist Critique of Metaphysics and the Foundation of the Political Order,” Utopian Studies 13 (2002): 1–19. 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, 223–25). 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 Plato’s 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., 43–45, 81–83, 101–03), as well as to other numerous classical authors and texts. Baker-Smith, More’s “Utopia,” is particularly sensitive to this aspect (38–55, 88–93, 141–43, 173–79). 101. See Peter R. Allen, “Utopia and European Humanism: The Function of the Prefatory Letters and Verses,” Studies in the Renaissance 10 (1963): 99–107.

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), 49–69; Margaret Mann Phillips, Erasmus and the Northern Renaissance, rev. ed. (Woodbridge, U.K.: Boydell Press, 1981), 90–106; Richard F. Hardin, “The Literary Conventions of Erasmus’ Education of a Christian Prince: Advice and Aphorism,” Renaissance Quarterly 35 (1982): 151–63. 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).

Notes to Pages 109–117

215

4. See above, 94–95. 5. Erasmus’s political evangelism is diametrically opposed to the Pauline political evangelism (propagated by Augustine and Luther, among others), according to which political authority—any political authority—though devoid of any moral value, is ordained by God in order to prevent anarchy. Alluding to scriptural basis for this doctrine (e.g., Matthew 22:21, Romans 13:1–2) Erasmus explains to the prince: “Do not let it escape you that what is said in the Gospels or in the apostolic writings about the need to endure masters, obey officials, do honour to the king, and pay taxes is to be taken as referring to pagan princes, since at that time there were not yet any Christian princes” (IP 235). 6. See above, 79–85. 7. See chapters 1 and 3. 8. See Hardin, “The Literary Conventions,” 156–57. 9. The original Froben publication in 1516 of Christian Prince was printed with Erasmus’s translation of classical works: Isocrates’ To Nicocles and four essays of Plutarch, including How to Distinguish a Friend from a Flatterer (CWE 27, 200). 10. The first chapter, entitled “The birth and upbringing of a Christian prince,” is roughly as long as the other ten chapters—which discuss the duties and behavior of the prince—put together. 11. See Peter G. Bietenholz, History and Biography in the Work of Erasmus of Rotterdam (Geneva: Droz, 1966); Myron P. Gilmore, “Erasmus and History,” in Humanists and Jurists: Six Studies in the Renaissance (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1963), 93–107. 12. Bietenholz, History and Biography, 18–19. 13. See, for example, Felix Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Florence (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965), 203–9; Eric Cochrane, Historians and Historiography in the Italian Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 3–4, 26. 14. See also Tracy, The Politics, 62–63. 15. The book is not nominated, and Erasmus refers only to Plato’s “purer message” on politics. 16. See above, 74–75. 17. 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), 43; Aneas Silvius Piccolomini, The Education of Boys, in ibid., 137. Thomas More employs the same metaphors. Both men and women, he argues, “are equally suited for the knowledge of learning by which reason is cultivated, and like plowed land, germinates a crop when the seeds of good precepts have been sown.” St. Thomas More: Selected Letters, ed. Elizabeth Frances Rogers (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1961), 105. 18. See above, 83–85, 97–98. 19. The origins of the myth of the golden age in Western thought lie in the remote past. Its first literary formulation appears in Hesiod’s Works and Days. It subsequently recurred in works of several Greek and Latin authors, most influentially in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. See Arthur O. Lovejoy and George Boas, Primitivism and Related

216

Notes to Pages 117–128

Ideas in Antiquity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 23–53; Robert P. Adams, The Better Part of Valor: More, Erasmus, Colet, and Vives, on Humanism, War, and Peace, 1496–1535 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1962), 5–7. 20. Cited in Lovejoy and Boas, Primitivism, 46–47. This description of course alludes to the Christian view concerning the existence in paradise before the Fall. 21. See above, 79–80. 22. Brendan Bradshaw’s definition in “The Christian Humanism of Erasmus,” Journal of Theological Studies, n.s., 33 (1982): 447. 23. See also István Bejczy, Erasmus and the Middle Ages: The Historical Consciousness of a Christian Humanist (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 8–12. 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), 147–52. 28. Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle, Erasmus on Language and Method in Theology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), 129–41. 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): 131–47. 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, 186–87, 189, 196, 200. See Terence Cave, The Cornucopian Text: Problems of Writing in the French Renaissance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 104–5. 34. See Jeanneret, A Feast of Words, 172–73. 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), 2:19–20, 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,” 140–43. 38. Ibid., 138–40. 39. Ibid., 143–49.

Notes to Pages 128–134

217

40. Ibid., 143–47. 41. See above, 77–78. 42. The canonical Christian elaboration of the topic is of course Augustine The City of God against the Pagans, ed. and trans. R. W. Dyson (Cambridge, 1998). 43. Terence Cave, who sensitively analyzed the Convivium religiosum’s equivocal attitude toward scriptural interpretation argued that it reflects a fundamental internal tension within Erasmus’s hermeneutics: contradiction between the explicit aim of arriving at the one authentic meaning of the text—especially of the sacred text of course—and the indeterminate, even uncontrollable nature of the practice of reading that produces an ever growing number of contradictory interpretations (The Cornucopian Text, 102–8). Cave however Lutheranizes Erasmus. The search for the one true meaning of the text was not the aim of Erasmus’s reading. Erasmus acknowledged and positively regarded the unfathomable depth of scripture, which yields an indeterminate number of new interpretations. As early as 1499 he held in a theological debate with Colet that “as I have occasionally and incidentally remarked, the mysteries of scripture can yield different meanings because of their rich abundance, and we must not reject any interpretation so long as it is probable and not contrary to the faith” (Ep 111: 16–19). See also Payne, “Toward the Hermeneutics of Erasmus,” 34, 47.

Chapter 5 1. F. J. Levy, Tudor Historical Thought (San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1967), 33–78; Polydore Vergil, Three Books of Polydore Vergil’s 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, 26–37, 98–99. 4. See, for example, A. F. Pollard, “Sir Thomas More’s Richard III,” History, n.s., 17 (1933): 320–21. 5. Paul Murray Kendall is the twentieth century’s most prominent representative of this approach. See his Richard the Third (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1955), esp. 421–25. 6. Alison Hanham, Richard III and His Early Historians, 1483–1535 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975). 7. See, for example, Pollard, “Sir Thomas More’s Richard III”; Leonard F. Dean, “Literary Problems in More’s Richard III,” PMLA 58 (1943): 22; A. R. Myers, “The Character of Richard III,” History Today 4 (1954): 511–21; Arthur N. Kincaid, “The Dramatic Structure of Sir Thomas More’s History of King Richard III,” Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 12 (1972): 223–42. 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), 75–77. 9. In addition to the works cited in note 7, see R. W. Chambers, Thomas More (London: J. Cape, 1938), 115–17; Kendall, Richard the Third, 421–25; Richard S.

218

Notes to Pages 134–140

Sylvester, “Introduction,” in CWM, 2:xcviii–ciii; Alistair Fox, Thomas More: History and Providence (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982), 75–107; Elizabeth Story Donno, “Thomas More and Richard III,” Renaissance Quarterly 35 (1982): 401–47; Richard Marius, Thomas More: A Biography (New York: Knopf, 1984), 98–122. 10. Hanham, Richard III, 159–60, 195. 11. Daniel Kinney, “Kings’ Tragicomedies: Generic Misrule in More’s History of Richard III,” Moreana 16 (1985): 128–50. 12. In his Politics and Literature in the Reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), 108–27, Alistair Fox reads Richard III as a critique of humanist thought. Fox’s definition of humanist thought is, however, rather limited, and consequently his reading of Richard III exclusively focuses on the explicit moral lesson of More’s work. 13. See Hanham, Richard III, 185–89; Sylvester, “Introduction,” 2:li; Daniel Kinney, “Introduction,” CWM 15, cxxx–cxxxvi. 14. Hanham, Richard III, 161–66; Fox, Politics and Literature, 116–19; Sylvester, “Introduction,” 2:lxv–lxxx. 15. See the works cited in notes 7 and 9. 16. The queen’s relatives were actually executed at a later date (Hanham, Richard III, 11, 13). The correct sequence of events appears, for example, in Vergil’s history (Three Books, 179–82). 17. More connects, without any historical justification, Warwick’s rebellion against Edward to Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth (65). This obviously aggravates Edward’s error, underlining his wantonness and imprudence. 18. Dominic Mancini, The Usurpation of Richard the Third, ed. C. A. J. Armstrong (Gloucester: A. Sutton, 1984), 61. Armstrong has shown that Mancini’s description reflects a widely shared attitude toward the future queen (61n10). 19. Some interpretations identify Bishop Morton, who incited the Duke of Buckingham to rebel against Richard, as the bearer of the moral of Richard III. According to such a reading Morton represents the moral order violated by Richard. See, for example, Kincaid, “The Dramatic Structure,” 230; Fox, Thomas More, 94–95; Sylvester, “Introduction,” 2:cii. Elizabeth Story Donno convincingly demonstrates, however, that More’s portrait of Morton is at best equivocal (“Thomas More and Richard III,” 434–36). 20. When More, for example, explicitly states that the queen attempted to drive her rivals from power, this is done only to blacken her character. In no way are the queen’s actions presented to shed light on Richard’s motivations and considerations, and in no way do they contribute to an understanding of his decisions. Richard uses the queen’s actions only as a “grounde” for mobilizing Buckingham and Hastings (14). In other words, More refrains from evaluating Richard’s deeds in the specific circumstances of spring 1483. This refusal contrasts with the approaches of the other, earlier chroniclers. See, for example, Mancini, The Usurpation, 69–75. More also neglects to repeat Vergil’s assertion that Edward named Richard protector in his will (Vergil, Three Books, 173). 21. In his Thomas More, Alistair Fox reads Richard III from this perspective. He defines the story of Richard’s seizure of power as the repetition of an archetypal event, even as a metaphor for the human condition in the saeculum, and proposes that the intention of the work is to describe the work of the devil in this world. On a deeper

Notes to Pages 140–145

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 Fox’s interpretation, More’s model was not classical-humanist history, but rather Augustine’s De civitate Dei (Thomas More, 85–96). 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 Augustine’s, 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 Fox’s 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 More’s work as a play. See, for example, Kincaid, “The Dramatic Structure”; Dean, “Literary Problems,” 32–34. 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 Hastings’s downfall: the strawberries of the Bishop of Elye and, more grimly, Richard’s 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, Erasmus’s Convivium religiosum beautifully exemplifies the traditional symbolic values of food. The inversion of this symbolism is yet another indication of Richard III’s 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, 219–20, 314). 28. See James L. Harner, “The Place of ‘Shore’s Wife’ in More’s History of Richard III,” Moreana 74 (1982): 69. Shore’s wife is not mentioned at all in Vergil’s 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 Hastings’s alleged crimes and conspiracy that was said to be written after his execution was prepared before (54). On More’s 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): 260–70; Hanham, Richard III, 184. 31. Stephen Greenblatt emphasizes this aspect of More’s work in his Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 13–15.

220

Notes to Pages 146–149

32. Erasmus, Praise of Folly, trans. B. Radice, CWE 27, 103. 33. On the theatrum mundi, see, for example, Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York: Pantheon Books, 1953), 138–44; Frances A. Yates, Theater of the World (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), 162–68; Jean-Christophe Agnew, Worlds Apart: The Market and the Theater in Anglo-American Thought, 1550–1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 14–16; Richard Bernheimer, “Theatrum Mundi,” Art Bulletin 38 (1956): 225–47. The world as a stage is the central trope in Lucian’s dialogue Menippus, which More translated into Latin. See Menippus siue Necromantia, CWM 3, part I, 24–43. See also R. Bracht Branham, “Utopian Laughter: Lucian and Thomas More,” Moreana 86 (1985): 28–31. 34. Roger Ascham, Report of the Affair and State of Germany, in English Works, ed. William Aldis Wright (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 126. 35. Cited in Sylvester, “Introduction,” lxxxi. 36. Ibid., lxxx–civ. Sallust, Suetonius and Tacitus are, of course, the classical authorities on conspiracies, tyrannies, civil wars and the other less admirable faces of politics. Not surprisingly, these authors also left their mark on Vergil’s treatment of Richard III in Anglica Historia. See Thomas S. Freeman, “From Catilina to Richard III: The Influence of Classical Historians on Polydore Vergil’s Anglica Historia,” in Reconsidering the Renaissance, ed. Mario A. Cesare (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992), 191–214. The important question, however, is how and to what effect the two humanists used the classical tradition. 37. Cicero, De oratore, trans. E. W. Sutton and H. Rackham, 2 vols. (London: W. Heinemann, 1942), 1:235–45 (II.xii.51–xv.63). 38. See Felix Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Florence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), 205–6; Ascham, Report, 125–26; Vergil’s words are cited in Levy, Tudor Historical Thought, 62–63. 39. See A. J. Woodman, Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies (London: Croom Helm, 1988), 75–95. 40. Cicero, De oratore, 237 (II.xii.53). 41. Ibid., 44–45 (II.xv.62). 42. Ibid., 245 (II.xv.63). 43. Ibid. 44. Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, trans. H. E. Butler, 4 vols. (London: W. Heinemann, 1920–1922), 3:249 (VIII.iii.67–70). Erasmus quotes this passage in De copia (Co 577–78). 45. Cicero, De oratore, 245 (II.xii.63). 46. Cicero, De inventione, trans. H. M. Hubbel (London: W. Heinemann, 1949), 19 (I.vii.9). Emphases mine. 47. See above, 23. There is a vast literature on the historical consciousness of the Renaissance and the modernity of humanist history. See, for example, Hans Baron’s articles referred to in chapter 1, note 29; Erwin Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art (New York: Harper & Row, 1972); J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian

Notes to Pages 149–157

221

Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975), 31–48; 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), 5–39, 101–43. 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., 140–41). 52. Vergil, Three Books, 176–78. 53. Ibid., 178. 54. See above, 30–31. 55. Story Donno sees these techniques as unique characteristics of More’s work (“Thomas More and Richard III,” 418). 56. Kendall demonstrates the unintelligibility of the story (Richard the Third, 398–406), and Hanham convincingly argues that More did not intend it to be read as a factual report (Richard III, 186–88). 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, 2001–2007). 59. Angelo Poliziano, The Pazzi Conspiracy, trans. Renèe Neu Watkins, in Humanism and Liberty: Writings on Freedom from Fifteenth-Century Florence, ed. Renèe Neu Watkins (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1978), 171–83. 60. See above, 34–40. 61. See, for example, Lauro Martines, The Social World of the Florentine Humanists 1390–1460 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963), esp. 117–23, 263–86; Peter Godman, From Poliziano to Machiavelli: Florentine Humanism in the High Renaissance (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998), 3–30; 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 More’s humanist works) was not written in behalf of the crown and the dominant ideology.

222

Notes to Pages 159–164

Chapter 6 1. See above, 99–104. 2. See, for example, David M. Bevington, “The Dialogue in Utopia: Two Sides to the Question,” Studies in Philology 58 (1961): 496–509; Elizabeth McCutcheon, “Denying the Contrary: More’s Use of Litotes in the Utopia,” Moreana 31–32 (1971): 107–21; Alan F. Nagel, “Lies and Limitable Inane: Contradiction in More’s Utopia,” Renaissance Quarterly 26 (1973): 173–80; William J. Kennedy, Rhetorical Norms in Renaissance Literature (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1978), 94–105; Arthur F. Kinney, Humanist Poetics: Thought, Rhetoric, and Fiction in Sixteenth-Century England (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986), 57–88; Louis Marin, Utopics: The Semiological Play of Textual Spaces, trans. Robert A. Vollrath (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press International, 1990); James Romm, “More’s Strategies of Naming in the Utopia,” Sixteenth Century Journal 22 (1991): 173–83. 3. See above, 22–23, 37–38. See also Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 1:216–22. This is not to say that all humanists held this view. There were those who adhered to the traditional view. See, for example, Skinner’s discussion of the issue in his new reading of Utopia in Visions of Politics, 3 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 2:214–24. 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 Petrarch’s generation’s 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), 70–75, 114–17 (I.xx.69–xxii.73, I.xxxi.113–114). See also Skinner, Visions of Politics, 2:217–22. 5. See Bevington, “The Dialogue in Utopia”; John M. Perlette, “Irresolution as Solution: Rhetoric and the Unresolved Debate in Book 1 of More’s Utopia,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 29 (1987): 28–33. 6. See J. H. Hexter, More’s “Utopia”: The Biography of an Idea (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1952), 33–48. 7. Besides Hythloday’s stories in Utopia see More’s artful use of anecdotes in his “Letter to Dorp,” 51–55, 67–69. 8. See above, 141–47. 9. Skinner, The Foundations, 1:238–41. 10. D. B. Fenlon, “England and Europe: Utopia and Its Aftermath,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 25 (1975): 115–35. 11. In his prefatory letter to Jérôme de Busleyden, Giles offers a more elaborated explanation for failing to pinpoint Utopia’s 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.

Notes to Pages 164–170

223

12. On Utopian nomenclature, see Ward Allen, “Speculations on St. Thomas More’s Use of Hesychius,” Philological Quarterly 46 (1967): 156–66. 13. See, for example, Nagel, “Lies and Limitable Inane,” 174. 14. Pride is the “one single monster” that prevents the abolition of private property. But in its turn, pride is sustained by the difference of wealth produced by private property (247). 15. See also Simon Morgan-Russell, “St. Thomas More’s Utopia and the Description of Britain,” Cahier Élisabéthains 61 (2002): 1–11. 16. See above, 102–4. 17. See above, 102. 18. See Shlomo Avineri, “War and Slavery in More’s Utopia,” International Review of Social History 7 (1962): 260–64. 19. See also Jeffrey Knapp, An Empire Nowhere: England, America, and Literature from “Utopia” to “The Tempest” (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 18–36. 20. See Avineri, “War and Slavery”; Richard Halpern, The Poetics of Primitive Accumulation: English Renaissance Culture and the Genealogy of Capital (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991), 136–75; Harry Berger, Jr., “Utopian Folly: Erasmus and More on the Perils of Misanthropy,” in Second World and Green World: Studies in Renaissance Fiction-Making (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 229–48; Amy Boesky, Founding Fictions: Utopias in Early Modern England (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996), 23–55; Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning from More to Shakespeare (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 33–58. The following description of Utopian reality is greatly indebted to Greenblatt’s insightful reading. 21. See Dominic Baker-Smith, More’s “Utopia” (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 165–68. In her “‘The Whole Island Like a Single Family’: Positioning Women in Utopian Patriarchy,” in Rethinking the Henrician Era: Essays on Early Tudor Texts and Contexts, ed. Peter C. Herman (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 93–122, Janel Mueller perceptively exposes the Utopian patriarchal ideology and Utopia’s subordination of women to men. Mueller also demonstrates, however, that the ultimate meaning and value of the ideal state is formulated in distinctively feminine terms. 22. See Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning, 49–50. 23. The family is all the more important in Utopia, since the ideal state abolishes other institutions mediating between the individual and the state, such as social estates, guilds, corporations, fraternities and so on (see Hexter, “Introduction,” xliv–xlv). 24. Berger, “Utopian Folly,” 240. 25. Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning, 41–44. 26. The nude inspection left its impression on future literature. About a hundred years after Hythloday’s voyage, a new ideal state was discovered during a literary voyage, New Atlantis. The only direct reference Francis Bacon makes to his predecessor’s utopia involves the nude inspection. The inhabitants of New Atlantis dislike the Utopian custom, “for they think it a scorn to give a refusal after so familiar knowledge: but because of many hidden defects in men and women’s bodies, they have a more

224

Notes to Pages 170–172

civil way; for they have near every town a couple of pools (which they call Adam and Eve’s 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, 38–45. 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), 167–73. 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 Guy’s observation that “More was most witty when least amused” suggests a fruitful attitude toward Utopia’s 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), 140–41. 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), 93–107. 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): 230–31. For example, Hythloday’s 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 More’s embassy to Flanders in 1515, precisely at the same time as the composition of book 2 of Utopia. The other three “humanist” letters—“Letter 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:xix–xlv. 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 More’s

Notes to Pages 172–177

225

Utopia (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1957); idem, The Praise of Pleasure: Philosophy, Education, and Communism in More’s Utopia (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957). 38. See above, 79–82. 39. Surtz, The Praise of Wisdom, 11. 40. George M. Logan, The Meaning of More’s “Utopia” (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983); idem, “The Argument of Utopia,” in Interpreting Thomas More’s “Utopia,” ed. John C. Olin (New York: Fordham University Press, 1989), 7–35. 41. Fox distances himself from this approach in “Utopia”: An Elusive Vision, 20–21. But the only difference between his interpretation and those of the others is that he reads Utopia as a reflection of More’s 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 More’s gradual disillusionment. 42. Avineri, “War and Slavery,” 287. 43. Avineri, “War and Slavery,” 286–90 (citation in 288). 44. Halpern, The Poetics of Primitive Accumulation, 136–75. 45. Ibid., 144–48. 46. Ibid., 162–63. 47. Ibid., 168–69. 48. Halpern’s 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, 1971–1986 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), 2:75–102. 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, 136–41). 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 utopia’s negative features, especially its rigidity and totalitarian tendencies, are automatically attributed to the text’s 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), 159–62. 50. Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning, 33–58. 51. Ibid., 31–32, 45–47. 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 monk—buried or neglected, and More’s nature is such that one

226

Notes to Pages 177–187

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), 67–79; 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 (103–4). 58. See above, 24–31. 59. See above, 28–30. 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 false—the 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 More’s “Utopia,” 144–81). 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): 8–15. 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 l’organizzazione 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,

Notes to Page 187

227

1972); Michel Foucault, “Truth and Power,” in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), 51–75; Pierre Bourdieu, “The Corporatism of the Universal: The Role of Intellectuals in the Modern World,” Telos 81 (1989): 99–110; 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. Martin’s Press, 1993), 33–58. 2. See Walzer, The Company of Critics, 3–8; S. N. Eisenstadt, Fundamentalism, Sectarianism, and Revolution: The Jacobin Dimension of Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 5–7.

Bibliography

Cited Primary Sources Alberti, Leon Battista. Della Famiglia. Translated by Guido A. Guarino. Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1971. ———. On the Art of Building in Ten Books. Translated by Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach and Robert Tavernor. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1988. ———. On Painting and on Sculpture. Edited and translated by Cecil Grayson. London: Phaidon, 1972. Aquinas, Thomas. “The Order of Learning the Sciences.” In The Division and Methods of the Sciences, translated by Armand Maurer, 99–102. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1986. ———. Summa Theologiae. Edited by T. Gilby et al. 61 vols. London: Blackfriars, 1964–1981. Aristotle. Analytica Posteriora. Translated by G. R. G. Mure. In Introduction to Aristotle, edited by R. McKeon, 9–109. New York: Modern Library, 1947. ———. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Christopher Rowe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Ascham, Roger. Report of the Affair and State of Germany. In English Works, edited by William Aldis Wright, 123–69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970. Augustine. The City of God against the Pagans. Edited and translated by R. W. Dyson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. ———. Political Writings. Edited by E. M. Atkins and R. J. Dodaro. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Bacon, Francis. New Atlantis. In The Advancement of Learning and New Atlantis, edited by Arthur Johnson, 213–47. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974.

— 229 —

230

Bibliography

Barbaro, Francesco. De re uxoria liber. In Prosatori latini del quattrocento, edited by Eugenio Garin, 213–47. Milan: R. Ricciardi, 1951. Bracciolini, Poggio. On Nobility. In Knowledge, Goodness, and Power: The Debate over True Nobility among Quattrocento Italian Humanists, edited and translated by Albert Rabil, 63–89. Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1991. Bruni, Leonardo. History of the Florentine People. Edited and translated by James H. Hankins. 3 vols. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001–2007. ———. Oration for the Funeral of Nanni Strozzi. In The Humanism of Leonardo Bruni, edited by Gordon Griffiths, James Hankins and Davis Thompson, 121–27. Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1987. ———. Panegyric to the City of Florence. Translated by Benjamin G. Kohl. In The Earthly Republic: Italian Humanists on Government and Society, edited by Benjamin G. Kohl and Ronald G. Witt, 135–75. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978. ———. The Study of Literature. In Humanist Educational Treatises, edited and translated by Craig W. Kallendorf, 92–125. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002. Buonaccorso, da Montemagno. Treatise on Nobility. In Knowledge, Goodness, and Power: The Debate over True Nobility among Quattrocento Italian Humanists, edited and translated by Albert Rabil, 32–52. Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1991. Byrne, M. St. Clare., ed. The Lisle Letters. 6 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981. Castiglione, Baldesar. Il libro del Cortigiano. Edited by Walter Barberis. Turin: Einaudi, 1998. Cavendish, George. The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey. In Two Early Tudor Lives, edited by R. S. Sylvester and D. P. Harding, 1–193. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1962. Cicero. De inventione. Translated by H. M. Hubbel. London: W. Heinemann, 1949. ———. De officiis. Translated by Walter Miller. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1913. ———. De oratore. Translated by E. W. Sutton and H. Rackham. 2 vols. London: W. Heinemann, 1942. Dante. Monarchy. Translated by Prue Shaw. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Della Casa, Giovanni. Galateo. Edited by Stefano Prandi. Turin: Einaudi, 1994. Elyot, Thomas. The Book Named the Governor. Edited by S. E. Lehmberg. London: Dent, 1962. Erasmus. The Colloquies of Erasmus. Translated by Craig R. Thompson. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965. Guarino, Battista. A Program of Teaching and Learning. In Humanist Educational Treatises, edited and translated by Craig W. Kallendorf, 260–309. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002.

Bibliography

231

Luther, Martin. The Bondage of the Will. Translated by Henry Cole. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1976. Machiavelli, Niccolò. Discourses on Livy. Translated by Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. ———. The Prince. Edited by Quentin Skinner and Russell Price. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Mancini, Dominic. The Usurpation of Richard the Third. Edited by C. A. J. Armstrong. Gloucester: A. Sutton, 1984. Marsilius of Padua. The Defender of Peace. Translated by Alan Gewirth. New York: Columbia University Press, 1956. More, Thomas. St. Thomas More: Selected Letters. Edited by Elizabeth Frances Rogers. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1961. Petrarca, Francesco. How a Ruler Ought to Govern His State. Translated by Benjamin G. Kohl. In The Earthly Republic: Italian Humanists on Government and Society, edited by Benjamin G. Kohl and Ronald G. Witt, 35–78. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978. Piccolomini, Aneas Silvius. The Education of Boys. In Humanist Educational Treatises, edited and translated by Craig W. Kallendorf, 126–259. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002. Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni. Oration on the Dignity of Man. Translated by Elizabeth Livermore Forbs. In The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, edited by Ernst Cassirer, Paul Oskar Kristeller and John Herman Randall, 223–54. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948. Plato. The Republic. Translated by Tom Griffith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pliny. The Panegyricus of Plinius Secundus Delivered to the Emperor Trajan. In Letters and Panegyricus, translated by Betty Radice, Vol. 2, 322–547. London: W. Heinemann, 1969. Poliziano, Angelo. The Pazzi Conspiracy. Translated by Renèe Neu Watkins. In Humanism and Liberty: Writings on Freedom from Fifteenth-Century Florence, edited by Renèe Neu Watkins, 171–83. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1978. Pontano, Giovanni. Ad Alfonsum Calabriae ducem de principe liber. In Prosatori latini del quattrocento, edited by Eugenio Garin, 1023–63. Milan: R. Ricciardi, 1951. Quintilian. Institutio oratoria. Translated by H. E. Butler. 4 vols. London: Heinemann, 1920–1922. Roper, William. The Life of Sir Thomas More. In Two Early Tudor Lives, edited by R. S. Sylvester and D. P. Harding, 195–254. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1962. Sacchi, Bartolomeo. On True Nobility. In Knowledge, Goodness, and Power: The Debate over True Nobility among Quattrocento Italian Humanists, edited and translated by Albert Rabil, 269–98. Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1991. Valla, Lorenzo. On the Donation of Constantine. Translated by G. W. Bowersock. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007.

232

Bibliography

Vasari, Giorgio. The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects. Edited by William Gaunt. 4 vols. London: Dent, 1963. Vergerio, Pier Paolo. The Character and Studies Befitting a Free-Born Youth. In Humanist Educational Treatises, edited and translated by Craig W. Kallendorf, 2–91. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002. Vergil, Polydore. The Anglica Historia of Polydore Vergil, A.D. 1485–1537. Edited and translated by D. Hay. London: Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1950. ———. Three Books of Polydore Vergil’s English History, Comprising the Reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV, and Richard III. Edited by H. Ellis. New York: Johnson Reprint, 1968. Vitoria, Francisco de. On the Law of War. In Political Writings, edited by A. Pagden and J. Lawrence, 293–327. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. William of Ockham. A Short Discourse on Tyrannical Government. Edited by Arthur Stephen McGrade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Cited Secondary Literature Adams, Robert P. The Better Part of Valor: More, Erasmus, Colet, and Vives, on Humanism, War, and Peace, 1496–1535. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1962. Agnew, Jean-Christophe. Worlds Apart: The Market and the Theater in Anglo-American Thought, 1550–1750. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Allen, Peter R. “Utopia and European Humanism: The Function of the Prefatory Letters and Verses.” Studies in the Renaissance 10 (1963): 99–107. Allen, Ward. “Speculations on St. Thomas More’s Use of Hesychius.” Philological Quarterly 46 (1967): 156–66. Anderson, Judith H. Biographical Truth: The Representation of Historical Persons in Tudor-Stuart Writing. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1984. Aron, Raymond. The Opium of the Intellectuals. Translated by Terence Kilmartin. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday. Augustijn, Cornelius. “The Ecclesiology of Erasmus.” In Scrinium Erasmianum, edited by J. Coppens, Vol. 2, 135–55. Leiden: Brill, 1969. ———. Erasmus: His Life, Works, and Influence. Translated by J. C. Grayson. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991. Avineri, Shlomo. “War and Slavery in More’s Utopia.” International Review of Social History 7 (1962): 260–90. Bainton, Ronald H. Erasmus of Christendom. New York: Crossroad, 1982. Baker-Smith, Dominic. More’s “Utopia.” Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000. Barnett, Mary Jane. “Erasmus and the Hermeneutics of Linguistic Praxis.” Renaissance Quarterly 49 (1996): 542–72. Baron, Hans. The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance, 2nd ed. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966. ———. From Petrarch to Leonardo Bruni: Studies in Humanistic and Political Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968.

Bibliography

233

———. In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism: Essays on the Transition from Medieval to Modern Thought. 2 vols. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988. ———. “Bruni’s Histories as expression of Modern Thought.” In In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism, vol. 1, 68–93. ———. “The Changed Perspective of the past in Bruni’s Histories of the Florentine People.” In In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism, vol. 1, 43–67. ———. “Civic Wealth and the New Values of the Renaissance: The Spirit of the Quattrocento.” In In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism, vol. 1, 226–57. ———. “A Defense of the View of the Quattrocento First Offered in The Crisis of Early Italian Renaissance.” In In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism, vol. 2, 194–211. ———. “The Florentine Revival of the Philosophy of the Active Political Life.” In In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism, vol. 1, 134–57. ———. “Franciscan Poverty and Civic Wealth in the Shaping of Trecento Humanistic Thought: The Role of Florence.” In In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism, vol. 1, 191–225. ———. “Franciscan Poverty and Civic Wealth in the Shaping of Trecento Humanistic Thought: The Role of Petrarch.” In In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism, vol. 1, 158–90. ———. “Leon Battista Alberti as an Heir and Critic of Florentine Civic Humanism.” In In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism, vol. 1, 258–88. ———. “The Memory of Cicero’s Roman Civic Spirit in the Medieval Centuries and the Florentine Renaissance.” In In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism, vol. 1, 94–133. ———. “New Historical and Psychological Ways of Thinking: From Petrarch to Bruni and Machiavelli.” In In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism, vol. 1, 24–42. Baudrillard, Jean. For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign. Translated by C. Levin. St. Louis: Telos Press, 1981. ———. The Mirror of Production. Translated by M. Foster. St. Louis: Telos Press, 1975. Bejczy, István. Erasmus and the Middle Ages: The Historical Consciousness of a Christian Humanist. Leiden: Brill, 2001. ———. “Erasmus Becomes a Netherlander.” Sixteenth Century Journal 28 (1997): 387–99. Benda, Julian. The Betrayal of the Intellectuals. Translated by Richard Aldington. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955. Bentley, Jerry. Humanists and Holy Writ: New Testament Scholarship in the Renaissance. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983. ———. Politics and Culture in Renaissance Naples. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987. Berger, Harry, Jr. “Utopian Folly: Erasmus and More on the Perils of Misanthropy.” In Second World and Green World: Studies in Renaissance Fiction-Making, 229–49. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. Berlin, Isaiah. “The Originality of Machiavelli.” In Against the Current, 25–79. New York: Viking, 1980. Bernheimer, Richard. “Theatrum Mundi.” Art Bulletin 38 (1956): 225–47.

234

Bibliography

Bevington, David M. “The Dialogue in Utopia: Two Sides to the Question.” Studies in Philology 58 (1961): 496–509. Bietenholz, Peter G. History and Biography in the Work of Erasmus of Rotterdam. Geneva: Droz, 1966. Bisaha, Nancy. Creating East and West: Renaissance Humanists and the Ottoman Turks. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004. Black, Robert. “The Renaissance and Humanism: Definitions and Origins.” In Palgrave Advances in Renaissance Historiography, edited by Jonathan Woolfson, 97–117. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Blanchard, W. Scott. “Petrarch and the Genealogy of Asceticism.” Journal of the History of Ideas 62 (2001): 401–23. Boehner, Philotheus. “The Realistic Conceptualism of William Ockham.” In Collected Articles on Ockham, edited by E. M. Buytaert, 156–74. St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute, 1958. Boesky, Amy. Founding Fictions: Utopias in Early Modern England. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996. Born, Lester. “Introduction.” In Erasmus, The Education of a Christian Prince, 1–130. New York: W. W. Norton, 1936. Bourdieu, Pierre. “The Corporatism of the Universal: The Role of Intellectuals in the Modern World.” Telos 81 (1989): 99–110. Bouwsma, William J. Venice and the Defense of Liberty: Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter Reformation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968. Boyle, Marjorie O’Rourke. Christening Pagan Mysteries: Erasmus in Pursuit of Wisdom. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981. ———. Erasmus on Language and Method in Theology. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977. ———. Rhetoric and Reform: Erasmus’ Civil Dispute with Luther. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983. Bradshaw, Brendan. “The Christian Humanism of Erasmus.” Journal of Theological Studies, n.s., 33 (1982): 411–47. Branham, R. Bracht. “Utopian Laughter: Lucian and Thomas More.” Moreana 86 (1985): 23–53. Burckhardt, Jacob. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Translated by S. G. C. Middlemore. London: Phaidon, 1944. Burke, Peter. The Renaissance Sense of the Past. London: E. Arnold, 1968. Burroughs, Charles. “The Altar and the City: Botticelli’s ‘Mannerism’ and the Reform of Sacred Art.” Artibus et historiae 36 (1997): 9–40. Bursill-Hall, G. L. Speculative Grammars of the Middle Ages: The Doctrine of Partes Orationis of the Modistae. The Hague: Mouton, 1971. Camporeale, Salvatore I. “Da Lorenzo Valla a Tommaso Moro: Lo statuto umanistico della teologia.” Memorie dominicane, n.s., 4 (1973): 9–102. ———. Lorenzo Valla: Umanesimo e teologia. Florence: Nella sede dell’Istituto, 1972. ———. “Renaissance Humanism and the Origins of Humanist Theology.” In Humanity and Divinity in Renaissance and Reformation, edited by J. W. O’Malley, T. M. Izbicki and G. Christianson, 101–24. Leiden: Brill, 1993.

Bibliography

235

Carroll, Margaret D. “The Erotics of Absolutism: Rubens and the Mystification of Sexual Violence.” Representations 25 (1989): 3–30. Caspari, Fritz. Humanism and the Social Order in Tudor England. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954. Cave, Terence. The Cornucopian Text: Problems of Writing in the French Renaissance. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979. Celenza, Christopher. The Lost Italian Renaissance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. Chambers, R. W. Thomas More. London: J. Cape, 1938. Chomarat, Jacques. Grammaire et rhetorique chez Erasme. 2 vols. Paris: Belles Lettres, 1981. Clough, Cecil H. “Erasmus and the Pursuit of English Royal Patronage in 1517 and 1518.” Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook 1 (1981): 126–40. Cochrane, Eric. Historians and Historiography in the Italian Renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. Coogan, Robert. “The Pharisee against the Hellenist: Edward Lee versus Erasmus.” Renaissance Quarterly 39 (1986): 476–506. Curtius, Ernst Robert. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. Translated by Willard R. Trask. New York: Pantheon Books, 1953. Cutinelli-Rèndina, Emanuele. Chiesa e religione in Machiavelli. Pisa: Istituti editoriali e poligrafici internazionali, 1998. D’Amico, John. Renaissance Humanism in Papal Rome. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. Davis, J. C. Utopia and the Ideal Society: A Study of English Utopian Writing 1516–1700. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Dean, Leonard F. “Literary Problems in More’s Richard III.” PMLA 58 (1943): 22–41. Derrida, Jacques. Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International. Translated by Peggy Kamuf. New York: Routledge, 1994. Donnelly, Dorothy F. Patterns of Order and Utopia. New York: St. Martin’s, 1998. Donno, Elizabeth Story. “Thomas More and Richard III.” Renaissance Quarterly 35 (1982): 401–47. Dowling, Maria. Humanism in the Age of Henry VIII. London: Croom Helm, 1986. Duggan, Alfred. Thomas Becket of Canterbury. London: Faber & Faber, 1967. Eden, Kathy. Friends Hold All Things in Common: Tradition, Intellectual Property, and the Adages of Erasmus. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Eisenstadt, S. N. Fundamentalism, Sectarianism, and Revolution: The Jacobin Dimension of Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communication and Cultural Transformation in Early-Modern Europe. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Elias, Norbert. The Civilizing Process. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994. ———. The Court Society. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Oxford: Blackwell, 1983. Elton, G. R. England under the Tudors. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1954. ———. Reform and Reformation: England 1509–1558. London: E. Arnold, 1977.

236

Bibliography

Fenlon, D. B. “England and Europe: Utopia and Its Aftermath.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 25 (1975): 115–35. Fernandez, Jose A. “Erasmus on the Just War.” Journal of the History of Ideas 34 (1974): 209–26. Fleisher, Martin. Radical Reform and Political Persuasion in the Life and Writings of Thomas More. Geneva: Droz, 1973. Foucault, Michel. “Truth and Power.” In The Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow, 51–75. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. Fox, Alistair. “English Humanism and the Body Politics.” In Alistair Fox and John Guy, Reassessing the Herician Age: Humanism, Politics and Reform, 34–51. Oxford: Blackwell, 1986. ———. “Facts and Fallacies: Interpreting English Humanism.” In Alistair Fox and John Guy, Reassessing the Herician Age: Humanism, Politics and Reform, 9–33. Oxford: Blackwell, 1986. ———. Politics and Literature in the Reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989. ———. “Sir Thomas Elyot and the Humanist Dilemma.” In Alistair Fox and John Guy, Reassessing the Herician Age: Humanism, Politics and Reform, 52–73. Oxford: Blackwell, 1986. ———. Thomas More: History and Providence. Oxford: Blackwell, 1982. ———. “Utopia”: An Elusive Vision. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993. Freeman, Thomas S. “From Catilina to Richard III: The Influence of Classical Historians on Polydore Vergil’s Anglica Historia.” In Reconsidering the Renaissance, edited by Mario A. Cesare, 191–214. Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992. Fumagalli Beonio Brocchieri, Mariateresa. “L’intellettuale.” In Mariateresa Fumagalli Beonio Brocchieri and Eugenio Garin, L’intellettuale tra Medioevo e Rinascimento, 3–62. Bari: Laterza, 1994. Furey, Constance M. Erasmus, Contarini, and the Religious Republic of Letters. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Gallagher, Catherine, and Stephen Greenblatt. Practicing New Historicism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Garin, Eugenio. La cultura filosofica del Rinascimento italiano: Ricerche e documenti. Florence: G. C. Sansoni, 1961. ———. L’educazione in Europa, 1400–1600: Problemi e programmi. Bari: Laterza, 1957. ———. Italian Humanism: Philosophy and Civic Life in the Renaissance. Translated by Peter Munz. Oxford: Blackwell, 1965. ———. Medioevo e Rinascimento: Studi e ricerche. Bari: Laterza, 1961. ———. Science and Civic Life in the Italian Renaissance. Translated by Peter Munz. Gloucester, Mass.: P. Smith, 1978. Gilbert, Felix. Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Florence. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965. Gilmore, Myron P. “Erasmus and History.” In Humanists and Jurists: Six Studies in the Renaissance, 93–107. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1963.

Bibliography

237

Godman, Peter. From Poliziano to Machiavelli: Florentine Humanism in the High Renaissance. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998. Gordon, Walter M. Humanist Play and Belief: The Seriocomic Art of Desiderius Erasmus. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990. Gouwens, Kenneth. “Perceiving the Past: Renaissance Humanism after the ‘Cognitive Turn.’” American Historical Review 103 (1998): 55–82. Grafton, Anthony, and Lisa Jardine. From Humanism to the Humanities. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986. Gramsci, Antonio. Gli intelletuali e l’organizzazione della cultura, 3rd ed. Rome: Editori riuniti, 1996. Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980. Grendler, Paul F. Schooling in Renaissance Italy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989. ———. The Universities of the Italian Renaissance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. Guerlac, Rita. “Introduction.” In Juan Luis Vives against the Pesudodialecticians, edited by Rita Guerlac, 9–43. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1979. Gundersheimer, Werner L. “Patronage in the Renaissance: An Exploratory Approach.” In Patronage in the Renaissance, edited by G. F. Lytle and S. Orgel, 3–23. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981. Guy, John. The Public Career of Sir Thomas More. Brighton: Harvester Press, 1980. ———. Thomas More. London: Arnold, 2000. Halpern, Richard. The Poetics of Primitive Accumulation: English Renaissance Culture and the Genealogy of Capital. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991. Hanham, Alison. Richard III and His Early Historians, 1483–1535. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975. Hardin, Richard F. “The Literary Conventions of Erasmus’ Education of a Christian Prince: Advice and Aphorism.” Renaissance Quarterly 35 (1982): 151–63. Harner, James L. “The Place of ‘Shore’s Wife’ in More’s History of Richard III.” Moreana 74 (1982): 69–76. Hay, Denys. “The Place of Hans Baron in Renaissance Historiography.” In Renaissance Essays, 133–49. London: Hambledon Press, 1988. Herman, Peter C. “Henrician Historiography and the Voice of the People: The Cases of More and Hall.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 39 (1997): 260–70. Hexter, J. H. “Introduction.” In CWM, Vol. 4, xv–cxxiv. ———. More’s “Utopia”: The Biography of an Idea. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1952. Hilgert, E. “Johan Froben and the Basel University Scholars 1513–1523.” Library Quarterly 41 (1971): 141–69. Hoffmann, Manfred. Rhetoric and Theology: The Hermeneutic of Erasmus. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994. Hollingsworth, Mary. Patronage in Renaissance Italy: From 1400 to the Early Sixteenth Century. London: J. Murray, 1994.

238

Bibliography

Hörnqvist, Mikael. “The Two Myths of Civic Humanism.” In Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections, edited by James Hankins, 105–42. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Howarth, David. Images of Rule: Art and Politics in the English Renaissance. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Huizinga, Johan. Erasmus and the Age of Reformation. Translated by F. Hopman. New York: Harper & Row, 1957. Hulliung, Mark. Citizen Machiavelli. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983. Ianziti, Gary. Humanistic Historiography under the Sforzas: Politics and Propaganda in Fifteenth-Century Milan. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988. Jameson, Fredric. “Of Islands and Trenches: Neutralization and the Production of Utopian Discourse.” In The Ideologies of Theory: Essays, 1971–1986, vol. 2, 75–102. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988. Jardine, Lisa. Erasmus, Man of Letters: The Construction of Charisma in Print. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993. ———. “Humanism and the Teaching of Logic.” In The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, edited by Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenney and Jan Pinborg, 797–807. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Javitch, Daniel. “Il Cortegiano and the Constraints of Despotism.” In Castiglione: The Ideal and the Real in Renaissance Culture, edited by Robert W. Hanning and David Rosand, 17–28. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1983. Jeanneret, Michel. A Feast of Words: Banquets and Table Talk in the Renaissance. Translated by Jeremy Whiteley and Emma Hughs. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. Kahn, Victoria. Machiavellian Rhetoric: From the Counter-Reformation to Milton. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994. ———. Rhetoric, Prudence, and Skepticism in the Renaissance. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985. Kautsky, Karl. Thomas More and His “Utopia.” Translated by H. J. Stenning. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1979. Kelley, Donald. Foundation of Modern Historical Scholarship: Language, Law, and History in the French Renaissance. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970. Kendall, Paul Murray. Richard the Third. London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1955. Kennedy, William J. Rhetorical Norms in Renaissance Literature. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1978. Kent, Dale. The Rise of the Medici: Faction in Florence, 1424–1434. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. Kent, F. W., with Patricia Simons. “Renaissance Patronage: An Introductory Essay.” In Patronage, Art, and Society in Renaissance Italy, edited by F. W. Kent and P. Simons with J. C. Eade, 1–21. Canberra: Humanities Research Centre, 1987. Kincaid, Arthur N. “The Dramatic Structure of Sir Thomas More’s History of King Richard III.” Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 12 (1972): 223–42. King, Margaret. Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician Dominance. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986.

Bibliography

239

Kinney, Arthur F. Continental Humanist Poetics: Studies in Erasmus, Castiglione, Marguerite de Navarre, Rabelais, and Cervantes. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989. ———. Humanist Poetics: Thought, Rhetoric, and Fiction in Sixteenth-Century England. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986. Kinney, Daniel. “Introduction.” In CWM, Vol. 15, xv–cxxxii. ———. “Kings’ Tragicomedies: Generic Misrule in More’s History of Richard III.” Moreana 16 (1985): 128–50. ———. “More’s Letter to Dorp: Remapping the Trivium.” Renaissance Quarterly 34 (1981): 179–210. Kipling, Gordon. “Henry VII and the Origins of Tudor Patronage.” In Patronage in the Renaissance, edited by G. F. Lytle and S. Orgel, 117–64. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981. Knapp, Jeffrey. An Empire Nowhere: England, America, and Literature from “Utopia” to “The Tempest.” Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Kohl, Benjamin G. “Humanism and Education.” In Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms and Legacy, edited by Albert Rabil, vol. 1, 5–22. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988. Kristeller, Paul Oskar. Renaissance Thought and Its Sources. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979. LaCapra, Dominick. “History, Language, and Reading: Waiting for Crillon.” American Historical Review 100 (1995): 799–828. ———. “Rethinking Intellectual History and Reading Texts.” In Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language, 23–71. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983. Leff, Gordon. “The Trivium and the Three Philosophies.” In Universities in the Middle Ages, edited by Hilde de Ridder-Symoens, 307–36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Le Goff, Jacques. Intellectuals in the Middle Ages. Translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1993. Leslie, Marina. Renaissance Utopias and the Problem of History. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998. Levy, F. J. Tudor Historical Thought. San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1967. Lewis, C. S. English Literature in the Sixteenth Century: Excluding Drama. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954. Logan, George M. “The Argument of Utopia.” In Interpreting Thomas More’s “Utopia,” edited by John C. Olin, 7–35. New York: Fordham University Press, 1989. ———. “Interpreting Utopia: Ten Recent Studies and the Modern Critical Traditions.” Moreana 118/119 (1994): 203–58. ———. The Meaning of More’s “Utopia.” Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983. Lovejoy, Arthur O., and George Boas. Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.

240

Bibliography

Major, J. Russell. “The Crown and the Aristocracy in Renaissance France.” American Historical Review 69 (1964): 631–45. ———. “The French Renaissance Monarchy as Seen through the Estates General.” Studies in the Renaissance 9 (1962): 113–25. Mansfield, Harvey C. Machiavelli’s Virtue. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Marenbon, John. Later Medieval Philosophy (1150–1350): An Introduction. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987. Marin, Louis. Utopics: The Semiological Play of Textual Spaces. Translated by Robert A. Vollrath. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press International, 1990. Marius, Richard. Thomas More: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1984. Martin, John Jeffries. “Religion.” In Palgrave Advances in Renaissance Historiography, edited by Jonathan Woolfson, 193–206. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Martines, Lauro. Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy. New York: Knopf, 1979. ———. The Social World of the Florentine Humanists 1390–1460. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963. McConica, James Kelsey. English Humanists and Reformation Politics, under Henry VIII and Edward VI. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965. ———. Erasmus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. ———. “Erasmus and the Grammar of Consent.” In Scrinium Erasmianum, edited by J. Coppens, vol. 2, 77–99. Leiden: Brill, 1969. McCutcheon, Elizabeth. “Denying the Contrary: More’s Use of Litotes in the Utopia.” Moreana 31–32 (1971): 107–21. Morgan-Russell, Simon. “St. Thomas More’s Utopia and the Description of Britain.” Cahier Élisabéthains 61 (2002): 1–11. Mueller, Janel. “‘The Whole Island Like a Single Family’: Positioning Women in Utopian Patriarchy.” In Rethinking the Henrician Era: Essays on Early Tudor Texts and Contexts, edited by Peter C. Herman, 93–122. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994. Musto, Ronald G. “Just Wars and Evil Empires: Erasmus and the Turks.” In Renaissance Society and Culture: Essays in Honor of Eugene F. Rice, Jr., edited by John Monfasani and Ronald G. Musto, 197–216. New York: Italica Press, 1991. Myers, A. R. “The Character of Richard III.” History Today 4 (1954): 511–21. Nagel, Alan F. “Lies and Limitable Inane: Contradiction in More’s Utopia.” Renaissance Quarterly 26 (1973): 173–80. Najemy, John. “Civic Humanism and Florentine Politics.” In Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections, edited by James Hankins, 30–74. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. ———. Corporatism and Consensus in Florentine Politics, 1280–1400. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982. Nauert, Charles G. Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Bibliography

241

———. “Humanist Infiltration into the Academic World: Some Studies of Northern Universities.” Renaissance Quarterly 43 (1990): 799–812. Ong, Walter J. Ramus: Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason. New York: Octagon Books, 1974. Overfield, James H. Humanism and Scholasticism in Late Medieval Germany. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984. Pabel, Hilmar M. “The Peaceful People of Christ: The Irenic Ecclesiology of Erasmus of Rotterdam.” In Erasmus’ Vision of the Church, edited by Hilmar M. Pabel, 57–93. Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1995. Panofsky, Erwin. Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art. New York: Harper & Row, 1972. Payne, J. B. “Toward the Hermeneutics of Erasmus.” In Scrinium Erasmianum, edited by J. Coppens, vol. 2, 13–50. Leiden: Brill, 1969. Perlette, John M. “Irresolution as Solution: Rhetoric and the Unresolved Debate in Book 1 of More’s Utopia.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 29 (1987): 29–53. Peterson, David. “Out of the Margins: Religion and the Church in Renaissance Italy.” Renaissance Quarterly 53 (2000): 853–79. Phillips, Margaret Mann. The ‘Adages’ of Erasmus: A Study with Translations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964. ———. Erasmus and the Northern Renaissance, rev. ed. Woodbridge, U.K.: Boydell Press, 1981. Pinborg, Jan. “Speculative Grammar.” In The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, edited by Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenney and Jan Pinborg, 254–69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Pizzi, Clemente. Un amico di Erasmo, l’umanista Andrea Ammonio. Florence: F. Le Monnier, 1956. Pocock, J. G. A. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975. Pollard, F. “Sir Thomas More’s Richard III.” History, n.s., 17 (1933): 317–23. Porter, H. C. “Introduction.” In Erasmus and Cambridge: The Cambridge Letters of Erasmus, translated by D. F. S. Thomson, 1–103. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963. Rabil, Albert. “Desiderius Erasmus.” In Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms and Legacy, edited by Albert Rabil, vol. 2, 216. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988. ———. “Introduction.” In Knowledge, Goodness, and Power: The Debate over Nobility among Quattrocento Italian Humanists, edited and translated by Albert Rabil, 1–23. Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1991. ———. “The Significance of ‘Civic Humanism’ in the Interpretation of the Italian Renaissance.” In Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms and Legacy, edited by Albert Rabil, vol. 1, 141–74. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988. Rebhorn, Wayne A. Courtly Performances: Masking and Festivity in Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1978.

242

Bibliography

———. “Erasmian Education and the Convivium religiosum.” Studies in Philology 38 (1972): 131–47. Reynolds, E. E. Thomas More and Erasmus. New York: Fordham University Press, 1965. Rijk, L. M. de. “The Origins of the Theory of the Properties of Terms.” In The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, edited by Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenney and Jan Pinborg, 161–73. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Romm, James. “More’s Strategies of Naming in the Utopia.” Sixteenth Century Journal 22 (1991): 173–83. Ross, David. Aristotle, 5th ed. London: Methuen, 1964. Rummel, Erika. The Confessionalization of Humanism in Reformation Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. ———. Erasmus. London: Continuum, 2004. ———. Erasmus and His Catholic Critics. 2 vols. Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1989. ———. The Humanist-Scholastic Debate in the Renaissance and Reformation. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995. Russell, Frederick H. The Just War in the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. Said, Edward. Representations of the Intellectual. London: Vintage, 1994. Salmon, J. M. H. Society in Crisis: France in the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Sand, Shlomo. “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, edited by Jeremy Jennings, 33–58. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993. Sasso, Gennaro. “‘Florentina libertas’ e rinascimento italiano nell’opera di Hans Baron.” Rivista storica Italiana 69 (1957): 250–76. Seebohm, Frederic. The Oxford Reformers of 1498: Being a History of the Fellow-Work of John Colet, Erasmus, and Thomas More. London: Longmans, Green, 1867. Seigel, Jerrold E. Rhetoric and Philosophy in Renaissance Humanism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968. Shearman, John. Mannerism. London: Penguin, 1990. Shils, Edward. The Intellectuals and the Powers and Other Essays. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972. Skinner, Quentin. The Foundations of Modern Political Thought. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978. ———. Visions of Politics. 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Smalley, Beryl. The Becket Conflict and the Schools: A Study of Intellectuals in Politics. Oxford: Blackwell, 1973. Sowards, J. K. “The Two Lost Years of Erasmus: Summary, Review, and Speculation.” Studies in the Renaissance 9 (1962): 161–86. Spitz, Lewis W. “The Course of German Humanism.” In Itinerarium Italicum: The Profile of the Italian Renaissance in the Mirror of Its European Transformations, edited by H. A. Oberman and T. A. Brady, 371–436. Leiden: Brill, 1975.

Bibliography

243

———. “Humanism in Germany.” In The Impact of Humanism on Western Europe, edited by. A. Goodman and A. MacKay, 202–19. London: Longman, 1990. ———. The Religious Renaissance of the German Humanists. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963. Starkey, David. “Court, Council, and Nobility in Tudor England.” In Princes, Patronage and the Nobility, edited by R. G. Asch and A. M. Birke, 175–203. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Strier, Richard. Resistant Structures: Particularity, Radicalism, and Renaissance Texts. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Struever, Nancy S. The Language of History in the Renaissance: Rhetoric and Historical Consciousness in Florentine Humanism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970. ———. Theory as Practice: Ethical Inquiry in the Renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Sullivan, Vickie B. Machiavelli’s Three Romes: Religion, Human Liberty, and Politics Reformed. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1996. Surtz, Edward L. The Praise of Pleasure: Philosophy, Education, and Communism in More’s “Utopia.” Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957. ———. The Praise of Wisdom: A Commentary on the Religious and Moral Problems and Backgrounds of St. Thomas More’s “Utopia.” Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1957. Sylvester, Richard S. “Introduction.” In CWM, vol. 2, xvii–cvi. Tateo, Francesco. Tradizione e realtà nell’Umanesimo italiano, 2nd ed. Bari: Dedalo libri, 1974. Thompson, Geraldine. Under the Pretext of Praise: Satire Mode in Erasmus’ Fiction. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973. Tracy, James D. “Erasmus Becomes a German.” Renaissance Quarterly 21 (1968): 281–88. ———. Erasmus: The Growth of a Mind. Geneva: Droz, 1972. ———. Erasmus of the Low Countries. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. ———. The Politics of Erasmus: A Pacifist Intellectual and His Political Milieu. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978. Trevor-Roper, Hugh R. “The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century.” In Crisis in Europe 1500–1600, edited by T. Aston, 59–95. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965. ———. “The Lisle Letters.” In Renaissance Essays, 76–93. London: Secker & Warburg, 1985. Trinkaus, Charles. “Erasmus, Augustine and the Nominalists.” In The Scope of Renaissance Humanism, 274–301. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1983. ———. In Our Image and Likeness. 2 vols. London: Constable, 1970. ———. “Lorenzo Valla as Instaurator of the Theory of Humanism.” Hellas 7 (1996): 75–101. Tuck, Richard. “Humanism and Political Thought.” In The Impact of Humanism on Western Europe, edited by A. Goodman and A. MacKay, 43–65. London: Longman, 1990.

244

Bibliography

Veeser, H. Aram., ed. The New Historicism Reader. New York: Routledge, 1994. Verdeveld, Harry. “The Ages of Erasmus and the Year of His Birth.” Renaissance Quarterly 46 (1993): 754–809. Walzer, Michael. The Company of Critics: Social Criticism and Political Commitment in the Twentieth Century. London: P. Halban, 1989. Waquet, Françoise. “Qu’est-ce que la République des Lettres? Essai de sémantique historique.” Bibliothèque de l`Ècole des chartes 147 (1989): 473–502. Waswo, Richard. Language and Meaning in the Renaissance. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987. White, Hayden. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975. Witt, Ronald G. “In the Footsteps of the Ancients”: The Origins of Humanism from Lovato to Bruni. Leiden: Brill, 2000. Woodman, A. J. Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies. London: Croom Helm, 1988. Woodward, William H. Desiderius Erasmus concerning the Aim and Method of Education. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1964. ———. Studies in Education during the Age of the Renaissance 1400–1600. New York: Teachers College Press, 1967. Wootton, David. “Friendship Portrayed: A New Account of Utopia.” History Workshop Journal 45 (1998): 29–47. ———. “Introduction.” In Utopia: With Erasmus’s The Sileni of Alcibiades, edited by David Wootton, 1–34. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999. Yates, Frances A. Theater of the World. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969. Yoran, Hanan. “Florentine Civic Humanism and the Emergence of Modern Ideology.” History and Theory 46 (2007): 326–44. ———. “The Humanist Critique of Metaphysics and the Foundation of the Political Order.” Utopian Studies 13 (2002): 1–19.

Index

Adams, Robert, 211n77, 216n19 Adolph of Burgundy, 47 Agnew, Jean-Christophe, 220n33 Agricola, Rudolf, 26 Alberti, Leon Battista, 21–22, 196n35, 210n71, 210n73 Amerbach brothers, 64, 204n55 Amerbach, Johannes, 204n55 Allen, Peter, 214n101 Allen, Ward, 223n12 Ammonio, Andrea, 39–44, 55, 192n9 Anderlini, Fausto, 45 Anderson, Judith, 217n8 Aristotle and Aristotilian philosopy, 4, 22–23, 25, 28, 111, 113, 120, 195n27, 196n31 Aron, Raymond, 226n1 Ascham, Roger, 147 Aquinas, Thomas, 20, 83–84, 97, 195n31, 208n45 Augustijn, Cornelius, 203n24, 207n30, 209n52 Augustine and Agustinian theology, 80, 84–85, 97, 215n5, 217n42, 219n21 Avineri, Shlomo, 174, 183, 223n18, 223n20

Bacon, Francis, 223n26 Bainton, Ronald, 191n1 Baker-Smith, Dominic, 213n89, 214n100, 223n21 Barbaro, Francesco, 22, 191n2 Barnett, Mary Jane, 207n30 Baron, Hans, 18, 21–24, 31–32, 192n8, 194n19 195nn26, 196n32, 198n55, 198n57, 199n66, 210n74, 220n47 Batt, Jacob, 45–49 Baudrillard, Jean, 176 Bear, Ludwig, 62 Bejczy, István, 203n38, 208n34, 216n23 Benda, Julian, 226n1 Bentley, Jerry, 192n8, 207n30 Bergen, Antoon van, 55, 58–59, 203n32, 211n78 Bergen, Hendrik van, 45, 47 Berger, Harry, 169, 223n20 Berlin, Isaiah, 211n76 Bernheimer, Richard, 220n33 Bevington, David, 222n2, 222n5 Bietenholz, Peter, 112 Bisaha, Nancy, 76 Black, Robert, 198n55 Blanchard, W. Scott, 193n11

— 245 —

246

Index

Boas, George, 215n19 Boehner, Philotheus, 197n40 Boerio, Giovanni Battista, 46, 54 Boesky, Amy, 223n20 Born, Lester, 210n60 Borssele, Anna van, 46–49, 54, 203n25 Bourdieu, Pierre, 227n1 Bouwsma, William, 195n30, 198n56 Boyle, Marjorie O’Rourke, 122, 192n7, 207n30, 208n36 Bracciolini, Poggio, 191n2, 199n62 Bradshaw, Brendan, 207n30, 208n34, 208n37, 216n22 Branham, R. Bracht, 220n33, 224n29 Bruni, Leonardo, 21–23, 32, 157, 195nn27, 199n59, 210n74 Budé, Guillaume, 102, 104, 185 Buonaccorso, da Montemagno, 199n62 Burckhardt, Jacob, 95, 198n55 Burke, Peter, 221n47 Burroughs, Charles, 200n68 Bursill-Hall, G. L., 197n40 Busleyden, Jérôme de, 49, 104, 165, 222n11 Camporeale, Salvatore, 192n7, 196n39, 198n54, 207n29 Capito, Wolfgang, 57–59, 63, 67 Carroll, Margaret, 200n68 Caspari, Fritz, 213n88 Castiglione, Baldesar, 34, 70 Cave, Terence, 216n33, 217n43 Cavendish, George, 201n5 Celenza, Christopher, 196n37 Chambers, R. W., 172, 213n88, 217n9, 224n30 Charles V, 58, 68, 90–91, 202n19, 214n3 Chomarat, Jacques, 207n30 Cicero, 18, 23, 111, 113, 123, 125, 147– 48, 159, 195n27 civic humanism, 21–24, 32–34, 95 Clough, Cecil, 210n61 Cochrane, Eric, 215n13 Colet, John, 52, 54, 97, 217n43 Coogan, Robert, 208n40

court society, 34, 70–71 Curtius, Ernst, 220n33 Cutinelli-Rèndina, Emanuele, 211n76 D’Amico, John, 192n8, 196n34 Dante, 86–88 Davis, J. C., 214n95 Dean, Leonard, 217n7, 219n24 Della Casa, Giovanni, 70 Derrida, Jacques, 225n49 Desmarez, Jean, 49, 51 Donnelly, Dorothy, 214n95 Donno, Elizabeth, 218n9, 218n19, 221n55 Dorp, Martin, 26, 30, 98–99 Dowling, Maria, 40, 199n58, 202n6, 202n10, 202nn12–14 Duggan, Alfred, 221n57 Dulce bellum inexpertis, 58, 83–85, 97– 98, 117–21, 127, 158; undermining of the notion of civilization in, 117–119; and Erasmus’s autonomy, 97–98, 121; and Erasmus’s theology, 83–85; undermining of humanist learning in, 119–21; rejection of just war doctrine in, 84, 97–98 Eden, Kathy, 80 Eisenstadt, S. N., 227n2 Eisenstein, Elizabeth, 204n50 Elias, Norbert, 70, 73–74, 200n69, 205n3, 205nn5–10, 205n13, 206n19 Elton. G. R., 201n3 Elyot, Thomas, 94, 202n14, 211n74 Erasmian humanism: compared to other types of humanism, 5, 7–8, 37, 72–76, 86, 94–96, 107, 189; internal tensions of, 3, 8–14, 108–21, 124–32, 157–58, 160–65, 184–86, 189; reform program of, 1–2, 7–8, 11, 13, 37, 57, 69–104, 107, 110, 118, 121–23, 127–33, 163–65, 170, 184–86; and the Republic of Letters, 1–3, 5–14, 37, 44–45, 59–69, 75–76, 96–98, 104, 107–108, 133–34, 157–

Index

59, 184–86. See also Erasmus; More, Thomas Erasmus: and aristocratic culture, 7–8, 50–51, 71–73, 89, 92–94, 121; in Basel, 63–65; civilizing humanism of 70–77, 123; and the court of Burgundy, 49–53, 68, 90, 92; on education, 74–77, 112, 120, 124; in England, 39–42, 48–49, 54–57; and German humanism, 59–67; humanist theology of, 53, 77–85, 122–23; humanness of, 75–76; as the leader of the Republic of Letters, 2–3, 6, 12, 37, 44, 59–69; pacifism of, 7, 50–51, 83–85, 97–98, 116–117; and patronage, 6, 39–58; political thought of, 85–98; and scholastic philosophy, 2, 6, 8, 11, 45, 57, 78, 84–85, 91, 120; as a universal intellectual, 1–3, 5–14, 37, 58–69, 73–76, 85, 89–94, 97–98, 107–108, 121, 128, 131–32, 184–86, 189; views of the church of, 7–8, 85–88. See also Erasmian humanism Erasmus, works: Adagia, 46, 54, 64, 69, 80, 101; A mortuo tributum exigere, 89; Antibarbari, 77, 80, 120; Colloquies, 74, 79, 121, 123; Convivium religiosum, 11–12, 121–32, 186; Copia, 46, 54, 64–65, 112; De civilitate, 70–73, 77–79; De libero arbitrio, 79, 82–83; De ratione studii, 46, 54, 112–14; De pueris instituendis, 74–76, 82, 111, 114–15, 118; Enchiridion, 46, 64, 81–82; Festina lente, 63, 204; A Fish Diet, 73–74, 79; Inns, 74; Jerom’s edition, 54, 64, 69, 204; Julius exclusus, 212n86; letter to Volz, 76, 78–79, 86, 88; Novum Testamentum, 53, 57, 64, 69, 77–78, 99; Panegyricus, 49–53; Paraclesis, 78–81; Paraphrase on Romans, 81–82; Praise of Folly, 54, 99, 145–46, 172; Querela pacis, 98; Scarabaeus aquilam quaerit, 88–89; Seneca’s Lucubrationes, 64–65; Sileni

247

Alcibiadis, 80–81, 86–90. See also Dulce bellum inexpertis; Institutio principis christiani Ernest, duke of Bavaria, 67 Fabri, Johannes, 67 Fenlon, D. B., 163 Fernandez, Jose, 211n80 Fisher, Christopher, 53 Fisher, John, 40, 42 Fleisher, Martin, 213n88 Foucault, Michel, 227n1 Fox, Alistair, 136, 172, 202nn8–9, 202n16, 210n68, 213n88, 218n9, 218n12, 218n19, 218n21, 219n23, 225n41 Foxe, Richard, 40, 42 Francis I, 58, 200n2 Freeman, Thomas, 220n36 Froben, Johann, and the Froben Press, 62–63, 65, 80, 88–89, 204n5, 208n32, 211n78, 215n9 Fumagalli Beonio Brocchieri, Mariateresa, 191n3 Furey, Constance, 208n47 Gaguin, Robert, 45 Gallagher, Catherine, 193n12 Garin, Eugenio, 191n3, 196n32, 198n55, 198n57, 199n59, 210n73 Gerbel, Nikolaus, 64 Gilbert, Felix, 215n13, 220n38 Giles of Rome, 209n48 Giles, Peter, 62, 65, 104, 161, 164–65, 222n11, 225n52 Gilmore, Myron, 215n11 Godman, Peter, 221n61 Gordon, Walter, 122 Gouwens, Kenneth, 198n55 Grafton, Anthony, 33–34 Gramsci, Antonio, 226n1 Greenblatt, Stephen, 169, 176–77, 193n12, 219n31, 223n20, 223n22, 224n27, 225n52 Grendler, Paul, 199nn58–59, 201n6

248

Index

Grey, Thomas, 45 Guarino, Battista, 199n59, 199n61 Guerlac, Rita, 197n39, 197n45 Gundersheimer, Werner, 200n1 Guy, John, 192nn9–10, 201n2, 202n11, 224n29 Halpern, Richard, 175–76, 223n20 Hanham, Alison, 134–35, 218nn13–14, 218n16, 219n28, 219n30, 221n56 Hardin, Richard, 91, 214n2, 215n8 Harner, James, 219n28 Hay, Denys, 194n19 Henry of Burgundy, 72–73 Henry II, 156 Henry VI, 136, 138 Henry VII, 39, 48, 157 Henry VIII, 39–41, 46, 48, 58, 97, 192n9, 210n61, 221n62 Herman, Peter, 219n30 Hermans, Willem, 49 Hexter, J. H., 213nn89–90, 213n94, 222n6, 223n23 Hilgert, E., 204nn54–55 History of King Richard III, 10, 12–13, 69, 108, 133–59, 162, 185–86; criticism of aristocratic culture in, 158; equivocal political lesson of, 136–40; and Erasmian humanism, 157–58; and humanist history, 133, 147–57; and humanist political thought, 11, 140–41, 146–47; theatrical metaphor in, 141–47; undermining of the humanist concept of rhetoric in, 11–12, 151–54 Hoffmann, Manfred, 207n30 Hollingsworth, Mary, 200n1 Hörnqvist, Mikael, 211n75 Howarth, Davis, 200n1 Huizinga, Johan, 122 Hulliung, Mark, 211n76 humanism: and affirmation of active life, 4, 22–23, 32–33; and the classical heritage, 19–22, 29, 194n55; as a coherent discourse, 3–5, 17–18,

26–31; concept of knowledge of, 4–5, 14, 30–31; concept of true nobility of, 33, 72, 94, 100, 199n62; and the critique of metaphysics, 3–4, 26–30, 102–104; and education, 4, 32–33, 74–55, 115, 124; in England, 39–40; in Germany, 59–61; and history, 23, 147–50; and intellectual activity, 4–5, 30–31; interpretations of, 18–24, 191n7, 198nn55–7; and patronage, 5–6, 38–39; and political thought, 32–34, 95, 141–42; and public career, 34–35, 160; and religion, 23–24, 77; rhetorical characteristics of, 18, 20–21, 24–35; and scholastic philosophy, 4, 18–19, 24–30, 60, 63, 177; as a secular discourse, 18, 23–24, 102–103. See also civic humanism; Erasmian humanism Ianziti, Gary, 192n8 Institutio principis christiani, 10–11, 64, 69, 90–96, 108–16, 121, 126, 186; and the classical heritage, 80, 111–12; criticism of aristocratic culture in, 92–94, 108; and Erasmus’s autonomy, 11, 90–92, 94, 108; and humanist political thought, 94–96; political evangelism in, 94–95, 110–111; undermining of humanist education in, 11, 112–16 James of Viterbo, 209n48 Jameson, Fredric, 225n48 Jardine, Lisa, 2–3, 33–34, 62–63, 196n39, 204n56 Javitch, Daniel, 205n4 Jeanneret, Michel, 122, 205n10, 216n34 Jerome, 2, 54, 64, 69, 80, 82 Kahn, Victoria, 192n7 Kautsky, Karl, 224n30 Kelley, Donald, 221n47 Kendall, Paul, 217n5, 217n9, 218n15, 219n29, 221n56

Index

Kennedy, William, 222n2 Kent, Dale, 200n1 Kincaid, Arthur, 217n7, 218n19, 219n24 King, Margaret, 192n8 Kinney, Arthur, 200n66, 222n2 Kinney, Daniel, 135, 197n49, 212n85, 218n13, 224n36 Kipling, Gordon, 202n7 Knapp, Jeffrey, 223n19 Kohl, Benjamin, 199n59 Kristeller, Paul Oskar, 18–21, 24, 34, 194n15, 196n37, 198n55, 226n54 Kuno, Johannes, 204n55 LaCapra, Dominick, 193n13 Lefèvre d’Etaples, 32 Leff, Gordon, 197n43 Le Goff, Jacques, 191n3 Leo X, 41, 57 Leslie, Marina, 226n53 Levy, F. J., 133, 221n61 Lewis, C. S., 224n29 Lincare, Thomas, 40 Logan, George, 172–74, 226n62 Loriti, Heinrich (Glareanus), 63 Lovejoy, Arthur, 215n19 Lucian and Lucianic satire, 54, 113, 135, 159, 220n33 Lupset, Thomas, 104 Luther, Martin, 79, 81, 83, 127, 215n5 Lyster, Gerard, 63 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 96 Magnus, Albertus, 84 Major, J. Russell, 201n3 Mancini, Dominic, 140, 218n20 Manetti, Giannozzo, 21 Mansfield, Harvey, 211n76 Manuzio, Aldo, 54, 63 Marenbon, John, 197n44 Marin, Louis, 222n2 Marius, Richard, 213n88, 218n9 Marsiglio of Padua, 86–88 Martens, Theirry, 49, 63 Martin, John, 196n33

249

Martines, Lauro, 33, 192n8, 199n65, 205n12, 221n60 Maximilian I, 58, 209n55, 212n81, 214n3 McConica, James, 202n13, 206n20, 207n30, 209n51, 213n88 More, Thomas: career of, 6–7, 39–40, 200n2; on dialectic, 27–28; and the Erasmian reform program, 37, 69, 98–99; on grammar, 28–30; and humanism, 3, 26–32, 69; humanist letters of, 26, 31, 69, 98–99, 133; letter to Dorp, 3, 26–31, 85, 99, 179; on the litteratus, 30–31, 85, 99, 185–86; and scholastic philosophy, 4, 26–31; as a universal intellectual, 2, 6–14, 104, 157–59, 165, 184–86, 189. See also History of King Richard III; Erasmian humanism; Utopia Morgan-Russell, Simon, 223n15 Mountjoy (William Blount), 39, 41–42, 54–56 Mueller, Janel, 223n21 Musto, Ronald, 212n82 Myers, R., 217n7 Nagel, Alan, 222n2, 223n13 Najemy, John, 33 Nauert, Charles, 201n6, 207n28 Nesen, Wilhelm, 64–65 Nizolius, Marius, 26, 29 Ockham, William, 86–88, 197n40 Oecolampadius, Johannes, 64 Ong, Walter, 27, 197n39 Overfield, James, 197n40, 197n42, 197nn45–7, 202n6, 203n36, 204n57 Ovid, 117–8 Pabel, Hilmar, 211n79 Pace, Richard, 40, 62 Palmieri, Matteo, 21 Panofsky, Erwin, 198n55, 220n47 patronage, 5–6, 24, 38–40 Payne, J. B., 216n35, 217n43

250

Index

Pellicanus, Conardus, 64, 204n55 Perlette, John, 222n5 Peter of Spain, 25, 197n49 Peterson, David, 193n33 Petrarch and Petrarchean humanism, 8, 21–22, 32, 193n11, 207n31, 209n60, 222n3 Philip the Fair, 47, 49, 53. See also Erasmus, works: Panegyricus Phillips, Margaret Mann, 203n30, 204n1, 211n78, 214n2 Piccolomini, Aneas Silvius, 199nn59–61, 206n24, 215n17 Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, 206n22 Pinborg, Jan, 197n40, 197n45 Pirckheimer, Willibald, 66–67 Pizzi, Clemente, 202n17 Plato and Platonism, 25, 103–104, 111, 113, 125, 129, 159, 178–79, 184, 214n100, 215n15, 216n35 Pliny, 42 Pocock, J. G. A., 195n30, 220n47, Pollard, F., 217n4, 217n7 Poliziano, Angelo, 157 Pontano, Giovanni, 209n60, 211n74 Porter, H. C., 202n18 Precellius, Georgius, 62 Protestant Reformation, 1, 45, 59–60, 70, 77, 86 Quintilian, 148, 220n44 Rabil, Albert, 194n19, 199n62, 205n12, 208n33 Ramus, Petrus, 26, 28, 197n39, 198n50 Rebhorn, Wayne, 122, 128, 200n67, 205n4, 206n25 Regius, Urbanus, 67 Reisch, Gregor, 204n55 Renaissance art, 24, 196n35 Renaudet, Augustin, 41 Reuchlin, Johann, 204n55 Reynolds, E. E., 213n88 Rhenanus, Beatus, 61–64, 66, 104

Riario, Raffaele, 56–57, 203n34 Rijk, L. M. de, 197n40, 197n45 Rogerus, Servatius, 55 Romm, James, 222n2 Roper, William, 192n9, 213n88 Ross, David, 197n44 Ruister, Nicolas, 49, 51 Rummel, Erika, 196n39, 198nn51–52, 207n28, 207n30, 211n80, 212n81 Russell, Frederick, 208n44 Ruthall, Thomas, 42, 64 Sacci, Bartolomeo (Il Platina), 199n62 Said, Edward, 191n4 Sallust, 113, 147, 220n36 Salmon, J. M. H., 201n3 Salutati, Coluccio, 21, 32 Sand, Shlomo, 227n1 Sasso, Gennaro, 194n19 scholastic philosophy and theology, 2, 4, 6, 8, 11, 18–19, 24–29, 39, 57, 60, 63, 78, 85, 91, 98, 177, 188 Seebohm, Frederic, 212n88 Seigel, Jerrold, 19 Seneca, 64–65, 111, 113, 161 Shearman, John, 200n67 Shils, Edward, 226n1 Skinner, Quentin, 86, 162–63, 210n60, 210n66, 210nn73–4, 222nn3–4, 224n28 Smalley, Beryl, 191n3 Sowards, J. K., 203n29 Spitz, Lewis, 60, 203nn36–37, 203n40, 204nn44–45, 207n29 Stapleton, Thomas, 147 Starkey, David, 201n3 Stokesley, John, 40 Strier, Richard, 226n53 Struever, Nancy, 149–50, 154, 191n7, 193n11, 221n51 Suetonius, 147, 220n36 Sullivan, Vickie, 211n76 Surtz, Edward, 172–73, 226n62 Sylvester, Richard, 147, 218n9, 218nn13–4, 218n19

Index

Tacitus, 147, 220n36 Tateo, Francesco, 205n12 Thompson, Craig, 121 Thompson, Geraldine, 121 Tracy, James, 50, 60, 92, 203n23, 203n28, 203n35, 203nn38–9, 204n54, 206n20, 207n30, 208n36, 208n41, 209n55, 209n59, 211n77, 214n2, 215, n14 Trevor-Roper, Hugh, 38, 201nn3–5 Trinkaus, Charles, 192n7, 207nn29–30 Tuck, Richard, 195n27, 195n30 Tunstal, Cuthbert, 40 Utopia, 7, 10, 12–13, 69, 98–104, 108, 158–86, 189; brutal and repressive characteristics of, 165–71; criticism of aristocracy in, 99–100, 103, 166–67; and Erasmian humanism, 7, 11–13, 99–104, 160–65, 184–86; interpretations of, 159–60, 163, 171–77; and the problem of counsel, 160–63; undermining of the premises of humanism in, 177–84 Valla, Lorenzo, 8, 26, 28–29, 32, 53, 86, 209n50 Vasari, Giorgio, 196n35 Verdeveld, Harry, 202n20

251

Vergerio, Pier Paolo, 32–33, 75, 100, 199n59, 199n63, 206n18, 206n24, 215n17 Vergil, Polydore, 39, 133, 136, 147, 151– 55, 157, 218n16, 218n20, 219n28, 220n36 Villani, Filippo, 21 Villedieu, Alexander, 26 Vitoria, Francisco de, 208n45 Walzer. Michael, 227nn1–2 Waquet, Françoise, 191n2 Warham, William, 39, 42, 54–55, 97 Waswo, Richard, 197n39, 198n54 White, Hayden, 221n48 Wimpfeling, Jakob, 61 Witt, Ronald, 198n55 Witz, Johann, 61 Wolsey, Thomas, 56, 192n9, 201n5 Woodward, William, 122, 199n59, 206n20 Wootton, David, 101, 213n89 Yates, Frances, 220n33 Yoran, Hanan, 214n95, 214n99 Zasius, Udalricus, 62 Zütphen, Gerhard, 26 Zwingli, Ulrich, 62