translations of the sixteenth century, is arguably the most consequential of
all publishing events of the sixteenth century. The Novum instrumentum
appeared in English in 1525—translated by Tyndale^7 —while a revised edition
including Erasmus’s Latin text in parallel was published again in 1534—the
same year as the English Parliament’s passage of the Act of Supremacy which
severed England’s institutional links with the See of Rome.^8 Nicholas Udall’s
English translation of theEnchiridionhad been published a year earlier, in
1533, by John Biddel, the King’s printer, to coincide with thefirst major thrust
of Thomas Cromwell’s propaganda offensive in support of the legislative
programme then before the Reformation Parliament.^9 The significance of
Erasmus’s epistemological revolution for the English Reformation, for a new
theological focus and a new ecclesiastical politics as well, was signalled by the
appearance of ten further editions of theEnchiridionin English over the next
three tumultuous decades—through the reigns of Edward VI, Queen Mary, to
thefirst decade following the accession of Elizabeth I—an altogether decisive
period in the religious transformation of both England and Europe, a period of
Reformation.^10
Erasmus’sEnchiridionepitomizes the far-reaching humanist conversion
of the theory of knowledge which undergirds two grand projects of the
sixteenth century—namely, the humanist challenge to scholastic method and
the Protestant reformers’challenge to the traditional assumptions governing
the doctrine and practice of the late medieval church.^11 In order to begin
to understand the full significance of this epistemological‘conversion’in the
context of sixteenth-century religious and philosophical controversies, we
might do well to consider the terminology of‘conversion’itself by employing
(^7) The New Testament([Cologne: H. Fuchs, 1525]). See alsoThe New Testament: A Facsimile
of the 1526 Edition, trans. William Tyndale, with an introduction by David Daniell (London: The
British Library; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2008).
(^8) Novum Instrumentum omne: diligenter ab Erasmo Roterodamo recognitum & emendatum
(Basle: Froben, 1516).The new Testament in Englyshe and in Latyn accordyng to the translacyon
of doctour Erasmus of Roterodam([London]: Robert Redman, [1538]). As thetextus receptusof
the New Testament Erasmus’sNovum Instrumentumbecame the base source text for Luther’s
German Bible, for Tyndale’s English New Testament and subsequently for the King James
Version, as well as almost all other Reformation translations of the Bible on the continent.
(^9) G. R. Elton,Reform and Reformation: England 1509– 1558 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard,
1977), 157:‘Cromwell obtained a grip on the press in latter part of 1533. Under his patronage
a very different body of writers and writings took over the task of discussing the issues of the day;
production turned from controversy to constructive thought.’For discussion of the progression
of the revolutionary legislative agenda of the Reformation Parliament see Richard Rex,‘The
Crisis of Obedience: God’s Word and Henry’s Reformation’,The Historical Journal39/4
(1996), 879ff.
(^10) Erasmus’s call to reform remained popular in England throughout the Reformations of the
sixteenth century and was republished in editions of 1534, 1541, two in 1544, 1545, 1548, two in
1552, 1561, and 1576.
(^11) Charles G. Nauert,‘Humanism as Method: Roots of Conflict with the Scholastics’,The
Sixteenth Century Journal29/2 (1998), 427–38.
98 Torrance Kirby