Erasmus (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III PARIS UNIVERSITY?TOURNEHENS THE project of the Bishop of Cambrai, Henry of Bergen, fell through for the most sufficient of reasons, lack of money. To allay the disappointment, as far as Erasmus was concerned, it was decided that he should go to Paris, after ordination,1 and prosecute his studies at the university. The Bishop, with great kindness, furnished funds for the journey, and promised to provide a regular pension. It was no unusual thing for scholars of the Renaissance to live in dependence upon wealthy patrons. This relation, as Dr. Emerton points out, was one of honour not to be reduced to commercial terms. "The money givenwas not paid for the scholar's services; it was given to secure him the leisure needed for the proper pursuit of his own scholarly aims. It bound him only to diligence in pure scholarship, not to a servile flattery of his patron, nor to any direct furtherance of the patron's ends." 1 The ordination of Erasmus by the Bishop of Utrecht took place on 25th April, 1492. In 1517 a special Papal dispensation was obtained in order to render the ordination ecclesiastically valid. The proceedings of 25th April, 1492, were strictly uncanonical owing to the circumstances of his birth. Erasmus was fully twenty-five years of age when he took up residence at the Paris University. The College Montaigu, into which he entered, was then presided over by John Standonch, under whose Principalship it had become famous as a house for students of limited means. Master Standonch himself had borne the yoke in youth. Report said that he had kept himself at the university by acting as servant in the house of St. Genevieve, and that his zeal for knowledge was such that he would frequently climb the church steeple at nighttime so that he might pursue his st...