Conflict in my favorite chaperone12/16/2023 ![]() ![]() Most likely in 1487, poverty forced Erasmus into the consecrated life as a canon regular of St. Ordination and monastic experience Bust by Hildo Krop (1950) in Gouda, where Erasmus spent his youth Eventually Erasmus entered the same monastery in 1485/86. ![]() Instead, Peter left for the Augustinian canonry in Stein, which left Erasmus feeling betrayed. The two brothers made an agreement that they would resist the clergy but attend the university. ![]() He was exposed there to the Devotio moderna movement and the Brethren's famous book The Imitation of Christ but eschewed the harsh rules and strict methods of the religious brothers and educators. In about 1484 he and his brother went to a grammar school at 's Hertogenbosch run by the Brethren of the Common Life. Following the death of his parents he was supported by Berthe de Heyden. His education there ended when plague struck the city about 1483, and his mother, who had moved to provide a home for her sons, died from the infection. For the first time in Europe north of the Alps, Greek was taught at a lower level than a university and this is where he began learning it. During his stay there the curriculum was renewed by the principal of the school, Alexander Hegius, a correspondent of pioneering rhetorician Rudolphus Agricola. In 1475, at the age of nine, he and his older brother Peter were sent to one of the best Latin schools in the Netherlands, located at Deventer and owned by the chapter clergy of the Lebuïnuskerk (St. Įrasmus was given the highest education available to a young man of his day, in a series of monastic or semi-monastic schools. Erasmus on the other side called him his brother. His only sibling Peter might have been born in 1463, to Margaret and her first husband thus making him only the half brother of Erasmus. Although he was born out of wedlock, Erasmus was cared for by his parents until their early deaths from the bubonic plague in 1483. His mother was Margaretha Rogerius (Latinized form of Dutch surname Rutgers), the daughter of a doctor from Zevenbergen. ![]() His parents could not be legally married: his father, Gerard, was a Catholic priest and curate in Gouda. Information on his family and early life comes mainly from vague references in his writings. Īlthough associated closely with Rotterdam, he lived there for only four years, never to return afterwards. He was named after Erasmus of Formiae, whom Erasmus' father Gerard personally favored. It was created by Hendrick de Keyser in 1622, replacing a wooden statue of 1549.ĭesiderius Erasmus is reported to have been born in Rotterdam on 28 October in the mid-1460s, probably 1466. First was his childhood, ending with his being orphaned and impoverished second, his struggling years as a canon (a kind of monk), a priest, a clerk, a failing and sickly university student, and a tutor third, his flourishing years of increasing focus and productivity following his 1499 contact with a reformist English circle, and later with the Aldine New Academy and fourth, his final years as a prime influencer of European thought through his New Testament and increasing opposition to Lutheranism.Įarly life Statue of Erasmus in Rotterdam. His middle-road approach disappointed, and even angered, partisans in both camps.Įrasmus's 70 years can be divided into four quarters. He promoted the traditional doctrine of synergism, which some prominent Reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin rejected in favor of the doctrine of monergism. He remained a member of the Catholic Church all his life, remaining committed to reforming the Church from within. He developed a biblical humanistic theology in which he advocated tolerance, concord and free thinking on matters of indifference. He also wrote On Free Will, In Praise of Folly, Handbook of a Christian Knight, On Civility in Children, Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style and many other works.Įrasmus lived against the backdrop of the growing European religious Reformation. As a Catholic priest developing humanist techniques for working on texts, he prepared important new Latin and Greek editions of the New Testament, which raised questions that would be influential in the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. He was an important figure in classical scholarship who wrote in a spontaneous and natural Latin style. Through his vast number of translations, books, essays and letters, he is considered one of the most influential thinkers of the Northern Renaissance and one of the major figures of Dutch and Western culture. Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus ( / ˌ d ɛ z ɪ ˈ d ɪər i ə s ɪ ˈ r æ z m ə s/ Dutch: English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus 28 October 1466 – 12 July 1536) was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic theologian, educationalist, satirist and philosopher. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |