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An Accidental Historian: Erasmus and the English History of the Reformation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2013

Gregory D. Dodds
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Abstract

When post-Reformation English authors sought to describe pre-Reformation Catholicism, they turned to the writings of Desiderius Erasmus for historical evidence to back up their arguments justifying the break from Rome. For many later English schoolboys, Erasmus was one of the only Catholic authors they read and the depictions of Catholicism found in the Praise of Folly and, especially, in the Colloquies, became their picture of Catholic clergy, as well as foundational imprints for their mental image of relics, pilgrimages, and other Catholic practices. References to Erasmus as a historical authority for his times appear in dozens, if not hundreds, of texts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Ignoring the literary and fictitious nature of Erasmus's satirical texts, they used Erasmus to justify their depictions of Catholic corruption, superstition, and irrationality. Over time, these descriptions became an almost uncritically accepted portrayal of the Catholic world prior to the rise of Protestantism. This constructed reality thus became the worldview of English speaking Protestants from the mid-sixteenth century up to nearly the present. Examining how later English authors used Erasmus helps us understand the subsequent nature of English historical consciousness and the development of English and Protestant narratives of Church history.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 82 , Issue 2 , June 2013 , pp. 273 - 292
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2013 

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References

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19 This article focuses on the English use of Erasmus's literary portrayals of Catholic clergy and does not seek to judge the validity of Erasmus's depictions. On the one hand, Erasmus was clearly playing on common stereotypes and his audience would have recognized the figures he portrayed. On the other, his descriptions were often comedic and satirical in nature and did not represent Catholic clergy as a whole, of which Erasmus was, of course, a member.

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53 Care, Henry, Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome: or, The History of Popery, vol. 5 (London, 1683), 97Google Scholar. I would like to thank the helpful staff at the Folger Shakespeare Library for helping me to locate these specific pamphlets.

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62 Some editions of the Colloquies adapted Erasmus's dialogues to Calvinist theological views by adding new characters and arguments. Other publishers of Erasmus used him to challenge English Calvinism. See Dodds, Exploiting Erasmus, especially ch. 5.

63 There were authors, such as Peter Heylyn, Jeremy Taylor, and Edward Stillingfleet who used the memory of Erasmus to challenge assertions that the reformation in England was Calvinist in nature, but even they supported the stereotypes of Catholic corruption. See Heylyn, Petery, Historia Quinqu-Articularis (London, 1660), 109, 112Google Scholar; Heylyn, Peter, Cyprianus Anglicus (London, 1668), 38–39Google Scholar; Stillingfleet, Edward, Several Conferences between a Romish Priest, a Fanatic Chaplain, and a Divine of the Church of England Concerning the Idolatry of the Church of Rome (London 1679), 115–119Google Scholar; and, Taylor, Jeremy, The Second Part of the Dissuasive against Popery (London, 1667)Google Scholar, 36, 70, 81, 143, 185, 195, 280, 295.