Fatal Discord

by Michael Massing

  Augustine’s Confessions: Bishop, Petrarch and His World, 110–111.

  Giovanni Boccaccio: Ibid., 281; Reynolds and Wilson, Scribes and Scholars, 117–119.

  Florence became the center: Nauert, Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe, 24–28; Reynolds and Wilson, Scribes and Scholars, 119; Glenn N. Andres et al., The Art of Florence, vol. 1, 321–324.

  the Vatican Library: Anthony Grafton, “The Vatican and Its Library,” in Anthony Grafton, ed., Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library and Renaissance Culture, 4ff.

  humanists congratulated themselves: John F. D’Amico, Renaissance Humanism in Papal Rome, 3–4; James Hankins, “The Popes and Humanism,” in Grafton, Rome Reborn, 48–50.

  became enslaved to it: James Hankins, “Humanism and the Origins of Modern Political Thought,” in Kraye, The Cambridge Companion to Humanism, 119–124; D’Amico, Renaissance Humanism in Papal Rome, 111–112.

  a compelling alternative: As Burckhardt observes, many humanist orators sought “not only to flatter the vanity of distinguished hearers, but to load their speeches with an enormous mass of antiquarian rubbish” (Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, 157).

  Lorenzo Valla: See D’Amico, Renaissance Humanism in Papal Rome, 146; Nauert, Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe, 37ff; Jerry H. Bentley, Humanists and Holy Writ: New Testament Scholarship in the Renaissance, 32–69; E. Harris Harbison, The Christian Scholar in the Age of the Reformation, 44–49; Anthony Grafton and Lisa Jardine, From Humanism to the Humanities: Education and the Liberal Arts in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Europe, 66–82.

  Donation of Constantine: Valla, The Treatise of Lorenzo Valla on the Donation of Constantine; comment on “satrap,” 85.

  the plausibility of the Trinity: Grafton and Jardine, From Humanism to the Humanities, 75.

  secure an appointment: Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 2, 198.

  most daring work: Bentley, Humanists and Holy Writ, 35; Alaistair Hamilton, “Humanists and the Bible,” in Kraye, The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism, 104–105; Harbison, Christian Scholar, 45–46.

  De Elegantiae: Nauert, Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe, 38; Jensen, “Humanist Reform of Latin,” in Kraye, The Cambridge Compendium to Renaissance Humanism, 64.

  fifty-nine editions: Michael D. Reeve, “Classical Scholarship,” in Kraye, The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism, 40.

  became his intellectual compass: Erasmus had actually first encountered this work while at St. Lebwin’s in Deventer.

  “you have hurt”: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 1, 54.

  Antibarbari: Ibid., vol. 23, 1–122.

  becoming unbearable: Phillips, Erasmus and the Northern Renaissance, 21–22.

  left to wait: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 1, no. 33, from Willem Hermans [1493?], 62–64.

  he had a rough draft: Hyma, Youth of Erasmus, 183.

  CHAPTER 4: PENANCE AND DREAD

  It was in his youth: Brecht, Martin Luther, 47. (See Luthers Werke, Briefwechsel, vol. 4, 319.)

  its curriculum was similar: Brecht, Martin Luther, 12–14; Bainton, Here I Stand, 18; Fife, Revolt of Martin Luther, 15; Brendler, Martin Luther, 25–26.

  beaten fifteen times: Luther’s Works, vol. 54, “Table Talk,” 457; “a hell and purgatory,” vol. 45, 369.

  envisioning for him a legal career: Roper, Martin Luther, 33.

  he got an early glimpse: Brecht, Martin Luther, 16–17.

  Her family members: Ian D. Kingston Siggins, Luther and His Mother, 46–50; Michael A. Mullett, Martin Luther, 22; Roper, Martin Luther, 23–24.

  “My beloved city”: Brendler, Martin Luther, 28.

  This one modest church: See Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation, 111.

  An estimated one-tenth: E. G. Schwiebert, Luther and His Times: The Reformation from a New Perspective, 124.

  “nest of priests”: Fife, Revolt of Martin Luther, 25.

  doctrines surrounding penance: Ozment, Age of Reform, 216; Siggins, Luther and His Mother, 52ff; MacCulloch, Reformation, 14.

  Medieval sermons: Emile V. Telle, “Ways and Fashions in the Art of Preaching on the Eve of the Religious Upheaval in the Sixteenth Century,” in Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook, 2: 21–22, 1982; Edwin Charles Dargan, A History of Preaching, vol. 1 (New York: Hodder and Stoughton, 1905), 191–193, 300–310; Pierre Riché, Daily Life in the World of Charlemagne, trans. Jo Ann McNamara (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978), 202; MacCulloch, Reformation, 30.

  As Erasmus would observe: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 27, 118.

  This sacrament had three parts: Ozment, Age of Reform, 216–222.

  The obligation of Christians to confess: Ibid., 217–219; Jacques Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory, 213–216; Thomas N. Tentler, Sin and Confession on the Eve of the Reformation, 57, 78.

  One manual: Tentler, Sin and Confession, 140–142.

  prepared an entire volume: Ibid., 91.

  “aggravating circumstances”: Ibid., 116.

  not mentioned in the Bible: Le Goff, Birth of Purgatory, 133–134.

  The main motif: Le Goff, Birth of Purgatory, 7–11.

  “The least pain”: Summa Theologica, Supplement Appendix I, Q2. See also “Purgatory,” in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church.

  In Dante’s Purgatorio: For an analysis of the theological aspects of this work, see Le Goff, Birth of Purgatory, 334–348.

  conjured up the torments: H. Maynard Smith, Pre-Reformation England, 200–201.

  never-ending anxiety: Tentler, Sin and Confession, 156, 347.

  main agent was the priest: Ibid., 22–27, 57–68, 344–345.

  the Church’s penitential system: Ozment, Age of Reform, 227.

  CHAPTER 5: BREAKTHROUGH

  Erasmus was moving: Schoeck, Erasmus of Europe, 132; Bainton, Erasmus of Christendom, 31–2.

  The diocese of Cambrai: See Schoeck, Erasmus of Europe, 134–142, on the diocese and the bishop.

  helped Hendrik: Ibid., 137–138; Huizinga, Erasmus, 17.

  Hendrik’s campaign: Schoeck, Erasmus of Europe, 139; Huizinga, Erasmus, 17.

  consoled himself with books: The monk’s quote is in Schoeck, Erasmus of Europe, 138.

  remained in many ways medieval: Schoeck, Erasmus of Europe, 162–163; Phillips, Erasmus and the Northern Renaissance, 25; Smith, Erasmus, 20; Cantor, Civilization of the Middle Ages, 319; “Paris,” in Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages; Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror, 22ff, 158–160.

  Europe’s leading book center: Andrew Pettegree, The Book in the Renaissance, 44; Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, The Coming of the Book, 173–175; Schoeck, Erasmus of Europe, 168.

  Collège de Montaigu: Schoeck, Erasmus of Europe, 165–166. Erasmus described the conditions at the college in a 1526 Colloquy, “A Fish Diet,” Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 40, 715; see also the note at 756–757.

  the cold was debilitating: On the problem of the cold at medieval universities, see Hastings Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, vol. 3, English Universities: Student Life, 415.

  reinforce his aversion: Huizinga, Erasmus, 21.

  the University of Paris: Schoeck, Erasmus of Europe, 163–166; Cantor, Civilization of the Middle Ages, 441, 531; Friedrich Heer, The Medieval World, 245–252.

  movement known as Scholasticism: Walker, History of the Christian Church, 322–325; Cantor, Civilization of the Middle Ages, 320; Schoeck, Erasmus of Europe, 178–179; “Scholasticism,” in Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages.

  seemed pointless: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 1, no. 64, to Thomas Grey [August 1497], 135–138. See also Bainton, Erasmus of Christendom, 37–39.

  The questions posed: Erasmus provided some of these examples in the Praise of Folly, in Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 27, 126–127.

  the dominant figure: Cantor, Civilization of the Middle Ages, 357–360; Richard E. Rubenstein, Aristotle’s Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscove
red Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages, 4–9.

  undergoing a mini-renaissance: Backman, Worlds of Medieval Europe, 231–232.

  Peter Abelard: Cantor, Civilization of the Middle Ages, 330–331; Walker, History of the Christian Church, 327–330; Harbison, Christian Scholar, 20–25; Heer, Medieval World, 110–116; Backman, Worlds of Medieval Europe, 234–236.

  “took cruel vengeance”: James Bruge, Heloise & Abelard, 133.

  about the Trinity: Rubenstein, Aristotle’s Children, 116–118.

  Peter Lombard: Walker, History of the Christian Church, 331; Backman, Worlds of Medieval Europe, 236.

  a sensational scholarly discovery: Walker, History of the Christian Church, 332–334; Rubenstein, Aristotle’s Children, 4–9; Cantor, Civilization of the Middle Ages, 357–361.

  they at once decided: Rubenstein, Aristotle’s Children, 15–22.

  offered a rational: Ibid., 8.

  The concept of sin: Ibid., 179–180.

  proposed a mechanistic God: Cantor, Civilization of the Middle Ages, 360.

  stand up to the challenge: Ibid., 357; Rubenstein, Aristotle’s Children, 199.

  made him required reading: Rubenstein, Aristotle’s Children, 199.

  Thomas Aquinas: Harbison, Christian Scholar, 25–28; Walker, History of the Christian Church, 340–348; Cantor, Civilization of the Middle Ages, 443–444; “Thomas Aquinas and Thomism,” in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., vol. 28, 645–649.

  an encyclical letter: Aeterni Patris is available at https://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_1-xiii_enc_04081879_aeterni-patris.html.

  the Summa Theologica: Backman, Worlds of Medieval Europe, 308–309; Cantor, Civilization of The Middle Ages, 443.

  most modern-day editions: See, for instance, “Treatise on the Angels” in The Great Books of the Western World edition of the Summa Theologica (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1952, 1990), vol. 1, 269–333.

  comments about man: Rubenstein, Aristotle’s Children, 221; Walker, History of the Christian Church, 343–344; Ozment, Age of Reform, 233.

  man has free will: Question LXXXIII, Article I of the First Part, Summa Theologica, vol. 1, 436–438; “Otherwise, counsels”: 437.

  in a state of grace: Question CXI, Part I of the Second Part, ibid., vol. 2, 351–356.

  “I cannot”: Robert Barron, Thomas Aquinas: Spiritual Master, 24.

  Eager to suppress it: Rubenstein, Aristotle’s Children, 234; Walker, History of the Christian Church, 349.

  John Duns Scotus: Walker, History of the Christian Church, 348–352; “Duns Scotus,” in New Catholic Encyclopedia; “Duns Scotus,” in Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages.

  “The quiddity or definition”: Eugene R. Fairweather, ed., A Scholastic Miscellany: Anselm to Ockham, 430.

  doctrine of the Immaculate Conception: Walker, History of the Christian Church, 351; Jaroslav Pelikan, Reformation of Church and Dogma (1300–1700), 46–50.

  was still raging: Smith, Erasmus, 21. Its establishment as dogma is noted at Pelikan, Reformation of Church and Dogma, 50.

  “If only you could see”: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 1, no. 64, to Thomas Grey [August 1497], 137–138. See also Bainton, Erasmus of Christendom, 37–38.

  “baptized wherever they went”: Erasmus wrote this in the Praise of Folly, in Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 27, 128.

  Josse Bade’s famous printing house: Schoeck, Erasmus of Europe, 168.

  sent him a letter: Erasmus’s letter has not survived, but Gaguin’s response has: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 1, no. 43 [September 1495?], 83–85.

  developed a genuine bond: Ibid., no. 44, from Robert Gaguin, September 24 [1495?], 85–87.

  he relapsed: Ibid., no. 45, to Robert Gaguin [beginning of October 1495], 87–91.

  would attract little notice: Ironically, Gaguin is remembered today mainly for his connection to Erasmus.

  rained without stop: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 1, 106.

  not to waste his time: Ibid., 98.

  took on two brothers: Ibid., 110.

  They were soon joined: Ibid., 116.

  “sweetest Thomas”: Ibid., no. 58, to Thomas Grey [July 1497], 116–123.

  “lovers’ letters”: Ibid., no. 63, to Thomas Grey [August] 1497, 134.

  turn it to his advantage: Huizinga, Erasmus of Christendom, 27; Tracy, Erasmus of the Low Countries, 28; Schoeck, Erasmus of Europe, 206–208.

  traveled to Holland: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 1, 152–154.

  “I greatly fear”: Ibid., no. 83, to Willem Hermans, December 14 [1498], 167–171.

  William Blount: Ibid., 156. Then about nineteen, Blount would remain Erasmus’s friend and patron for more than thirty years. See also “Blount, William,” in Contemporaries of Erasmus.

  how perilous the trip was: Smith, Erasmus, 59. Erasmus would later write of his wish that there were a bridge joining England to the Continent: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 5, 269.

  “nymphs of divine appearance”: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 1, 193.

  fruits of early Tudor rule: The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., vol. 29, 47–48.

  circle of influential humanists: Frederic Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers, 2–8.

  More’s “sweetness”: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 7, 18.

  fretted about his appearance: Ibid., vol. 4, 409.

  walk there with him: Erasmus described this visit years later in a letter to Johann von Botzheim, Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 9, no. 1341A, January 30, 1523, 299–300.

  poem in Latin: “An Ode by Erasmus of Rotterdam in Praise of Britain and of King Henry VII and the Royal Children,” Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 85, 31–41.

  dedicatory letter: Ibid., vol. 1, no. 104, to Prince Henry [Autumn] 1499, 195–197.

  had forbidden anyone: Ibid., 197.

  named John Colet: Ibid., 198. See also “Colet, John,” in Contemporaries of Erasmus; Seebohm, Oxford Reformers, 8–13. Erasmus provides much information about Colet in a long sketch, in Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 8, no. 1211, 232–244.

  he had been drawn: Seebohm, Oxford Reformer, 1–2; Harbison, Christian Scholar, 55–67.

  his lectures treated Paul: John Colet’s Commentary on First Corinthians, 30–31, 36.

  Like dogs returning to vomit: Ibid., 123.

  were a landmark: Harbison, Christian Scholar, 58; Seebohm, Oxford Reformers, 2, 17–24, 46–53.

  walks in the Oxford gardens: Allen, Age of Erasmus, 128.

  Colet could be very severe: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 8, 236.

  best way to understand Scripture: John Colet’s Commentary on First Corinthians, 218–219.

  got into an argument: The translation of Mark 14:36 is from Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 1, 202.

  he wrote to Colet: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 1, no. 108, to John Colet [October 1499], 202–206; no. 109, to John Colet [October 1499], 206–211; Surely at that moment, 208; “to set us an example,” 210. See also Seebohm, Oxford Reformers, 76–78.

  “here is a man”: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 1, no. 111, to John Colet [October 1499], 215, 214.

  “How could I ever”: Ibid., no. 108, to John Colet [October 1499], 205.

  he at one point said: John Colet’s Commentary on First Corinthians, 273, 333.

  “I have never”: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 1, no. 118, to Robert Fisher, December 5 [1499], 235.

  CHAPTER 6: THE VOW IN THE STORM

  Known as “Little Rome”: Brecht, Martin Luther, 23–27; Fife, Revolt of Martin Luther, 34; Friedenthal, Luther, 21–22; Schwiebert, Luther, 129–130.

  the day was as regimented: Brecht, Martin Luther, 31–32; Fife, Luther, 32–39.

  “to refrain from plots”: Fife, Luther, 38.

  the city was no better than: Luthers Werke, Tischreden, vol. 2, no. 2719b.

  On the Erfurt faculty: Brecht, Martin Luther, 27–29; Marius, Martin Luther, 33; Friedenthal, Luther, 18, 20; Roper,
Martin Luther, 31–32.

  completed the program: Brecht, Martin Luther, 33.

  drilled in dialectic: Ibid., 38; Marius, Martin Luther, 35; Fife, Luther, 43–44.

  participated in fifteen disputations: Fife, Luther, 66.

  “the new Scholastics”: Erika Rummel, The Humanist-Scholastic Debate in the Renaissance & Reformation, 40.

  “the most ingenious”: Luthers Werke, Tischreden, vol. 3, no. 3722.

  Ockham, who was born: On Ockham, see Walker, History of the Christian Church, 353–357; Cantor, Civilization of the Middle Ages, 532–535; Backman, Worlds of Medieval Europe, 395–398; “William of Ockham,” in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., vol. 8, 867.

  “Whatever can be done”: Quoted in Walker, History of the Christian Church, 355.

  the radical empiricism: Cantor, Civilization of the Middle Ages, 533; Walker, History of the Christian Church, 356.

  bitter conflict with the pope: Arthur Stephen McGrade, The Political Thought of William of Ockham, 7–14; Walker, History of the Christian Church, 319–321, 353; Cantor, Civilization of the Middle Ages, 533–534.

  “Munich academy”: McGrade, Political Thought of William of Ockham, 26.

  His followers took this a step further: Ozment, Age of Reform, 233–235; Walker, History of the Christian Church, 354; Schwiebert, Luther, 168–169; Philip S. Watson, Let God Be God! An Interpretation of the Theology of Martin Luther, 15–16.

  an inescapable presence: Brecht, Martin Luther, 33–36; Schwiebert, Luther, 134–136; Fife, Luther, 49–50.

  “Without Aristotle”: Quoted in Brecht, Martin Luther, 34.

  The “whole Aristotle”: Luther’s Works, vol. 31, 12.

  “this damned, conceited”: Ibid., vol. 44, 201.

  “nothing can be learned”: Ibid., 200, 201. See also Ozment, Age of Reform, 235.

  virtue is not a natural attribute: Aristotle’s views on virtue are described in Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics, Great Books of the Western World (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1952, 1990), vol. 8, 348–355.

  his Anfechtungen intensified: Brecht, Martin Luther, 49.

  the rattle of death: Ibid., 45–47; Fife, Luther, 73.

  “What majesty”: Quoted in Fife, Revolt of Martin Luther, 47.