The Age of Erasmus Part 12

But the new invention was not universally acclaimed. Trithemius with his conservative mind quickly detected some weaknesses; and in 1492 he composed a treatise 'In praise of scribes', in vain attempt to arrest the flowing tide. 'Let no one say, "Why should I trouble to write books, when they are appearing continually in such numbers? for a moderate sum one can acquire a large library." What a difference between the results achieved! A ma.n.u.script written on parchment will last a thousand years: books printed on paper will scarcely live two hundred. Besides, there will always be something to copy: not everything can be printed. Even if it could, a true scribe ought not to give up. His pen can perpetuate good works which otherwise would soon perish. He must not be amazed by the present abundance that he sees, but should look forward to the needs of the future. Though we had thousands of volumes, we must not cease writing; for printed books are never so good. Indeed they usually pay little heed to ornament and orthography.' It is noticeable that only in this last point does Trithemius claim for ma.n.u.scripts superior accuracy. In the matter of permanence we may wonder what he would have thought of modern paper.

The first advance, then, rendered possible by the invention of printing was to more uniform and better texts: the next step forward was no less important. To scholars content with the general sense of a work, a translation might be as acceptable as the original. Improved standards of accuracy led men to perceive that an author must be studied in his own tongue: in order that no shade of meaning might be lost. Here again the two periods are easily distinguished. Nicholas V set his scholars, Poggio and Valla, to translate the Greeks, Herodotus and Thucydides, Aristotle and Diodorus. The feature of the later epoch is the number of Greek editions which came out to supplant the versions in common use. The credit for this advance in critical scholarship must be given to Aldus for his Greek Aristotle, which appeared in 1495-9; and he subsequently led the way with numerous texts of the Greek cla.s.sics. At the same time he proposed to apply the same principle to Biblical study. As early as 1499 Grocin in a letter alludes to Aldus' scheme of printing the whole Bible in the original 'three languages', Hebrew, Greek and Latin; and a specimen was actually put forth in 1501.

In this matter precedence might seem to lie with the Jewish printers, who produced the Psalms in Hebrew in 1477, and the Old Testament complete in 1488; but as the Jews never at any period ceased to read their Scriptures in Hebrew, there was no question of recovery of an original. Aldus did not live to carry his scheme out; and it was left to Ximenes and the band of scholars that he gathered at Alcala, to produce the first edition of the Bible complete in the original tongues, the Complutensian Polyglott, containing the Hebrew side by side with the Septuagint and the Vulgate, and for the Pentateuch a Syriac paraphrase. The New Testament in this great enterprise was finished in 1514, and the whole work was ready by 1517, shortly before Ximenes' death. But as publication was delayed till 1522, the actual priority rests with Erasmus, whose New Testament in Greek with a Latin translation by himself appeared, as we have seen, in 1516.

Thus by an accident Germany gained the credit of being the first to a.s.sert this new principle, the importance of studying texts in the original, in the field where resistance is most resolute and victory is hardly won. And now it was about to enter upon a still greater contest. Erasmus' New Testament encountered hostile criticism in many quarters: conservative theologians made common cause with the friars in condemning it. But at the very centre of the religion they professed, the book was blessed by the chief priests. The Pope accepted the dedication, and bishops wished they could read the Greek.

Far otherwise was it with the impending struggle of the Reformation: there the cleavage of sides followed very different lines. Into that wide field we cannot now expatiate; but it is important to notice an element which the German Renaissance contributed to the Reformation, and which played a considerable part in both movements--the accentuation of German national feeling.

At the middle of the fifteenth century Italy enjoyed undisputed pre-eminence in the world of learning. The sudden splendour into which the Renaissance had blazed up on Italian soil drew men's eyes thither more than ever; and to its ancient universities students from the North swarmed like bees. To graduate in Italy, to hear its famous doctors, perhaps even to learn from one of the native Greeks brought over out of the East, became first the ambition, and then the indispensable requirement of every Northern scholar who could afford it; and few of Erasmus' friends and colleagues had not at some time or other made the pilgrimage to Italy. Consequence and success brought the usual Nemesis. The Italian _hubris_ expressed itself in the familiar Greek distinction between barbarian and home-born; and the many nations from beyond the Alps found themselves united in a common bond which they were not eager to share. We have seen the kind of gibe with which Agricola's eloquence was greeted at Pavia. The more such insults are deserved, the more they sting. We may be sure that in many cases they were not forgotten. Celtis returning from Italy to Ingolstadt in 1492 delivered his soul in an inaugural oration: 'The ancient hatred between us can never be dissolved. But for the Alps we should be eternally at war.' In other countries the feeling, though less acute, was much the same. Thus in 1517 spoke Stephen Poncher, bishop of Paris, after his first meeting with Erasmus: 'Italy has no one to compare with him in literary gifts. In our own day Hermolaus and Politian have rescued Latin from barbarism; and their services can never be forgotten. When I was there, too, I met a number of men of rare ability and learning. But with all respect to the Italians, I must say that Erasmus eclipses every one, Transalpine and Cisalpine alike.'

Of the foreign 'nations' at the universities of Italy none was more numerous than the German, a t.i.tle which embraced many nationalities of the North: not merely German-speaking races such as the Swiss and Flemish and Dutch, but all who could by any stretch of imagination be represented as descendants of the Goths; Swedes and Danes, Hungarians and Bohemians, Lithuanians and Bulgars and Poles. That they went in such numbers is not surprising. The prestige of Italian teaching was great and well-established, whereas their own universities were few and scarcely more than nascent; indeed, when the Council of Vienne had ordained the teaching of Greek and other missionary languages in 1311, its injunctions went to France and Italy and England and Spain: but Germany had no university to which a missive could be directed. From Southern Germany, too, and Switzerland and Austria, the distance was small, notwithstanding the obvious Alps and the difficulties of the pa.s.ses. Even Celtis, in spite of his denunciations, sent on his best pupils to Italy. So there were many who brought home with them to the North recollections of lofty condescension and of ill-disguised contempt for the foreigner: insults that they burned to repay.

Italy might vaunt the glories of ancient Rome; but Germany also had deeds to be proud of. Rome might have founded the World-empire; but Charlemagne had conquered the dominions of the Caesars and made the Empire Germanic. Cla.s.sic antiquity, too, could not be denied to the land and people whom Tacitus had described; and Germans were not slow to claim the virtues found among them by the Roman historian. Arminius became the national hero. German faith and honour, German simplicity, German sincerity and candour--these are insisted upon by the Transalpine humanists with a vehemence which suggests that while priding themselves on the possession of such qualities, they marked the lack of them in others. We may recall Ascham's horror of the Englishman Italianated. Not that Germans could not make friends in Italy. Scheurl loved his time at Bologna, and was eager to fight for the Bentivogli against Julius II. Erasmus was made much of by the Aldine Academy at Venice; and ten years later Hutten was charmed with his reception there. But with many, conscious of their own defects[40]

and of the reality of Italian superiority, the charge of barbarism must have rankled. To Luther in 1518 Italian is synonymous with supercilious.

[40] Thus a worthy abbot in the Inn valley, writing to Erasmus in 1523, manages to achieve a Latin letter, but apologizes for only being able to write in German characters.

The rising German feeling expresses itself on all sides in the letters of the humanists. A young Frieslander, studying at Oxford in 1499, writes to a fellow-countryman there: 'Your verses have shown me what I never could have believed, that German talents are no whit inferior to Italian.' Hutten in 1516 writes of Reuchlin and Erasmus as 'the two eyes of Germany, whom we must sedulously cherish; for it is through them that our nation is ceasing to be barbarous'. Beatus Rhena.n.u.s, in editing the poems of Ja.n.u.s Pannonius (d. 1472), says in his preface, 1518: 'Ja.n.u.s and Erasmus, Germans though they are and moderns, give me as much satisfaction to read as do Politian and Hermolaus, or even Virgil and Cicero.' Erasmus in 1518 writes to thank a canon of Mainz who had entertained him at supper. After compliments on his host's charming manners, his erudition free from superciliousness--if he could have known Gibbon, he surely must have used those immortal words of praise, 'a modest and learned ignorance'--and his wit and elegance of speech, he goes on: 'One might have been listening to a Roman. Now let the Italians go and taunt Germans with barbarism, if they dare!'

In 1519 a canon of Brixen in Tirol writes to Beatus: 'Would to G.o.d that Germany had more men like you, to make her famous, and stand up against those Italians, who give themselves such airs about their learning; though men of credit now think that the helm has been s.n.a.t.c.hed from their hands by Erasmus.' This is how Zwingli writes in 1521 of an Italian who had attacked Luther and charged him with ignorance: 'But we must make allowances for Italian conceit. In their heads is always running the refrain, "Heaven and earth can show none like to us". They cannot bear to see Germany outstripping them in learning.' Rarely a different note is heard, evoked by rivalry perhaps or the desire to encourage. Locher from Freiburg could call Leipzig barbarous. Erasmus wrote to an Erfurt schoolmaster that he was glad to see Germany softening under the influence of good learning and putting off her wild woodland ways. But these are exceptions: towards insolence from the South an unbroken front was preserved.

In another direction the strong national feeling manifested itself; in the study of German antiquity and the composition of histories.[41]

Maximilian, dipping his hands in literature, stimulated the archaeological researches of Peutinger, patronized Trithemius and Pirckheimer, and even inst.i.tuted a royal historian, Stabius. Celtis the versatile projected an elaborate _Germania ill.u.s.trata_ on the model of Flavio Biondo's work for Rome; and his description of Nuremberg was designed to be the first instalment. As he conceived it, the work was never carried out; but essays of varying importance on this theme were produced by Cochlaeus, Pirckheimer, Aventinus and Munster. The most ardent to extol Germany was Wimpfeling of Schlettstadt, a man of serious temperament, who was p.r.o.ne to rush into controversy in defence of the causes that he had at heart. His education had all been got in Germany, and he was proud of his country. His first effort to increase its praise was to instigate Trithemius to put together a 'Catalogue of the ill.u.s.trious men who adorn Germany with their talents and writings'. The author's preface (8 Feb. 1491) reveals unmistakably the animosity towards Italy: 'Some people contemn our country as barren, and maintain that few men of genius have flourished in it; hoping by disparagement of others to swell their own praise. With all the resources of their eloquence they trick out the slender achievements of their own countrymen; but jealousy blinds them to the great virtues of the Germans, the mighty deeds and brilliant intellects, the loyalty, enthusiasm and devotion of this great nation. If they find in the cla.s.sics any credit given to us for valour or learning, they quickly hide it up; and in order to trumpet their own excellences, they omit ours altogether. That is how Pliny's narrative of the German wars was lost, and how so many histories of our people have disappeared.'

[41] Cf. A. Horawitz in Sybel's _Historische Zeitschrift_, xxv.

(1871), 66-101; and P. Joachimsen, _Geschichtsauffa.s.sung und Geschichtschreibung in Deutschland unter dem Einfluss des Humanismus_, pt. 1, 1910.

The book was sent to Wimpfeling, who collected a few more names and added a preface of his own (17 Sept. 1492) in the same strain. 'People who think that Germany is still as barbarous as it was in the days of Caesar should read what Jerome has to say about it. The abundance of old books in existence shows that Germany had many learned men in the past; who have left carefully written ma.n.u.scripts on oratory, poetry, natural philosophy, theology and all kinds of erudition. All down the Rhine you will find the walls and roofs of monasteries adorned with elegant epigrams which testify to German taste of old. To-day there are Germans who can translate the Greek cla.s.sics into Latin; and if their style is not pure Ciceronian, let our detractors remember that styles change with the times. Mankind is always discontented, and prefers the old to the modern. I can quite understand that our German philosophers adapted their style to their audiences and their lofty subjects. So foreign critics had better let this provocative talk alone for ever.'

A few years later Wimpfeling edited a fourteenth-century treatise by Lupold of Bebenburg ent.i.tled 'The zeal and fervour of the ancient German princes towards the Christian religion and the servants of G.o.d'; the intention of which clearly fell in with his desire. In his preface, addressed to Dalberg, Agricola's patron, he tells a story which explains a peculiarity occasionally found in mediaeval ma.n.u.scripts; of being written in sections by several different hands.

Some years before, the Patriarch of Aquileia was pa.s.sing through Spires. To divert the enforced leisure of a halt upon a journey, he prowled round the libraries of the town; and in one discovered this treatise of Lupold, which pleased him greatly. As he was to be off again next morning, there was no time to have it copied, at least by one hand: so the ma.n.u.script was cut up and distributed among a number of scribes, and in the s.p.a.ce of a night the desired copy was ready.

Subsequently Wimpfeling heard of the incident from one of the brethren in the monastery, and obtained the original ma.n.u.script to publish.

When such things could happen, no wonder that some ma.n.u.scripts are imperfect and others have disappeared.

Wimpfeling's next endeavour to a.s.sert the glories of Germany was completed in 1502; but did not appear till 1505. It was based upon the work of a friend, Sebastian Murrho of Colmar (d. 1494). The t.i.tle, _Defensio Germaniae_ or _Epithoma Germanorum_, sufficiently explains its purpose. After a brief account of Germany in Roman times--his hero being not Arminius, but 'the first German king, Arioviscus, who fought with Julius Caesar',--and fuller records of the Germanic Emperors since Charlemagne, Wimpfeling comes to the praise of his own days; the men of learning, the famous soldiers, the architects who could build the great tower of Strasburg, the painters, the inventors of printing and of that terrible engine the bombard. But nearest to his heart lay a question debated then as now: to whom should rightfully belong the western part of the Rhine valley, between the river and the Vosges? It was there that his home lay, Schlettstadt, one of the fairest cities of the plain. With all the 'zeal and fervour of the ancient German princes' he sets out to prove that it must be German: 'where are there any traces' he cries 'of the French language? There are no books in French, no monuments, no letters, no epitaphs, no deeds or doc.u.ments. For seven or eight centuries there is nothing but Latin or German.' The cathedral of Spires, the fine monastery of St.

Fides in his native town, supply him with a further argument: would the good Dukes of Swabia have lavished so much money, the substance of their fathers, upon Gallic soil, to pour it out among the French? With such arguments he convinced himself and others. Almost at the same time Peutinger put out a little volume of 'Conversations about the wonderful antiquities of Germany'; supporting Wimpfeling with further evidence and concluding satisfactorily that French had never ruled over Germans.

A work of very different calibre which appeared about this time was the _Germaniae Exegesis_ of Francis Fritz, who Latinized his name into Irenicus. Wimpfeling was growing grey when he had made his defence of Germany: the new champion was a young man of 23, who had scarcely emerged from his degree. The book was published in 1518; printed at Hagenau by Anshelm at the cost of John Koberger, the great Nuremberg printer, and fostered by Pirckheimer. In his later years Irenicus became a Lutheran and displayed some dignity in refusing to sacrifice his convictions to worldly interests; but at this time he was enthusiastic and heady, and as a result his work is an uncritical jumble. 'Puerile and silly' Erasmus called it, when he saw some of the proof-sheets at Spires in 1518. 'A most unfortunate book', wrote Beatus Rhena.n.u.s in 1525, 'without style and without judgement.' To Aventinus in 1531 it was 'an impudent compilation from Stabius and Trithemius, by a poor creature of the most despicable intelligence'.

But even a bad book can be a measure of the time, showing the ideas current and the catchwords that were thought likely to attract the reading public. It is much larger than Wimpfeling's Defence, and even more miscellaneous; ranging over many aspects of Germany ancient and modern. To us in the present inquiry its interest lies in the frequency with which the excellence of Germany is a.s.serted against Italian sneers. The following specimen will ill.u.s.trate this point, and also explain Erasmus' epithets. In the chapter on the German language (ii. 30) Irenicus is throughout engaged in refuting the charge of German barbarism. 'It may be true', he says, 'that German is not so much declined as Latin: but complexity does not necessarily bring refinement. Germany is as rich in dialects as Italy, and to speak German well merits high praise. Italian may be directly descended from Latin; but German too has a considerable element of Latin and Greek words. Guarino and Petrarch have written poetry in their vernaculars, and so the Italians boast that their language is more suited to poetry. But more than 1000 years ago Ovid wrote a book of German poetry[42]; and Trebeta, son of Semiramis, is known to have been the first person to compose in German.'

[42] Ovid, _Pont._ 4. 13. 19: Getico sermone.

In spite of such stuff, Pirckheimer, who saw the book in ma.n.u.script, was delighted with it. 'You have achieved what many have wished but few could have carried out. Every German must be obliged to you for the l.u.s.tre you have brought to the Fatherland.' After stating that he had arranged with Koberger for the printing, he points out details which might be improved: more stress might be laid on the connexion of the Germans with the Goths, 'which the dregs of the Goths and Lombards--by which I mean the Italians--try to s.n.a.t.c.h from us'; and the universal conquests of the Goths might be more fully treated.

Finally he suggests that before publication the work should be submitted to Stabius: 'the book deserves learned readers, and I should wish it to be as perfect as possible.'[43]

[43] The letter is printed in Pirckheimer's _Opera_, 1610, p.

313: but is addressed wrongly, to Beatus Rhena.n.u.s.

This brief survey may close with a far more considerable work, the _Res Germanicae_ of Beatus Rhena.n.u.s, published in 1531; from which we have made some extracts above. The book is sober and serious, and the subject-matter is handled scientifically; but in his preface Beatus is careful to point out that German history is as important as Roman, modern as much worth studying as ancient.

Such was the soil into which fell the seed that Luther went forth to sow. When Tetzel came marching into German towns, with the Pope's Bull borne before him on a cushion, and brandishing indulgences for the living and the dead, when the coins were tinkling in the box, and the souls, released by contract, were flying off out of purgatory, the religious sense of thinking men was outraged by this travesty of the Day of Judgement; but scarcely less were they angered to see the tinkling coins, honest German money, flying off as rapidly as the souls, to build palaces for the supercilious Italians. In the great struggle of the Reformation the main issue was of course religious; but even its leader could feel added bitterness in the knowledge that this shocking traffic was ordained from Italy to benefit an Italian Pope. If the sympathies of educated Germany had not already been strongly moved in the same direction, it is conceivable that Luther's intrepid protest might have lacked the support which carried it to success.

XI

ERASMUS AND THE BOHEMIAN BRETHREN

(A paper read before the third International Historical Congress, in London, April 1913.)

Whatever may still be the troubles of the great, amongst men of learning at any rate visits of ceremony are mercifully no longer in fashion. At first sight one is inclined to find the cause of this in an improved sense of the value of time. Modern inventions have taught first the business man and then the world in general that time is money. Improved communications with time-tables that may be relied upon enable us to arrange our days in such a way as to be at least more busy, if not more useful; and we have acquired a wholesome respect for the time of others. But I do not think we should be right in accounting for the change in this way. At all ages the scholar, looking round him at tasks which exceed the capacity of a lifetime, has been avaricious of the hours--'labuntur anni', 'pereunt et imputantur' ever in his thoughts: and though the world of old moved slower, the man of business has rarely belied his name. A more plausible explanation is that the custom has died of surfeit. As increased facilities of travel made the world smaller, the circle of those that might be visited and saluted by the active grew boundless; so that on both sides limits were desired. Another consideration is that with new facilities came increased opportunities and hopes.

To-day we live in the happy consciousness that friends, however distant, may be brought across the world to our doors by the urgencies of business or pleasure; and thus no one knows what the coming year may bring forth. In the sixteenth century men knew that opportunities lost might never recur, and that they must seize or make them as best they might.

At that time visits of ceremony were in great vogue. Officials and scholars alike groaned under them. After a visit to the Court Erasmus writes: 'If Pollio (a disguised name, as he was writing of a man who afterwards became an intimate friend) has been with you, you will understand what I suffered at Brussels; every day hosts of Spanish visitors, besides Italians and Germans.' A little later he apologizes to a correspondent for having given him a chilly welcome: 'just then I had escaped from Brussels, quite worn out with the salutations of these persistent Spaniards.' The custom was widespread. An English graduate, studying for a time at Louvain, congratulates himself on having escaped from it at Cambridge. Clenardus found it thriving at Salamanca; Casaubon complained of it at Montpellier; in Oxford it was even obligatory for intending disputants in the schools to pay formal visits beforehand to their examiners.

In 1517 Erasmus' fame was at its zenith; and in consequence visitors came to him from every side, some to seek counsel, others to adore.

His correspondence gives us many instances. In the spring of 1517, when the Cardinal of Gurk attended Maximilian to the Netherlands, his two secretaries, Richard Bartholinus of Perugia and Ursinus Velius, a Silesian, prepared panegyrical verses with which to greet Erasmus if they should have the good fortune to meet him. For some reason Bartholinus alone came, and, presenting both the poems, elicited a complimentary letter in reply. A more distinguished visitor received less attention. In the summer of 1518 Erasmus was at Basle, printing the notes to his second edition of the New Testament. The Bishop of Pistoia, nephew of one of the most influential cardinals, and Papal nuncio in Switzerland, also came to Basle. Wishing to see the great scholar, he asked him to dinner. But Erasmus could not spare the time.

He declined, and in his place sent his friends, Beatus Rhena.n.u.s and the young Amerbachs. Three times he made excuse; and at length the Nuncio went on foot to seek in Froben's press the scholar who would not come to him. What their conversation was we do not know; but before leaving, the Nuncio ordered a copy of the Amerbach-Froben Jerome to be sent to the binders and equipped with his arms and adornments.

Later in the year the enthusiastic Eoba.n.u.s of Hesse appeared in Louvain. He had come from Erfurt where he was teaching, and the main purpose of his journey was to see Erasmus. His _Hodoeporicon_, printed on his return, describes his course in detail. With a young companion, John Werter, also from Erfurt, he entered Louvain in the evening. Next morning early they sent in their 'callow' verses to the great man, and followed shortly themselves. Erasmus came down to greet them at the door with a kindly welcome, and Eoba.n.u.s describes a banquet to which he invited them, entertaining them with serious talk and light-hearted jest. But it was at no light cost to Erasmus' time: for when his admirers left five days later, he had been cajoled into writing six letters of compliment, two to the travellers themselves and four more to friends at Gotha and Erfurt. But this was not the only cost. Eoba.n.u.s imbued others of the Erfurt circle with his hero-worship; and next year came two more, Jonas and Schalbe, to trouble Erasmus' leisure, when he was taking a spring holiday at Antwerp, 'by the sea', and to bear off more letters to Erfurt. The spirit that animated these visitors is shown in a letter of John Turzo, bishop of Breslau, a man of Erasmus' own age. In 1518 Ursinus Velius, the disappointed secretary of the Cardinal of Gurk, had become canon of Breslau on Turzo's presentation; and had doubtless talked to his patron of Erasmus' attractive gifts. 'I am most eager to visit you' wrote the Bishop, from Breslau. 'If ever I had heard that you were anywhere within a week's journey from here, I should have rushed over at once: indeed I would have gone as far as Belgium, if only the business of my office allowed. The men of Cadiz who journeyed to Rome to see Livy were not more eager.'

A picture of the interruptions to which Erasmus was exposed is given in a preface written in Froben's name for the new edition of Erasmus'

_Epigrammata_ combined with More's and with the _Utopia_, March 1518.

'Most of these verses' Froben is made to say 'were written not for publication, but to give pleasure to friends; to whom he is always very obliging. When he was here bringing out his New Testament and Jerome, heavens! how he worked! toiling away untiringly day after day.

Never was any one more overwhelmed in composition; and yet certain great persons thought themselves ent.i.tled to come and waste his time, coaxing out of him a few lines of verse or a little letter. So compliant was he that they made it very difficult for him. To refuse seemed uncivil when they pressed him so. But to write when his mind was intent elsewhere, and not a minute to spare from his labours----!

However, he did write, on the spur of the moment, turning aside for a little to the groves of the Muses.'

Some other visitors can be traced in this period. John Alexander Bra.s.sica.n.u.s, poet laureate, came from Tubingen in September 1520 and saw Erasmus at Antwerp; whence in reply to a letter of self-introduction he bore away a complimentary letter that he afterwards printed, and the sound piece of advice, that if he wished to become learned, he must never think himself so. More distinguished was Ferdinand Columbus, the explorer's natural son and heir, who in October 1520, on one of those journeys on which he gathered his famous library, received at Louvain a copy of Erasmus' _Antibarbari_, with his name inscribed in it by the author. A visitor to whom we must pay more heed was John Draco, one of the Erfurt circle, who in July 1520 came to pay homage at Louvain.

In the autumn of 1518 the agent of a Leipzig bookseller trading to Prague received a letter to carry back with him and forward on to Erasmus at Louvain. The writer was a certain Jan Slechta, a Bohemian country gentleman, who was living at Kosteletz on the upper waters of the Elbe, a few miles to the North-east of Prague. He was a man of education and position. After taking his M.A. at Prague in 1484, he had served for sixteen years as a secretary to King Ladislas of Bohemia and Hungary; but about 1507, disgusted with the turmoils of court life in that very troubled time, he had retired to his home, to give his later years to the education of his son and the personal management of his estates. The world of affairs had not extinguished his love of learning. He was an intimate friend of Bohuslaus of Ha.s.senstein, scholar and traveller, and corresponded with him in elegant Latin. Attracted by the reputation for eloquence won by the notorious Hieronymus Balbus, he had persuaded him _c._ 1499 to come and teach in Prague--a step which in view of Balbus' bad life he afterwards deeply regretted. He was also the author of a dialogue on the relations of body and soul, ent.i.tled _Microcosmus_; which with characteristic modesty he kept for more than twenty years known only to his intimate friends--indeed it was only in the last year of his life that he composed a dedication for it, and it seems never to have been printed.

The tone of Slechta's thoughts in his later years was grave and serious; as well it might be. The two kingdoms, then but loosely united, were torn with internal factions and racial jealousies; while in church towers and over city gates the bells hung ready to proclaim to the countryside the advent of that ever-present menace, the Turk.

In the priesthood men could mark much that was amiss; and the seamless robe of Christ was rent with schism, the candle that Hus and Jerome had lighted a century before, still burning clearly among less sober heresies, which drew down on it, as upon themselves, spasmodic outbursts of retributive violence. Uneasy sat the crown on Ladislas'

head; and when Death, coming as a friend, took it from him in 1516, it was only to thrust this sad office upon a ten-year-old boy, who after ten more years of childish government was miserably to perish at Mohacz. No wonder that Slechta and his friends looked anxiously upon the future. 'The times of Hus and Wycliffe which our grandfathers detested, seem golden beside our own' wrote Bohuslaus to Geiler of Kaisersberg--a member of that grave circle of Strasburg humanists, with which, it may be noted in pa.s.sing, our Bohemians had much in common. The letters of Slechta contain two disquisitions, one on the frailties of a celibate clergy, the other on the duties of a parish priest; advocating reforms by which he hoped to check the continuous growth of 'those unutterable heretics, the Pyghards': by whom he meant the Bohemian Brethren.

What moved Slechta to correspond with Erasmus we do not know; possibly a slighting reference in one of the latter's printed letters to 'those schismatic Bohemians, who have infected most of Europe'. Slechta's letter is unhappily lost; but from Erasmus' reply, dated 23 April 1519 from Louvain, its general tenor may be gathered. It began, of course, with eulogies of Erasmus and his work; and then, after some account of the writer's life and fortunes, it proceeded to a.s.sure him that there were persons in Bohemia who were not merely interested in good learning but prepared to advance it. Finally it invited him to come to Prague. Erasmus' answer to his unknown correspondent was courteous, but firmly declined the invitation. 'What I can do at Prague I do not see. It is considerate of you to offer me an escort for my journey; but I confess I do not like regions where such company is necessary.

In this country one can go about wherever one likes, alone. I am sure that, as you say, I should find among you plenty of learned and pious men, who are not contaminated with the errors of schism. But how is it that this division is suffered to remain? Better unity with some hardship than to hold one's own at the cost of discord. I fear it is money that stands in the way. Paul suffered the loss of all things that he might win Christ. The world is full of cardinals and princes and bishops; if only one of these would take up this matter in a truly Christian spirit! If Paul were on the Pope's throne, I am sure he would allow not only his revenues but his authority to be diminished, if his loss would purchase unity.' Erasmus concludes cordially: 'If we cannot meet, at any rate we can write. I will walk and talk with you sometimes beside your Elbe, you shall come and dwell with me in Brabant. Friendship can flourish without actual contact.'

This letter was handed to Slechta on 11 September, four and a half months after it was written. Nearly a year had elapsed since his letter had been dispatched and he had given up hopes of a reply: so that these amiable and encouraging words were the more welcome, and he at once proceeded to act upon them. Within a month he had composed a letter of some elegance, in which while subscribing to Erasmus'

prayers for unity, he pointed out the difficulties of the task. To the remarks about coming to Prague he rejoined regretfully: 'I can quite see that there is nothing for you to do here. There are many of us who would have been glad of your coming; but I understand that we must hope to see you at another time and elsewhere. That travellers in our country need an escort you would not wonder if you could see how the roads run, among lofty mountains shrouded in impenetrable forests.

These give cover to hordes of brigands, who prey upon travellers and merchants, robbing and killing indifferently. Almost every month there are punitive raids made from the towns, and brigands are captured and put to death. But the pest seems ineradicable.'

Slechta then proceeds to the religious troubles, and after expressing general agreement with Erasmus, describes the three main parties into which the life of Bohemia and Moravia was cloven. First the orthodox Romanists, loyal to the Church and in unity with Germany and the rest of Christendom; finding their adherents amongst the upper cla.s.ses, together with some of the King's cities and the monasteries, many of which, though once rich, had now fallen into decay. Secondly, the Utraquists, otherwise orthodox but practising communion in both kinds, and at their services reading the Epistle and Gospel in the vernacular: with some supporters among the n.o.bility, a good many gentry, and nearly thirty royal cities. After tracing their history from the Council of Basle and briefly stating their views, he adds that no one in the kingdom is able to propound a solution of the difficulties existing. Thirdly, the Bohemian Brethren, whom he styles Pyghards. This name, from the opprobrious sense in which it is generally used, is now thought to be derived from the Beghards, a mediaeval sect whose vagaries drew down upon it frequent persecution; but Slechta traces it to a foreign vagabond who came from Picardy in 1422 and infected with his pestilent doctrines the army of John Ziska, the Taborite, an army of those that were in distress, in debt, in discontent.

This sect, Slechta tells us, lasted continuously down to the times of the late King Ladislas (d. 1516), and indeed increased considerably under him; for his thoughts were much occupied with Hungary, and he was content if Bohemia could be maintained in an outward appearance of peace. Then follows a description of their opinions. 'The Pope and all his officials they regard as Antichrist. They choose their own bishops, rude unlettered laymen, with wives and families. They salute one another as Brother and Sister; and recognize no authority but the Bible. Their priests celebrate ma.s.s without vestments, use leavened bread and only the Lord's Prayer. Transubstantiation they deny, and the worship of the host they regard as idolatry. Vows to the saints, prayers for the dead, and confession to priests they ridicule; and they keep no holy days but Sundays, Christmas, Easter and Whitsun.' 'I will not waste your time with more of these pernicious views. My feeling is that if the two first-named parties could only be reconciled, this nefarious sect might, with the aid of the King, be exterminated or at any rate reduced to a better state of faith and religion.'

The roads in Bohemia might be dangerous, but the distance to Louvain was not so great as it had seemed at first; for Erasmus' reply is dated 1 Nov. 1519, only three weeks after Slechta's letter. He begins again with the roads. 'Prevention is better than punishment. It would be wiser if, instead of these avenging raids, the more frequented roads could be cleared of forest on either side, and held by block-houses and armed posts at intervals. Indeed it is somewhat discreditable that the great towns and princes of Germany cannot achieve what the Swiss do by co-operation and local action.' He then turns to the religious dissensions, and in his pa.s.sion for concord exclaims that it would be better that a nation should be united in error than so numerously divided: experience shows that there is no opinion so wild but that some one will be found to embrace it. Of the orthodox party he has nothing to say beyond extolling the system by which the Pope might act as judge and father of all, and as supreme court of appeal. To the Utraquists he would counsel conformity to the practice of the majority; although unable to understand why the Church should have allowed a practice inst.i.tuted by Christ to fall into disuse.