Erasmus and the Age of Reformation | Page 4

perished. At Haarlem,
too, and earlier, perhaps, than anywhere else, obscure experiments were
being made in that great art, craving to be brought forth, which was to
change the world: the art of printing.
There was yet another characteristic spiritual phenomenon, which
originated here and gave its peculiar stamp to life in these countries. It
was a movement designed to give depth and fervour to religious life;
started by a burgher of Deventer, Geert Groote, toward the end of the
fourteenth century. It had embodied itself in two closely connected

forms--the fraterhouses, where the brethren of the Common Life lived
together without altogether separating from the world, and the
congregation of the monastery of Windesheim, of the order of the
regular Augustinian canons. Originating in the regions on the banks of
the Ysel, between the two small towns of Deventer and Zwolle, and so
on the outskirts of the diocese of Utrecht, this movement soon spread,
eastward to Westphalia, northward to Groningen and the Frisian
country, westward to Holland proper. Fraterhouses were erected
everywhere and monasteries of the Windesheim congregation were
established or affiliated. The movement was spoken of as 'modern
devotion', devotio moderna. It was rather a matter of sentiment and
practice than of definite doctrine. The truly Catholic character of the
movement had early been acknowledged by the church authorities.
Sincerity and modesty, simplicity and industry, and, above all, constant
ardour of religious emotion and thought, were its objects. Its energies
were devoted to tending the sick and other works of charity, but
especially to instruction and the art of writing. It is in this that it
especially differed from the revival of the Franciscan and Dominican
orders of about the same time, which turned to preaching. The
Windesheimians and the Hieronymians (as the brethren of the Common
Life were also called) exerted their crowning activities in the seclusion
of the schoolroom and the silence of the writing cell. The schools of the
brethren soon drew pupils from a wide area. In this way the foundations
were laid, both here in the northern Netherlands and in lower Germany,
for a generally diffused culture among the middle classes; a culture of a
very narrow, strictly ecclesiastical nature, indeed, but which for that
very reason was fit to permeate broad layers of the people.
What the Windesheimians themselves produced in the way of
devotional literature is chiefly limited to edifying booklets and
biographies of their own members; writings which were distinguished
rather by their pious tenor and sincerity than by daring or novel
thoughts.
But of them all, the greatest was that immortal work of Thomas à
Kempis, Canon of Saint Agnietenberg, near Zwolle, the Imitatio
Christi.

Foreigners visiting these regions north of the Scheldt and the Meuse
laughed at the rude manners and the deep drinking of the inhabitants,
but they also mentioned their sincere piety. These countries were
already, what they have ever remained, somewhat contemplative and
self-contained, better adapted for speculating on the world and for
reproving it than for astonishing it with dazzling wit.
* * * * *
Rotterdam and Gouda, situated upward of twelve miles apart in the
lowest region of Holland, an extremely watery region, were not among
the first towns of the county. They were small country towns, ranking
after Dordrecht, Haarlem, Leyden, and rapidly rising Amsterdam. They
were not centres of culture. Erasmus was born at Rotterdam on 27
October, most probably in the year 1466. The illegitimacy of his birth
has thrown a veil of mystery over his descent and kinship. It is possible
that Erasmus himself learned the circumstances of his coming into the
world only in his later years. Acutely sensitive to the taint in his origin,
he did more to veil the secret than to reveal it. The picture which he
painted of it in his ripe age was romantic and pathetic. He imagined
that his father when a young man made love to a girl, a physician's
daughter, in the hope of marrying her. The parents and brothers of the
young fellow, indignant, tried to persuade him to take holy orders. The
young man fled before the child was born. He went to Rome and made
a living by copying. His relations sent him false tidings that his beloved
had died; out of grief he became a priest and devoted himself to
religion altogether. Returned to his native country he discovered the
deceit. He abstained from all contact with her whom he now could no
longer marry, but took great pains to give his son a liberal education.
The mother continued to care for the child, till an early death took her
from him. The father soon followed her to the grave. To Erasmus's
recollection he was only twelve or thirteen years old when his mother
died. It