248 Chapter 13
of the Fathers of the church was Erasmus of Rotterdam
(1469–1536). Believing that corrupted texts had led to
false interpretations, he devoted much of his extraordi-
narily busy and productive life to providing authorita-
tive editions of religious texts. Best known today for his
satirical attacks on ecclesiastical ignorance and for his
bitter controversy with Martin Luther over the issue of
free will, he was in many ways the epitome of the hu-
manist whose chief interests were religious (see illustra-
tion 13.2). His English friend Sir Thomas More
(1477–1535) combined religious with secular interests.
A lawyer who ultimately became lord chancellor to
Henry VIII, he is perhaps best known for Utopia,his vi-
sion of a perfect society that recalls Plato’s Republic.
More also applied humanist scholarship to the law and
to religious questions before being martyred for his op-
position to the Reformation. He was sainted by the
Catholic Church in 1935. The value of humanist stud-
ies was recognized on occasion by even the most con-
servative of churchmen. Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de
Cisneros, archbishop of Toledo, grand inquisitor, and
ultimately regent of Castile, established the University
of Alcalá de Henares in 1508 to provide humanist train-
ing for the Spanish clergy. Among its first products was
the Complutensian Polyglot Bible, printed in Greek,
Hebrew, and Latin.The Impact of Renaissance Humanism
on the Arts and Sciences
By 1500 humanist methods and values had spread to
virtually every part of Europe. Their impact on the arts
and sciences was enormous, though not always what
one might expect. The humanists developed classical
studies as they are known today. They created the first
standardized editions of classical works and distributed
them widely after printing with moveable type was in-
vented, probably by Johan Gutenberg, in the mid-
fifteenth century. In the process, humanism gave birth
to the disciplines of linguistics, philology (the study
of words), and historical criticism.
In literature, however, humanist devotion to the
classics retarded the development of vernacular writing
for more than a century. Those with literary inclina-
tions preferred to write in Latin, often in slavish imita-
tion of the elaborate Roman style that had developed
during the Augustan Age. When vernacular literature
was revived in the sixteenth century by such figures as
Tasso and Ariosto in Italy, Cervantes and Garcilaso de
la Vega in Spain, Rabelais and Montaigne in France,
and Marlowe and Shakespeare in England, it was trans-
formed by classical themes and rules of composition.
The fifteenth century, however, had been remarkably
unproductive. Latin, in the meantime, was practically
destroyed as a living language. Because the humanists
insisted on weeding out all nonclassical usages, the lan-
guage ceased to evolve as it had done throughout the
Middle Ages when it was the day-to-day language of
diplomacy and administration in both church and state.
Ironically, by the middle of the sixteenth century, Latin
had largely been supplanted by the various European
vernaculars in every western government outside the
papal states.
The contribution of humanism to the study of his-
tory and politics was far more positive. From the begin-
ning, humanists had regarded history as essential to a
political education. At the very least, it provided inspir-
ing examples of civic virtue and cautionary tales that
would help the citizen or courtier to avoid the mistakes
of the past.Illustration 13.2
Erasmus of Rotterdam.In this famous portrait by Hans Hol-
bein, the greatest of the northern humanists is shown at his writ-
ing desk.