to twenty-four of the noblest and wealthiest knights of Christendom, would have brought him all the assistance in a financial way that he desired, had he stood in need of it. No, we must look elsewhere for the reason of this sudden change of plan. And where more likely than to Rome, where political intrigue was rampant, where Cardinals' hats were few and applicants many? And the Bishop had made enemies for himself in Rome, where memories were good, and nothing was forgotten that might one day be of service to remember. It seems that, when Sixtus IV had appointed him Bishop of Cambrai in 1480, the Bishop had been so indiscreet as to refuse to surrender his Abbacy of St. Denis-en-Broqueroie, and had retained it and its revenues for seven years. However, on his return from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1487, he visited Rome,' and at that time probably made his peace with the ecclesiastical authorities. At about the period when he entertained hopes of receiving the coveted Cardinal's hat, which was when he had appropriated to himself the learning and ability of Erasmus, he had very injudiciously and forcibly installed his brother Antony as Abbot of St. Bertin at St. Omer, in spite of the fact that the monks of that monastery had already elected James du Val as abbot, and that the Bishop of Gibel had consecrated him to the position. There must have been some rather acrimonious feelings existing between the two bishops, for the Pope was called upon to settle the matter and gave his decision in favor of the Bishop of Cambrai, annulling the election of the other occupant. Now the Bishop of Gibel was a prominent member of the Dominican Order and probably did not forget the discredit put upon him by his brother bishop of Cambrai, and it is possible that the general of the Dominican Order at Rome had something to do with defeating the hopes of the Bishop of Cambrai as a candidate for cardinalitial honors. It is also possible that Alexander VI had a good memory, for he had been Vice-Chancellor of the Roman See for thirty-five years, and must have remembered the previous difficulty of a very similar nature, wherein the Bishop had forcibly maintained his assumed rights. It may have been a question with the Pope as to whether it were good judgment on his part to admit to the Sacred College of Cardinals so vigorous a vindicator of his own peculiar ideas.

Be all this as it may, the Bishop's hopes were definitely and finally dashed, and he no longer had urgent need of a Latin secretary to couch his correspondence with high Church dignitaries in choice Latin. It is hard to say whether the Bishop or Erasmus was the more disappointed; but Erasmus ever afterwards nursed a special grudge against the abovementioned Bishop of Gibel, as if realizing that he had done him some terrible injury. We have previously intimated that Erasmus was a good hater, so it need not surprise us when he calls that bishop "a man of impious life, . . . a man than whom there was none more corrupt, none more avaricious, none more arrogant."

The sudden turn in his affairs as narrated above certainly served to depress and cast down our young scholar; but he was volatile by 'Burchard, Diarium, ed. Thuasne, Vol. I, pp. 179, 282. Eras. Ep. 12, 1. II.

Ibid., 130, 1. 63.

nature and reacted quickly. He was wise and far-seeing enough to perceive that his usefulness, as far as the Bishop of Cambrai was concerned, was at an end; and he immediately began to devise ways and means whereby the Bishop and his relatives might be made use of in the furtherance of his own interests. To that end he took his friend Batt into his confidence, and, after many long interviews, much exchange of letters, and interchange of opinions, it was decided that Erasmus should obtain permission from the Bishop to study at the University of Paris. Then came the question of ways and means, and it was here that Batt's help was most needed. The Bishop, though just, was not lavish, at least in Erasmus' opinion, and hence the plan was to seek additional help from other sources. A short letter from Erasmus to Batt will give us an insight into their ideas of the matter:

I am glad that my letters have reached your hands; for I was afraid that the mariner, a somewhat heedless fellow, might have carried out my instructions in a careless manner. But your letter was so long wished and waited for that I opened it on the boat, and read it immediately. Then various feelings affected my mind; for at the first glance I was a little angry with you for sending me such a short letter. Indeed I could wish you to write not letters but volumes to me, such is my longing for my Batt. So perusing it with flying eye, so to speak, when I read that you had been sick with a most unremitting fever, as you state, I was all of a tremble, and with fixed attention I read it over more closely. But when I gleaned from your letter that you were convalescing I was immediately relieved from my sorrow and anxiety, and so read the rest of it more cheerfully.

My dearest Batt, I leave the whole matter to your prudent discretion, but again and again I warn you not to hazard my interests by any inopportune solicitations. First you must take care to counsel with your Erasmus; then, if my application to learning, my recommendations, or my writings are worth anything, I will in turn furnish all needful to equip you for the task. That my letter pleased the Lord of Bergen is good to hear; but it was not written only to please him, but to induce him to grant my request. What chance there is of that you neglected to state. I have besought you with what vehemence I could, and now again I beseech, I beg, and I implore you, dear Batt, to exercise the greatest care in this affair, which is so near to my heart. To that end read my letters so diligently that you may feel nothing therein was thoughtlessly, though possibly confusedly, expressed. Farewell.1o

Thus 'mid hope and fear Erasmus challenged the world for a place therein, and Batt was his faithful and kindly henchman, ready at all times and under all circumstances to subserve his interests and do him loyal service. For by now at least Erasmus had tasted the sweet savor of fame, and had hitched his chariot to that star, while Batt had hitched his wagon to Erasmus. The latter had already embalmed the name of 10 Ibid., 42.

Batt in the Antibarbari and had certainly promised a share of the renown which he felt he was sure to win to his staunch and trusty adherent. So the great project was broached to the Bishop, as well as to his brother the Abbot of St. Bertin, and also, as is very probable, to Lord Walhain, another brother who was then or shortly afterwards the head of the family. We have no record that anyone outside of the Bergen family came to his assistance at this time, though he received plenty of help from other sources afterwards. But the upshot of the matter was that the Bishop granted the desired boon, and gave his consent that Erasmus should go to the University of Paris to study for a degree in Theology, the Bishop furnishing the money for present expenses, and promising him a pension in addition. Now all this is very much to the Bishop's credit, when we consider the manner and purpose of Erasmus' coming to him.

The University of Paris was famous all over the continent for its courses in philosophy and theology; and it was in the latter that Erasmus wished to win his degree. When a student considered himself ready for examination he offered himself for the test, and won or lost on his merits or demerits as the case might be. As Erasmus was a priest, the good Bishop of Cambrai had procured for him a bursary or scholarship in a charitable foundation connected with the University, and known as the College of Montaigu. There was undoubtedly a great contrast between the Bishop's palace and this college, and Erasmus missed the sumptuous fare and the assiduous attention to bodily comfort that the episcopal residence had so long furnished him. So, true to his custom, he began to complain of his hardships; and where we would expect some little appreciation of what had been done for him, we find only torrents of abuse for everybody and everything connected with the college. But this was characteristic of him, as we have already seen, so we need not be surprised to hear that the College of Montaigu was a terrible place. The very walls breathed theology, lice were plentiful, beds were hard, food was coarse and scanty, vigils and work so severe that within a year the first trial brought many youths of good qualities and fair promise, some to their deaths, some to blindness, some to madness, and not a few to leprosy.'

11

The Father Superior was one John Standonck, who, he says, "was a man not of a bad disposition, but of poor judgment. To restrain the wantonness of youth by reason and moderation is a father's duty; but was he doing so when in the depth of a severe winter he gave them a mouthful of bread, and then sent them to the well for water, where they often had to break the ice, and the water when obtained was fetid and pestilential? How many putrid sheep were eaten there? How much mouldy wine was drunk?" a

It is more than probable that John Standonck, having under his charge some hundred untamed and lusty youths to keep in some sort of control, was more interested in the fortiter in re than in the suaviter in modo. In this attitude he was not different from his contemporaries, who, as far as the author has been able to ascertain, never believed in 11 See his Colloquy Ichthyophagia. 12 Ibid.

the coddling process as applied to boys. The early history of Oxford and Cambridge, and later, of Harvard and Yale, shows similar customs and modes of living, with regard to the frugal breakfast which succeeded the bringing in of the wood for the day's fire, and the thawing of the ice for the morning's ablutions. In those days there were no steam-heating appliances, no running water, no bathrooms with hot and cold showers, no electric lights, and no elevators. Our ancestors suffered from the same heat and cold, the same bad sanitary arrangements, and, barring the lice, endured all the inconveniences of their time with equanimity. They may have had positive opinions on the too frequently recurring mutton stew, or have registered more or less silent protests on the appearance of hash that was too reminiscent of the penultimate, or even antepenultimate meal. But they bore it manfully and did not deem it necessary to impress a sympathetic posterity with the fact that their sufferings "made some of them blind, drove others to madness, and infected not a few with leprosy." As for wine, they had none, neither mouldy nor otherwise. But not so with Erasmus. The place did not please him, the food was not what he had been accustomed to, the teachers did not cater to his peculiarities; so, with his usual forgetfulness of the fact that he was receiving this food and education gratis, he dipped his pen in satire and besmirched the fair name of the College of Montaigu, its teachers, and all belonging to it, for all time. And Rabelais, who never attended the college, but had read the Ichthyophagia on its appearance in print, helped to blacken further the college by putting in the mouth of Ponocrates the allegations of Erasmus which it contains." Crevier, in his Historie de l'Université de Paris, has this to say on the matter:

The object that Standonck proposed for himself was the instruction of poor scholars. He saw with pain that the scholarships founded in the colleges of the University for the poor were most frequently invaded by rich incumbents. . . . He wished, then, that his house should be an asylum for the really poor, among whom are met, as he remarks himself (and he was himself an example of it), lofty spirits of happy disposition that poverty had reduced to a state unworthy of their talents, and who, when well educated, became great men, and columns of the Church. It was with this view partly, and also to preserve the scholarships of Montaigu from the invasion of the rich, that Standonck subjected his pupils to a hard life, and to humiliating practices. At first, all the students went to the Chartreux to receive, in common with the poor, the bread which these monks used to give out at the door of their convent. Everybody knows how frugal was the food of these young men: bread, vegetables, eggs, herring, all in small quantity, and never meat. With this austere life, the students were constrained to observe all the fasts of the Church, to follow the quadrigesimal observance of Advent, to fast on Fridays, and also on particular occasions. Nothing was poorer than their clothes and their bed. 13 Rabelais, p. 77. London, n. d.

They rose early in the morning and sang much of the Office: then they worked in the kitchen, waited on table, swept the classrooms, the chapel, the dormitory, and the stairs.

Everything breathes the love of poverty in the rules of Standonck. He desired that the Superior should be styled the minister or the father of the poor, and not master or principal, titles, according to him, too ostentatious; and the Superior was to be drawn from the number of the poor who have been educated in the house, so that having made his course of studies in the state of poverty, and having suffered all its inconveniences, he would know from his own experience how to rule others. . . . It can easily be seen that the spirit of all these rules resembled much the observances of conventual life. . . . The austere life prescribed by Standonck to the young men whom he educated has found a critic of large authority. Erasmus, who had himself passed through this discipline, censures the harshness of it, and recalls with bitterness its inconveniences, especially with regard to health. He recognizes the good intentions of Standonck, but he accuses him of cruelty. I could have wished that this great man had expressed himself with more moderation, and that he had had more regard for the reputation of a master to whom he owed, at least in part, his education. There are some obligations which lofty souls do not forget. Nevertheless, I do not pretend that his criticism was not well founded. The health of young men should be protected; and to fatigue the mind by study and the body by severe regimen, is to attack it on two sides. And so the discipline established by Standonck could not be maintained, and it was necessary to soften it . . . by express regulations. .. . . All that I have written of Standonck marks in him a character that was virtuous but inflexible, and little susceptible to the touches which are necessary to make it amiable.1

We may safely conclude then that at the College of Montaigu the discipline was the strictest, the food plain and not too abundant, the sanitary arrangements bad; and we may add that it was not the very best place to which to send a young priest. But there is no doubt that Erasmus exaggerated his grievances there. Commenting on the Iliad of his woes as above described, Seebohm is of the opinion that they are probably caricatured, and perhaps too much magnified to be taken literally.15

We find ourselves growing impatient with these littlenesses of Erasmus, and have constantly to remind ourselves that he was not physically robust, and, on account of his nervous temperament, felt trivial discomforts more keenly than the ordinary student. The same strain of ingratitude is evident in his comments on the fare at Queen's College, Cambridge, where, writing to Ammonius, he says, "I do not mind being hungry provided I am allowed to live";1 and in another 14 Histoire de l'Université de Paris, Vol. V, p. 22-29. Paris, 1761. 15 See Oxford Reformers, p. 102, note. London, 1887. Also Rashdall, Mediæval Universities, passim. 16 Eras. Ep. 240.