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An Accidental Historian Erasmus and The English History of The Reformation
An Accidental Historian Erasmus and The English History of The Reformation
I would like to thank the wonderful staff at the Bodleian Library, special collections at the
University of St. Andrews, and, especially, the Folger Shakespeare Library. This article would
not have been possible without their assistance. I also appreciated the helpful comments of
scholars at several conferences and, especially, Patrick Henry, for his careful reading of this
article. I also want to acknowledge the support of my own institution, Walla Walla University,
which graciously provided me with a sabbatical and a research grant.
1
John Foxe, Acts and Monuments of Matters Most Special and Memorable, volume 2 (London,
1583), 1047.
273
274
CHURCH HISTORY
AN ACCIDENTAL HISTORIAN
275
276
CHURCH HISTORY
Christopher Highly, and Stefania Tutino, among others, have provided us with
carefully nuanced interpretations of English Catholicism in post-Reformation
England.9 One thread that these studies have not explored, or even seemed
to notice, however, is the role of Erasmus in shaping English perceptions
of Catholicism during this era. The reception of Erasmus in England and
his importance for developments in education and religion is well
documented.10 I have argued elsewhere that Erasmus was widely read
throughout the long English Reformation and that his views on predestination,
moderation, and the philosophia Christi played a critical role in the
development of uniquely English ways of being Christian.11 But if the
Catholic Erasmus was so widely influential, then how and to what degree did
his works shape later perceptions of Catholicism? While this article does not
attempt to reinterpret the broad strokes of how England became Protestant or
how anti-Catholic polemic developed in England, it will focus on a very
significant and overlooked aspect of Protestant historical rhetoric. Perhaps
more than any other author, Erasmus crafted an image of early sixteenthcentury Catholicism that became the received truth for generations of English
Protestants.
A number of scholars have examined Erasmuss historical methods and
analytical interpretations of the past. Hilmar Pabel, for example, has studied
Erasmuss employment of historical setting for his paraphrase on Acts of the
Apostles.12 Others, such as Jacques Chomarat, have looked at Erasmuss
approach to the Roman historians, while Peter Bietenholz examined Erasmuss
use of history and biographical writing.13 Despite these studies, very little
9
See Alexandra Walsham, Church Papists: Catholicism, Conformity and Confessional Polemic
in Early Modern England (Woodbridge, U.K.: Boydell & Brewer, 1999); Michael Questier,
Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England: Politics, Aristocratic Patronage and
Religion, c. 15501640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Christopher Highly,
Catholics Writing the Nation in Early Modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2008); and, Stefania Tutino, Law and Conscience: Catholicism in Early Modern England
(Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2007).
10
For the early Tudor period see, James K. McConica, English Humanists and Reformation
Politics under Henry VIII and Edward VI (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965). For the later Tudor
period and the seventeenth century, see Gregory D. Dodds, Exploiting Erasmus: The Erasmian
Legacy and Religious Change in Early Modern England (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
2009).
11
Dodds, Exploiting Erasmus, xixx, 264268.
12
Hilmar Pabel, Retelling the History of the Early Church: Erasmuss Paraphrase on Acts,
Church History 69, no. 1 (March 2000), 6385.
13
See Jacques Chomarat, La Philosophie de lhistoire drasme daprs ses reflexions sur
lhistoire romaine, in Miscellanea Moreana: Essays for Germain Marchadour, eds. Clare M.
Murphy, Henri Gibaud, and Mario A. di Cesare (Bloomington, N.Y.: Medieval and Renaissance
Texts and Studies, 1989), 159167; Jacques Chomarat, More, rasme et les historiens latins,
Moreana 86 (1985): 8999; and Peter G. Bietenholz, History and Biography in the Work of
Erasmus of Rotterdam (Geneva: Droz, 1966). Other studies dealing with Erasmuss approach to
historical inquiry include: Myron P. Gilmore, Fides et Eruditio: Erasmus and the Study of
AN ACCIDENTAL HISTORIAN
277
work has focused on examining how later authors developed their historical
understandings and approaches from the writings of Erasmus. Erasmus was
not only influential in the development of early modern historical writing, but
he also became something of an accidental historian on his own times. This
happened in two ways. First, while writing history was never his primary goal,
his use of historical skills and methodologies were critical to these works. And
second, Erasmuss writings, especially his early critical texts the Praise of
Folly and Colloquies, became widely used as historical records by later
writers. Erasmus thus became a historical authority on his own times for early
modern authors writing the history of the early Reformation. It will be this
second aspect of Erasmuss historiographical legacy that I will examine here.
There were a number of early modern English authors who directly cited
Erasmus to substantiate their historical descriptions of Catholicism and the
pre-Reformation world. These included Holinshed, Thomas Dorman,
Richard Crompton, Sir Francis Hastings, John Foxe, Francis Godwin,
William Somner, John Bastwick, Francis Fullwood, Peter Heylyn, Joseph
Hall, Henry Foulis, Jeremy Taylor, Francis Bacon, Sir Peter Pett, and Henry
Care. This list is only partial and it grows much larger when one looks not
only for direct references to Erasmus, but also for similarities in historical
methodology and for particular phrases that were either paraphrased or
directly plagiarized. The histories these authors constructed were critical to
Protestant self-identity during the second half of the sixteenth century and
into the seventeenth century.14 During the reign of Elizabeth I and the Stuart
monarchs who followed her, Protestants defined themselves in opposition to
Catholicism. Protestant historians retold the story of Catholicisms demise
during the reign of Henry VIII so future generations of Protestants in
England would understand both who they were and who they were not. The
construction of historical memory served a critical function in the making of
national identity.15 And central to the stories these historians wrote were
History, in Humanists and Jurists: Six Studies in the Renaissance (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1963), 87114; and Istvn Bejczy, Overcoming the Middle Ages: Historical
Reasoning in Erasmus Antibarbarian Writings, Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook 16
(1996): 3453.
14
For a good collection of essays about the formation of identity in post-reformation England, see
Muriel C. McClendon, Joseph P. Ward, and Michael MacDonald, eds., Protestant Identities:
Religion, Society, and Self-Fashioning in Post-Reformation England (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1999). For the importance of defining Catholicism in Protestant England, see
Ethan H. Shagan, ed., Catholics and the Protestant nation: Religious Politics and Identity in
Early Modern England (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005).
15
For the importance of historical writing for the formation of Protestant identity, see Bruce
Gordon, ed., Protestant History and Identity in Sixteenth-Century Europe, 2 vols. (Aldershot,
U.K.: Ashgate, 1996) and Paulina Kewes, ed., The Uses of History in Early Modern England
(San Marino, Calif.: Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, 2006).
278
CHURCH HISTORY
16
Good analyses of Erasmus and English education can be found in James K. McConica, English
Humanists and Reformation Politics under Henry VIII and Edward VI (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1965); and Todd, Christian Humanism.
17
For the transmission of Erasmian texts in Elizabethan England, see Gregory Dodds, Exploiting
Erasmus, 6192.
18
For example, Henry Foulis, The History of the Wicked Plots and Conspiracies of our Pretended
Saints Representing the Beginning, Constitution, and Designs of the Jesuite (London, 1662), 7.
19
This article focuses on the English use of Erasmuss literary portrayals of Catholic clergy and
does not seek to judge the validity of Erasmuss depictions. On the one hand, Erasmus was clearly
playing on common stereotypes and his audience would have recognized the figures he portrayed.
On the other, his descriptions were often comedic and satirical in nature and did not represent
Catholic clergy as a whole, of which Erasmus was, of course, a member.
AN ACCIDENTAL HISTORIAN
279
should be noted that this is not the conclusion of modern historians.20 Hastingss
proof came from Erasmuss Colloquies where Erasmus described the shrine of
St. Thomas Becket. Hastings claimed that the gold and jewels covering the
shrine, as described by Erasmus, meant that the Church cared more about its
own wealth and power than helping the poor. He wrote: whence it hath come
to passe, that many liuely members of Christ Iesus, being colde, naked, and
hungrie haue been neglected, while it was thought an holier worke to shrine in
gold and siluer the bones of dead men, as Erasmus in his Colloquie or
dialogue of peregrination for Religion sake doth note.21 He then went on to
recount Erasmuss description of the shrine. Hastings point was that not only
was the Church greedy, but also that underlying all of this fraud was
superstition. Using Erasmus was the perfect way to engage readers while
supporting the argument that the Catholic Church was, on the one hand,
devious, cunning, and brilliantly defrauding the people, and on the other, filled
with illiterate, foolish, and almost laughable clerics. English Protestants truly
wanted to have it both ways when they imagined the Catholic Church.
Another historian to highlight Erasmuss description of Beckets Shrine and
Canterbury Cathedral was the bishop and historian Godwin Francis. In his 1630
history of the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary I, Francis also
stressed the grandeur of the Cathedral and the rich ornamentation of the
shrine. The Catholic Church, in this account, was primarily devoted to the
monetization of salvation. The diamonds, jewels, and gold that could better
have helped the poor were instead being taken from the poor. The church
sought to demonstrate its wealth and power while continuing to steal money
from the people. The source proving the corruption of Catholicism was again
Erasmus. According to Bishop Francis:
for from those times euen almost to our dayes all sorts of people from all
parts of Europe, superstitiously frequented the Shrine of this vpstart Saint,
with rich oblations indeuoring to procure his fauor. Hence the Monastery
was so inriched, that of it and the Church ERASMVS said, That euery
place was enlightened with the lustre of most precious and huge stones,
and the Church throughout abounded with more than Royall Treasure.22
20
See Paul Slack, Poverty and Policy in Tudor and Stuart England (New York: Longman, 1988);
Elfrieda Dubois, Almsgiving in post-reformation England History of European Ideas 9, no. 4
(1988): 489495; Ian W. Archer, The Charity of Early Modern Londoners, Transactions of the
Royal Historical Society 12 (2002): 223244; and Thomas Max Safley, ed., The Reformation of
Charity: The Secular and Religious in Early Modern Poor Relief (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2003).
21
Sir Francis Hastings, An Apologie or Defence of the Watch-word (London, 1600), 19.
22
Francis Godwin, Annales of England Containing the Reignes of Henry the Eigghth. Edward the
Sixt. Queene Mary (London, 1630), 4041. Erasmuss De libero arbitrio and Luthers response are
discussed on page 71.
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CHURCH HISTORY
The point, for Francis, was to portray the medieval Catholic Church as having
grown extremely wealthy by manipulating the gullibility of the people. This
description, when joined with other descriptions of illiterate and corrupt
monks and secular clergy, became the preferred Protestant memory of
English Catholicism.
Francis also noted Erasmuss description of the shrine at Walsingham and
stated that during the Reformation it too was pulled down so that it might
bee no further cause of superstition.23 Naturally, the point of all of this was
to justify English Protestantism. Erasmuss literary evidence was very useful
for several reasons. First, his descriptions were interesting, memorable, and
associated with a famous name. Second, he was useful in that he was a wellknown Catholic. Protestant authors could therefore claim the descriptions
were not based on Protestant propaganda. Better yet, as the English
Protestant historian Henry Foulis noted in 1662, Erasmus could not only be
trusted because he was a Catholic commentator on Catholicism, but also
conversely because Catholics, especially Ignatius of Loyola, had rejected
him.24 It was similarly helpful that both the Index of Prohibited Books and
the University of Paris had censored the Colloquies.25 After all, if he was in
the Index, then it was practically an approved book for Protestants. From a
Protestant perspective, therefore, Erasmus was perfectly situated as a reliable
source for Catholic history. He was safe, but he was also credible. The third
reason he was so useful to authors such as Hastings and Francis was because
readers were already familiar with the passages they were quoting from the
Colloquies and educated readers would have read his portrayals of the
shrines when they were learning Latin.26 I have mentioned the histories of
Hastings and Francis as examples of references to Erasmuss descriptions of
the shrines at Canterbury and Walsingham, but there were many more;
including histories written by Francis Bacon and William Somners.27 These
23
Godwin, Annales, 160. For the context of Erasmuss visit to Walsingham, see Peter Marshall,
Religious Identities in Henry VIIIs England (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2006), 133134.
24
Foulis, The History of the Wicked Plots and Conspiracies, 7.
25
C. R. Thompson, Introduction, in Collected Works of Erasmus: Colloquies, vol. 39 (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1997), xxxixxxxx.
26
For the use of the Colloquies in English education see C. R. Thompson, Erasmus and Tudor
England, in Extrait des Actes du Congrs Erasme, Rotterdam 2729 Octobre 1969 (Amsterdam:
North Holland Publishing, 1971), 2968; Todd, Christian Humanism, 93; Ian Green, Humanism
and Protestantism in Early Modern English Education (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2009), 176;
and Dodds, Exploiting Erasmus, 64, 89.
27
William Somner, The Antiquities of Canterbury (London, 1640), 86, 1645, 170172, 177
178. It is also worth noting that in the early seventeenth century, Thomas Bodley, when
commissioning the historical friezes for the library reading room at Oxford, included Erasmus
with other figures who established Protestantism in England. See Ian Philip, The Bodleian
Library in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983),
2225.
AN ACCIDENTAL HISTORIAN
281
histories shaped the way educated English people remembered their Catholic
past.
Perhaps more historically significant than Erasmuss depiction of Catholic
shrines was his portrayal of monks, friars, theologians, and prelates.
Erasmuss Colloquies and Praise of Folly became definitional texts for
Protestant views of Catholic clergy. Tracing all of the connections in
Protestant works to these Erasmian texts would be nearly impossible. They
show up in hundreds, if not thousands, of texts, though most were without
direct references. But the language and structure of the portrayals leave little
doubt that these originated in readings of Erasmus. The Colloquies and
Praise of Folly were the books, by a Catholic author, that a wide swath of
Protestants continued to read in post-Reformation England. As one Catholic
author astutely bemoaned, there is commonly read in al scooles a boke of
Colloquies, compiled by Erasmus of Roterdam, wherin be many thynges,
whiche may beate in to younge and tender myndes, ungodlynes, and infecte
the frayle and bryckel age.28 From an English Catholic perspective, this is
precisely what was happening in England. The Colloquies were filled with
stereotypical views of Catholics that English readers assumed were true for
all Catholic clergy. Here is another description of the Colloquies in England
from 1560:
and as touchynge the colloquies of Erasmus, thus it standeth. Amongst
manye other workes wherby Erasmus wonderfully aduaunced learning, he
made also a booke of Dialogues for chyldren. And seyng it red so gredely,
he ofte augmented the same. And as he was a man of an excellent witte,
and of great eloquence, he toke pleasure to wryte of sondry argumentes
taken out of naturall thynges, and of the lyfe of men. And with a certen
maruelous dexteritie, and style moste pleasaunt, he setteth forth precptes
of Godlye and vertuouse maners, and noteth with all by the same occasion,
olde accustomed errours and vices, whereof commeth this complaynte of
hym.29
The Colloquies were filled with godly wisdom, but this also caused some to
complain. From a Protestant point of view, though, such a complaynte of
hym provided yet an additional reason to read and trust such a text.
One of the most prominent writers to draw from Erasmuss texts for
historical descriptions of the Reformation was the famed martyrologist John
Foxe.30 Foxes Acts and Monuments, commonly referred to as the book of
martyrs, was perhaps only surpassed by the Bible in popularity in
28
282
CHURCH HISTORY
AN ACCIDENTAL HISTORIAN
283
fictions or fables, and also suggested that these stories of Catholic corruption
and foolishness were destroying faith. The assumption underlying the text
was that Topley was far from the only reader of the Colloquies to be pulled
away from Catholicism by Erasmuss stories. From a Catholic point of view
this was the danger of the Colloquies. From an English Protestant
perspective, particularly that of John Foxe, this was exactly what they hoped
would happen when students read Erasmuss dialogues.
Foxe singled out one colloquy in particular as emblematic of the failures of
the Catholic clergy. The colloquy of the Abbot and the Learned Lady was the
perfect vehicle for Foxe to ridicule unlearned and corrupt monks and other
Catholic clergy. It also included some rather interesting critiques about the
role of women in society. Foxe wrote:
there is a learned man, which in a Dialogue that he maketh betwixt a rude
Abbot & a Gentlewoman, hauing skill in learning, jesteth, but with prety
earnest (as his manner is) and geueth a watch worde touching somewhat
my purpose. It is in the end of the Dialogue. The gentlewoman aunswering
the Abbot, for that he had partly checked her, because she was quicke in
vtterance of learning: Syr (quoth she) if you continue therin so dull as you
haue done and dayly do, the world perceiuing it (as they begin fast to grow
quicke in sight) it is to be feared, least they will sette you beside the
saddle, and put vs in your roomes.34
In this instance, Erasmus was not directly named, but was simply referred to as
a learned man. Educated readers, however, would have recognized this as
one of Erasmuss most well known dialogues. The punch line at the end of
the colloquy was that learned women would take the positions of the clergy
if they continued to exhibit such levels of ignorance and incompetence.
While Erasmus may have been using this dialogue to encourage learning in
women, the point for Foxe was clearly directed at the failures of Catholic
clerics and the implication was that all Catholic clergy were ignorant
buffoons. In the early seventeenth century, Thomas Mason provided an
edited version of Foxes book of martyrs and specifically directed readers
to Erasmus. Following a long passage describing the foolishness of the
monks at the time of the Reformation, Mason wrote that if readers wanted to
hear about more and worse pranks of Friers and Monks . . . [then] let them
resort to . . . Erasmus, and he shall find ynough to infect the aire.35 If
readers either did not believe Foxe or needed additional evidence for the
evils of Catholicism then they should read the Colloquies. Erasmus thus
provided English Protestants with evidence for the supposedly derelict state
34
284
CHURCH HISTORY
of affairs within the Church and its clergy prior to the English break from
Rome.
There were similar references to ignorant and corrupt monks and friars in
Francis Fullwoods The Church-History of Britain. Again, the material
closely reflected passages in the Colloquies, though many of the paraphrases
did not include a direct citation. After one passage describing useless and
lazy monks, however, Fullwood added that this plainly appeareth out of
Erasmus in his Dialogues.36 Fullwoods historical methodology was
obviously rather suspect when he was proving his historical account by
citing a fictional dialogue. But the Colloquies were widely known accounts
that had been written during the time period Fullwood was writing about and
therefore represented, as historical literary works continue to do for modern
historians, a window into cultural perceptions. Early modern English
historians, however, sought to use Erasmuss fictional dialogues, such as The
Abbot and the Learned Lady, to exhibit the failings of the monastic system
and as proof of the necessity of a reformation in England. Naturally, for
authors such as Foxe and Fullwood, it was appropriate that the monasteries
were dissolved when they were filled with such unlearned, unchristian men.
None of the sources noted that Erasmus had created fictional characters
based on stereotypes that in no way represented the whole of the monastic
system or the Catholic clergy. Instead, they took his accounts as true
representations of the entire Catholic faith.
As late as 1688 we find Sir Peter Pett citing Erasmus repeatedly in his history
of English Christianity. He said that both Henry VIII and Erasmus laughed and
mocked the barbarous papacy and made it the object of our mirth.37 He then
suggested that the rise of the Catholic interest in England during the reign of
James II should be dealt with in the same way Erasmus had previously dealt
with it: through mirth and ridicule. In Petts mind, Erasmus was associated
with the dawn of the new learning: philology, languages, and clear thinking
in general. Erasmus had helped bring about a new England that broke away
from its superstitious Catholic past.38 In fact, the new experimental
philosophy of the Royal Society, he said, had its roots in Erasmuss thought
and writings.39 According to Pett, the Critical Masters of Experimental
Philosophy, and who by means of the great useful pains formerly taken by
36
Francis Fullwood, The Church-History of Britain (London, 1655), 3435. Also see pp. 166
167, 275, and vol. 2, pp. 8788.
37
Sir Peter Pett, The Happy Future State of England (London, 1688), 154.
38
Pett, Happy Future State, 73.
39
Pett was an associate of the Royal Society. See Frances Harris, Ireland as a Laboratory: The
Archive of Sir William Petty, in Archives of the Scientific Revolution: the Formation and
Exchange of Ideas in Seventeenth-century Europe, ed. Michael Hunter (Woodbridge, U.K.:
Boydell & Brewer, 1998), 88.
AN ACCIDENTAL HISTORIAN
285
286
CHURCH HISTORY
wanton cruelty of that Farce that ensued it, and let us see how the Popish
Bishop then using the Speech familiar to some Tooth drawers just before
their operation.46
Even though Erasmus had not written about these particular aspects of torture,
he would have, Pett maintained, if he had known about them. For Pett, Erasmus
appeared to be a reliable early sixteenth-century witness even when he was not.
All these passages from Pett represent a linking of Erasmus and Foxe. They
substantiated each other and if Erasmus was good enough for Foxe, then
Petts readers could trust that he was a credible historical source. Together,
Foxe and Erasmus formed the historical justification for Protestantism. In
Petts mind, Erasmuss great Wit provided the historical evidence for the
corruption, foolishness, and barbarism of the Catholic Church. Moreover,
Petts own depictions of Catholicism in his time were not based on
contemporary accounts, but rather from portrayals found in the Praise of
Folly and the Colloquies written over a century earlier.
Perhaps the most important historical use of Erasmus came in Henry Cares
history of the Christian Church.47 This was a unique history since it was written
for the vulgar sort and released as a serial over a period of several years
beginning in 1678. During that year, popular hysteria spread throughout
England over the supposed Popish Plot to assassinate Charles II and
replace him with his Catholic brother James. Henry Care was at the heart of
the anti-Catholic propaganda that emanated from the English presses. In the
end, at least fifteen innocent people were executed before the Plot was
exposed as a fabrication of Titus Oates and Israel Tonge. During the height
of the panic, though, Care was one of the most vociferous voices railing
against the Catholic threat and calling for a parliamentary bill to exclude
James from inheriting the throne.48 One of the ways Care sought to
demonstrate the evil of Catholicism was through a weekly history pamphlet
designed to attract a common readership. Each publication contained another
chapter in the fifteen hundred year history of the Catholic Church.49 Entitled,
The Pacquet of Advice from Rome: or, the History of Popery, it detailed what
46
AN ACCIDENTAL HISTORIAN
287
Care believed was the corruption of Christianity by the Church and the abuse of
power by the papacy against anyone who resisted its jurisdiction. Taken
together these pamphlets were, in essence, a large historical treatise broken
up into small chapters that the common people could purchase each week for
a penny. In the introduction to his first volume of collected Pacquets, printed
in 1679, Care maintained that he would only use unassailable sources. The
Authorities I shall make use of, he wrote, shall be either Sacred Scriptures,
or such Authors as our Adversaries owne; which muste therefore be
competent witnesses without exception.50 Apparently, given the large
number of references to Erasmus, Care believed that Erasmus was an
unassailable source for accurate descriptions of the early sixteenth century.
This was, as we have already discussed, because Erasmus was Catholic. Like
Pett, Care also suggested that since Catholicism was irrational and rather
silly the way to combat it was with ridicule and scorn. After stating that he
would be moderate and base his criticisms with fact, Care wrote: Sure we
may be allowed a little innocent Mirth, when they exercise so much Spleen
and Gall. Indeed Popery is generally so silly a Foppery, that it deserves
none of our Passions but Scorn, bating only their Idolatries and Cruelties,
which rather require our Compassion and Detestation.51 Care therefore
needed sources that were moderate, judicious, and, if possible, witty.
Erasmus, he believed, was just such a perfect source.
Cares first pamphlet appeared in 1678 and started with early Christian
history. Four years later, in 1682, his pamphlets had reached the Protestant
Reformation. Over these four years his readership had grown substantially
and it is possible that his was the most widely read history of the
Reformation in seventeenth-century England.52 For Cares description of
Catholic clergy and theologians at the time of the Reformation, he turned to
Erasmus and the Praise of Folly. Care regularly referred to Erasmus and
Erasmian texts in his writings and in the Pacquets Care paraphrased
significant sections from Erasmus. In fact, two entire weekly chapters of
Cares Pacquet drew almost exclusively from the Praise of Folly. On Friday,
November 24, 1682, the abstract at the top of the pamphlet read:
Fragments out of Erasmus. His Moriae Encomium. He taxes the lives of the
Schoolmen and Popish Clergy. The Abominable and wicked lives of the
50
Henry Care, The Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome: Or, The History of Popery, vol. 1
(London, 1679), 3.
51
Care, Weekly Pacquet, vol. 1, 3.
52
Schwoerer, Ingenious Mr. Henry Care, 7274. Care felt that his history provided common
English men and women with greater insight into the Catholic Church than any other volume.
See Henry Care, The History of Popery or Pacquet of Advice from Rome, vol. 4 (London,
1682), sig, A2v.
288
CHURCH HISTORY
Monks and Friers. Their Fopperies and vile way of Preaching. The manners
of Princes, Noble men, and Ladies reprehended.53
What followed this summary, over the next six pages of the pamphlet, were
Erasmuss depictions of foolish clerics developed from the Praise of Folly.
The presentation, however, made no acknowledgement of the satirical nature
of the text or that Erasmuss fictional character, Folly, was the main speaker,
not Erasmus himself. Though Folly was indeed making Erasmuss points,
Erasmus was using satire, hyperbole, and a comedic lightness to get his
readers thinking. All of that is gone in Cares paraphrase and what remained
was a biting attack on the Catholic Church, an attack ostensibly coming
from Erasmus rather than Care. Moreover, the material was presented as
Erasmuss objective historical description of his times. After beginning with
a description of the exorbitant pride of the theologians and clergy, Care
turned to the monks. The following passage from Care, which was entirely
drawn from Erasmus, provides a good sense for how English authors were
incorporating Erasmuss fictional depictions into their own historical
accounts of the period. Paraphrasing Erasmus, Care wrote:
next to these come those who call themselves the Religious, and Monks;
most false in both Titles; when both a great of them, are farthest from
Religion, and to men swarm thicker in all places than themselves; a sort
of wretches they are, that all men detest to that height, that they take it for
ill luck, to meet one of them by chance; yet such is their happiness that
they flatter themselves. In the first place they reckon it one of the main
points of piety, if they are so illiterate, that they cant so much as Read:
And then, when they run over their Offices, which they carry about em,
rather by rote than understanding, they believe the Gods more than
ordinary pleased with their braying. Some there are among them, that put
off their trumperies at vast rates; yet wander up and down for the bread
they eat. There is scarce an Inn, Wagon, or Ship, into which they will not
intrude, to the no small Damage to the Commonwealth of Beggars: And
yet like pleasant fellows with all this Vileness, Ignorance, Rudeness,
Impudence, and Debaucheries they represent to us (for so they call it) the
holy and mortified lives of the Apostles; and what is more pleasant, still
they do all things by rule, and as it were a kind of Mathematics, the least
swerving from which were a Crime beyond forgiveness.54
There was no indication in the text that this was anything other than an
unembellished description by Erasmus of his times. In Cares text, Folly was
53
Henry Care, Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome: or, The History of Popery, vol. 5 (London,
1683), 97. I would like to thank the helpful staff at the Folger Shakespeare Library for helping me to
locate these specific pamphlets.
54
Care, Weekly Pacquet, vol. 5, 98.
AN ACCIDENTAL HISTORIAN
289
not the speaker. Instead, Erasmus was the historical authority that should be
trusted by English Protestants. The previous quotation is but one example in
an entire pamphlet that could be quoted to demonstrate Cares reliance on
the Praise of Folly to justify the English break from Rome.
Two weeks later, on Friday, December 1, 1682, the next Weekly Pacquet
appeared and was again based almost entirely on Erasmuss In Praise of
Folly. Care began this chapter with a critique of the bishops and episcopal
hierarchy of the Catholic Church:
it would be a kind of Sin to forget the Superiour Clergy, since we have been
so Critical upon the Inferiour, and therefore out of the same Erasmus we will
give you two or three other remarks, which may be as pleasant to be read, as
profitable to be understood; this done we shall briefly answer some
objections and scandalls against the life and story of Luther; and then assume
again Our History.55
As with the previous weeks Pacquet, the pages that followed this introduction
condensed, paraphrased, and quoted from the Praise of Folly. The Catholic
hierarchy was filled with ambitious, prideful, and unlearned men who sought
money and power. They represented the height of foolishness. As with the
previous week, Care presented a paraphrase of Erasmuss text, but suggested
that it was Erasmuss observations of his times and again the speaker, rather
than Folly, was an amalgam of Erasmus and Care. For Care, and presumably
his readers, Erasmuss satire had become the authoritative source for English
Protestant views of Roman Catholicism. These two Weekly Pacquets that
quoted extensively from Erasmus were central chapters for Cares thesis. All
of the weeks, over the previous four years of his serial history, had been
leading his common reader to the inevitability of the break from Rome. And
while he discussed Luther and Calvin, Erasmus was Cares proof of the
corruption and failures of the Catholic Church and its clergy. He needed to
make his English audience believe that the reforms of Henry VIII and
Edward VI were absolutely necessary. Erasmus provided the evidence that
made everything else Care wroteand would writebelievable. We should
not underestimate the appeal or significance of Cares texts at a critical
moment in the making of the Protestant history of the Reformation.56 Cares
anti-Catholicism, built on particularly Protestant readings of Erasmus, shaped
the context for the overthrow of James II in 1688. The Whig political
movement, Protestant populism, and Anglican narrative that emerged out of
this era were built on precisely these historical readings. Erasmuss early
satirical criticism of the Church had a very long and pervasive afterlife in
55
56
290
CHURCH HISTORY
England and his critiques of the Church became an intrinsic part of the English
story of Protestant identity.
The formation and evolution of historical memory is a complex cultural
process.57 At least a portion of the corporate memory for early modern
English Protestants was built on a particular image of pre-Reformation
English Catholicisma literary image developed from Erasmuss early
criticism of the Catholic Church. The amusing pictures Erasmus crafted of
monks, theologians, and clerics became the Protestant historical narrative.
For centuries, Erasmuss Colloquies remained a significant component
within early modern Latin education. This was especially true in England.
Young Protestant students were served a steady diet of Erasmuss critical
depictions of Catholic clergy. Unsurprisingly, these images of Catholic
corruption, superstition, and irrationality became an almost uncritically accepted
portrayal of the Catholic world prior to the rise of Protestantism. There is a
distinct irony in the fact that Erasmus, who sought to use his pen to first inspire
reform and then, later, to find common ground in the pursuit of peace, would
help establish a historical foundation for dissenting anti-Catholicism.58
For English Protestants, Erasmuss depictions of a Catholic Church in need
of reformation became the standard stereotype of Catholic priests, monks,
bishops, theologians, and church government. The Praise of Folly and the
Colloquies played a large role in this. Erasmus, thus, helped both to awaken
historical consciousness at the dawn of the Reformation and, surprisingly,
became the primary source for historical depictions of reformation era
Catholicism for generations of Protestants. We can therefore study Erasmus
the historian in two ways: first, as a pioneer of modern historical methods
and insights through his attempts to better understand the history and literary
context of the biblical and patristic world; and second, as a historical
commentator on his own times whose views shaped approaches to Reformation
history for generations to come. How many modern views of late-medieval
Catholicism and how many stories of the Protestant Reformation are still built
on long-standing English stereotypes of barbarous, greedy, illiterate, and foolish
clergy? And how many of those Protestant stories were founded on a
worldview rooted in Erasmuss early criticism of the church? Though these
questions cannot be fully answered, the material presented here suggests that
57
See Aleida Assmann, Cultural Memory and Western Civilization: Functions, Media, Archives
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); and, Christian Emden and David Midgley, eds.,
Cultural Memory and Historical Consciousness in the German-Speaking World Since 1500 (Bern:
Peter Lang, 2004).
58
For an analysis of Erasmuss peaceful and moderate rhetoric, see Hilmar Pabel, The Peaceful
People of Christ: The Irenic Ecclesiology of Erasmus of Rotterdam, in Erasmus Vision of the
Church, ed. Hilmar Pabel (Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1995), 5793.
For a summary of Erasmuss pacifism, see Patrick Henry, Christianity without Borders:
Erasmus Campaign for Peace, Journal for Peace & Justice Studies 22, no. 1 (2012): 4357.
AN ACCIDENTAL HISTORIAN
291
292
CHURCH HISTORY
62
Some editions of the Colloquies adapted Erasmuss dialogues to Calvinist theological views by
adding new characters and arguments. Other publishers of Erasmus used him to challenge English
Calvinism. See Dodds, Exploiting Erasmus, especially ch. 5.
63
There were authors, such as Peter Heylyn, Jeremy Taylor, and Edward Stillingfleet who used
the memory of Erasmus to challenge assertions that the reformation in England was Calvinist in
nature, but even they supported the stereotypes of Catholic corruption. See Petery Heylyn,
Historia Quinqu-Articularis (London, 1660), 109, 112; Peter Heylyn, Cyprianus Anglicus
(London, 1668), 3839; Edward Stillingfleet, Several Conferences between a Romish Priest, a
Fanatic Chaplain, and a Divine of the Church of England Concerning the Idolatry of the
Church of Rome (London 1679), 115119; and, Jeremy Taylor, The Second Part of the
Dissuasive against Popery (London, 1667), 36, 70, 81, 143, 185, 195, 280, 295.
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