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Erasmus and France: the Propaganda for Peace

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2019

James Hutton
James Hutton*
Affiliation:
Cornell University
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Extract

The reputation of Erasmus in the period after his death has been the object of considerable interest in recent years following the impression made by Marcel Bataillon's Érasme et l'Espagne (Paris, 1937) and, more recently, by Andreas Flitner's essay Erasmus im Urteil seiner Nachwelt (Tübingen, 1952). The vicissitudes of an influence felt to be important, yet at the same time widely suspect, is something of a critical index to European moral sentiment. It is clear also that the reception of this influence has differed with the climate of opinion from country to country as well as from time to time, and it would seem desirable to fill up the outline, so admirably sketched by Flitner, at points where our present information is relatively thin. One such point is to be found in France in the latter part of the sixteenth century.

Type
Research Article
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Studies in the Renaissance , Volume 8 , 1961 , pp. 103 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1961

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References

1 See also de Voogd, G. J., Erasmus en Grotius (Leiden, 1947)Google Scholar; Renaudet, A., ‘L'héritage d'Érasme’, Rivista di Letterature moderne 1 (1950), 1–30 Google Scholar; Pierre Mesnard, ‘La Tradition érasmienne’, BHR xv (1953), 359-366.

2 Among orations permeated with Erasmian influence, I note Pace, Richard, Oratio in pace nuperrima composita (London, Pynson, and Paris, Gourmont, 1518)Google Scholar, with a French version, Oraison en la louenge de la paix, published by Gourmont at die same time; and [Jacques Peletier,] Cohortatio pacificatoria (Lyons, De Tournes, 1555) (see BHR XXII, 1960, 302-319). Among poems, in varying degrees influenced by Erasmus, Francois Sagon, Chant de la Paix (Paris, 1538, 1544, etc.); Habert, Pierre, Traicté du bien et utilité” de la paix (Paris, 1568, 1570)Google Scholar; Verdier, Antoine du, Antitheses de la paix et de laguerre (Lyons, 1568)Google Scholar, dependent on Clichtove rather than on Erasmus; anon., Advertissemens aux trois Estatz sur l'entretenementde la paix (Paris, Tabert, 1576). See also below, p. 116.

3 I have not followed the fortunes of the Bellum or the Querela outside of the propaganda for peace, but may note that the section ‘Misères des soldats et gens de guerre’ in P. Boaistuau's Le Théâtre du monde (1558) is in part translated from the Bellum.

4 Cf. Dr. Phillips’ article, ‘Erasmus and Propaganda, a study of the translations of Erasmus in English and French’, Mod. Lang. Rev. XXXVII (1942), 1-17, where, however, p. 5, the point is made only with reference to the earlier translations of Louis de Berquin.

5 M. M. Phillips, Érasme et les débuts, pp. 204-208. Exceptional is a professed translation (ibid., p. 203) of the suspect De Esu carnium (Lyons, no name of printer, 1561) by one Robert Prevost (a Protestant?), who was also the translator of Sleidan.

6 Essais III, 2: ‘Qui m'eut faict voir Erasme autrefois, il eust esté malaisé que ie n'eusse pris pour adages et apohtegmes tout ce qu'il eut diet à son valet et a son hostesse.’

7 Pierre Villey, Les Sources et l'évolution des Essais de Montaigne, I, 126, records a possible echo of the Querela Pads. Renaudet, art. cit., accepts Montaigne as Erasmian in spirit; says that after the St. Bartholomew massacre opponents of the government were readers of Erasmus, instancing Fr. Hotman and the authors of the Vindiciae contra tyrannos; and asserts that the ‘politiques’ were Erasmians, but offers no evidence. I note that Erasmus is occasionally mentioned by Bodin.

8 On Erasmus in the indices, see especially Reusch, F. H., Der Index der verbolenen Bücher (Bonn, 1883), 1, 347–355 Google Scholar; Smith, Preserved, Erasmus (New York, 1923), pp. 421–422 Google Scholar; Andreas Flitner, op. cit., pp. 38-46.

9 Allen, Opus Epist. VI, 65, seems to say that the Querela Pads itself was condemned on 1 June 1525; it was, however, an anonymous translation, presumably Berquin's (Du Plessis d'Argentré, Collectio judiciorum, Paris, 1728, II, 42; M. M. Phillips, Érasme et les debuts, p. 118).

10 For the Bellum, page-and-line references (‘Latomus’) are to Érasme, Duke bellum inexpertis, texte édité et traduit par Yvonne Remy et Rene Dunil-Marquebreucq (Berchem-Brussels, 1953, Collection Latomus VIII); for the Querela Pads, references (LB) are to the Opera omnia (Leiden, 1703-1706), IV.

11 Josse Clichtove (1472-1543) is known as an early opponent of Luther (Antilutherus, Paris, 1524), and as the editor of many works of Lefèvre d'Étaples, whose pupil he had been. A Fleming, he studied in Paris from c. 1488, taking the divinity degree in 1506. Tutor to the young Bishop of Tournai in Paris, 1513-1517, he received a benefice in Tournai in 1519, and about 1525 a canonry at Chartres which he held for the rest of his life. The best account of Clichtove is still that of Clerval, J. A., De Judoci Clichtovei… vita et operibus (Paris, Picard, 1894)Google Scholar; on his relations with Erasmus, see P. S. Allen, Opus Epist. Des. Erasmi IX, 160 n., and E. V. Telle, Érasme de Rotterdam et le septième sacrement (Geneva, Droz, 1954), esp. pp. 329-345. There is a facsimile reprint of the De Bello etpace opusculum, ed. the Marqués de Olivart (Madrid, 1914) (not seen by me).

12 However, Clichtove has nothing like Erasmus’ attack on the mendicant monks in Bellum 86, 1006-1085. He may not have known this passage unless he possessed a copy of the latest edition of the Adagia (Jan. 1523), where it appeared for the first time; but very banlikely he knew it and deplored it, since his attitude towards the regular clergy was altogether opposed to that of Erasmus (see E. V. Telle, op. cit., passim).

13 In the preface, echoes of the title and first sentence of the Querela: ‘extorris ilia [Pax] finibus nostris miseram luget suam sortem, quia ubique gentium profligata sit’, etc. (cf. Querela Pads, undique gentium eiectae profligataeque); quotation from Silius Italicus, as in Querela 629B.

14 Erasmus does not make this traditional distinction.

15 The greater part of ch. 2 follows Querela 626B-627A in detail.

16 Erasmus does not so contrast, but mentions peace in heaven (e.g., Bellum 56, 580) and reiterates that war is from hell (Bellum 26, 154; 52, 517, etc.).

17 Inspired by Bellum 54, 547 ff. and Querela 629D.

18 Traditional laudatio pacis and vituperatio belli, not from Erasmus, though some details inevitably agree with the same topoi in Bellum 44, 409-420 and Querela 639B.

19 Passages of N. T. enjoining peace; vindictive passages of O. T. explained as allegorical or superseded. This is Erasmian; cf. Bellum 68, 748-790, Querela 630A-F. Remarks on the hostility among nations (f. 16v: ‘lam Galium esse apud Britannos capitale est’, etc.) are from Querela 638D (cf. Inst, princ. Christ. 610). The conclusion that war may be condoned as a last resort, here frankly accepted, is barely admitted by Erasmus in Querela 637F.

20 This topic, and much of the expression, from Bellum 52, 519-529.

21 From Bellum 64, 689-691, 736-747; cf. Querela 633c.

22 From Bellum 42, 365-370, and Querela 635B-C and 740F (the naming of special cannon for the apostles).

23 From Querela 634C-635B (the equivalent Bellum 40, 351-364 was added by Erasmus in 1526; see below).

24 Unqualified advocacy of a Turkish war is not Erasmian, though it is well known mat Erasmus’ attitude shifted (cf. Allen, Opus Epistolarum VIII, Epist. 2279 and 2285 introd.). Clichtove ascribes opposition to a Turkish war to Luther (who also changed his mind on the matter), but may be striking at Erasmus through him as Erasmus came to think he did in the Antilutherus. In editions of the Bellum before 1523 there is only the brilliant passage (84, 969-996) against fighting the Turk; passages added in Jan. 1523 include a concession (92, 1075-1085) to the common view, and this is already in Querela 638B.

25 On the justum bellum see below. Clichtove here condones war for the recovery of territory with reluctance, emphasizing the cost in blood and wealth (he echoes Bellum 48, 481-504 or Querela 640A), but permits it as a last resort—otherwise a prince might gradually lose all his territory.

28 A traditional topic significantly omitted by Erasmus.

27 Compare Bellum 84, 958-968, Querela 636B, and Inst, princ. Christ., last sec. But Clichtove's ideas on arbitration are more concrete than those of Erasmus.

28 In this recapitulation several sentences echo Bellum 52, 519-536.

29 Latomus, Introd., p. 10.

30 Querela 634F: ‘Evangelici praecones … e suggesto sacro classicum canebant.’ Clichtove, f. 26r: ‘Qui vero suggestum conscendunt, … classicum canunt bellicum.’ Bellum 351: ‘Alius e sacro suggesto promittit omnium admissorum condonationem, qui sub eius principis signis pugnarint.’

31 Clichtove, f. 19v: ‘Caeterum si antiquorum annales… cuiquam evolvere vacat, invenientur profecto ethnici … multo maiore moderatione … gessisse bella quam hac tempestate gerant inter se … Christiani… . (f. 21v): Nunc autem detonante bello, qui prius artis alicuius exercitio ac usu victum sibi honeste quaeritabant, artis opus relinquunt, ad bellum catervatim properant, ut, illius praetextu, rapto vivant, ditentur spoliis,’ etc. Erasmus, Bellum 1526: ‘Si revolves ethnicorum historias, quam multos reperies duces qui miris artibus bellum declinarint… . Nunc inter Christianos vir fords habetur si quis cius gentis quicum bellum est hominem forte obvium in nemore, non armatum sed pecuniis onustum,… occiderit Et milites vocantur qui spe lucelli ultro provolant ad pugnam… . Itaque, si veteris militiae disciplinam contempleris, Christianorum militia latrocinium fere est, non militia.'

32 Erasmus appears to avoid the term justum bellum, even when he alludes to the notion that rulers find reasons for war (e.g., Querela 636B-C; 639F) or himself allows war for defense against ‘barbarians’ or for internal tranquillity (Querela 637F).

33 De Bello, f. 36r: ‘Caeterum his haud ineptam responsionem adhibebit quispiam, quae ex evangelio et Paulo nunc deprompta sunt, non esse praeceptoria dicta sed consilium tantum exprimentia, quod amplecti aut praetermittere cuique liberum sit.’

34 Clichtove also allows (f. 34v) that Christ's telling Peter to put up his sword (John xviii, 11) should not be used as an argument against a ‘defensio moderata’ of one's own person. In the Bellum, just before the new insertion, Erasmus disposes of this text, and denounces as impious and ignorant the interpretation of Luke xxii, 36 (‘he that hath no sword let him sell his garment and buy one’) as justifying a ‘moderata defensio’ (Bellum 70, 787-790).

35 Stepped up from Querela 635A: ‘Immo iam eo prope rediit res, ut stultum et impium sit adversus bellum hiscere.’

36 E. V. Telle, op. cit., p. 332. Berquin's translations were seized on 7 March 1525 and were considered by the faculty on 20 May (the Querela Pads separately on 1 June). Erasmus was kept informed of the proceedings both by Noel Beda and by Berquin. The latter was arrested in Jan. 1526, and his translations were finally condemned on 12 March. Though unique copies of the other translations survive in the library of the University of Geneva, no copy of the French Querela Pads is known to exist, if indeed the book was printed. Erasmus relates an anecdote of its good effect on a French bishop to whom Berquin had given it: from an enemy of Erasmus he was turned into a friend (Opus Epist. VIII, 213).

37 In a letter of 24 Dec. 1525 to Nicholas Everard (Epist. 1653), finally convinced that Clichtove had covertly attacked him in the Antilutherus, he calls all Clichtove's writings ‘begutarrii libri’ (‘bigoted’), and includes Clichtove among the ‘nebulones’ whom Luther had armed against him. Clichtove openly criticized Erasmus in his Propugnaculum Ecclesiae of May 1526, and was answered in an Appendix de scriptis Clithovei published in Aug. (LB IX, 811); Allen, Opus Epist. IX, 160 n.; Telle, op. tit., p. 334.

38 Claude Colet was a native of Rumilly in Champagne, and served in Paris as maître d'hôtel to the Marquise de Nesle. His poem, which had been in preparation for some time, is dedicated in a prose epistle to Charles de Hautecourt, seigneur de Richeville, as to a personal friend. Besides this work, he published several translations, including the ninth book of Amadis de Gaule (1553).

39 Nation differs from nation (cf. Querela 63 8D); the arts contend ﹛ibid. 628D); individuals are at variance within ﹛ibid. 629D); heavenly bodies, elements, body and soul are harmonies of opposites ﹛ibid. 626B-C). Mars represents himself as born of Justice, but says that when Justice fled from earth he was left behind to be nursed by Folly. The notion of having him pronounce his own eulogy may have been suggested by the Moriae encomium rather than the Querela Pacis.

40 Ed. Latomus, 20, 52 to 24, 115. At one point Colet slightly alters the original order; he omits 94-98 on the liberal arts, and gives 99-108 before 89-94 (Colet, p. 29).

41 54, 547-566.

42 52, 537-539.

43 E.g., p. 31: ‘David aussi parlant du redempteur | … Disoit son siege estre mis en la tente | … de la Paix’ seems to be from Querela 629E rather than from Bellum 54, 545.

44 Bellum, ed. Latomus, pp. 24, 44-50, 66. For example, Colet, p. 39: ‘Par toy [War] Ion voit maintes villes construictes | Depuis mil ans, en un moment destruictes.’ Cf. Bellum, 46, 423: ‘Tot saeculis exstructae florentissimae civitates una procella subvertuntur.’

45 In Querela 635D-E, Erasmus similarly goes through the Lord's Prayer, contrasting the demands of war with each phrase. The vices enumerated in Colet's contrast recall Querela 639C-D.

46 In the dedicatory epistle (dated Paris, 16 Sept. 1544), he recalls that Hautecourt had seen the unfinished Responce some time before, but says that he had felt incapable of finishing it until prompted by recent events.

47 On the contrary, the conventional answer is that man is the best fighter of all, since he possesses reason and can forge and use all weapons. Colet gives Mars this argument in the Oraison (pp. 15-16):

N'a pas donne dame Nature aux bestes

Ongles et dents et cornes en leur testes? …

Et si Ion diet qu'il est assez congnu,

Qu'elle voulut créer l'homme tout nud,

Pour demonstrer qu'il est plus ordonné

A chercher paix, que pour la guerre né,

Je vous respond qu'icy divinement

L'homme en esprit garni de jugement …

N'a eu bezoign d'estre armé par Nature,

Car il pourra de luy mesme choisir,

Et se forger les armes à plaisir.

48 Ronsard (Œuv., éd. crit., IX, 21) seems to translate part of a sentence of Erasmus: ‘Ah malheureux humains, ne scauriez vous congnoistre | Que la nature, helas, ne nous a point fait naistre | Pour quereller ainsi’; Erasmus: ‘An non protinus intellecturus est naturam… animal hoc non bello … genuisse.’ De Brach (Poèmes, 1576, f. 105r) echoes Ronsard, e.g., in ‘Mais nous, miserables hommes,… | Vestus d'une tendre peau, | Par où la vie est blessée, | Estant seulement percée | De la pointe d'un couteau’; cf. Ronsard, loc. cit.: ‘Mais vous, humains, à qui, d'un seul petit couteau | Ou d'une esguille fresle, on perseroit la peau.’ But De Brach goes on to include points from Erasmus that are not in Ronsard; e.g., ‘Nous qui portons au visage | Portraicte la sainte image | D'un Dieu qui n'aime que paix'; Erasmus, Bellum 22,100: ‘Deus in hoc mundo velut simulacrum quoddam sui constituit hominem.’

49 On Aubert see Fagniez, G. in the Mémoires de la société de l'histoire de Paris XXXVI (1909), 47–56 Google Scholar; for his rather numerous publications, divided between literature and law, see also Niceron, Mèm. XXXV, 264. Cf. Bruès, Dialogues, ed. Panos Paul Morphos (Baltimore, 1953).

50 Aubert continues (f. 10r-10v) to demonstrate the peace of nature with the example of the elements and the stars. This commonplace is not found in Erasmus’ Bellum, but is in the Querela Pads 626B-C, which Aubert probably follows (cf. Clichtove, ch. 2).

51 Aubert clearly had been reading André Thevet's famous book, Les Singularitez de la France antarctique, which had recently appeared (1557), and which was highly esteemed by Ronsard and his friends.

52 A Latin translation of Aubert's Oraison was published in the next year by a young Finnish student in Paris, Martinus Helsingus: Oratio de pace deque earn rationibus retinendi … gallicè conscripta & habitaa G. Auberto … in Latinum vero idioma nuper a Martino Helsingo tralata (Paris, F. Morel, 1560) [B.N. Lb31.94]. It is dedicated to John, duke of Finland. The translator was apparently unaware that much of what he was translating from the French already existed in Latin in Erasmus’ original—e.g. f. 16r : ‘siquidem usu saepissime venit, ut maiora belli incommoda in eos cadant, qui minus ea promeruerunt’, etc. (cf. the original, above).

53 La Croix du Maine, Bibl. fr., ed. Rigoley de Juvigny, I, 117; Du Verdier, Bibl. fr. 1, 309; Andrieu, Jules, Histoire de l'Agenais (Paris-Agen, 1893), 1, 230 Google Scholar, n. I, with a reference to the following publication which I have not seen: Un Cantique inédit de Charles de Sevin d'Orléans, ed. Tamizey de Larroque (Auch, 1878).

54 The Complainte runs to roughly 22,000 words, Mme Bagdat's translation of the Querela to roughly 20,000.

55 Querela 627D; Complainte, f. 7r.

56 Querela 641A; Complainte, f. 46r.

57 Querela 633E-F.

58 Complainte, f. 25v.

59 The ten passages censured in Berquin's translation will be found in Du Plessis d'Argentré, Collectio judiciorum, II, 45. One or two of them were rendered offensive only by Berquin's interpolations. Sevin translates (f. 12r) from Querela 628F, ‘que Ion nomme communément evesques’ ﹛communément=vulgo expunged also in the later indices); and (f. 12V) from Querela 629A, ‘Saint Pol défend et se courrouce amèrement de ce que un Chrestien plaide et aye procès contre un autre Chrestien’, which in Berquin's version the Sorbonne declared Saint Paul never said (Erasmus had in mind I Cor. vi, 7-8).

60 Complainte, f. 22v. The passage is Querela 632B: ‘Tot hodie sacramentis infundi coelestem spiritum affirmant Theologi. Si verum praedicant, ubi peculiaris spiritus illius effectus, cor unum et anima una? Sin fabulae sunt, cur tantum honoris hisce rebus defertur? Atque haec sane dixerim, quo magis Christianos suorum morum pudeat, non quo sacramentis aliquid detraham.’ Berquin's translation, which is exact, drew the following emphatic comment from his censors: ‘Haec propositio diabolico spiritu in divinorum Sacramentorum contemptum excogitata, in Spiritum Sanctum, qui per Sacramenta datur, blasphemia est et schismatica.’ The trouble lies in apparently requiring a state of grace, or the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, to be exhibited in moral conduct if the (supernatural) efficacy of the sacraments is to be believed in. Erasmus explains that he only means that Christians ought to show this effect. He is on safer ground in a bold expression of similar intent in Bellum 98,1185: ‘Si fabula est Christus, cur non explodimus ingenue? … Sin is vere est et via, et Veritas, et vita, cur omnes nostrae rationes ab hoc exemplari tantopere dissident?’ Here there is no question of the supernatural effect of ritual. The indices, however, found no fault in the former passage.

61 Complainte, f. 12V, from Querela 629B: ‘Tot facriones sunt, quot sunt sodalitia: Dominicales dissident cum Minoritis… Quin idem sodalitium factionibus scinditur Optabam vel in uno quopiam monasteriolo latitare … . Invita dicam … nullum adhuc reperi, quod non intestinis odiis ac jurgiis esset infectum.’ In Sevin, Peace cannot dwell long in the monasteries ‘à cause d'une infinité de barbouilleries et factions’, but the trouble is that the orders (not named) scorn the life of others, like the Pharisee scorning the Publican, ‘et pour dire tout en un mot, chascun se plaist en son habit, en sa profession, et si maghifie son patron, qui est bonne et saincte chose” (not in Erasmus); and finally ‘ie abandonnay promptement tous telz cloistres et monasteres’ (softening in uno and nullum). Peace next looks for harmony between married couples, hoping that ‘inter hos citius contingat locus, quam inter eos qui tot titulis, tot insignibus, tot ceremoniis absolutam charitatem profitentur'. This comparison is omitted by Sevin. If correctly reported, Berquin had made a special point of placing marriage above the cloister: ‘Je n'ai point encore trouvé un seul monastère, qui ne soit infecté de debats et haines intestines. Paix trouveroit plutôt lieu en mariage qu'avec ceux qui par tant de titres, par tant de signes, par tant de cérémonies si vantent d'avoir parfaite charité.’

62 References are to the Spanish and Roman indices as reported in Erasmus’ Opera LB, X, 1818. Here all is expunged after forsitan agnoscat aliquis to Pudor sit recensere in Querela 629A-C. Erasmus is made to say the opposite of what he really says. He says: ‘St. Paul thinks it intolerable that Christian should litigate with Christian; but now … bishop contends with bishop; but perhaps one might pardon them because they have joined the company of the worldly ever since they began to have the same possessions as they.’ By omitting ‘because’ etc., the index makes him say only: ‘But perhaps one might pardon them'! Note that, unlike the Sorbonne, the index found no fault in the citation of St. Paul, but, like the Sorbonne, objected to the reference to the temporal possessions of the clergy. Sevin (f. 12r) is if anything more emphatic than Erasmus in condemning ecclesiastics who contend at law ‘pour raison de quelque benefice’; he retains the citation from St. Paul; but he renders the last part of the sentence ambiguously: ‘N'est ce chose indigne à la dignité sacerdotale? Mais (me direz vous) cela est desia tout commun et usité. Il ne s'en faut plus soucier. Or bien donq qu'ilz iouissent hardiment de leurs droits, qui leurs sont desia acquis: comme par longue prescription.’ (‘Verum his quoque forsitan ignoscat aliquis quod longo iam usu propemodum in profanorum consortium abierunt, posteaquam eadem cum illis coeperunt possidere.’)

63 Querela 624C-E (‘Immo ne … ad perniciem’); 635B-E (‘lam ipsa castra … fratri machinaris’).

64 Complainte, f. 28r-20v.

65 ‘La plus part des ministres [Protestant clergy], qui bouttent et inflamment le feu, ce sont moynes reniez, apostatz des quatre ordres mendiennes. Une partie des soldatz mesmes ce sont prestres et gens d'Eglise devenuz bandoliers à toute perdition et licence desbordée.’ This last is suggested by Erasmus, and the first sentence is probably intended to redress the balance.