Fatal Discord

by Michael Massing

  Louis de Berquin: “Berquin, Louis de,” in Contemporaries of Erasmus.

  sent him an urgent plea: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 12, to Francis I, June 16, 1526, 243–247. See also Rummel, Erasmus and His Catholic Critics, vol. 2, 36–37.

  Jan Łaski: See “Łaski, Jan,” in Contemporaries of Erasmus; Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 11, no. 1593, to Krzysztof Szydłowiecki, August 14, 1525, 214–222, especially 221, note 18. On Erasmus’s growing reputation in Poland, see his letter to Thomas Wolsey, vol. 12, no. 1697, April 25, 1526, 172–173; MacCulloch, Reformation, 246–247.

  among the educated elite of Spain: Dickens and Jones, Erasmus the Reformer, 225–230.

  the Enchiridion was translated into Spanish: See Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 12, no. 1742, from Juan Maldonado, September 1, 1526, 314–324. Erasmus’s influence in Spain is minutely chronicled in Marcel Bataillon’s monumental Érasme et l’Espagne. Originally published in two volumes in 1937, it was reissued by Librarie Droz in 1991 in three volumes. Bataillon makes large claims on behalf of Erasmus’s influence in Spain, maintaining, for instance (vol. 1, 844), that Cervantes’s literary tendencies were shaped by Erasmian humanism—a position that cannot be easily proved or disproved.

  the furor set off by Karlstadt’s tracts: See Burnett, introduction, That These Words of Christ, “This Is My Body,” etc., Still Stand Firm Against the Fanatics, in The Annotated Luther, vol. 3, 163–170.

  The sacramentarian “heresy”: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 11, no. 1624, to Thomas Lupset [October 4] 1525, 305–308. On Zwingli, see vol. 11, 298, note 14; on Oecolampadius, see vol. 11, 288, notes 2 and 4.

  “so carefully written”: Ibid., vol. 11, no. 1621, to Pierre Barbier, October 3, 1525, 300.

  “You can imagine what an uproar”: Ibid., vol. 11, no. 1637, to Conradus Pellicanus [October 15, 1525], 344–350; no. 1640, to Conradus Pellicanus [October 1525], 364–366.

  “Who can believe”: Ibid., vol. 12, no. 1670, March 2, 1526, 51.

  Hyperaspistes: Ibid., vol. 76, 93–297; “How much there is,” 97; more “enmity and bitterness,” 101; why was there so much disagreement, 143; “And so, away with,” 181; “seditious wantonness,” 293; “has been redoubled,” 294; “and now they wander,” 295; “renew a good spirit,” 296.

  five or six presses: Ibid., vol. 12, no. 1683, to Hieronymus Emser [March 19, 1526], 108.

  “So you restrained your pen!”: Ibid., vol. 12, no. 1688, to Martin Luther, April 11, 1526, 135–138.

  “fatal dissension”: Ibid., 137. The phrase in Latin is exitiabili dissidio, which can also be translated as “fatal discord”; see, for instance, Marius, Martin Luther, 467.

  CHAPTER 39: INVASION BY SCRIPTURE

  “Have you ever read anything”: Luther’s Correspondence, vol. 2, no. 730, April 11, 1526, 370–371.

  “That enraged viper”: Luther’s Works, vol. 49, no. 164, March 27, 1526, 143–147.

  “an instrument of Satan”: Luther’s Correspondence, vol. 2, no. 724, to Nicholas Hausmann, January 20, 1526, 363.

  “cursed Lutheran sect”: Luther’s Works, vol. 49, 119–120, note 24.

  “so that it may be impregnable”: Luther’s Correspondence, vol. 2, no. 747, to John Agricola, January 1, 1527, 388–389.

  In his letter to the king: Ibid., vol. 2, no. 700, September 1, 1525, 333–335.

  “merely a mask for Erasmus”: Ibid., vol. 2, no. 754, to Spalatin, February 1, 1527, 396.

  “but I am a sheep”: Quoted in Smith, Life and Letters of Martin Luther, 195.

  The log of an Oxford bookseller: McConica, English Humanists and Reformation Politics Under Henry VIII and Edward VI, 89.

  heeded the admonitions in the Enchiridion: Seven English editions of this work would appear between 1533 and 1550; see Dickens and Jones, Erasmus the Reformer, 211.

  “A Pilgrimage for Religion’s Sake”: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 40, 621–650.

  the sole European showcase of Erasmus’s reform ideas: Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (398), observes that “the years following the breach with Rome saw the implementation of what might be loosely described as an Erasmian reform programme—the attack on ‘superstitions’ like relics, shrines, pilgrimages, as well as on monasticism; the printing of the Bible and primers in English; the outpouring of Erasmian writings, many of them translations of Erasmus’s own works, others original pieces of lay pietism, devotional literature and prayer manuals, alongside the innumerable treatises on education, social and economic justice, service to the prince and the commonwealth, medicine, etc. produced by the humanist circles which formed first around Thomas Cromwell and then Queen Catherine Parr.” McConica, in English Humanists and Reformation Politics Under Henry VIII and Edward VI, devotes a chapter to “Erasmianism”—a creed that he calls (42–43) a “blend of humanism and reform that was the joint manufacture of More and Erasmus, swayed undoubtedly by the fervent genius of John Colet”; its influence “played an active role in shaping a religious settlement unique in the annals of the Reformation.” In Erasmus the Reformer, Dickens and Jones spend a chapter (“The English Erasmians”) describing Erasmus’s influence in England, concluding (216) that “perhaps it was indeed on English soil that his propagation of the philosophia Christi found its most fertile seed-bed and put down its deepest roots.” And Bainton, in Erasmus of Christendom (279), observes that “England was the land where the influence of Erasmus was paramount at his death. The entire English Reformation has been characterized as Erasmian, and with justice, if it be remembered that the vogue of his ideas is not necessarily to be attributed solely to his personal impact, since other men of influence in England, like Colet and More, were of like mind. No one can deny the immense popularity of Erasmian works during the latter years of Henry VIII and well into the period of Elizabeth.”

  Institutio Christiani Matrimonii: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 69, 214–438; “Death,” he wrote, 275; “If one looks at social life today,” 278.

  the “saintliness of your character”: Ibid., vol. 12, no. 1727, July 15, 1526, 257–259.

  Erasmus’s greatest impact on England: See John N. King, English Reformation Literature: The Tudor Origins of the Protestant Tradition, 44–46, 54–55.

  Tyndale’s work as a Bible translator: On Tyndale and his influence, see David Daniell, William Tyndale: A Biography; Brian Edwards, William Tyndale: The Father of the English Bible; David Teems, Tyndale: The Man Who Gave God an English Voice; Benson Bobrick, Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired, 79–81, 89–91, 96–124; H. Maynard Smith, Henry VIII and the Reformation, 280–321.

  relied heavily on Tyndale’s Old and New Testaments: See Adam Nicolson, God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible, xii–xiii, 221–225.

  this moral manual would influence Tyndale: Daniell, William Tyndale, 64–74; Marius, Thomas More, 318.

  remained a criminal offense: Daniell, William Tyndale, 92–100.

  to see Cuthbert Tunstall: Ibid., 83–87.

  entrée to London’s cloth merchants: Ibid., 102–107; Maynard Smith, Henry VIII and the Reformation, 286–287.

  devoted himself to translating: Daniell, William Tyndale, 111–116, 134–142; Maynard Smith, Henry VIII and the Reformation, 288–289, 293–298; Bobrick, Wide as the Waters, 98, 103–106.

  Tyndale showed theological audacity: Daniell, William Tyndale, 122, 148–149; Bobrick, Wide as the Waters, 112–116; Marius, Thomas More, 319–323.

  quickly found a printer: Daniell, William Tyndale, 108–111, 134; Edwards, William Tyndale, 84–91.

  Wolsey was warned: Maynard Smith, Henry VIII and the Reformation, 291–292.

  “we shall lose”: Quoted ibid., 297.

  made it doubly suspect: Ibid., 294–295.

  issued a solemn admonition: Ibid., 299; Daniell, William Tyndale, 174–176.

  growing increasingly impatient: Ackroyd, Life of Thomas More, 247–248; Marius, Thomas More, 289–291; G. R. Elton, “Sir Thomas More and the O
pposition to Henry VIII,” in R. S. Sylvester and C. P. Marc’hadour, eds., Essential Articles for the Study of Thomas More, 81.

  More led a raid: Ackroyd, Life of Thomas More, 246; Marius, Thomas More, 323.

  were brought to St. Paul’s: Marius, Thomas More, 337.

  “I pray God you will be able”: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 12, no. 1770, December 18 [1526], 414–419.

  Hans Holbein the Younger: Ibid., vol. 12, 417, note 11.

  “prepared to purchase”: Ibid., vol. 12, no. 1705, to Leonard Casembroot, May 1, 1526, 190–191; vol. 12, no. 1720, from Leonard Casembroot, June 6, 1526, 234–237.

  several rare manuscripts by John Chrysostom: Ibid., vol. 12, no. 1661, to John Claymond, January 30, 1526, 16–18, especially note 2, which mentions Erasmus’s five-volume edition.

  wrote to see if its library: Ibid., vol. 12, no. 1749, September 7, 1526, 353–354.

  100,000 copies of the various editions: Ibid., vol. 12, 249.

  upon its publication, Ibid., vol. 12, 336, note 27.

  Erasmus answered More’s letter: Ibid., vol. 13, no. 1804, March 30, 1527, 9–28.

  CHAPTER 40: VANDALS

  The conflagration: On the Sack of Rome, see E. R. Chamberlin, The Sack of Rome; Hibbert, Rome, 153–162; Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 9, 373–423; Friedenthal, Luther, 465–479; “Rome, Sack of,” in Encyclopedia of the Renaissance.

  On the same day: Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 9, 376.

  money Charles desperately needed: Friedenthal, Luther, 466–467.

  “To Rome!”: Ibid., 469.

  Clement was far more solemn: Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 9, 248–253.

  Now bearing down on it: Chamberlin, Sack of Rome, 9–10.

  Not until May 4, 1527: Hibbert, Rome, 157.

  raising its bridges: Ibid., 156.

  The imperial army took up positions: Chamberlin, Sack of Rome, 154–157; Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 9, 387.

  a thick mist rose from the Tiber: Chamberlin, Sack of Rome, 157–159; Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 9, 388–393; Hibbert, Rome, 157–158.

  Clement could hear the cries: Chamberlin, Sack of Rome, 159–180; Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 9, 393–396; Hibbert, Rome, 158.

  “Empire! Spain! Victory!”: Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 9, 398.

  scenes of appalling destruction: Ibid., vol. 9, 399ff; Hibbert, Rome, 158–160; Chamberlin, Sack of Rome, 167ff.

  Special fury was aimed at the clergy: Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 9, 403ff; Hibbert, Rome, 159.

  “Luther for pope!”: Quoted in Friedenthal, Luther, 471.

  “Even on the high altar”: Quoted in Hibbert, Rome, 158.

  scrawled the name of Martin Luther: James Hankins, “The Popes and Humanism,” in Anthony Grafton, ed., Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library and Renaissance Culture, 85.

  enraged at the sight of artifacts: Hibbert, Rome, 160.

  signed a treaty: Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 9, 421–422.

  “In Rome, the chief city”: Quoted in Hibbert, Rome, 160.

  “We took the town”: Quoted in Chamberlin, Sack of Rome, 190.

  thirty thousand houses destroyed: Ibid., 207; Hibbert, Rome, 161.

  “We have seen Rome”: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 14, no. 2059, to Jacopo Sadoleto [October 1] 1528, 366–371.

  when Michelangelo resumed work: The Vatican: Spirit and Art of Christian Rome (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art and H. N. Abrams, 1982), 126–130.

  The emperor Charles: Luther’s Correspondence, vol. 2, no. 767, to Nicholas Hausmann, July 13, 1527, 408.

  the case of Leonhard Kaiser: Ibid., vol. 2, no. 797, to Wenzel (Wenceslas) Link, May 12, 1528, 444; Brecht, Shaping and Defining, 349–350; Roper, Martin Luther, 305–307.

  “How many people”: Luther’s Works, vol. 54, “Table Talk,” 95.

  An especially serious attack: Luther’s Correspondence, vol. 2, no. 764, Justus Jonas to John Bugenhagen, July 7, 1527, 403–404; no. 765, “Justus Jonas’s Account of Luther’s Illness,” July 7, 1527, 404–407.

  “almost lost Christ”: Ibid., vol. 2, no. 768, to Melanchthon, August 2, 1527, 409.

  growing conflict with the sacramentarians: Ibid., vol. 2, no. 778, to Melanchthon, October 27, 1527, 419; Brecht, Shaping and Defining, 310–314.

  That These Words of Christ: See Burnett, introduction, That These Words of Christ, “This Is My Body,” etc., Still Stand Firm Against the Fanatics, in Annotated Luther, vol. 3, 163–170.

  amid “wild beasts”: Luther’s Correspondence, vol. 2, no. 801, to Nicholas Gerbel, July 28, 1528, 450–451.

  “Judases”: Ibid., vol. 2, no. 780, to Justus Jonas [November 11, 1527], 420–422.

  was hit by the plague: Ibid., vol. 2, no. 768, Luther to Melanchthon, August 2, 1527, 409; no. 769, Elector John to Luther, August 10, 1527, 409–410; no. 770, Luther to Spalatin, August 19, 1527, 410–411; no. 779, Luther to Nicholas Hausmann, November 7, 1527, 420.

  he asked Bugenhagen: Ibid., vol. 2, no. 779, Luther to Nicholas Hausmann, November 7, 1527, 420.

  Luther’s spirits were further dampened: Brecht, Shaping and Defining, 257, 287–292.

  “This week we are asking”: Quoted ibid., 289.

  Luther proposed to Elector John: Luther’s Works, vol. 40, 265–267. On the visitations, see Brecht, Shaping and Defining, 259–273; Bornkamm, Luther in Mid-Career, 489–500; Mullett, Martin Luther, 182–188; Manschreck, Melanchthon, 136–143.

  “Everything is in confusion”: Quoted in Manschreck, Melanchthon, 137.

  Instructions for the Visitors: Luther’s Works, vol. 40, 269–320.

  to include Erasmus’s Colloquies: Ibid., vol. 40, 316–317.

  John, who supported the Reformation: Brecht, Shaping and Defining, 239.

  the so-called territorial church: Ibid., 267; Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 1, 187; Bainton Here I Stand, 244–245.

  the 1526 Diet of Speyer: MacCulloch, Reformation, 159–160; Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 1, 205–206; Bainton, Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, 148.

  Philip of Hesse: MacCulloch, Reformation, 159; Friedenthal, Luther, 482–483; Elton, Reformation Europe, 37–38.

  agreed to part with Bugenhagen: “Lutheranism,” in The Encyclopedia of the Lutheran Church; Cameron, European Reformation, 216–217.

  prevailed in several important cities: Cameron, European Reformation, 216–219.

  Melanchthon spent much of the month: Manschreck, Melanchthon, 133–134.

  the religious map of modern Germany: Holborn, History of Modern Germany, 219–221; Rice and Grafton, Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 193–195; Cameron, European Reformation, 268–272.

  when the Paris faculty of theology voted: Farge, Orthodoxy and Reform in Early Reformation France, 195.

  Frans Titelmans: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 13, no. 1823, to Frans Titelmans, May 18, 1527, 136–138; no. 1857A, from Frans Titelmans [1527], 172–177. See also Rummel, Erasmus and His Catholic Critics, vol. 2, 14–22.

  “Men speak ill of me”: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 12, appendix, no. 4, Alonso Ruiz de Virués to Juan de Vergara, October 9, 1526, 529–533.

  The monks were secretly stationing agents: Ibid., vol. 13, no. 1814, from Juan de Vergara, April 24, 1527, 91.

  facing such opprobrium: Ibid., vol. 12, no. 1742, introductory note, 314–316; vol. 12, no. 1786, 458, note 5; vol. 13, no. 1814, from Juan de Vergara, April 24, 1527, 81–103; Rummel, Erasmus and His Catholic Critics; vol. 2, 89ff; Augustijn, Erasmus, 155–157.

  declared war on his supporters: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 14, xiv; Elton, Reformation Europe, 69–71.

  the second part of the Hyperaspistes: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 77, 335–749; “supersophistical trash,” 591; “prolix and pretentious palaver,” 515; smoke screens and hairsplitting, 519–520; “It is worthwhile,” 345; “cockadoodled”, 373, 397, 401, 419, 443; there is a faculty of reason, 592; make him seem almost a Satan, 595; even if one grants
, 648; Rather than make finespun distinctions, 747–749.

  he brought out new editions: Ibid., vol. 13, xvi.

  collected edition of the great Doctor: Ibid., vol. 15, no. 2157, to Alonso de Fonseca [May] 1529, 219–241. (This letter is the edition’s preface.)

  in the Steinenvorstadt: Guggisberg, Basel in the Sixteenth Century, 28–30.

  came out with a pamphlet: Smith, Erasmus, 388.

  The agitation continued: Ibid., 386–392. On these events, see also Huizinga, Erasmus, 173–175; Bainton, Erasmus of Christendom, 219–223.

  “no man should call”: Quoted in Smith, Erasmus, 389.

  Shortly before Christmas: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 15, 82, note 1.

  mostly poor citizens gathered: For Erasmus’s firsthand account, ibid., vol. 15, no. 2158, to Willibald Pirckheimer, May 9, 1529, 241–247.

  Basel looked out: Bainton, Erasmus of Christendom, 220.

  “the dissidents”: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 15, no. 2158, May 9, 1529, 242.

  “Oecolampadius is taking over”: Ibid., vol. 15, no. 2134, to Alonso de Fonseca, March 25, 1529, 175.

  the approval of a Reform Ordinance: Ibid., vol. 16, no. 2248, from Bonifacius Amerbach, January 9, 1530, 116–118, especially note 5.

  Erasmus had many options: He lists them at ibid., vol. 14, no. 2029, to Christoph von Stadion, August 28, 1528, 273.

  “Our love for you”: Ibid., vol. 13, no. 1878, from Henry VIII, September 18 [1527], 339.

  Ferdinand had offered: Ibid., vol. 14, no. 2028, to Willibald Pirckheimer, August 25, 1528, 267–268.

  he decided on Freiburg: Ibid., vol. 15, no. 2145, to Anton Fugger, April 5, 1529, 200–204.

  there was an outcry: Ibid., vol. 15, no. 2196, to Willibald Pirckheimer, July 15, 1529, 351–360.

  he invited him for a conversation: Ibid., vol. 15, no. 2147, to Johannes Oecolampadius [April 10, 1529], 205–207; the meeting is described in vol. 15, no. 2158, to Willibald Pirckheimer, May 9, 1529, 243.

  to avoid “a public spectacle”: Ibid., 245.

  Erasmus arrived with a few friends: Ibid., vol. 15, no. 2196, to Willibald Pirckheimer, July 15, 1529, 351–356.