THE NORTHERN
RENAISSANCE AND
ERASMUS
‘The idea of education, in its broadest sense, resided at the heart of the intellectual
movement we now know as Northern or Erasmian Humanism. Erasmus himself, the
figure whose name the movement would come to bear, was the paramount scholar of
his age, and the circle he led was deeply committed to the idea of the liberating power
of learning.’ (Parrish, 2010: 590)
HUMANISM AS EDUCATION
According to McGrath humanism is primarily a ‘cultural and
educational program, based upon written and spoken eloquence, to
which people of any religious, political, or philosophical persuasion
may subscribe without compromising their convictions.’ (McGrath,
2004: 37)
POLYMORPHIC HUMANISM
Humanism can be misunderstood if it is not seen as ‘polymorphic’, which is to say, it takes
one many forms and changed what is was in different times and contexts. Today what is
called the humanist movement is generally conceived as anti-religious and led by thinkers
such as Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens, for whom humanism is, broadly
speaking, a secular alternative to religion. This is not how a more historical reading of
humanism would be positioned. McGrath writes that:
In the Renaissance a humanista was a professional teacher of the studia humanitatis, and the
temptation to impose the modern secular nuances of the term upon its Renaissance
equivalent must be resisted. Far too many modern students tend to approach the question of
the relation between humanism and the Reformation on the basis of the assumption that
humanists were predisposed against Christianity in general, and the catholic church in
particular. (McGrath, 2004: 38)
NORTHERN AND ITALIAN
RENAISSANCE
The relationship between the northern and Italian Renaissance is also not particuarly clear
cut . Most usually the northern Renaissance is understood to have been more explicitly
religious and the Italian Renaissance more secular and profane. However, McGrath argues
this reading does not hold up to close analysis, writing that:
‘While it is clear that some contemporary northern European humanists recognized a
tension between their own views and those of certain Italian humanists, this serves
merely to confirm the fundamental diversity of Renaissance humanism. The profane and
the Christian existed side by side in the Renaissance, both laying claim to be
“humanist.”’(McGrath, 2004: 37)
NOT AN END IN ITSELF
For Renaissance Humanists, classical scholarship was not an end in itself
but fundamentally tied to a virtuous and practical education, which was
considered to be best served by a return to those texts. For many
northern Renaissance humanists, Desiderus Erasmus and Thomas More
being key examples, this virtue was tied into religious virtue. For them in
particualr, this religious virtue was understood as universal and inclusive,
stretching beyond particular historical definitions of states and borders.
HUMANISM AS
COSMOPOLITANISM
‘The strongly cosmopolitan aura of humanism is, of course, particularly well instanced in
the case of Erasmus, who famously regarded himself as a citizen of the Latin-speaking
world, and treated languages other than Latin with marked disdain. His momentary lapse
into his native Dutch on his deathbed should not be permitted to obscure the fact that
Erasmus, unlike many strongly nationalist humanists, regarded national boundaries and
languages as impediments in the path of humanist ideals in general, and the advance of
civilization in particular. The strongly national overtones associated with local humanist
circles such as that to which Zwingli belonged contrast strongly with Erasmus’s studied
indifference to local cultures and political situations.’ (McGrath, 2004: 39)
ERASASMIAN HUMANISM
AND EDUCATION
‘Erasmian humanism conceived of education as a method for
cultivating human potential and dignity to the fullest possible extent.
In keeping with their emphasis on practical piety, these humanists
viewed the educative process as not merely the pursuit of knowledge
but rather the engendering of virtue through knowledge.’ (Parrish,
2010: 592)
AGE, EXPERIENCE AND
MORALITY
Parrish highlights three elements of Erasmus’ focus on education that he considers particularly
important:
‘first, his persistent emphasis on the importance of early childhood education; second, his
argument that methods of education which amuse and delight students are more effective than
those which emphasise coercion and fear; and third, his insistence that the moral dimension of
education—an explicit concern with directly cultivating the pupil’s development of virtue and
good character through the educative process itself—is not only a legitimate but indeed an
indispensable element of the teacher’s task. If there is a single theme most frequently emphasised
in Erasmus’s educational writings, it is the importance of early childhood education. (Parrish,
2010: 592-593)
THE POWER OF
EDUCATION
‘in the end Erasmus holds that much if not most of human sin is
resistible by means of moral education, for while some part of the
development of character and virtue does lie outside our influence,
it is also ‘to some extent within our power to prevent degeneration
in one who was born good and to improve by training someone
born none too good’’ (Parrish, 2010: 597)
Is education this powerful?
Are there dangers concurrent with this power?
VIRTUOUS CITIZENS AND
SOCIETY
‘for More, as for the Erasmian movement more generally,
the main importance of these first two points is precisely
their contribution toward the third, the explicitly moralistic
aims of education. For in Utopia, the employment of
alluring modes of learning from cradle to grave serves a
single purpose: to fashion the virtuous persons and virtuous
citizens without which it is impossible to have a flourishing
society.’ (Parrish, 2010: 598)
What kind of virtues might be good for everyone to share?
Does this kind of education more of an indoctrination?
Who decides what virtues society should hold?
THE LOSS OF VIRTUE?
Erasmus’s own persistent concern with the importance of early childhood
education and his encouragement of playful and pleasing modes of
pedagogy—both driven, as we have seen, by key tenets of the Renaissance
humanists’ intellectual agenda—have of course become two of the central
premises of contemporary educational practice throughout the world. What
has perhaps been lost to some degree is the Erasmian humanists’ insistence
on the importance of explicit cultivation of virtue in the educational process.
(Parrish, 2010: 602)
Is this true? Do we perhaps think of different kinds of outcome as virtuous
or significant? Or is the plurality of virtue more important? Is that itself a
virtue?
REFERENCES
 'Humanism and the Reformation' in McGrath, A.E. (2004 [1987])
The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation Oxford:
Blackwell pp. 37-66
 Parrish, J.M. (2010) 'Education, Erasmian humanism and More’s
Utopia‘ Oxford Review of Education, 36:5, pp. 589-605