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1481 
 SOCIAL & POLITICAL IDEAS 
 OF SOME GREAT THINKERS 
 OF THE RENAISSANCE AND 
 THE REFORMATION 
 
at 
 4 
 
 i 
 : 
 
 es 
 
 yh 
 
 reas 
 
THE 
 SOCIAL & POLITICAL IDEAS 
 OF SOME GREAT THINKERS 
 OF THE RENAISSANCE AND 
 THE REFORMATION 
 
 A SERIES OF LECTURES DELIVERED AT 
 KING’S COLLEGE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 F. J. C. HEARNSHAW M.A. LL.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MEDIZVAL HISTORY IN THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF LONDON 
 WITH A PREFACE BY 
 ERNEST BARKER M.A. D.Lirrt. LL.D. 
 
 PRINCIPAL OF KING’S COLLEGE UNIVERSITY 
 OF LONDON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 BRENTANO’S 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
Printed in Great Britain at Tue BALLANTYNE Press by 
 SPOTTISWOODE, BALLANTYNE & Co. LTp. 
 Colchester, London & Eton 
 
PREFACE 
 
 [ie public lectures which, largely under the inspira- 
 
 tion and by the efforts of Professor Hearnshaw in 
 
 the Faculty of Arts and Professor Dendy in the 
 Faculty of Natural Science, have been given for many years 
 past in King’s College have already issued in the publication 
 of four volumes based upon courses delivered in the College 
 to general audiences. Professor Dendy, whose sudden 
 death is a serious loss alike to the College, the University 
 of London, and the world of learning, had edited, or 
 published from his own pen, two volumes dealing with 
 subjects of natural science. Professor Hearnshaw, as the 
 reader will see from the notice which confronts the title-page, 
 has already edited two volumes on matters of medizval 
 history. One of these volumes dealt with the social and 
 political ideas of some great medizval thinkers. ‘The 
 present book, which is in the nature of a continuation— 
 though it is, of course, a separate and independent volume— 
 is concerned with the ideas of some of the thinkers who in- 
 spired the age of the Renaissance and the Reformation. 
 
 I cannot but express the hope that the continuation will 
 itself be followed by a continuation, and that we may receive 
 from Professor Hearnshaw a further volume dealing with the 
 social and political ideas of thinkers of a more modern age. 
 
 With the exception of the lecture on Luther by Professor 
 J. W. Allen (who in this, as in the two previous volumes of 
 lectures edited by Professor Hearnshaw, has been a generous 
 contributor), the lectures printed in this volume are all the 
 work of members of the staff of King’s College. It would 
 ill become me to blow up a trumpet in their praise ; nor 
 
 5 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 have they any need of a herald to announce their styles and 
 titles. But I would say that they seem to me to have been 
 fortunate in the themes they have found to their hand. 
 They are concerned with the thinkers of a new age, in 
 which a philosophy so accepted that it had become con- 
 ventional, and a matter of rote, was being shed (though, as 
 we find more and more, medizval philosophy had such large 
 elements of permanent truth that it cannot long be shed, 
 but usgue recurret), and in which, again, a freshness and 
 novelty of view, as of a spring-time of the mind, naturally 
 clothed thought and its expression. Nicolas of Cusa, it is 
 true, like Sir John Fortescue, retains many elements of 
 medieval thought ; but Nicolas was also a scholar of the 
 Renaissance and, for a time, an upholder of the revolutionary 
 conciliar movement in the Church, and Sir John Fortescue, 
 if he spoke in terms of Aquinas, was also the interpreter, 
 or the forerunner, of modern English constitutionalism. 
 Machiavelli, with a keen eye fixed in penetrating regard 
 on the verita effettuale delle cose ; Sir ‘Thomas More, steeped 
 in Platonism and the social problems of a new age; Erasmus, 
 the would-be founder of a new and yet old philosophia 
 Christi—all these have a brightness and a novelty which ages 
 donot dim. Luther and Calvin shook the world of thought; 
 their conceptions of State and society have influenced all 
 succeeding generations, as well as their own. Each reader 
 of this volume will choose for himself among these figures 
 for his special study. But none, I venture to think, will 
 more repay study than Nicolas of Cusa, whether his theme 
 be of “learned ignorance ”’ or of “ catholic concordance,”’ 
 or, again, than Sir Thomas More, who, if he could persecute 
 heretics, yet loved toleration, and international peace, and 
 
 the cause of social justice. 
 ERNEST BARKER 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. IntTRopucToRY : THE RENAISSANCE AND THE 
 
 PAGE 
 
 REFORMATION 9 
 By the Epiror. 
 II. Nicotas or Cusa a2. 
 
 By E. F. Jacoz, M.A., D.Phil., Fellow of All Souls 
 College, Oxford; late Lecturer in Medieval History 
 at King’s College, London. 
 
 III. Str Joun Fortescur 61 
 
 By Miss A. E. Levert, M.A., Lecturer in History 
 at King’s College, London, and ‘Tutor to Women 
 Students. 
 
 IV. Nicoto Macuiave.ii 87 
 By the Epiror. 
 
 V. Str Tuomas More 127 
 
 By A. W. Rep, M.A., D.Lit., Reader in English at 
 King’s College, London. 
 
 VI. Destper1us Erasmus 149 
 
 By J. A. K. Tuomson, M.A., Professor of Classics at 
 King’s College, London. 
 
 VII. Martin LutTuer I71 
 
 By J. W. Atten, M.A., Professor of History at Bed- 
 ford College, London. 
 
 VIII. Joun Carvin 193 
 By the Rev. W. R. Matruews, M.A., D.D., Dean of 
 King’s College, London, and Professor of the Philo- 
 sophy of Religion. 
 
tae hae 
 
 ’ 
 
 me 
 
THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL IDEAS 
 OF SOME GREAT THINKERS OF 
 THE RENAISSANCE AND 
 THE REFORMATION 
 
 J 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 THE RENAISSANCE AND THE 
 REFORMATION 
 
 I 
 |: is the fashion nowadays to deny the Renaissance 
 
 and to decry the Reformation. ‘ Renaissance,’ or re- 
 
 birth, it is said, implies previous death, and through- 
 out the Middle Ages there had been no death, but, on 
 the contrary, a continuity of vigorous and prolific life. 
 Similarly, ‘ Reformation,’ or construction anew, connotes 
 a return to a pristine purity of organisation and belief ; 
 and, it is argued, the sixteenth century saw no such return, 
 but rather the mere destruction of ancient institutions, the 
 disintegration of venerable creeds, the stoppage of the 
 process of divine evolution, and a return to (if anything) 
 primordial chaos. ‘These critical and unfavourable views 
 of Renaissance and Reformation mark the extreme of the 
 present-day reaction against the excessive protestantism of 
 the seventeenth century and the exaggerated rationalism 
 of the eighteenth. 
 
 The seventeenth century was an age of intense theo- 
 logical passion, of fierce religious persecution, of vivid 
 memories of massacres and assassinations on behalf of 
 the faith, of devastating civil wars between the adherents 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 of conflicting creeds. In countries such as England, 
 North Germany, and the Dutch Netherlands—where Pro- 
 testantism prevailed-the Reformation was regarded as 
 the breaking of a glorious dawn after a millennial night 
 of unrelieved darkness, ignorance, and superstition. Even 
 in countries—such as France, Spain, and Italy—where, 
 after a sharp struggle, Catholicism re-established itself, the 
 theologians and administrators of the new and dominant 
 Order of Jesus regarded with some contempt the groping 
 and puerile expositions of the cause of the Church which 
 scholastic dialecticians had presented to the medieval 
 mind. 
 
 The eighteenth century—the self-styled Age of Reason— 
 went farther than the seventeenth, and poured a sceptical 
 disdain upon Catholic and Protestant alike. Representa- 
 tive thinkers of high eminence, such as Hume, Voltaire, 
 and Goethe, rejected the whole Christian scheme of things, 
 and professed faith in the unaided human intellect to solve 
 the mystery of existence, and to furnish the spirit of man 
 with a satisfying ethic and politic. It was at this time that 
 the threefold division of history into ancient, medizval, 
 and modern was adopted, and at this time that the medizval 
 millennium received its disparaging designation, the Dark 
 Ages. They were considered to be unworthy of study: 
 they were a mere interlude of blackness between the dim 
 light of classical antiquity and the high noon of eighteenth- 
 century rationalism. ‘“‘ I know nothing of those ages which 
 knew nothing,” was the boast of one of the pundits of the 
 period. Even Gibbon, who made it his business to know 
 something of them, treated them with undisguised loathing 
 and contempt. He lamented the fall of pagan Rome; 
 he deplored the triumph of Christianity ; he regretted the 
 incursion of the Teutons; he welcomed the Renaissance 
 as a return to the sanity of the Hellenic world, and the 
 fo 
 
THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 
 
 Reformation as, at any rate, a successful revolt against the 
 obscurantism of the papal autocracy. 
 
 The hopes of the eighteenth-century rationalists were, 
 however, doomed to disappointment. The empirical philo- 
 sophers, the natural theologians, the utilitarian moralists, 
 
 the political economists, the materialistic philanthropists, _ 
 
 failed to satisfy the deeper spiritual needs of the time. The 
 “enlightened despots’ of the period, to whom social re- 
 
 formers looked for the salvation of mankind, proved to be. 
 but impotent fools, whose obvious imbecility was scarcely (" , 
 
 palliated by a doubtful benevolence. The eighteenth- 
 century exaltation of intellect, at the expense of emotion 
 and will, culminated in the French Revolution and the 
 awful orgies with which Hébert and his fellow fanatics 
 celebrated the worship of the Goddess of Reason on the 
 desecrated altars of the church of Notre-Dame. Amid the 
 horrors and abominations of Jacobin tyranny, and during 
 the oppression of Rationalist persecution, the Romantic 
 reaction was born. Religion resumed her sway over 
 the minds of men. The emotion of worship and the 
 will to believe reasserted themselves triumphantly against 
 the discredited claims and presumptuous appeals of 
 ineffective intellect. The tragedies of the quarter-century 
 1789-1815 were traced back to the disintegration of 
 Christendom caused by the Reformation, and to the 
 repudiation of spiritual authority associated with the 
 Renaissance. 
 
 Protestantism—which had generally declined to uni- 
 tarianism, deism, and agnosticism—was widely repudiated. 
 Catholicism, both Roman and Anglican, was recalled to 
 life in a marvellous outburst of energy. The Middle 
 Ages once more were exalted, their study renewed, their 
 writings re-edited and disseminated afresh, their glories 
 depicted in glowing colours, their ideals reaffirmed, their 
 
 II 
 
 ‘ii, 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 institutions and practices re-established. “[hus—to return 
 to the point from which we started—the Renaissance was 
 denied and the Reformation disparaged. 
 
 II 
 
 In this controversy between eighteenth-century Rational- 
 ists and nineteenth-century Romanticists where does the 
 truth lie? It would appear to lie midway between the two 
 extremes. 
 
 On the one hand, the Middle Ages were by no means 
 wholly dark or dead. It is true that they saw a decline in 
 science, a decadence in art, a dearth in literature, accom- 
 panied by an invasion of barbarism, a recrudescence of 
 superstition, a cessation of peace, a disappearance of com- 
 fort, a chronic prevalence of plague, pestilence, and famine, 
 a deplorable falling away from the culture and humanity 
 of the pagan world at its best. But, to set over against 
 this, it is equally true that they saw, particularly in their 
 central period (a.D. 604-1303), a vast elevation and puri- 
 fication of religion, an incalculably great exaltation and 
 extension of morality, an immense advance in politics. 
 They saw a pure and spiritual faith exorcise the demons 
 which, under the names of divinities, the pagan masses had 
 adored; they saw the gentler virtues of brotherly kindness 
 and love prevail over the sterner and more limited virilities 
 called forth by sanguinary games and merciless war; they 
 saw the diminution of slavery, the mitigation of serfdom, 
 the spread of freedom, the re-emergence of the individual, 
 the growth of representative institutions, the development 
 of government by debate, the gradual formation of national 
 states dominated increasingly by an ever more articulate 
 public opinion. Such was the by no means contemptible 
 12 
 
THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 
 
 heritage which the Middle Ages handed down to the modern 
 world. | 
 
 But, on the other hand, a renaissance was necessary, and 
 a renaissance there was. It is true that at no time during 
 the thousand years which intervened between the fall of 
 Rome and the discovery of the New World had the spirit 
 of man been wholly dead. At the very worst periods of 
 barbarity and tumult the life of learning had been main- 
 tained, however feebly, in remote monasteries and seques- 
 tered cloisters. From time to time, moreover, during lulls 
 in the zonian strife, revivals of scholarship had occurred. 
 Not to mention the strange burgeonings of local culture, 
 such as that of Ireland in the sixth century and of North- 
 umbria in the eighth, there had been a widespread return 
 to classical models and a notable expansion of education 
 under the Pax Romana which Charlemagne succeeded in 
 establishing and maintaining. This premature Renaissance 
 was, unfortunately, but short-lived. It was nipped in its 
 early promise by the renewed incursions of barbarians 
 more ferocious and less assimilable than even those who 
 had overthrown Old Rome—Vikings, Slavs, Magyars, 
 Saracens, Not till the twelfth century did Christendom 
 settle down again to moderate tranquillity. Then there 
 transpired that remarkable movement known as the Latin 
 Renaissance—a movement which showed how great and 
 even magnificent was the vitality which lay at the heart 
 of the medizval civilisation. It was marked by, first, the 
 revived and systematic study of the Roman Law; secondly, 
 the formulation of the scholastic philosophy and theology ; 
 thirdly, the founding and development of the great uni- 
 _ versities ; finally, the building and decoration of those , 
 most perfect embodiments of the medieval genius, the 
 Gothic cathedrals. ‘The Latin Renaissance was not frus-— 
 trated and rendered unfruitful, as had been the Carolingian 
 
 T3 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 Renaissance, by any invasion of enemies from without. It 
 was sterilised and destroyed from within by civil conflict 
 and religious revolt. ‘The medizval mind, in fact, during 
 the thirteenth century, was breaking away from the tutelage 
 of the Church, and was seeking the open fields of specula- 
 tion and adventure. But the power of the Church was 
 great, and her ministers felt it to be their duty to maintain 
 their challenged authority. Hence this century, together 
 with the fourteenth, was a period of wild heresies and 
 wanton schisms repressed by means of merciless in- 
 quisitions and sanguinary crusades. The Middle Ages 
 terminated in a welter of recrimination and bloodshed. 
 The Church suffered hardly less severely than the harassed 
 and persecuted sects from the inquisitorial conflicts and 
 anti-Christian crusades of the later Middle Ages. The 
 decline of her beneficent influence may, indeed, be dated 
 from the day when that most imperial and magisterial of 
 Popes, Innocent III, launched the hosts of the destroyers 
 against the devoted Albigenses (1208). The period which 
 that lamentable event inaugurated was marked by unpre- 
 cedented eccentricity and intractability of error, and by an 
 answering rigidity and ferocity of orthodoxy. ‘The Church, 
 which in the early Middle Ages had led the way toward a 
 rational interpretation of the mysteries of existence, and 
 which in the central medizval period had kept well abreast 
 of the best science and philosophy of the time, now fell 
 behind and became obscurantist and reactionary. Ideas 
 began to reach Western Christendom from the Byzantine 
 East, from Mohammedan Spain, from the Egyptian and 
 Syrian Orient—ideas which could not be incorporated in 
 the accepted body of divine theology, or harmonised with 
 the standard creeds of Catholicism. St Thomas Aquinas 
 and his school had continued to assert the unity of know- 
 ledge, and to contend that all newly discovered truth of every 
 
 14 
 
THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 
 
 sort could be reconciled with revelation. Duns Scotus 
 and his followers had felt constrained to divide truth into 
 two compartments, putting on one side that which man 
 by means of his reason is capable of perceiving and com- 
 prehending, but putting on the other side that which is 
 sealed save to the eye of faith. This unsatisfactory dualism, 
 although it enabled some amazing intellectual gymnastics 
 to be accomplished in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 
 was manifestly impermanent: it was a mere temporary 
 expedient to enable sceptics to escape combustion. As 
 the number of the sceptics grew, and as the power of the 
 Church to kindle bonfires diminished, the necessary unity 
 of truth was reproclaimed, and the consequent falsity of 
 the medieval system of thought openly affirmed. ‘This 
 affirmation was the work of the Renaissance thinkers. 
 
 But not only was the Church of the later Middle Ages 
 reactionary and obscurantist. It was also secular and cor- 
 rupt. The fatal policy of Innocent III had committed 
 it to the threefold worldly task of (1) superseding the Em- 
 pire and establishing itself as the sole head of Christendom, 
 (2) securing the feudal overlordship of the great European 
 kingdoms, and (3) building up a powerful temporal state 
 in Italy. This policy involved the Papacy, first, in a life 
 or death conflict with the Imperial house of the Hohen- 
 staufen ; secondly, in ceaseless brawls with the growing 
 power of the rising national kings, such as Edward I of 
 England and Philip IV of France; thirdly, in ruinous and 
 continuous war with Roman nobles, Neapolitan princes, 
 and Lombard cities. In the course of these purely secular 
 struggles the Papacy, and with it the Church, lost its 
 spiritual and cosmopolitan character. It prostituted its 
 supernatural powers—such as excommunication and inter- 
 dict—to the base and transitory ends of war and diplomacy ; 
 it squandered the revenues provided by the faithful on 
 
 as 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 military excursions and political intrigue; finally it sank 
 to the level of a mere Italian principality, as cruel and 
 perfidious as the worst. The depth of its degradation and 
 impotence was seen when, during its Captivity at Avignon 
 (1309-76), it became little more than an appendage to 
 the French monarchy ; and then, during the Great Schism 
 (1377-1417), it became involved in suicidal civil war. 
 There was evident need of a reformation, of an emancipa- 
 tion of the Church from the toils of the world, of a return 
 to purity and spirituality, of a reaffirmation of the claims 
 of personal religion and the necessity of righteousness of 
 life. 
 
 III 
 
 The Renaissance of the fifteenth century may be con- 
 sidered in many aspects and regarded from various points 
 of view. It wasinasensea “ rebirth of the human spirit ” ; 
 not, however, as we have remarked, in the sense of a return 
 to life, but of an attainment of liberty. ‘There had been 
 no death of the spirit in the Middle Ages, but merely 
 a thraldom to authority, a thraldom which was not only 
 justifiable, but quite inevitable during the immaturity and 
 juvenescence of the Teutonic peoples. The Church had, 
 indeed, emancipated the barbarian invaders of the Roman 
 Empire from the chains of a heavier thraldom; that is to 
 say, from the bonds of innumerable and horrible super- 
 stitions—a veritable tyranny of devils—by which they were 
 enslaved in their pre-Christian days. The creed which the 
 Church imposed was incomparably more rational and more 
 noble than the paganism which it expelled; and the yoke 
 of the Christian priesthood in its best days was immeasur- 
 ably lighter and kindlier than the burden imposed by the 
 merciless devotees of the Nordic deities. Nevertheless, in 
 the fifteenth century the Church had completed its pioneer 
 16 
 
THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 
 
 educative work, and its rule had in its turn become an 
 obstacle to the further development of the Western intel- 
 lect. Thus the Renaissance may be regarded as the move- 
 ment which marked the termination of the tutelage of the 
 Teuton and his embarkation upon an independent, adven- 
 turous, and perilous career of unguided and unfettered 
 speculation. 
 
 Again, the Renaissance may be viewed as the revolt of 
 the lay mind against clerical control. ‘The Church during 
 the Middle Ages had safeguarded and transmitted some 
 portion of the heritage of Greece and Rome. But it was 
 a portion selected for theological reasons, and a portion 
 from which the classical spirit was carefully and deliberately 
 exorcised. ‘The purification of Latin style by Petrarch 
 (1304-74) was followed by a reperception of the classical 
 spirit; by a search for and a discovery of countless long- 
 lost masterpieces of Latin literature; by a recognition of 
 the fact that Latin culture was based upon that of Greece ; 
 by a renewed study of the Greek language; by a zealous 
 collection of Greek manuscripts from the libraries of the 
 perishing Byzantine Empire; and by an ultimate reattain- 
 ment of the Greek view of life. The Greek view of life 
 was secular and pagan. In contradistinction to the medi- 
 eval view of life—which had envisaged man as fallen, 
 human nature as depraved, the world as evil, the devil as 
 dominant on earth, and the brief span of mortal existence 
 as merely probationary to an eternity of bliss or woe— 
 the Greek view had emphasised the goodness of man, the 
 beauty and glory of the earth, the joy of existence, the 
 insignificance of the supernatural, the all-importance of 
 the present as compared with the irrecoverable past and 
 the doubtful future. 
 
 The effect of this return to the pre-Christian attitude to- 
 ward Man, Nature, and God, was an outburst of vernacular 
 
 B 17 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 literature—poetry, drama, romance; a marvellous reju- 
 venation of art——painting, sculpture, architecture; and, 
 above all, a revival of science, wherein the modern mind 
 speedily outdistanced the most advanced discoveries and 
 speculations of its ancient predecessors. 
 
 Italy was the first country in which this secularist and 
 neo-pagan movement made its influence felt. In Italy the 
 traditions of the Roman Empire had never wholly been 
 broken; the Latin language had remained a living tongue ; 
 the Roman Law had retained its authority; the spell of 
 the old religions had never been entirely cast off. More- 
 over, in the South, which so late as the eleventh century had 
 continued under the political control of Constantinople, the 
 Greek tongue had never ceased to be spoken, so that Calabria 
 was the region to which Byzantine scholars naturally tended 
 to migrate when the Turkish advance in the fourteenth 
 ana fifteenth centuries made their continuance in the East 
 difficult or impossible. Barlaam, who tried to teach Greek 
 to Petrarch, and Leontius Pilatus, who succeeded in teaching — 
 Greek to Boccaccio (1313-75), were both denizens of Con- 
 stantinople who reached Florence by way of Calabria. 
 
 The Renaissance in Italy began as a humanistic revival. 
 It was marked by (1) that purification of Latinity which we 
 have noted as inaugurated by Petrarch. ‘The papal secre- 
 taries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries—e.g., Valla, 
 Manetti, Bembo, and Poggio—were particularly careful to 
 reach and maintain a Ciceronian perfection of diction: a 
 quality which, we may remark in passing, seemed to be 
 regarded even by the Popes themselves as adequate com- 
 pensation for anti-Christian beliefs and flagrantly immoral 
 lives. ‘The invention of printing and the multiplication 
 of classical texts greatly extended the influence of the 
 stylists, and gave rise both to criticism of the form and to 
 widespread study of the substance of the writers of ancient 
 18 
 
THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 
 Rome. The purification of Latin was followed by (2) the 
 
 recovery of Greek. The pioneer labours of Barlaam and 
 Pilatus were continued much more systematically and effec- 
 tively by Manuel Chrysoloras—who taught at Florence 
 (1397-1400), and later at Pavia, Milan, Venice, and Rome 
 —and by a host of successors, among whom Gemistos 
 Plethon (7. 1438) and John Lascaris (d. 1535) were perhaps 
 the most notable. The printing of the Greek classics at 
 the Aldine Press in Venice was an event of primary im- 
 portance in the history of European culture. The dis- 
 semination of Latin and Greek literature, whether in 
 manuscript or in type, was a challenge to study and dis- 
 cussion. Hence, as a further feature of the humanistic 
 revival, we have to note (3) the founding of academies. 
 Most notable of these was the Florentine Academy founded 
 by Cosimo de Medici about 1458, and developed by his 
 son Lorenzo the Magnificent. It was rendered illustrious 
 by the activities of such members as Marsilio Ficino, Pico 
 della Mirandola, Michelangelo, and Politian. The Roman 
 Academy gave itself to the study of antiquities, and be- 
 coming thus political and revolutionary it had to be sup- 
 pressed. The Neapolitan Academy, keeping clear both of 
 philosophy which led to atheism and of politics which ended 
 in republicanism, devoted its energies to purely literary 
 pursuits. ‘The Venetian Academy, closely associated with 
 Aldo and his press, organised itself with admirable self- 
 devotion and success to the preparation of critical editions 
 of the Greek classics. The founding of academies was 
 accompanied by (4) the formation of libraries. Specially 
 noteworthy among these were the Medicean Library at 
 Florence, the Vatican Library at Rome, the library of manu- 
 scripts collected by Federico da Montefeltro at Urbino, 
 and the library primarily of Greek works, which Cardinal 
 Bessarion—himself a convert from the Greek to the Latin 
 
 19 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 communion—gave to the city of Venice in 1468. Finally, 
 the humanistic revival necessitated (5) a remoulding of 
 education. ‘The medieval trivium and quadrivium, in- 
 tended to supply the foundation for the superstructure of 
 theology, were found to be no longer adequate to bear the 
 weight of the new learning, or to permit the manifestation 
 of the classical spirit. The humanistic ideal of education 
 was vot to repress and subdue the natural faculties of a 
 child, but to develop and enlarge them; wot to inculcate 
 asceticism, but to encourage athleticism; to achieve zot 
 self-abnegation, but self-realisation. Prominent among the 
 pioneers of the new education were Vittorino da Feltre 
 (1397-1446) and Guarino da Verona (1370-1460). 
 
 The humanistic revival was speedily followed by a renais- 
 sance in art. In sculpture and in architecture this renais- 
 sance took the form of a return to classical models. It was. 
 impossible to improve upon the perfection of the divine 
 humanity revealed in the masterpieces of Phidias; it was 
 difficult to build anything better or more beautiful than the 
 gems which adorned the Acropolis or even the Capitol. 
 In painting, however, there was a notable and original 
 advance. Little of Greek or Roman painting was known. 
 Painting had not been one of the dominant arts of antiquity ; 
 and such works as had been achieved had for the most part 
 been wrought in fading colours and perishable materials, 
 and so had been lost. Of medizval painting there was 
 enough, and more than enough. From the esthetic point 
 of view it was atrocious. It had not been intended to 
 please the eye. Its purpose had been didactic; its form 
 was deliberately conventional, like the letters of a modern 
 alphabet ; it had no closer a relation to nature than have the 
 beasts and birds of heraldry. Medizval painting lacked 
 perspective ; its pictures were devoid of depth; they had 
 no background ; they were relieved by no varieties of light 
 20 | 
 
& 
 
 THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 
 
 and shade; their human figures were anatomical impossi- 
 bilities, no suggestion of vitality or mobility mitigating 
 their melancholy, statuesque, and everlasting hideousness ; 
 no feeling for nature lent a touch of charm to any fresco 
 or altar-piece. The dawn of the renaissance of painting 
 came with the Franciscan movement of the thirteenth 
 century. St Francis himself—by instinct a heretic, and 
 kept within the obedience of the Church only by his own 
 extraordinary peacefulness and humility, and by the unusual 
 wisdom and forbearance of Pope Innocent I[I1—had heralded 
 the return to nature, by his tender love for birds and beasts, 
 and by his quick eye for beauty in mountain, wood, and 
 sea. The world to him was not the theologians’ world, 
 - incurably evil, hopelessly corrupt, dominated by the devil, 
 a mere snare to the senses of the would-be devout; it was 
 a fair and pleasant world, eloquent of the glory of the 
 Creator, full of aids to worship, resonant with songs of\praise. 
 The world, in short, as it presented itself to St Francis was 
 essentially the world as it had appeared to the artists of 
 antique Athens. The Franciscan feeling for nature was 
 soon caught by the painters. Cimabue began to depict 
 realistically the human form divine, as, for example, in 
 his Madonna in the church of Santa Maria at Florence 
 (1267). Giotto, a generation later, introduced backgrounds 
 of exquisite natural scenery in the twenty-eight frescoes 
 wherewith he adorned the church of St Francis at Assisi. 
 But it was the Franciscans, Fra Angelico and Fra Lippo 
 Lippi, who, at the end of the fourteenth and beginning of 
 the fifteenth century, marked the full return to nature and 
 humanity. With Botticelli (1447-1510) the classical in- 
 fluence became dominant: he painted Madonnas whose 
 proper name should have been Venus. This great painter 
 lived to see the life and work of the three still greater masters 
 of art whose achievements constitute the Golden Age of 
 
 2I 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 the Italian Renaissance, viz., Leonardo da Vinci (1452- 
 1515), Raphael (1483-1520), and Michelangelo (1475- 
 1564). 
 
 Leonardo was wholly pagan in spirit, and Michelangelo, 
 for all his preoccupation with prophets and saints, was 
 primarily inspired by classical mythology. It 1s significant 
 that one of Leonardo’s pictures is said by some to represent 
 John the Baptist, and by others Bacchus! It is equally 
 significant that Michelangelo’s great statue of Moses should 
 be the perfect model of Olympian Jove. ‘The same rever- 
 sion to pre-Christian antiquity was evident in literature. 
 Classical models were imitated in pastoral poems, satires, 
 epics, dramas, epistles. Even in poems devoted to Chris- 
 tian themes the technical terminology of the Church was 
 transmuted to most incongruous pagan equivalents: nuns 
 became vestales; cardinals augures; St Peter and St Paul 
 dii tutelares Rome; the Christian Deity Himself Jupiter 
 Optimus Maximus. 
 
 The study of Greek and Latin texts led in the natural 
 course of things to the study of the original versions of the 
 Old and New Testaments. The later Middle Ages had 
 seen some attempts to get behind the readings of the Vul- 
 gate. Bishop Grosseteste of Lincoln, Friar Roger Bacon, 
 the Dominicans of Paris, the Franciscans generally in the 
 fourteenth century, John Wycliffe with the Lollards and 
 Hussites who followed him—all had got themselves into 
 trouble by prying behind the veil of the official Latin Bible. 
 The period of the Renaissance, however, saw a movement 
 which the Church was powerless to suppress. New texts 
 of both Old and New Testaments were discovered; new 
 translations were attempted ; a new canon of criticism was 
 applied by such eminent scholars as Lorenzo Valla. The 
 serious study of Hebrew, with a view to the interpretation 
 of the Talmud and the Old Testament, was undertaken by 
 22 
 
THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 
 
 such men as Pico della Mirandola and Reuchlin. Special- 
 ised research into the meaning of New Testament Greek 
 was made by a long line of learned students, among whom 
 Marsilio Ficino and Erasmus stand prominent. The his- 
 tory of the Church was reviewed and revised with sceptical 
 industry by such critics as the Magdeburg Continuators. 
 
 It will be noted that this religious aspect of the Renais- 
 sance was most evident north of the Alps. It was in the 
 Teutonic countries—Germany, Holland, England—rather 
 than in the Latin countries that the Renaissance took the 
 form of the Reformation. 
 
 IV 
 
 The Teutonic countries had for some time been alienated 
 from the Papacy. The causes of quarrel were mainly 
 secular: they concerned such matters as political control, 
 financial exactions, legal jurisdictions, administrative inter- 
 ference. The medieval Church had become, especially 
 under Innocent III and his successors, a super-state exer- 
 cising an authority which reduced all kings and princes to 
 a condition of vassalage. Papal legates dictated policy ; 
 papal collectors extracted sums of money which sometimes 
 exceeded the royal revenue; papal courts called up cases 
 from the national tribunals; papal provisions superseded 
 the customary rights of patronage; papal penalties reduced 
 all resisters to submission. Under such powerful and 
 impartial pontiffs as Innocent III Latin countries had, of 
 course, suffered equally with Teutonic countries; and all 
 of them, on the other hand, as a compénsation for loss of 
 freedom and extortion of money, had’ benefited from the 
 strong and righteous rule of an effective international 
 authority. But both impartiality and righteousness had 
 vanished under Gregory 1X and Innocent IV, when the 
 
 23 
 
 4 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 Papacy became involved in its mortal conflict with the 
 Hohenstaufen. The Germans—princes, priests, and people 
 alike—had come to regard the Roman Curia as their 
 deadly and inveterate enemy, whom no concessions could’ 
 conciliate and no conventions bind. This view had been 
 emphasised during the Babylonish Captivity of the four- 
 teenth century, when the Papacy became French and the 
 Empire German. The embittered struggle between Pope 
 John XXII and the Emperor Lewis the Bavarian had not 
 been a conflict of the medizval type between representatives 
 of the two world-powers; it had been a Franco-German 
 war of the modern sort. In this struggle England, under 
 Edward III, had become involved. ‘The Hundred Years 
 War with France, which had begun in 1337, had found the 
 Papacy wholly on the French side and largely under French 
 control. It had been natural, therefore, that Edward III 
 should make an alliance with Lewis the Bavarian; should 
 accept the office of Imperial Vicar for the Rhenish provinces ; 
 should take German soldiers into his pay; should repudiate 
 the tribute promised to the Papacy by King John; should 
 limit papal patronage by the Statute of Provisors, and the 
 appellate jurisdiction of the papal courts by the Statute 
 of Premunire. John Wycliffe’s antagonism to the Papacy 
 had commenced when, as agent of Edward III, he had gone 
 to meet the papal commissioners at Bruges in order to rebut 
 the papal claim to feudal overlordship over England, and 
 to refuse the payment of the annual tribute which King 
 John had promised in 1213. 
 
 The Reformation began, then, as a political movement 
 at latest as far back as the thirteenth century. It is not 
 fanciful, indeed, to trace premonitions of it some two 
 centuries earlier, as, for example, in the three rules of 
 William the Conqueror, and in the fulminations of the 
 Salians during the Investiture Controversy. It was the 
 
 2.4 
 
& 
 
 THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 
 
 revolt of the young Teutonic nations against the cosmo- 
 politan authority of the Latin Church. In proportion as 
 national consciousness increased, so also grew the unwilling- 
 ness of laity and clergy alike to submit to the control and 
 contribute to the support of an alien and doubtfully friendly 
 power. ‘The force behind the revolt of both Wycliffe and 
 Huss was not Protestantism but Nationality. Neither the 
 Englishman nor the Bohemian was so much the “ Morning 
 Star of the Reformation ”’ as the herald of the modern 
 state. Both were political agitators rather than religious 
 pioneers. 
 
 The Reformation, however, had its religious side, but 
 that displayed itself later. It was, indeed, a special feature 
 of the fifteenth century. Just as the Babylonish Captivity 
 of the Papacy generated national antagonism to the Galli- 
 cised Curia, so did the Great Schism, which immediately 
 followed the return of the Popes to Rome (1377-1417), 
 give rise to religious opposition. The spectacle of two, 
 and finally three, rival pontiffs, each claiming universal 
 dominion, each anathematising his rivals, and each ex- 
 hausting the resources of the Church in suicidal civil war, 
 was one which shocked the conscience and shook the faith 
 of Christendom. There sprang up a cry for the calling 
 of a General Council which should restore unity to the 
 Church, purge it of corruption, and cleanse it from heresy. 
 The Franciscans began to denounce the worldliness and 
 wealth of the clergy, and to proclaim the dogma of apos- 
 
 tolic poverty. The Lollards and others, going definitely |). 
 
 beyond the bounds of orthodoxy, denied the doctrine of 
 transubstantiation, on which was based the supernatural 
 power of priests and prelates, and preached the priesthood 
 of all believers and the sole sufficiency of the Scriptures 
 to be the guide of life. The way was made straight for 
 the appearance and the pronouncements of Luther. 
 
 oie 
 
 ~~ 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 Vv 
 
 When in 1517 Luther affixed his ninety-five theses to 
 the door of the church at Wittenberg, both he and the world 
 at large were astonished at the sensation which was caused 
 and the consequences which were evoked. The theses were 
 intended to be no more than a challenge to an ordinary 
 academic disputation concerning an abstract theological 
 problem. The subject, however, with which they dealt, 
 viz., the ethics and the efficacy of Indulgences, was one 
 which directly touched both the consciences and the account- 
 books of the German people, and the controversy between 
 doctors of divinity thus started developed into a war which 
 involved the princes, nations, and races of the whole Euro- 
 pean continent. The theory of Indulgences, when care- 
 fully formulated in ecclesiastical Latin by theologians skilled 
 in technical terminology, was not one calculated to out- 
 rage the moral sense of a medizval Christian; it faith- 
 fully distinguished between the guilt and the penalty of 
 sin, and studiously avoided trespassing upon the exclusive 
 sphere of the divine prerogative. But the distinctions of 
 the professors were lost upon the pious proletariat, and 
 the virtues and validities of Indulgences as they were pro- 
 claimed by clerical travellers to credulous purchasers were 
 taken to include not only remission of guilt but even 
 licence to commit sin in the future. ‘They were a source 
 of moral degradation and also of considerable financial 
 extortion of a fraudulent nature. They were, indeed, 
 primarily an extraordinary means of transferring large sums 
 of German money to the papal treasury. Their object was 
 not the spiritual consolation of the Teutons, but the relief 
 of the temporal embarrassments of an extravagant and 
 corrupt Italian Court. Luther himself had visited Rome 
 
 26 
 
THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 
 
 a few years earlier (1512), and he had been horrified at 
 that spectacle of secularity and depravity which had long 
 destroyed in the minds of thoughtful Italians all respect for 
 the highly placed clergy, and all belief in the creed which 
 they prostituted to the ends of luxury and lust. It was to 
 maintain this corrupt and worldly hierarchy that the morals 
 of Germany were being undermined and its hard-earned 
 wealth drained away. 
 
 In challenging the theory and practice of. Indulgences 
 Luther had at first had no thought of revolt against either _ 
 Church or Papacy. His appeal was to the conscience of 
 the Church and the authority of the Pope. Not till 1519 
 did he realise how hopelessly the Curia had become com- 
 mitted to the vicious system of extravagance and extortion, 
 or how difficult it was for the Church to withdraw from 
 secular sovereignty and temporal possession. His famous 
 disputation with Eck at Leipzig opened his eyes; while 
 Fck’s imprudent zeal and untimely dialectic skill drove 
 him into overt rebellion by compelling him to appeal from 
 the decisions of Councils and the commands of Popes to 
 the teachings of the Fathers and the clear precépts of 
 the Scriptures. The bull of excommunication naturally 
 followed (June 1520). It was publicly burned, amid 
 scenes of national enthusiasm, on December 10. Meantime 
 Luther, in his three great Reformation writings, had (1) ap- 
 pealed “‘to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation”’; 
 (2) denounced “ the Babylonish Captivity of the Church”’ ; 
 and (3) expounded his conception of “the Freedom of a 
 Christian Man.” ‘The German people was roused as never 
 before. Ifthe Emperor Charles V had been a German he 
 would possibly have been strong enough and unscrupulous 
 enough to seize a unique opportunity of putting himself 
 at the head of his subjects and converting his ramshackle 
 empire into a powerful Protestant national state. But 
 
 27 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 Charles was not a German; and he was King of Spain, a 
 country so zealously Catholic that any concession to heresy 
 would infallibly have meant insurrection and expulsion. 
 Hence Charles’s course was predetermined for him. His 
 first Imperial Diet, held at Worms (1521), ratified the ex- 
 communication of Luther and added its own ban. Papacy 
 and Empire, the two great cosmopolitan and authoritarian 
 institutions of the Middle Ages, were united to crush “ the 
 Nobility of the German Nation” and to suppress “ the 
 Freedom of the Christian Man.” 
 
 Neither excommunication nor ban could be put into 
 effect. Luther was protected alike from potent Papacy and 
 impotent Empire by the princes and the people of Germany. 
 Round him and his protest gathered all the discontents of 
 the age. The Reformation became an increasingly com- 
 posite movement. Politically, as we have seen, it was a 
 revolt of the Teuton against Latin domination, and also 
 a rebellion of princes and cities against Imperial control ; 
 socially, it was a rising of the oppressed against their lords, 
 ecclesiastical and civil; economically, it was a secularist 
 assault upon the accumulated wealth of the Church; 
 ecclesiastically, 1t was an insurrection of the laity against 
 the clergy ; morally, it was a protest against the degeneracy 
 of the priesthood and the flagrant separation of religion 
 from ethics; theologically, it was a return to the New 
 Testament, to personal piety, and to the simplicity of the 
 doctrine of justification by faith; intellectually, it was a 
 revolt of the individual against authority, and a reassertion 
 of the right of freedom of thought. The strongest element 
 in the Reformation, however, remained that which had 
 been the earliest, viz., the political, The Reformation— 
 that is to say, the disruption of medizval Christendom— 
 was the first great achievement of the modern national 
 state. It need not have been accompanied by a violent 
 28 
 
THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 
 
 change in creed or by a conspicuous abandonment of 
 venerable ritual. ‘That it was so accompanied was largely 
 due to the deplorable accidents that Eck was injudicious, 
 Luther outrageous, and Pope Leo X a worldling incapable 
 of comprehending the issues at stake. But in any case 
 Christendom would have been disintegrated, and Anglican, 
 Gallican, Germanic, Spanish, and other churches set up, 
 on the Byzantine model, under the control of national kings, 
 Even as it was, Philip II of Spain and Louis XIV of France, 
 good Catholics as they were, exercised hardly less authority 
 over their clergy than did Henry VIII of England. The 
 fall of the Papacy from its medizval eminence was as evident 
 in Catholic countries as in Protestant. 
 
 Whether a country should remain Catholic or become 
 Protestant would seem to have been determined mainly by 
 political considerations. For instance, England became 
 definitely Protestant under Elizabeth in order to shake off 
 its dependence upon Spain; Sweden became Protestant 
 in order to recover its autonomy from Denmark; Scot- 
 land adopted Calvinism in order to sever its embarrassing 
 connexion with France; the Dutch Netherlands rose in 
 religious revolt because they were determined to repudiate 
 the political authority of Philip II]. In France the Huguenot 
 cause was taken up by the feudal nobility and the auto- 
 nomous Communes, in order that it might add strength 
 to their arms in their struggle to maintain their medizval 
 privileges against the encroachments of the centralising 
 Crown; and it was this unhappy alliance of French Pro- 
 testantism with what was a reactionary, unprogressive, 
 anti-patriotic, and anti-national movement which led to its 
 ultimate and complete extinction. Similarly, Protestant- 
 ism in Spain identified itself with the unpopular causes of 
 Moors and Jews, and with the anachronistic claims of 
 ancient towns and provinces to impossible liberties ; hence 
 
 29 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 it was suppressed by fire and sword amid the plaudits of the 
 populace. 
 
 It is noteworthy that before the end of the sixteenth 
 century the permanent lines between Protestant states and 
 Catholic states had been drawn. Since that time no state 
 has transferred its allegiance from the one camp to the 
 other. 
 
 VI 
 
 The immense changes effected in Western Europe by 
 the Renaissance and the Reformation inevitably had conse- 
 quences of profound importance in the sphere of social 
 and political ideas. Medizval Christendom had been, in 
 theory if not in fact, a unitary commonwealth under the 
 dual authority of Pope and Emperor, each representing 
 one aspect of the Divine Majesty wherein ultimate sove- 
 reignty resided. Within that commonwealth the interests 
 and activities of the individual were subordinated to the 
 good of the Christian community asa whole. The fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries witnessed the break-up of that ideal 
 commonwealth and the abandonment of its sacred com- 
 munism. The Renaissance saw the establishment of the 
 secular state as the primary political unit; the Reformation 
 saw the emergence of the individual as his own philosopher 
 and priest. Hence, obviously, political and social theory 
 had to be completely recast to fit the new situation. The 
 lectures contained in this volume give some indication of 
 the processes of the thought of the period. Nicolas of 
 Cusa and Sir John Fortescue lived in the fifteenth century, 
 when peaceful and evolutionary reform seemed not impos- 
 sible. Both of them contemplated developments of con- 
 stitutional government which would not involve any breach 
 with the past. Machiavelli bridged the two eras and, 
 
 30 
 
THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 
 
 wholly rejecting the medieval system, devoted his great 
 powers and wide knowledge to the task of formulating the 
 policy of the new national state. Sir Thomas More, faith- 
 ful to the Catholic ideal, was eager to lessen the social 
 hardships which the age of transition entailed. Erasmus, 
 for his part, was anxious to ease the intellectual pains which 
 the advent of the new learning was everywhere causing. 
 Luther and Calvin, leaders of the revolt against the Papacy, 
 were compelled by the necessities of their position to 
 formulate new political principles for the guidance of their 
 
 followers. 
 Tue Epiror 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Acton, Lorp: Lectures on Modern History. 1906. 
 
 Brarp, C.: The Reformation in Relation to Modern Thought. 1883. 
 Burcxuarnt, J.: The Renaissance in Italy. (English translation, 1878.) 
 Cambridge Modern History, vols.iand ii. 1902-3. 
 
 Hupson, W. H.: The Story of the Renaissance. 1912. 
 
 Huime, E. M.: Renaissance and Reformation. 1915. 
 
 Oxrpuam, J. B.: The Renaissance. 1912. 
 
 Pater, W.: The Renaissance. 1873. 
 
 SEEBOHM, F.: The Era of the Protestant Revolution. 1874. 
 
 SICHEL, Ep1tH: The Renaissance. 1914. 
 
 Stone, J. M.: Reformation and Renaissance, a.p. 1377-1610. 1904. 
 Symon, J. D., and Bensusan, S. L.: The Renaissance and its Makers. 1913. 
 Symonps, J. A.: The Renaissance in Italy. 1875-86. 
 
 Tanner, E. M.: The Renaissance and the Reformation. 1908. 
 
 Taytor, H. O.: Thought and Expression in the Sixteenth Century. 1922. 
 
 31 
 
II 
 NICOLAS OF CUSA 
 
 Novella in Florence are unmoved by the Dominican 
 
 ideal of the Church militant and triumphant painted 
 on the walls of the Spanish Chapel. On the eastern side 
 are seen sitting on twin thrones in front of Santa Maria 
 del Fiore the universal bishop and the universal emperor. 
 On either hand are arrayed the great dignitaries of Church 
 and Empire in a descending order; and at the feet of the 
 two powers of Christendom are gathered the sheep and lambs 
 of Christ’s flock guarded by the black and white hounds 
 of the Lord. On the opposite wall is St Thomas Aquinas 
 surrounded by angels, prophets, and saints; in his hand 
 the open book of his doctrine, under his feet the heretics 
 Arius, Sabellius, and Averroes in attitudes of rueful dis- 
 comfiture. For his was the theory that perfected and 
 rounded the Church’s all-embracing system of politics and 
 culture, that Wunderkreise or miraculous circle of institu- 
 tional life based on tradition, the sacraments, and world- 
 wide spiritual jurisdiction, in which the believer was born, 
 nourished, and conducted to the bliss that Andrea Orcagna 
 had depicted on the walls of the Strozzi Chapel within. 
 A little more than twenty years after the painting of this 
 medieval system the fiercest reaction against it was raging. 
 The Great Schism, attacking the very centre of unity, had 
 broken out; heretical movements were aflame in Southern 
 Germany and the Rhineland, while Waldensian congre- 
 gations were multiplying in the eastern provinces of the 
 
 32 
 
 | Bee that enter the cool cloister of Santa Maria 
 
NICOLAS OF CUSA 
 
 Empire ;~ above all, there were growing up independently 
 minded communities of radical individualists that took 
 the Gospel and undirected reason as their guides, the 
 “ sect-type ’—Wycliffe, Huss—which, in the distinction 
 so finely drawn by a great scholar and critic, stands 
 in fundamental opposition to the ‘ Church-type’ in the 
 history of the Christian ideal working itself out in social 
 form.” The republican organisations of the towns, the 
 growth of national sentiment in England and (to a lesser 
 degree) in France, the Land Leagues in Germany and the 
 Spaniard in Naples, were proving too strong for the political 
 claims of the Church, weak from the long years at Avignon. 
 Her guardianship of the economic and the intellectual 
 life of the people was passing into the hands of laymen: 
 her moral influence was impaired by the fiscal rapacity of 
 the Curia and the crying need for internal reform. By 
 the end of the fourteenth century the great pictures in the 
 Spanish Chapel bear the character of dream. 
 
 To make the harmony portrayed in them a reality once 
 again and so re-establish the moral and spiritual forces of 
 the Church was the aim of the Conciliar Movement. Its 
 history is that of a great and unsuccessful attempt to apply 
 to one of the enthroned powers the enlightened constitu- 
 tional remedies of the time, on the assumption that the 
 Church, as a polity, was, in Gierke’s words, “charged with 
 the mission of realising the ideal of a perfect political con- 
 stitution.” ° To terminate the schism, to absorb the sect 
 in the unity of the whole, to reform the Church in head and 
 members by the method of universal representative councils 
 —these were the means to the end; the remedial principle, 
 
 1 L. Pastor, History of the Popes, i, 157-158. 
 
 2 E. Tréltsch, Die Soziallehven der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen, pp. 368- 
 374. The ‘Church-type’ (Kirchentypus) is all-claiming, objective, institu- 
 tional ; the ‘sect-type ’ (Sektentypus) is restricted to groups, subjective, mystic, 
 dependent on direct personal relations with God and between its members. 
 
 3 Political Theories of the Middle Age (tr. Maitland), p. 49. 
 
 Cc 33 
 
 1 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 the (to us) familiar one that no government is absolute, but 
 is founded on the voluntary consent of the governed. This 
 —which is in the last resort the idea of popular sovereignty — 
 may have been derived partly from the peculiarly Germanic 
 idea of the Fellowship (Genossenschaftsidee), which, to quote 
 Gierke once more, is based on the “ aboriginal and active 
 Right of the group taken as a Whole’”’;* partly from an 
 interpretation of the Lex Regia by the Glossators, who 
 found in the Corpus Juris the express indication that the 
 will of the people was the source of rulership ;* and partly 
 from the contractual element in feudalism with its inherent 
 notions of compact and consent as the condition of the 
 tenure of office or power.” Howsoever the idea was com- 
 pounded, it is sufficient at present to note that many of the 
 arguments which in earlier days were used by Churchmen 
 against Imperial claims are now in a slightly varied form 
 applied by their successors to the basis of ecclesiastical 
 power. The novelty and interest of the experiment lies 
 in the application of constitutional ideas to an institution 
 which by its outward nature seemed, and in its inmost heart 
 knew itself to be, antagonistic both to the principle and to 
 the organisation they involved. Yet that way seemed to 
 lie the only hope of reform. ‘The solution of the difh- 
 culty called for the finest intelligence, the most far-sighted 
 sympathy with the opposing positions. We shall see in 
 what measure they were given. 
 
 The subject of this essay made his contribution to that 
 solution. Buthedid more: once the issue had been decided 
 
 * Political Theories of the Middle Age (tr. Maitland), p. 37: 
 
 * In the famous text (Dig., i, 4, and Imnst., i, 2, 6): “Quod principi pla- 
 cuit legis habet vigorem: utpote cum lege regia, que de imperio eius lata 
 est, Populus et et in eum omne suum imperium et potestatem conferat”’ (Gierke, 
 op. cit., pp. 142 ”., 147. 
 
 3 On the question of the doctrine of popular sovereignty in the Conciliar 
 Movement some helpful remarks are to be found in F. von Bezold, ‘‘ Lehre von 
 der Volksuveranitat,’’ Historische Zetischrift, vol. xxxvi, especially pp. 351-358. 
 
 34 
 
NICOLAS OF CUSA 
 
 against his early line of argument, by a change of front 
 often too lightly condemned he became a protagonist of the 
 papal party. In doing so he was forced to depart for a 
 time from the great aim of his life, that of harmonising 
 conflicting tendencies in the Church. His career is of a 
 man with a passion for unity and peace, which found its 
 root in a philosophy of reconciliation almost Hegelian in 
 its comprehensiveness; yet of a man not infrequently 
 led by the stress of bitter and determined opposition into 
 action inconsistent with that unifying thought. Herein 
 lies a difficulty for our immediate purpose. A summary 
 account, however careful, of one or two of his chief political 
 works will only very partially convey an impression of what 
 he meant to his contemporaries; the whole course of his 
 life forms a study so helpful toward an understanding of 
 the strength and weakness of the Conciliar party and the 
 character of the papalist reaction that to stop short at his 
 best-known work, the Catholic Concord—an essay of early 
 manhood before the lines of his activity were fixed and 
 while his thought was still fluid—would be inadequate. 
 Moreover, in order to see him as he was it is essential to 
 mark the dominant principle of his philosophy, a task which 
 cannot be attempted if we concentrate solely on his political 
 views. It is for these reasons that I have tried, too per- 
 functorily, I fear, the way of biography rather than of 
 ‘ political science’; and in so doing must frankly acknow- 
 ledge my debt to M. Edmond Vansteenberghe, whose 
 work on Cusanus, with its thorough examination of the 
 sources for his life and writings, no student of the early 
 period of humanism can afford to neglect. 
 
 Nicolaus Cancer de Cusza, as a Heidelberg document 
 calls him, was born in 1401 at Cues, opposite Berncastel, 
 ina bend of the Moselle. Not far from the graceful Gothic 
 hospice of St Nicholas, his foundation and gift to that home 
 
 S 
 
- RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 of vineyard and meadow, can be seen the house where his 
 father, John Khrypffs (or Krebs), a boatman, lived in 
 moderate comfort. Nicolas, destined for his father’s trade, 
 was to follow other paths. A passion for study led him 
 at the age of twelve to leave his home for the house of the 
 friendly Count Theodorich of Manderscheid, who in all 
 probability sent him for his education to the Brothers of 
 the Common Life at Deventer This was the institute 
 kept by the successors of Gerard de Groot and Florence 
 Radewyn, a school famous for its intellectual and moral 
 standards, where the study of history and of the classics 
 was not forgotten, and pupils were encouraged to read 
 deeply and take careful note of what they read. The 
 training there must have left its mark upon the future 
 cardinal. At the age of sixteen he passed to the University 
 of Heidelberg, matriculating the year after the Council of 
 Constance had voted its decrees proclaiming the superiority 
 of the General Council over the Pope, the condemnation of 
 John Huss, and the institution of the first commission 
 of ecclesiastical reform. Like most of their teachers the 
 students of Heidelberg were enthusiastically on the side 
 of Conciliar reform, and to some the Parliamentary régime 
 foreshadowed at Constance seemed to hold out prospects 
 of a career. But a young man ambitious to make a mark 
 in Conciliar politics would first have to learn some law and, 
 above all, the arts of the speaker. Such considerations— 
 but doubtless also pure intellectual curiosity and the desire 
 to breathe an air which has ever captivated his young com- 
 patriots—may have led Nicolas in October 1417 to enrol 
 himself as a student in the faculty of law at the University 
 
 1 This has been contested by J. Marx, Nicolaus von Cues und seine Stift- 
 ungen zu Cues und Deventer, p. 140. The view here is that of Vansteenberghe, 
 Le Cardinal Nicolas de Cues, pp. 6 (note 3) and 7. On the Fraterherren see 
 the article of K. Hirsche in Herzog’s Realencyklopddie, 2nd ed., ii, 678-760, 
 which gives a bibliography. 
 
 36 
 
NICOLAS OF CUSA 
 
 of Padua, a school famous for its canonists and also at 
 the time for its scientists, mathematicians, and humanists. 
 Vittorino da Feltre was there, probably Filelfo, and there 
 too Giuliano Cesarini, whose noble features and distin- 
 guished mind would first reveal to the young Teuton the 
 meaning of the Latin genius. Padua was near Venice, the 
 gateway to the East, which had among its professors a first- 
 rate Hellenist, Ugo Benzi of Siena. At Padua Nicolas 
 could listen to a well-known teacher of music and astrology 
 (z.e.. mathematics and astronomy), Prosdocimo de’ Beldo- 
 mandi, and to the scientist Paolo del Pozzo Toscanelli, to 
 whom he was later to dedicate his De Transmutattonibus 
 Geometricis, In this atmosphere he laid the foundation of 
 that remarkable mathematical and scientific knowledge for 
 which he became as justly celebrated as for his theology. 
 In 1423 he took his doctorate in canon law, and in 1424 
 paid his first visit to Rome, which Martin V, the Pope 
 whose election in 1417 ended the Great Schism, had been 
 busy for six years in cleansing and restoring, where also 
 St Bernardino of Siena could be seen recalling the inhabit- 
 ants to the virtues of the past. On returning to his native 
 diocese Nicolas was given for his support a canonry at 
 St Simeon at Trier and the cure of Altrich (though he was 
 not yet in priest’s orders), and soon began to be recognised 
 as an authority on canon law; so much so that soon, 
 in 1426, he was discovered by, and attached as a secretary 
 to, Giordano Orsini, the papal legate in Germany. Orsini 
 was a good example of the opulent cardinal lettré, a patron 
 
 1 One may instance his projects for the reform of the calendar in 1436-7 ; 
 his corrections in the astronomical tables of Alphonso X of Castille ; his map 
 of Central Europe (cf. A. E. Nordenskjold, Facsimile Atlas to the Early History 
 of Cartography, tr. J. A. Ekel6df) ; his hygrometer (De Staticis Experimentis, 
 p. 176) and experiments in weighing ; his studies in dynamics (cf. P. Duhem, 
 Léonard de Vinci, t. ii); and, above all, the geometrical writings, the De 
 Transmutationibus Geometricis (1450) cited above, the Quadvatura Circula 
 (1450), the De Mathematicis Complementis (1453), and the De Mathematica 
 
 Perfectione (1458). 
 37 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 of letters who contended with the young humanists in his 
 retinue, often far cleverer than himself, in the pursuit and 
 discovery of manuscripts of the classics. The post brought 
 Nicolas the deanery of Coblenz and friendship with a 
 number of Italian humanists; for the young scholar and 
 researcher had aroused their curiosity by his discoveries, 
 both real and imagined, in German libraries, the best being 
 that ofa manuscript of Plautus containing sixteen comedies. 
 Some of his eager correspondents he was to meet later at 
 the Great Council which was to mark the turning-point of 
 his career. 
 
 For the turning to classical antiquity was but one aspect 
 of the movement toward new valuations in the life of the 
 spirit, which in the spheres of criticism and esthetic we 
 call the Renaissance, and in that of religious thought, when 
 it ultimately came, the Reformation. From the end of 
 the fourteenth century the magic word reform had been on 
 all lips. ‘The abject state of the Church during the Schism 
 and the disorganisation of the Empire had either brought 
 men to a sort of millenarianism, expectation of the end of 
 the world and the coming of Antichrist, or had caused them 
 to look forward to the betterment of society, to a reign 
 of order, justice, and tranquillity. To the latter type, the 
 optimists, not only the reform of the Church in head and 
 members, which was urgently and universally demanded, 
 but also the whole cause of international peace seemed to 
 be at stake in the trial of the great experiment of reform 
 by a representative council. The Council at Constance 
 did at least restore unity; but peace had not been forth- 
 coming. The question of sovereignty in the Church had 
 been raised; and where some sort of federalism was the 
 only hope, an absolutist Pontiff and an ultramontane party 
 reacting strongly against the decree Freguens had made its 
 
 1 Now Cod. Vat. Latin. 3870. 
 
 38 
 
NICOLAS OF CUSA 
 
 appearance. Opposed to it, suspicious and intractable, 
 stood a party of democratic leanings, which under the 
 leadership of Cardinal Louis Aleman was to fight for the 
 continued existence of the Council as the supreme organ of 
 government and jurisdiction in the Church. It was these 
 opposing forces which the presidential tact of Cesarini 
 and the pen of Nicolas of Cues sought to reconcile at 
 Basel. The task was formidable; for after the first session 
 Bugenius IV, who in 1432 succeeded Martin V, issued a 
 bull of dissolution which aroused the strongest antipathies 
 among the extreme Conciliar elements, while the problem 
 of the recalcitrant Bohemians was still unsolved and re- 
 mained like a thorn in the flesh of the moderates. It was 
 certain that the ultramontanes would call in question the 
 competence of a council continued against the express pro- 
 hibition of the Pope: it was equally certain that the radicals 
 or democrats, heading for a nationalism in religion which 
 spelled anarchy, would forget the historical development 
 of the Papacy, lose the sense of unity which the primacy of 
 Rome ensured, and try to break with the past. Thirty, 
 however, is the age of courage and vast horizons, and, con- 
 fident in his powers, Nicolas, summoned to it on other 
 business, put forward to the Council of Basel at the end of 
 1433 a reasoned statement of conclusions upon the power 
 of ecclesiastical Councils combined with a programme of 
 reform both in Church and Empire. Called De Concord- 
 antia Catholica, the conclusions and the programme of action 
 aim at achieving harmony between the warring interests. 
 The point of view, however, is none the less definite, and 
 places its author at the end of the line of publicists such as 
 Henry of Langenstein, Conrad of Gelnhausen, Gerson, and 
 Pierre d’Ailly, who prepared the way for the Council. The 
 methods of these men were admirably characterised by 
 Dr Figgis: 
 
 39 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 They rest on a historical development of realised fact. “They 
 appear to have discerned more clearly than their predecessors the 
 meaning of the constitutional experiments which the last two 
 centuries had seen in considerable profusion, to have thought out 
 the principles that underlay them, and based them upon reason- 
 ing that applied to all political societies; to have discerned that 
 arguments applicable to government in general could not be in- 
 applicable to the Church. Ina word they raised the constitution- 
 alism of the past three centuries to a higher power; expressed it 
 in a more universal form and justified it on grounds of reason, 
 policy, and Scripture. ‘This is why it seems truer to regard the 
 movement as medizval rather than modern in spirit.+ 
 
 But there is perhaps a trifle more opportunism in the 
 Catholic Concord; Nicolas is a profound student of the Fathers 
 and of the acts of the early Councils, and he has his 
 history at his fingers’ ends; ? he is ready to substantiate his 
 views therewith, but his eyes are fastened on the assembled 
 Fathers in the Council and on the antagonisms which 
 he has to allay. He must conciliate the two tendencies: 
 he must, as M. Vansteenberghe puts it, “ bind the present 
 movement to the historical past of the Church ”’;% but he 
 must also go forward as a man of his age who has been 
 influenced by the spirit of democratic independence running 
 strong in the Rhineland. Characteristically, therefore, in 
 a work whose keynote is harmony and peace he seeks to 
 unite past and present—historically, by pointing to the 
 continuous inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the Church 
 throughout the ages; ideally, by demonstrating in mystical 
 symmetry the complete interconnexion of each part of the 
 
 1 From Gerson to Grotius, p. 47. 
 
 2 Cf. his criticism of Marsilius of Padua for saying that there is no need 
 to accept the doctors of the Church as authority except in so far as they 
 base themselves on Biblical canon: ‘‘ Hec est perniciosa opinio post sancte 
 Ecclesiz approbationem probabilium doctorum”’ (De Concordantia Catholica, 
 
 II, xxxiv, in Nicolai de Cusa Opera, Basel, 1565, p. 775. Future references 
 here are to the Basel edition). 
 
 3 Le Cardinal Nicolas de Cues, p. 35. 
 40 
 
NICOLAS OF CUSA 
 
 great Christian system, militant, expectant, trrumphant— 
 and at the same time to advance the Conciliar interest 
 through a critique of the nature and origin of ecclesiastical 
 power. 
 
 The Church, he writes, is a living unity. It is a fra- 
 ternity,! united to the one Lord, from whom, “ the peaceful 
 king of infinite concord, that sweet agreement or spiritual 
 harmony flows in due order and proportion into all its 
 subject and united members, that God may be all in all.” ? 
 Tripartite in form, it is triumphant, asleep (dormientem, or 
 in Purgatory) and militant ;% organic in constitution, it 
 has spirit, soul, and body, the counterpart of which in 
 heaven is the Trinity, the angels, and the blessed, on earth 
 the sacraments, the priesthood, and the faithful. As in 
 the heavenly, so in each one of these earthly divisions there 
 is hierarchy and perfect gradation; in the sacraments from 
 the lowest to the supreme service of the Eucharist, in the 
 priesthood from the subdeacons up to the Supreme Pontiff,‘ 
 among the faithful from counts and governors through the 
 margraves, dukes, and kings up to the Emperor himself.® 
 The harmonious symmetry, everywhere threefold, is com- 
 plete. : 
 
 To the sacerdotium, the soul of the Church, Books I and II 
 are devoted. Just as in each diocese unity is secured by 
 the bishop, so in the whole Church it is ensured by the 
 Pope. He is episcoporum princeps, the captain in the army 
 
 1 De Conc. Cath., I, v, 698: ‘“‘ Quoniam Ecclesia ab unitate et concordantiali 
 congregatione dicitur, . . . ipsa ex fraternitate constituitur.” 
 
 Pi; 692. 
 
 3 I, v, 699. The connexion he gives thus: ‘‘ Dormiens Ecclesia, tanquam 
 media inter angelos et homines, considerata est ut umbra angelice [1.e., 
 triumphantis], et militans ut umbra dormientis: licet dormiens ab humana 
 viatrici Ecclesia non separatur quousque traducatur in triumphantem.” 
 
 4 I, vi, 700-vili, 703. 
 
 5 III, i, 780: ‘‘ Cuius [the corpus] gradualis hierarchica ordinatio in unum 
 principem, ab infimo simplicium laicorum, pedum typum gerentium, per 
 
 Rectores, Comites, Marchiones, Duches et Reges usque in Cesareum caput, 
 ex superioribus facile quisquam intelligere poterit.”’ 
 
 41 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 of Christ.1 His position, however, has gradually evolved. 
 He holds his primacy in virtue of a definition of the Council 
 » of Chalcedon, which having regard to the antiquity of Rome 
 gave its bishop the first place and the bishop of Constanti- 
 nople the second.? Out of the five early patriarchal sees 
 the Roman in the course of time came to the head owing 
 to its age, its dignity, its line of martyrs, as well as to divine . 
 privilege® But when we speak of the Church we may mean 
 not only the Pope or the Pope and cardinals, but all the 
 churches united under and subject to Rome or Constanti- 
 nople as the case may be. ‘The union of these churches 1s 
 called by the Greeks a Synod, by usa Council. ‘The nature 
 and power of such Councils calls for our investigation. 
 Nicolas does it in two principal ways. He distinguishes 
 carefully between the various types of Council; and he 
 discusses the meaning of the plenizudo potestatis claimed by 
 the successors of St Peter. No assembly, he argues, can 
 be termed a General Council which does not comprise the 
 Pope or his legate. ‘The Pope has the right of summoning 
 - and presiding over the Council; but if having done so he 
 refuses to associate himself with its work, the assembly 
 may after due and proper interval (for it must never act 
 precipitately) continue without him, although it cannot 
 decide questions of faith without his participation; materia 
 jidei Papam exigit4 But the expression ‘ General Council ’ 
 needs definition. There are two types, which have not 
 always been properly distinguished. There is the General 
 
 1 I, xv, 708: “‘ Quare ita ut Petrus princeps fuit Apostolorum, ita et 
 Romanus Pontifex episcoporum princeps, quoniam in locum Apostolorum 
 episcopi succedunt. . . . Unde iste principatus est super omnes homines in 
 Ecclesia existentes, qui per fidem constituitur, est enim capitaneus in eo 
 exercitu.’’ S01, Xi, 700. 
 
 3 I, xvi, 710: ‘‘Concludendum, existimo, Romanam sedem, ob seculi 
 dignitatem, et divinum previlegium, et in augmentum fidei, ut pax serva- 
 retur, et ob tot experimenta sanctorum przsulum, quorum successive plus- 
 quam triginta propter fidem martyris coronabantur ; per Conciliorum statuta 
 primatum merito possidere.”’ 4 I, ii, 712-713. 
 
 42 
 
NICOLAS OF CUSA 
 
 Council in which the Pope sits as patriarch, the Concilium 
 Universale Patriarchale, which is always subordinate to the 
 Pontiff and cannot sit in judgment upon him unless he goes 
 wrong in matters of faith, when he may be corrected by the 
 anathema and the withdrawal of obedience ;1 and there is 
 the General Council of the representatives of the whole 
 body of the Church, the perfectissima Synodus, which is 
 without doubt above the Pope. As Vicar of Christ the 
 Pope presides over the whole Church, but his authority is 
 of human, as well as of divine, origin, for historically the 
 primitivitas or primacy, in virtue of which he wields his 
 power, derives in part “‘ from men and from the canons,” 
 as has been shown.? In the second place, the bishops do 
 not derive their jurisdiction from the Pope. St Peter re- 
 ceived from Christ no more power than the other Apostles; 
 “nothing was said to Peter that was not said to the others 
 also.”” From a jurisdictional point of view all bishops are 
 equal, as they were in the days of the Apostles. The 
 Pope’s superiority lies simply in his administrative powers. 
 St Peter was, and so his successor 1s, maior in administra- 
 tione—a very important point3 ‘The Pope’s position, 
 therefore, is like that of the Principal or Rector of a uni- 
 versity, who cannot legislate apart from his Senate In 
 
 1 I, vii, 718-720. 
 
 2 I, xvii, 735-736: ‘‘ Hoc nobis sufficit quod licet Romanus Pontifex ut 
 successor Petri a Christo magna habeat previlegia et altam potestatem ex 
 sede et Cathedra, que previlegia cum sede stabilia sunt: tamen primitivitas 
 illa, qua Romanus Pontifex primus est omnium Ecclesiarum, partim etiam 
 ab hominibus et canonibus est, iuxta superius dicta.”’ 
 
 3 I, xill, 727-729. 
 
 4 J, xviii, 739-740: ‘“‘ Verum quia universale Concilium est congregatio 
 sive Ecclesia, de membris universe catholice Ecclesiz congregata, et repre- 
 sentat ex hoc universam Ecclesiam : tunc considerandum est, quod Romanus 
 Pontifex etiam habet figuratam et representivam personam, unius universe 
 Ecclesiz.’? But the Synod’s representation is far less ‘‘ confused’ than the 
 Pontiff’s, and therefore its judgment is more infallible: ‘‘ Non dubium quanto 
 illa Synodus minus confuse plus tenendo in veritate representat, tanto eius 
 iudicium plus a fallibilitate versus infallibilitatem tendit, et semper maius 
 
 est iudicio unici Romani Pontificis, eum [? eam = Ecclesiam] confusissime 
 figurantis.”’ 
 
 43 
 
 93a 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 the third place, the Synod represents more clearly and in- 
 fallibly than the Pope the Universal Church which in itself 
 possesses the power of binding and loosing and through 
 Christ’s presence is indeviable and infallible. The voice 
 of the Council is the unanimous voice of the Church Uni- 
 versal, and this unanimity is a sure sign of the presence of 
 the Holy Spirit within it It stands for the whole body 
 of bishops, to whom equal powers of jurisdiction have 
 descended. ‘The Pope is not the universal bishop, but first 
 among the others ; and the authority of the Council is to 
 be founded not in the Pope, but in the consent of all.? 
 For it is by consent that leadership or rulership exists. 
 Papal authority is derived from the consent and agreement 
 of the whole body of the Church, and that body in the 
 persons of its representatives may therefore, in case of 
 necessity, and for offences other than heresy, take action 
 and depose the Pope when he does not fulfil the adminis- 
 trative function expected of him—when he is, in fact, 
 inutilis’ Conversely, the Pope cannot change or resist the 
 canons of General Councils, to which he is demonstrably 
 inferior. This particularly applies to the decrees of Con- 
 stance and of the second session of Basel. At first, it is 
 true, there were doubts about the legality of these assemblies 
 
 Ady 1A 71S 
 
 2 II, xiii, 730: ‘‘ Papa non est universalis episcopus, sed super aliis primus, 
 et sacrorum Conciliorum non in Papa, sed in consensu omnium vigorem fun- 
 damus.”’ 
 
 3 TI, xiv, 730: ‘‘ Omnis constitutio radicatur in iure naturali: et si ei con- 
 tradicit, constitutio valida esse nequit. . . . Unde cum natura omnes sint 
 liberi, tunc omnis principatus, sive consistat in lege scripta, sive viva apud 
 principem est a sola concordantia et consensu subiectivo.’”’ We might almost 
 think ourselves in the days of Rousseau. Cf. I, xv, 731: “‘ Constat omnium 
 constitutionum ligandi vigorem consistere in concordia et consensu tacito 
 vel expresso.”’ 
 
 4 II, xvii, 736: “‘ Quis dubitare potest sane mentis, absque verze potes- 
 tatis et privilegii sedis diminutione, universale concilium tam in abusum quam 
 abutentem potestem habere pro sui ipsius conservatione et totius Ecclesiz 
 salutari ordinato regimine ? . . . Quare universaliter dici potest universale 
 
 Concilium, representationem catholice Ecclesiz, habere potestatem immediate 
 a Christo et esse omni respectu tam supra Papam quam sedem apostolicam.” 
 
 44 
 
NICOLAS OF CUSA 
 
 owing to the troubles and discords at their inception. But 
 their eventual unanimity has been a clear sign of the in- 
 dwelling of the Holy Spirit. Now the second session of 
 Basel, in spite of the bull of dissolution, has held resolutely 
 to its course and unanimously drawn the conclusion that 
 the Pope is bound to accept the reforming decrees and 
 Cannot suppress or change them. ‘“‘ The Holy Spirit has 
 dictated the syllogism”: the Pope is therefore bound to 
 obey the reforming decrees: he cannot quash them. Papa 
 constituttonibus generalts concilit contradicens non auditurs 
 The conclusion thus rests on a fourfold foundation: 
 that the Papacy is an administrative function; that all 
 power, spiritual as much as temporal, is dependent on the 
 consent of the whole body over which it is exercised ; that 
 that consent is conveyed through representatives ; and that 
 the representatives of the whole body, in this instance the 
 Church, are the Council. But the position is guarded with 
 calm reasonableness. ‘The assembly at Basel must pro- 
 ceed toward the Pontiff with the greatest moderation, and 
 avoid all suspicion of arrogance. It must work peacefully 
 for the interest of the faith and the good of the Catholic 
 Church as a whole’ The concord must be constructive, 
 and Nicolas accordingly proceeds to give his proposals for 
 reform. The difformitas or disorder in the Church springs, 
 he says, from our digression from the order handed down 
 
 ENLL; &%, FAS. 
 
 2 For the sake of brevity I have omitted the discussion of the Pope’s émieixeia 
 or power of dispensation on grounds of equity ; he can only use it, Nicolas says, 
 if there is really just and adequate reason ; it is because the Council of Basel 
 found the reasons put forward in the bull of dissolution inadequate that it 
 declared that instrument contrary to the decree Frequens (II, xx, 749). 
 
 3 II, xx, 751: ‘‘ Quare hoc sacrum Concilium, absque passione cum summa 
 mansuetudine se habere debet in ordine ad Romanum Pontificem, non se ex 
 privilegio universalis Concilii in tantum erigat (de quo potius dolendum 
 esset) quod obliviscatur subiectionis Patriarchalis in qua semper fuit, secun- 
 dum quam in Papam fidelem nihil posset: sed servato debito honore cuncta 
 pacifice in augmentum fidei, et divini cultus et universale bonum catholice 
 Ecclesiz unanimi concordantia ordinentur, ut videantur opera nostra bona et 
 glorificetur Deus pater qui est in czalis.”’ 
 
 45 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 to us by the Fathers, from the failure of each part to do its 
 duty. What is wanted is obedience to existing canons, 
 not a mass of new legislation: zon defictunt canones sed 
 executiones. He diagnoses accurately the sickness of the 
 fifteenth-century Church—the absence of the sense of 
 vocation, lack of governance, evasion of duty. ‘The 
 Fourth General Council of Constantinople decreed that 
 metropolitans must not exercise their offices through others, 
 but must attend personally to their work, and not become 
 secularised. That decree might well be applied more 
 generally? The head of the Church and his subordinates 
 must be united by a veritable spiritual marriage, and 
 marriage implies consent on both sides; the faithful should 
 therefore as far as possible elect their priests, the priests 
 their bishops with the consent of their congregations, the 
 bishops their metropolitan with the priests’ help, and the 
 metropolitans their cardinals. To avoid the reproach of 
 avarice in the Curia, all fees must be abolished: and 
 instead there should be an annual collection to defray the 
 cost of ecclesiastical administration.4 Most interesting 
 of all is the proposal for a permanent advisory Council 
 elected from the Provinces which should assist the Pope 
 and Council when local difficulties called for solution. 
 Commends and pensions should be abolished, the number 
 of small benefices reduced by amalgamation, and pluralism 
 reduced.® 
 
 After the soul, the body. The third book is devoted 
 to the Empire. Crvil society, of which the most preferable 
 governmental type is elective monarchy, in order to be har- 
 montous should be graded and articulated like the Church. 
 
 1 TI, xxvi, 757, and xxvii, 759. ah xix, 962. 3 II, xxxii, 766-768. 
 
 * TI, xxx, 763. The collection was already i in vogue in the Empire, but the 
 State took the money. For a previous attempt on a universal scale cf. the 
 transactions at the Council of Bourges, 1226 (Chron. Rogevi de Wendover, Rolls 
 Ser., ii, 302). 
 
 . ‘Il, XViil, 741-742. 6 II, xxxlii, 768-769. 
 
 46 
 
NICOLAS OF CUSA 
 
 The “ King of the Romans ”’ is superior to other kings, just 
 as the Pope is to his patriarchs. He is independent of the 
 spiritual power and must not interfere in episcopal or 
 pontifical elections; there must be no encroachment of 
 the temporal upon the spiritual sphere or vice versa; and 
 in this connexion he attacks the theory of the ¢ranslatio 
 imperit and demolishes the myth of the Donation of Con- 
 stantine+ Yet the Emperor is not unconcerned with the 
 Church, for he is the defender of the orthodoxy taught by 
 the clergy, and, just as kings convoke national councils for 
 the reform of abuses within their domain, so the Emperor 
 should perform that function for the Universal Church, 
 if the Pope omits to do so; and in an assembly so con- 
 voked it will be his duty to preside and to labour for the 
 submission of those who resist its decrees.2. Here Nicolas 
 is thinking of the Emperor Sigismund and the Hussites 
 summoned to Basel in 1433. He then proceeds to discuss 
 reform within the Empire, and in striking phrases pictures 
 its decadence. Spiritual possessions have been absorbed 
 by the temporal power ‘The Emperor is often the creature 
 of the electors. Justice is set at naught, for the feudal 
 defiance or diffidatio is used to cover naked declarations of 
 war for selfish ends. ‘“* Mortal disease has invaded the 
 Germanic Empire. Unless salutary aid is quickly given 
 death will undoubtedly follow, and the Empire will be 
 sought in Germany and shall not be found there.” ® It 
 was true. ‘The stranger was at the gates. Slavs in the 
 East, Burgundians in the West, were rolling back the 
 Empire from the territories it had won. The defence de- 
 sired by the princes was a loose federal autonomy under the 
 
 1 III, ii, 782-783. He says he can find no warrant for it in history ; 
 but, characteristically, he adds: ‘‘ Salvo in omnibus iudicio sacrze Synodi.”’ 
 That a medieval German should find no evidence for the translatio imperit 
 de Grecis in Germanos shows a critical spirit. 
 
 PoUsil, xiv, 796; xxiv, Sos. STIL) Sax Sr2. * ITT) sxx) S32) 
 
 SELL; cee, O19. 6 III, xxxi, 813 and 814. 
 
 47 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 purely nominal authority of the Emperor; the plan of the 
 Emperors was far greater centralisation. In a way the 
 problem was analogous to that which beset the Church. 
 Here again, just as he had wished to safeguard the authority 
 of the Pope and of the Council alike, so Nicolas desired to 
 find a middle term between Imperial absolutism and the 
 rights of the princes—to reconcile the principle of monarchy 
 with that of federalism His first proposal was a general 
 diet to be held annually at Frankfurt in order to maintain 
 the safety of the Empire and to provide for the judicial 
 reform so urgently needed. For this he proposed a divi- 
 sion of the Empire into twelve districts, in each of which 
 should sit an Imperial tribunal of three judges, a noble, an 
 ecclesiastic, and a bourgeois, whose judgments the execu- 
 tive authority of the Emperor would carry out. The same 
 diet must undertake the reform of taxation, and the simpli- 
 fication of law and custom.2, There must be a new method 
 of electing the Emperor;* he must be supported by a 
 sufficient army maintained at public expense, for lawless- 
 ness must be put down with a vigorous hand.’ The system 
 of constant appeals from the secular power to the Roman 
 Curia must be stopped.6 Usury, gambling, luxury in 
 clothing, must be suppressed.® But the return to severity 
 and simplicity must be done gradually and with discretion. 
 The Emperor has to act the part of the lyre-player; the 
 laws are the strings of his lyre, and should not be stretched 
 too tight, but all to the right and proportionate intervals, 
 if harmony is to be achieved.’ 
 
 1 Vansteenberghe, op. cit., p. 48. 
 
 2 De Conc. Cath., III, xxxv, 814-815. 
 
 8 The plan is worked out in ITI, xxxvii, 817. See the discussion by Scharpff, 
 Der Cardinal und Bischof Nicolaus von Cues, pp. 84-89. 
 
 4 JIT; xxxix, 819-820. SL ils i B20, S lil siieer 
 
 ? III, xli, 824: ‘‘ Debet itaque citharcedus rex esse ; et qui bene sciat in 
 fidibus concordiam observare tam maiores quam minores, nec nimis nec 
 minus extendere ut communis concordantia per omnium harmoniam resonet.”’ 
 Nothing has been said here of the treatise written by Nicolas shortly after 
 
 48 
 
NICOLAS OF CUSA 
 
 It is a fundamental characteristic of medizval political 
 thought that it refuses to be troubled by the discrepancy 
 between idea and fact. Ifa divided and distracted Europe 
 cannot realise the idea of unity in practice, it is the fault of 
 man’s mortal nature; the idea stands immutable, unshaken 
 by human experience. It is itself the reality, human polity 
 but the shadow, the inevitably poor attempt at reproduction. 
 Nicolas accepted the idea, and did his best to better the 
 earthly counterpart; his was not the positive Renaissance 
 mind in politics, that dethrones the idea, whatever philo- 
 sophy may say, as soon as pragmatical tests have proved it 
 unsatisfying. There were Renaissance minds all around. 
 What disillusionment, then, was in store for the author 
 of this calm medieval liberalism!+ A monument to the 
 ideal of an organically harmonious Christendom, multiple 
 in function, one in spirit, the treatise towers above the ambi- 
 tions and antagonisms which it was powerless to reconcile. 
 We must pass from the cool of the Spanish Chapel into 
 the glare and noise of the piazza outside. 
 
 Within four years the author was on the side of Eugenius. 
 He had resigned his position as a judge on the Commission 
 of the Faith which was preparing the extreme measures 
 against the Pope decided upon in 1436 by a majority of 
 the Council: and he had been to Constantinople as a dele- 
 gate of the papalist minority to urge the claims of an Italian 
 city for the meeting-place of the coming Council between 
 Greeks and Latins, as against Avignon, the choice of. the 
 the De Concordantia Catholica entitled Tvactatus de Auctoritate Presidendt 
 in Concilio Generali, printed in Dux, Der deutsche Cardinal Nicolaus von Cues, 
 I Band, Beilage 1, pp. 475-491. Of this Scharpff remarks (op. cit., p. 66) 
 that it reveals no new standpoint. 
 
 1 “ Its sweet reasonableness of tone, its lofty eloquence, the sanctified com- 
 mon sense, which refuse to allow the absolute claims of legal rights upon a 
 
 society which needs renovation, suggest a comparison with Hooker, to whose 
 theory of law that of Nicolas bears a strong resemblance”’ (Figgis, op. cit., 
 
 Pp: 70). 
 D 49 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 majority. The transition is startling, but should not be 
 set down to pure self-interest. Nicolas had, it is true, lost 
 the case which he had originally come to Basel to advocate— 
 that of Ulrich of Manderscheid suing for the archbishopric 
 of Cologne against the papal nominee, Rabanus of Helm- 
 stadt—and the defeat may have made him disillusioned 
 with the assembly; he may, perhaps, have been tempted 
 by the promises of a well-known humanist, Ambrogio 
 Traversari, who was at Basel in October 1435 by order of 
 Eugenius on propaganda work; but a more powerful 
 motive must have been the fact that in 1434-5 the Council 
 was attempting, with little or no administrative experience, 
 and no realisation of the difficulties, to grasp the whole 
 machinery of the Church, judicial, executive, and legis- 
 lative, and was being led on, largely by the French radicals, 
 to extreme courses without realising the consequences.t 
 Nicolas was the very opposite of a revolutionary.2 The 
 reform which he passionately desired was dependent on 
 concord and could not be achieved by the more drastic 
 methods of Cardinal Aleman ; and it is not surprising that 
 when his delicately adjusted constitutional scheme gained 
 no permanent attention he transferred his allegiance to the 
 side of a bureaucracy which at least had the merit of being 
 efficient, fully awake to the evils in the Church, humanist 
 and enlightened, and chose the narrower and more effective 
 method by which to try to bring his own country to reform. 
 
 1 There is plentiful evidence of the extended activities of the Council in the 
 notaries’ manuals published by J. Haller, Concilium Basiliense: Studien und 
 Quellen, vol. iii, Die Protokolle des Concils 1434-5, which show its enormous 
 agenda from day to day. 
 
 2 Scharpff’s characterisation of the purpose of De Concorvdantia Catholica 
 is apposite here (op. cit., pp. 70, 71) : ‘‘ Cusa war kein Stiirmer in der Kirche ; 
 der Begriff von Reformation der Kirche, den das sechszehnte Jahrhundert 
 aufstellte, war ihm ganz und gar fremd; sein Ziel war, die Kirche auf die 
 gelautete durch Kirchengesetze geregelte Form, wie sie sich durch die Wirk- 
 samkeit der ersten acht allgemeinen Concilien gestallet hatte, zuriickzu- 
 fuhren und bei allen Verbesserungen nicht beliebigen Eingebungen zu folgen, 
 sondern ‘die bewahrten Pfaide der Vater einzuhalten.’ ”’ 
 
 sO 
 
 S 
 
NICOLAS OF CUSA 
 
 Looking back we might say that he chose the ideal of the 
 ultramontane Papacy, the way of Antonelli rather than the 
 way of Newman. Yet peace and unity were still to be his 
 aim. The “ Hercules of the Eugenians,”’ as A/neas Silvius 
 called him, was faithful to his mission of harmony. 
 
 He was first employed in helping Cardinal Carvajal to 
 reclaim for St Peter his own Germany, which had declared 
 its neutrality in the struggle of Pope and Council. Every- 
 where his arguments centred round the simple formula, 
 “The Church is where there is unity, as at Ferrara and 
 Florence, not where division exists, as at Basel.’’ It is a 
 little sad to think that not six years before he had argued 
 for the Basel assembly on very similar grounds. His 
 advocacy was eventually successful. By 1439 he had 
 attached to the papal cause the electors of Cologne, Trier, 
 Saxony, and the Palatinate, and finally in 1447 came the 
 abolition of German neutrality and adhesion to Rome. 
 For this he was rewarded by Nicholas V with the cardinalate 
 of St Peter ad Vincula and the next year sent as legate a 
 latere to Germany, to proclaim the indulgence of the Jubilee 
 which the Pope was preparing and to carry out the prac- 
 tical reforming aims of his Catholic Concord. We was, his 
 commission states, to establish social peace, redress doctrinal 
 error, and correct moral abuses, by means of provincial 
 councils, visitations of monastic houses, preaching, and the 
 exercise of special judicial powers. All this he did with 
 immense energy. For peace he strove by reconciling 
 episcopal and capitular authorities in various places, by 
 composing the quarrels of regulars and seculars, by smooth- 
 ing down the differences between the clergy and the com- 
 munes; and, while strengthening and safeguarding the 
 powers of the bishops, he took good care to supervise and 
 regulate the duties of their extremely unpopular henchmen, 
 the archdeacons. He laboured vigorously for reform in 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 the monasteries: how difficult this was in actual practice, 
 how stiff the obstacles put in the way of his decrees, can be 
 gauged from the opposition offered to his reforming efforts 
 by the Abbess Verena of the Sonneburg, whose bitter 
 obstinacy was supported by Duke Sigismund of Austria, 
 Count of the Tyrol. If Louis XI has been called the 
 great spider spinning its web in the centre of the Christian 
 world, the Count of the Tyrol may be represented as one 
 of many little spiders spinning their webs in the centre of 
 the Empire. With him Nicolas was to come into still more 
 acute conflict when in 14.53 he took up the bishopric which 
 he was to hold for the rest of his life. 
 
 That year he was given the see of Brixen by Pius II, the 
 famous A‘ neas Silvius Piccolomini, who had known him 
 well at Basel and had remained on the Conciliar side some 
 time after Nicolas’ change of front. The appointment 
 was not to Duke Sigismund’s taste. ‘The Count of the 
 Tyrol was seeking to enlarge his frontier at the expense of 
 the bishoprics of Trent, Chur, and Brixen. On the vacancy 
 of the latter see the chapter had elected a compliant tool, 
 John Roettel, and the nomination of the ardent reformer 
 appeared likely to frustrate his plans. He was determined 
 to exact fealty from the newcomer: the new bishop was 
 equally determined to hold his diocese as a principality. 
 With the exception of a few periods of détenze or intervals 
 when Nicolas was helping the Pope in the reform and 
 management of the Patrimony, there was steadily increasing 
 friction between count and cardinal for ten years, and 
 in the end open warfare, league and counter-league, while 
 the prestige of the Church in Southern Germany suffered 
 not a little through the malicious appeals to German patriot- 
 ism and anti-clerical sentiment spread by Gregory of Heim- 
 burg, the able and bitter lawyer and opponent of Nicolas, 
 in the employment of Sigismund. It is a melancholy 
 
 §2 
 
NICOLAS OF CUSA 
 
 story. Naked acquisitiveness fought stubborn and pedantic 
 legalism, for the peacemaking prelate cannot be acquitted 
 of acts that were both provocative and tactless. Near 
 the middle of the struggle he tired, wished to withdraw, 
 but Pius was determined to make the affair of Brixen a 
 test case. ‘The Curia fought Heimburg for the temporal 
 powerand fought him over the author of the Catholic Concord. 
 Once more Conciliar pamphleteering and propaganda, in- 
 solent appeals to the princes of the Empire, and placards 
 of gravamina made their appearance. Only Sigismund’s 
 death (1463) stopped the campaign, and neither Nicolas 
 nor his master lived longer than a year to enjoy a doubtful 
 triumph. 
 
 Yet it is to these later years that some of the cardinal’s 
 best work, whether in mathematics, philosophy, or de- 
 votional writing, is to be attributed. During serene in- 
 tervals in the tiresome bickering with Sigismund he was 
 pondering deeply the problem of religious unity. If truth 
 or reality is one, the good one, God Himself one, and men, 
 as he held, striving to become partakers in that single good, 
 why are there so many dissensions about the way that leads 
 thither, and why are religions, whose only aim is to point 
 out that way, at continual strife with one another? Not 
 only the dissensions in the Christian body itself, as, for 
 example, the Hussite intransigeance, but the still more 
 disastrous clash of East and West in the fall of Constanti- 
 nople and the atrocities committed there by the Turks set 
 him to think over the question. In September 1453 he 
 tells us that after prolonged meditation he had a vision, in 
 which he saw how the differences of the warring sects were 
 permanently reconciled in a vast system of religious unity. 
 The account of it he gives in the most imaginative and 
 literary of his works, the De Pace Fidei, which reads like 
 an epilogue to the Catholic Concord. If it were not in 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 dialogue form it would resemble a Platonic myth, where 
 truth apprehended intuitively is set out in the graceful 
 language of allegory. Olympus might almost be the scene, 
 but the air is kindlier. The King of Heaven has just 
 announced above the sad news which He has received from 
 the earth. ‘The angels of the different provinces and sects, 
 whom He sent into the world, appear before the assembly 
 of the elect and supplicate for mercy and compassion on 
 humanity. “Thou, Lord, hast been pleased to create 
 man of the clay of the earth and hast breathed into him a 
 rational spirit that in him may shine the image of Thine 
 ineffable virtue; and though that spirit of understanding 
 which Thou didst sow in the earth hath been dimmed and 
 seeth not the light nor whence it arose, yet Thou hast 
 created for him all things that stir his senses to wonder, 
 that he may be able some time to lift the eyes of his mind 
 to Thee, creator of all, and to be united to Thee in deepest 
 love, and so at last return with profit to the source of his 
 being.”” But, continues the speaker, man has multiplied, 
 and with great numbers has come great diversity: almost 
 all men have to lead a miserable and laborious existence; 
 few have the leisure to use their judgment so as to know 
 and seek after God. “Thus Thou has sent unto Thy 
 people kings and seers called prophets to teach them in 
 Thy name worship and laws, which they have accepted as 
 if from Thee: to the different nations Thou hast sent 
 different prophets and teachers, now at one time, now at 
 another. But the conditions of human life are such that 
 long custom which has passed into habit is defended as 
 truth. ‘Thus have arisen no small dissensions when each 
 community prefers its own faith to that of others. To 
 our help, therefore, Thou that alone canst! For ’tis on 
 Thy account, whom alone they venerate, that there is this 
 rivalry in their adoration. For no one, in aught that he 
 
 54 
 
NICOLAS OF CUSA 
 
 seemeth to seek, seeketh but the Good which is Thee. No 
 one in any quest of the mind followeth but the Truth which 
 Thou art. What asketh the living but to live, the existing 
 but to exist ? ‘Thou art the giver of life and existence, and 
 it is Thou, it seems, that art sought in different ways 
 through different rites and art called by different names 
 because Thou remainest for all unknown, never to be 
 defined. Hide not Thyself, then, Lord: show Thy face, 
 and all people will be saved . . . for if Thou shalt do this the 
 sword and hatred shall cease and every ill, and all shall know 
 that there is but one religion in the multiplicity of rites.”’? 
 The King then speaks : He has given men free will, He 
 has sent them the prophets, and finally He sent them the 
 Word. What more could He do? But the Word made 
 flesh takes up the plea. Although the Father’s works are 
 perfect, yet because of the gift of free will and the fact that 
 there is nothing stable in this world of sense, that opinions, 
 conjectures, and interpretations are manifold, let the diver- 
 sity of religions be brought to one orthodox faith? The 
 Father assents. Wise men are accordingly summoned 
 from every nation who discuss with the Word, St Peter, 
 and St Paul the difficulties which will be met with in bring- 
 ing their respective sects and countries to the unity of the 
 faith. A series of brilliant dialogues follows, which show 
 that Nicolas was more than a superficial student of com- 
 parative religion and of national modes of belief. A Greek, 
 an Italian, a Hindu, an Arab, a Chaldean, a Jew, a Scythian, 
 a Persian, a Syrian, a Spaniard, a Tartar, a German, a 
 Bohemian, and finally an Englishman appear (Pagan and 
 Christian are jumbled up in a remarkable order) and raise 
 difficulties which are satisfactorily answered, though some 
 accept the replies with rather unconvincing readiness. The 
 Arab asks how the polytheists are to be convinced, and 
 1 1, 862-863. 2 ili, 863-864. 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 receives the answer that even they assume the existence of 
 Deity, which they honour implicitly in their various gods 
 and which they recognise as the first principle of the uni- 
 verse ‘The Hindu asks what is to happen to the idols, 
 and when he 1s told that they must be broken answers that 
 people believe in them because of the replies which they 
 give. He is informed, somewhat ingenuously, that the 
 oracle is usually given by the priest, and when this 1s 
 known the people will not want idols? The Chaldean 
 asks if by the Trinity is meant a God only metaphorically 
 speaking three, for like the Arab he cannot understand how 
 God can have aSon’ The Frenchman acutely asks how 
 the differences of opinion on the purpose of the Incarnation 
 can be reconciled:+ the Armenian raises difficulties over 
 baptism,® the Bohemian (as no doubt he would) over 
 the Eucharist,® and the Englishman, no ritualist, asks if 
 other sacraments—marriage, ordination, confirmation, and 
 extreme unction—will be insisted on. He receives from 
 St Paul the wise and truly Catholic answer that allowances 
 will be made for the weakness of men unless it goes against 
 their eternal safety. All nations will not be compelled to 
 accept the régime of fastings and abstentions: augebitur 
 etiam fortassis devotio ex quadam diversitate." Perhaps St 
 Peter might have answered differently. Finally the wise 
 men are sent back to bring their countries to the unity of 
 the true religion and to attend as plenipotentiaries at Jeru- 
 salem, the “common centre,’ and there make perpetual 
 peace. ; 
 
 The enlightened theism, the strongly unecclesiastical 
 character of the vision, may appear a little strange in the 
 writer of the Letters to the Bohemians, in so prominent an 
 ecclesiastical statesman. But it is in fact the inevitable 
 
 1 vi, 865-866. 2 vii, 866. 3 viii, 867. * xi, 869. 
 S Vi, (O97. 6 xvil, 877. ? xviii, 878. 
 
 56 
 
NICOLAS OF CUSA 
 
 outcome of his philosophy. Its characteristic is its rela- 
 tivism. No single philosophical system can truly answer 
 the question what God is, what His relation to the cosmos, 
 why and how the world was created. Each system possesses 
 a certain degree of truth, but each by itself is fundament- 
 ally “conjecture.” Only through a study of the various 
 systems can one have an inkling of “the unity of the 
 unattainable truth.”1 ‘They participate in that truth, but 
 not all equally; the criterion lies in their theories of know- 
 ledge—their epistemologies, as we might call it. What 
 then constitutes a probable theory of knowledge? Here 
 we touch the keynote of his thought: a theory, he would 
 reply, that is ready to rely on intuition, which can surmount 
 
 ey 
 
 ~% 
 
 ° e e ¥ 
 or, more accurately, combine contradictions, rather than 
 
 on reason, which boggles at them. As early as 1440, in 
 his De Docta Ignorantia, Nicolas stated the position which 
 he was consistently to uphold throughout his philosophical 
 writing: “ The principle of contradiction is valid only for 
 our reason.” 2 He distinguishes fundamentally between the 
 discursive reason, the ratio discurrens, which cannot admit the 
 unity of opposites, and the intuitive vision, the intel/ectus 
 videns, which perceives and admits it2 True and perfect 
 knowledge is the knowledge which comes from the luminous 
 insight of the iuze/lectus. And why not from the reason ? 
 Reality (veritas) Nicolas understands in the metaphysical 
 sense of ‘ being,’ making the two terms, as the scholastic 
 philosophers did, interchangeable—ens et verum conver- 
 tuntur; but as a Platonist he thinks of reality as God, in 
 Whom all things are but participations. Reality for him 
 
 1 De Coniecturis, I, ii, 76: ‘‘ Cognoscitur igitur inattingibilis veritatis 
 unitas alteritate coniecturali.” 
 
 2 “ Tout Hegel n’est-il pas en germe dans cette affirmation, et le seul fait de 
 lavoir formulée ne fait-il pas de Nicolas de Cues un des péres de la pensée 
 allemande ?”’ (Vansteenberghe, op. cit., p. 282). 
 
 8 The whole of the Apologia Doct@ Ignorantia, pp. 63-75, especially p. 72, 
 deals with this vital matter. 
 $7 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 is not such and such a being, but infinite Being, unique, 
 indivisible—God. But God, the xomen maximum, is above 
 all understanding: how then can the reason understand 
 things in their essence? Then again, on Aristotle’s de- 
 finition, true knowledge is knowledge per causas; but 
 the first cause is God, and knowledge to be perfect must 
 include a knowledge of His infinite Being. Reason is 
 inadequate here: the end of knowledge is hidden in God# 
 Now reality is one, indivisible, without contrarieties ; the 
 principle of contradiction along which reason works will 
 not let reason consider it in its infinite simplicity. But 
 the understanding—the izzellectus—can lift itself to that 
 height. “It should be the profound effort of our whole 
 mental nature to raise itself to that simplicity where con- 
 tradictories coincide.” The reconciliation not only of 
 metaphysical but also of political and religious antagonisms 
 is attainable by the inward eye of vision. Within the 
 systematic unity that is God the opposites are comprised. 
 The coincidentia oppositorum is the main preoccupation 
 of this remarkable man’s thought. It was unfolded in a 
 subtle and profound system of philosophy, illustrated 
 throughout by geometrical diagrams and elaborated with 
 a mathematician’s care; it was shot with a mystic’s emotion 
 and made high and holy with the devotion of a lofty spirit. 
 But the politicians of the city-state and the Curia were to 
 take little account of so transcendent a structure. There 
 could be no concord when the invader came over the Alpine 
 passes, or the galleys of Spain set out upon the unharvested 
 sea, or the trumpet of a prophecy was blown at Wittenberg. 
 Yet the constitutional doctrine which was its outcome is 
 
 1 Apologia Docte Ignorantia, p.64: ‘‘Nichil perfecte homo scire poterit : 
 finis enim scientiz in Deo reconditus est.”’ 
 
 2 De Docta Ignorantia, III, xii, 62: ‘‘ Debet autem in his profundus omnis 
 nostri humani ingenii conatus esse, ut ad illam se elevet simplicitatem, ubi 
 contradictoria coincidunt.”’ 
 
 58 
 
NICOLAS OF CUSA 
 part of the legacy of the Middle Ages to the political thought 
 
 of the West ; it was to be listened to again in its calm 
 essential reasonableness, when the absolutist ideals of 
 territorial rulers provoked their reaction. The forms of 
 political organisation which it advocated soon died out of 
 men’s thoughts; but its spiritual core, consent and repre- 
 
 sentation, compromise without extremities, unity through i 
 
 the conference board, is being fought for still. 
 EK. F. Jacos 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 For a list of Nicolas of Cusa’s writings and a bibliography of general 
 editions of his works and of monographs and articles upon his life and works 
 see E. Vansteenberghe, Le Cardinal Nicolas de Cues, pp. 465-490, and ix—xvil. 
 The literature is large, and only a small selection can be given here. 
 
 A. PRIMARY SouRCES (PRINTED) 
 
 Collected works: (1) Ed. Jacques Lefévre. Paris, 1514. 
 (ii) Ed. Petri. Basel, 1565. 
 Special editions: De Auctoritate Presidendi in Concilio Generali, in J.M. 
 Dux, Der deutsche Cardinal Nicolaus von Cues und die Kirche 
 seiner Zeit. 2vols. Regensburg, 1847. 
 Reformatio Generalis. Ed. Ehses, in Historisches fahrbuch, t. xxxii, 
 pp. 281-297. 
 De Docta Ignorantia. Ed. P. Rotta. Bari, 1913. 
 
 B. Monocrapus AND ARTICLES 
 (2) General Biography 
 Dux, J. M., and E. VansTEENBERGHE, U/ supra. 
 Evckxen, R.: “‘ Nicolaus von Cues,” in PAilosophische Monatshefte, t. xiv. 
 1878. 
 Funk, V.: ‘‘ Nicolaus von Cues,” in Kirchenlexicon, 2nd ed., t.ix. 1895. 
 Lone, P.: “ Nicolas de Cuse,” in Excylopédie des sciences religieuses (ed. 
 Lichtenberger), t. ix. 1880. 
 Morty, F.: “‘ Nicolas de Cues,” in Dictionnaire de théologie scolastique. 
 
 1856-65. 
 59 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 Prantt, G. von: “ Nicolaus v. Cues,” in A//gemeine deutsche Biographie, 
 CAV TBO. 
 
 ScuarPrr, Fr. A.: Der Cardinal und Bischof Nicolaus von Cues als Reformator 
 in Kirche, Reich und Philosophie. 1871. 
 
 Scumip, R.: “ Cusanus,” in Realencychlopadie fir protestantische Theologie 
 und Kirche,t.iv. 1898. 
 
 (4) Special Studies 
 
 Duuem, P.: “‘ Nicolas de Cues et Léonard de Vinci,” in Léonard de Vinci, 
 t. 1. 1909. 
 
 FaLcKENBERG, R.: Grundziige der Philosophie des Nic. Cusanus mit besonderer 
 Berucksichtigung der Lehre vom Erkennen. 1880. 
 
 Marx, J.: Nikolaus von Cues und seine Stiftungen zu Cues und Deventer. 
 1906. 
 
 Rossi, C.: Niccola di Cusa e la direxione monistica della filosofia nel rinasci- 
 mento. 18093. 
 
 Stumpr, R.: Die politischen Ideen des Nicolaus von Cusa. 1865. 
 
 Uesincer, Jou.: Die Gotteslehre des Nicolaus Cusanus. 1888. 
 
 C. GENERAL WoRKS ON THE PERIOD 
 
 CreicHTton, Manpeti: History of the Papacy during the Reformation, vols. 
 land il. 1892. 
 
 Ficcis, J. N.: From Gerson to Grotius. 1916. 
 
 Hauer, Jou.: Concilium Basiliense: Studien und Quellen zur Geschichte 
 des Concils von Basel. 4 vols. 1896-1903. 
 
 Pastor, L.: History of the Popes, vols. i-iii (Eng. translation). 
 
 Pérouse, C.: Le Cardinal Louis Aleman et la fin du Grand Schisme. 1904. 
 
 Vatois, Nort: Le Pape et le Concile (1418-1450). 2 vols. 1909. 
 
 Voict, A.: Enea Silvio de’ Piccolomini als Papst Pius II und sein Zeitalter. 
 3 vols. 1851-63. 
 
 60 
 
III 
 SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 
 |- is difficult for the average Englishman to think of, 
 
 or even to remember, the Renaissance as a great land- 
 
 mark or watershed in our history. Our thought turns 
 naturally to literature rather than to any of the other arts, 
 and we think, whether rightly or wrongly, of literature 
 as a purely native product. The earliest poet we really 
 know—Chaucer—gives us a gallery of brilliant figures, 
 clad, it is true, in medizval garb, but alive and real as we 
 are to-day, and endowed with that peculiar sense of humour, 
 that gift of humorous understatement, which bridges the 
 centuries and even the oceans. 
 
 We cannot class Chaucer as pre-Renaissance any more 
 than we can naturally describe Marlowe or Spenser or 
 Shakespeare as post-Renaissance. The labels are meaning- 
 less. The contrasted names merely remind us of the steady 
 familiar growth of England. 
 
 Yet in this list of lectures on political thinkers of the 
 Renaissance we find two Englishmen, Sir John Fortescue 
 and Sir Thomas More. Of these, Sir Thomas More almost 
 gives the lie to what I have said above; he stands in the 
 direct line of Greek and Italian influences; he zs the Classical 
 Renaissance in England. Nevertheless, he would never 
 have grudged an evening spent at supper with Chaucer, 
 and Shakespeare, if not Marlowe, might have strolled in 
 the garden with him at Chelsea. 
 
 Fortescue is a different matter. He is the most out- 
 standing and original political writer in England in the 
 
 61 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 fifteenth century. That is his claim to stand in this group. 
 What then does he represent? Is he a medieval writer 
 or a modern? What has he to teach, and where did he 
 learn it? Is he a purely native product, or did he learn 
 from years of exile to know the ferment of opinion that 
 gathered around the Conciliar Movement and foretold the 
 Renaissance? 
 
 His choice as a Renaissance type seems to need some 
 word of justification. 
 
 One of the pleasantest of the minor diversions of his- 
 torians is the habit of selecting national types on more or 
 less paradoxical lines. It has been argued, in Oxford, 
 that the four men really characteristic of England, who 
 could have been produced or paralleled nowhere else, are 
 Czedmon, Langland, Bunyan, and Cobbett—all men of 
 letters, but humble men of small education. The more one 
 thinks of it, the more the choice convicts one of truth. 
 
 Another line of choice would illustrate that specifically 
 English gift of prosaic, semi-humorous understatement of 
 the truth of which I have already spoken, sometimes used 
 for the purpose of sober self-justification, sometimes with a 
 hardly veiled wish to exasperate a high-flying opponent. 
 
 King Alfred’s reason for his scanty legislative efforts is 
 the earliest example I know. “It was not known to me 
 which of these might seem good to them that come after.” 
 At the other end of long centuries is Burke: “I have 
 taken my idea of Liberty very low, that it may stick to me 
 to the end of my life,” or Dr Johnson’s “ Every lover of 
 Liberty stands doubtful of the fate of posterity, because 
 the chief county in England cannot take its representative 
 from a jail.” 
 
 There are links all through the centuries, especially 
 perhaps among the lawyers. ‘A king is a thing men have 
 made for their own sakes, for quietness’ sake, just as in one 
 62 
 
SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 
 
 family one man is appointed to buy the meat. . . . If they 
 have not what they would have one day, they shall have it 
 the next, or something as good,” says Selden. Only a shade 
 more serious is the poet Marvell’s pregnant and unequalled 
 summing-up of the Great Civil War: ‘“ Methinks the 
 cause too good to have been fought for.”’ 
 
 It is to this line of Englishmen that Fortescue belongs, 
 to this temperament that he is akin, though I am bound to 
 admit that moderation is more marked than humour in his 
 writings. If, then, Fortescue is a typical Englishman, in 
 what sense was he a Renaissance thinker? Perhaps in the 
 range rather than in the content of his thought. 
 
 Now the Renaissance in England meant many things. 
 We often apologise for our English Renaissance. It 
 needs no apology. It was classical, scholarly, and sane ; 
 it was literary and exuberant, if a little belated. It did 
 not burn lamps before the bust of Plato, but Colet saw to 
 it that the children he loved so well learned both Greek 
 and Christianity with less thrashing than ever before. It 
 produced music that was unrivalled in Europe. Even in 
 painting there were two strongly marked lines in which we 
 may trace a real renaissance. 
 
 England had its vigorous aristocratic art, the art of 
 patronage, of highly critical patrons, men who believed in 
 the unknown painters of Richard II, in Holbein, in Mabuse, 
 in Torrigiano the sculptor. Moreover, England had also 
 a vigorous popular art, an art which preserved for us the 
 peasant types of East Anglia and of Kent, and which, right 
 up to the Reformation, beautified life with embroidery, with 
 illuminations, with stained glass, carved ivories, and all the 
 many arts and crafts in which medieval England had so 
 widespread a reputation. Moreover, England developed 
 Perpendicular architecture, letting in the light, and edifying 
 the dourgeois. 
 
 63 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 Fortescue belongs essentially to the English rather than 
 to the Continental Renaissance in the balance of his quali- 
 ties and his interests, in his attachment to the things he 
 knows, in his refusal to plunge; he represents that renais- 
 sance of the ordinary citizen, of middle-class culture, which 
 owed so little to the recovery of Plato, to the conquest of 
 Constantinople, or to any of the traditional causes of the 
 Renaissance. 
 
 Biographically, Fortescue exactly represents the fifteenth 
 century in England. He was probably born in 1400, or 
 just before ; he died at some unknown date after 1476. 
 He belonged to a Devon family, and may have been sent to 
 Exeter College, Oxford. In any case, his education was 
 mainly legal, at Lincoln’s Inn. He has left us a famous 
 description of life and study in the Inns of Court, too well 
 known, Mr Plummer thought, to bear quotation. But I 
 believe the repetition of one or two passages may be par- 
 doned. Fortescue begins by explaining that there were at 
 least ten lesser inns, called Inns of Chancery, besides the 
 four Inns of Court; the cost of living at one of these Inns 
 he calculates at twenty-eight pounds a year; then he goes on: 
 
 There is both in the Inns of Court, and the Inns of Chancery, a 
 sort of an Academy, or Gymnasium, fit for persons of their station ; 
 where they learn singing, and all kinds of music, dancing and such 
 other accomplishments and diversions (which are called Revels) asare 
 suitable to their quality, and such as are usually practised at Court. 
 
 At other times, out of term, the greater part apply themselves to the 
 
 study of the law. Upon festival days, and after the offices of the 
 
 church are over, they employ themselves in the study of sacred and 
 prophane history: here every thing which is good and virtuous is to 
 be learned: all vice is discouraged and banished. So that knights, 
 barons, and the greatest nobility of the kingdom, often place their 
 children in those Inns of Court; notso much to make the laws their 
 study, much less to live by the profession (having large patrimonies 
 of their own), but to form their manners and to preserve them from 
 the contagion of vice. The discipline is so excellent, that there is 
 
 64 
 
SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 
 
 scarce ever known to be any picques or differences, any bickerings 
 or disturbances amongst them. ‘The only way they have of punish- 
 ing delinquents, is by expelling them the society ; which punishment 
 they dread more than criminals do imprisonment and irons: for he 
 who is expelled out of one society, is never taken in by any of 
 the other. Whence it happens, that there is a constant harmony 
 amongst them, the greatest friendship and a general freedom of 
 conversation. 
 
 In another passage Fortescue would seem to admit that 
 it 1s possible to work in term time: 
 
 Here, in Term-time, the students of the law attend in great 
 numbers, as it were to public schools, and are there instructed in 
 all sorts of Law-learning, and in the practice of the Courts ; the 
 situation of the place, where they reside and study, is between 
 Westminster and the city of London, which, as to all necessaries 
 and conveniences of life, is best supplied of any city or town in the 
 kingdom ; the place of study is not in the heart of the city itself, 
 where the great confluence and multitude of the inhabitants might 
 disturb them in their studies ; but, in a private place, separate and 
 distinct by itself, in the suburbs, near to the Courts of Justice 
 aforesaid, that the students, at their leisure, may daily and duly 
 attend with the greatest ease and convenience. 
 
 Fortescue’s legal life is tolerably easy to trace, and there 
 are records of his gradual acquisition of property in various 
 western counties, including the Manor of Ebrington, just 
 east of Chipping Campden, where he 1s buried. 
 
 The most vivid picture of a barrister’s life in the fifteenth 
 century is to be found in the Paston Letters. It was a life 
 alternating between rustic peace on one of his country 
 estates, superintending the harvest operations; periods of 
 travel and discomfort on circuit; and the ordinary law- 
 terms in town, when the separation from his wife entailed 
 a fairly frequent correspondence, in which she recorded the 
 despatch of rabbits for his larder, and he explained why 
 he could not carry out, with any precision, her directions 
 
 E 65 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 as to the purchase of dress materials. There are none of 
 Fortescue’s letters extant, and one gathers an impression 
 that they would have been less lively than those of John and 
 Margaret Paston, perhaps also less full of strife and litiga- 
 tion. But the general plan of life must have been much 
 the same. 
 
 By 1440 Fortescue was a Judge of Assize in Norfolk ; 
 in 1441 he was made a King’s Sergeant, an office which 
 brought him into close contact with the Council. In 1442 
 he was a Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, and he was 
 knighted in the following year. 
 
 From this time forward the fortunes of Fortescue are 
 closely intertwined with those of the house of Lancaster, 
 and it is impossible to follow them in detail. He was 
 brought into close relations with the Council, with practical 
 difficulties of administration, with popular risings, with 
 problems of the royal succession, with the problem of the 
 proper function of monarchy—and that too at a time when 
 the King was a saint of the second class, a saint whose with- 
 drawal from the world never issued, as with St Louis, or 
 St Catherine of Siena, in an increased ability to deal with 
 the worldly problems to which they returned. 
 
 After 1460 Fortescue was constantly on the Continent 
 in attendance on the exiled royal family, in Flanders, Bur- 
 eundy, and Paris. After 1471 came a reconciliation with 
 the Yorkists, the motives and explanation of which are not 
 very clear. Apparently his work Juz Praise of the Laws 
 of England was written for the edification of the young 
 Prince Edward, while it is not clear whether his Moxarchia, 
 or Governance of England was originally intended to embody 
 the praise of Henry VI or of Edward IV. Mr Plummer 
 inclines to the latter opinion. 
 
 It is perhaps characteristically English that it is such a 
 man of affairs, after such a busy practical life, who writes 
 the political theory of the English Constitution as he saw it 
 66 
 
SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 
 
 in the fifteenth century, and as it was seen again by most of 
 the “constitutional rebels” of the early seventeenth century. 
 
 The age itself demands a word. Stubbs has described 
 the fifteenth century as futile, bloody, and immoral—more 
 futile, bloody, and immoral than the fourteenth. Yet at 
 least it saw one great development, in which England 
 shared to the full. It was the age in which national 
 languages fought their last fight and conquered; the age 
 of a final general use of the vernacular tongue for all kinds 
 of purposes. Miss M. Deanesly! has recently traced in 
 connexion with the “ Lollard Bible” the general European 
 demand for the vernacular Scriptures—a demand which 
 was largely an outgrowth of the semi-secular religious life 
 which was becoming almost more common than strict 
 monasticism, as is witnessed by the numerous Third Orders, 
 Brethren of the Common Life, Friends of God, and other 
 loosely knit associations of mystics and ascetics. For the 
 fifteenth century was not only the age of a commercial and 
 financial religion ; it was also marked by a great widening 
 of the stream of mystical life and literature. The great 
 English mystics, Walter Hilton, Julian of Norwich, Richard 
 Rolle, and the author of The Cloud of Unknowing had 
 already, before its opening, entered upon their heritage of 
 “ English undefiled,” alongside of Chaucer and Langland. 
 
 Following close upon the mystics, Reginald Pecock, 
 best known by the attractive title of his chief work, The 
 Repressor of Over-much Blaming of the Clergy, succeeded in 
 bringing the theology and philosophy of Aquinas into the 
 range of secular readers by writing in English; his temerity 
 in making the attempt was perhaps his worst unorthodoxy, 
 yet he suffered the fate of a heretic. 
 
 So with Fortescue. In many respects he was still 
 medieval, adding little to Aristotle, to Aquinas, or to 
 Aquinas’ continuaior, the author of the De Regimine Principum. 
 
 1 In The Lollard Bible (1920). 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 He is rather the typical Englishman living at the time of 
 the Renaissance than a typical thinker of the Renaissance. 
 Yet by writing his last summary of political thought, the 
 Governance of England, in English, he fell into line with the 
 great development of the century, and takes his place in 
 the natural march of progress in England. He writes for 
 the average citizen, for the man in the street. He might 
 perhaps have used the politer, almost more natural, medium 
 of French, but his residence abroad had convinced him that 
 the French had corrupted their own tongue, which was 
 now, he said, barely intelligible to men who knew the purer 
 French of the English law-courts ! 
 
 Fortescue was less original than Wycliffe in many ways. 
 Yet in others he seems far ahead of his own days, and 
 he makes a natural bridge between centuries. In some 
 respects he is the forerunner of Montesquieu and of 
 Bentham, and with close affinities to Burke. He thinks 
 out the relationship between law and economic and social 
 conditions, and between law and the Constitution. Seeing 
 that a good system of law—far better than the civil law of 
 the Romans, in his opinion—will not avail to avert disaster, 
 he turns to the executive as the key to the position. To 
 him, as to every other reformer of administrative methods, 
 the question is how to secure an expert body of advisers, 
 small enough to be efficient. His dream of a professional 
 Council of twenty-four persons duly qualified for service 
 in Church and State is not too unlike Temple’s scheme two 
 centuries later. In the end the problem of an effective 
 Cabinet has always solved itself, silently and as if by chance. 
 Fortescue stood at the beginning of a long series of schemes 
 and attempts. 
 
 There are three main works of Fortescue which call 
 for some detailed treatment—the De Natura Legis Natura, 
 68 
 
SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 
 
 the De Laudibus Legum Anghae, and the Monarchia, or 
 Governance of England. 
 
 The De Natura Legis Nature, the earliest of Fortescue’s 
 works, is interesting as containing the outline of his political 
 theory; he explores both the nature and the origin of 
 monarchy, and of the royal authority, and his conclusions 
 embody a characteristic compromise between old and new, 
 medizval and modern. 
 
 St Thomas (or rather, the pseudo-Aquinas, as Mr 
 Plummer calls him) had believed that absolute monarchy, 
 dominium regale, was likest God’s authority, and therefore 
 the nearest approach to perfection; although he admitted 
 that a polity or a politic monarchy, dominium politicum, was 
 better than tyranny, the rule of a bad king. 
 
 Fortescue adds to these alternatives a third category— 
 a kingdom both politic and royal—dominium politicum et 
 regale. ‘This kingdom he finds actually existing: “For 
 in the kingdom of England the kings make not laws, nor 
 impose subsidies upon their subjects, without the consent 
 of the three estates of the Realm. Nay, even the Judges 
 of that kingdom are all bound by their oaths not to 
 render judgment against the laws of the land, although 
 they should have the command of the sovereign to the 
 contrary.” 
 
 These are the three tests of conditions of a “politic king- 
 dom” to which Fortescue remains firm throughout his 
 writings. But he admits that a politic king must on 
 occasion rule royally ; that is, he must have an emergency 
 power. Equity also must be left to his sagacity. He 
 departs from one of the classical medizval doctrines by 
 arguing that the State 1s not an evil in itself, and that the 
 earliest ages were not golden. MHis picture of primitive 
 society might well have inspired Hobbes, to whom the life 
 of man in a state of nature was “ solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 and short.” Fortescue declares that “‘ the pride of Nimrod 
 first usurped dominion over men, and yet nothing better 
 or more convenient than these things could have befallen 
 the human race, inasmuch as if all things had remained 
 common as before, and there had been no dominion over 
 men upon earth, public affairs after men’s sin would have 
 been managed very ill for man, and for want of justice the 
 human race would have torn itself to pieces in mutual 
 slaughter.” He quotes with approval the Aristotelian 
 doctrine that man is by nature a social and political animal, 
 and he ingeniously combines the two views of the origin 
 of the State: ‘‘ Thus did kingly supremacy get its origin 
 and being, although under or from unbelievers, yet naturally 
 and by the institution of Nature’s Law.” The lawof nations 
 he defines to be certain of the laws of nature which the 
 nations have adopted which were so convenient for them 
 that without them they could not live rightly. 
 
 The second part of the treatise is a technical discussion 
 of the laws of succession, which takes the form of a highly 
 anti-feminist manifesto, with arguments of this kind—in 
 the form of a dialogue: 
 
 “Who ever hunts hares with cats? Nature disposes 
 greyhounds for the fields and the pursuit of hares, but cats 
 for staying at home to catch mice. It isa shame... to 
 draw away from home for the purpose of governing nations, 
 the woman whom nature has fitted for domestic duties.” 
 Fortescue would have objected to both Queen Elizabeth and 
 Queen Victoria, but chiefly perhaps to the latter! 
 
 The lady of the dialogue replies at last: °°...) 
 not, as my Uncle supposes, consider him to have given a 
 satisfactory answer by his reasons to the points which he 
 has stated; nevertheless . . . fearing lest his gravity be 
 tired out by a further lengthening of this argument, I do 
 not intend to make any further reply.” 
 
 79 
 
SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 
 
 Mr Plummer remarks that this work lacks the primary 
 condition of success, namely, readableness! 
 
 The De Laudibus Legum Anglie was written some years 
 later, in a far less pedantic and academic style, though still 
 in Latin. Fortescue had advanced beyond merely repeating 
 the old formula, Nolumus leges Anglie mutare; he was pre- 
 pared to defend his opinion by a reasoned defence of Eng- 
 lish law as against the civillaw. It is curious that Maitland 
 seems to have interested himself so little in Fortescue. In 
 his Rede Lecture on English Law and the Renaissance 
 he discusses at length the apparent prospect of a “re- 
 ception” of Roman law in England during the sixteenth 
 century, parallel to the reception which formed the third 
 R in German history. Yet he never mentions the fact— 
 possibly because it was so familiar to him—that Fortescue 
 had foreseen the possibility of such a reception in England 
 and had fully discussed it, and rejected it, before 1470. 
 Moreover, Fortescue had suggested the very reason which 
 Maitland adduces for the survival of English law—the 
 excellence of the organisation and the teaching in the Inns 
 of Court. Maitland says, it may be remembered, “* We 
 may well doubt whether aught else could have saved English 
 law in the age of the Renaissance.” 
 
 The Praise of the Laws of England is written in the form 
 of a dialogue between an aged Chancellor and a young 
 Prince. It therefore forms a treatise on the duty and 
 business of a prince, comparable in part with Machiavelli’s 
 The Prince, or with James I’s Basilicon Doron. An English- 
 man would be apt to say that it compares very favourably 
 with either. It provides a perfect storehouse of maxims 
 which the lawyers were not slow to use against the Stuarts. 
 The Chancellor begins by exhorting the Prince to study 
 the laws, as he had studied martial exercises, for the sake of 
 his people; the Prince retorts with a mild objection that 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 although he admits that Deuteronomy contains a law of 
 divine institution, “ yet the law to the study whereof you 
 now invite me is merely human, derived from human 
 authority.” ‘The Chancellor then defines his position 
 clearly: “Be pleased to know then, that not only the 
 Deuteronomical, but also all human laws are sacred, the 
 definition of the law being this: ‘It is a holy sanction, 
 commanding whatever is honest, and forbidding the con- 
 trary. And that must needs be holy which is so in its 
 definition.” 
 
 The great reason for the study of the law, the Chancellor 
 goes on, is that the Prince may attain to felicity and happi- 
 ness so far as possible in this life. Human laws are no 
 other than rules whereby the perfect notion of justice can 
 be determined—that justice which is virtue absolute and 
 perfect, and therefore the summum bonum or beatitude, so 
 that, having attained this justice, a man may be said to be 
 made happy by the laws. 
 
 Another less exalted reason for studying the laws is that 
 the Prince might be surprised and think them very queer, 
 if he did not know them, whereas ‘‘ Use becomes a second 
 nature!” 
 
 The Prince must study to acquire a habit of justice, a 
 genuine reputation as a just prince, not merely an external 
 reputation such as Machiavelli seems to advocate. ‘There- 
 upon the Prince makes bold to ask which law he must 
 study, and by what method. He is instructed, very firmly, 
 that all he needs is a general knowledge of the principles 
 of law, not the close study of twenty years which is necessary 
 to make a judge—for the giving of judgments belongs to 
 the judges, and not to the king. (Fortescue’s attitude on 
 this point may well be compared with the point of view of 
 James I, both in his Basilicon Doron and also in his dealings 
 with the judges.) ‘The law which the Prince must study 
 72 
 
SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 
 
 is equally firmly laid down; excellent though the civil law 
 may be, in those countries or states to which it belongs, yet 
 the king of England has no power to alter the law of his 
 kingdom, for a politic king cannot change the law but by 
 the consent of the people. At this point Fortescue cau- 
 tiously throws over Aristotle. His view stands in sharp 
 contrast with that of Richard II, or Cardinal Pole or 
 James I. 
 
 The intelligent young Prince now inquires why there are 
 two kinds of kingdoms, absolute and politic; the Chan- 
 cellor goes a stage farther than in the earlier treatise, and 
 explains that absolute monarchy originates in conquest, 
 while he quotes St Augustine to prove the origin of the 
 politic kingdom in a pact, or consent of right, entered upon 
 by the people for the sake of the common good. The 
 nature of the State thus created is determined by the object 
 and intention of the compact. In the body politic the first 
 thing which lives and moves is “ the intention of the people, 
 having it in the blood, that is, the prudential care and pro- 
 vision for the public good, which it transmits . . . to the 
 head as the principal part.’ The king “is appointed to 
 protect his subjects in their lives, properties, and laws, 
 for this very end and purpose he has the delegation of power 
 from the people, and he has no just claim to any power 
 but this.” The body politic, thus formed, is a mystical 
 body. Fortescue was in no danger of being led astray by 
 his metaphor; he states clearly from the beginning what 
 the ‘ organic’ view of society means to him. 
 
 The Chancellor goes on to treat of the statute law of 
 England, having set aside the law of nature and custom. 
 English statute law, he declares, is necessarily wise, since 
 it is created by the consent of the whole kingdom, From 
 this point onward he enters upon an elaborate comparison 
 
 1 See Starkey’s Dialogue. 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 between the civil law and the law of England, always greatly 
 to the advantage of the latter. Into the technicalities of his 
 argument it is not necessary to go farther. It is more to 
 our purpose to note the points at which his outlook seems 
 strikingly modern rather than typical of the Renaissance. 
 
 He admits, for example, that torture was used at times in 
 England, but he adds: “ For my own part, I see not how 
 it is possible for the wound which such a judge [who permits 
 torture] must give his own conscience, ever to close up or 
 be healed; as long, at least, as his memory serves him to 
 reflect upon the bitter torture so unjustly and inhumanly 
 inflicted on the innocent.” 
 
 He is singularly modern, too, in his remark on the effect 
 of torture upon the torturers: “‘ The execution of the sen- 
 tence of the law upon criminals is a task fit only for little 
 villains [ignzobiles] to perform, picked out from among the 
 refuse of mankind.” 1 A probable miscarriage of justice, 
 on circuit, haunted his memory for years. 
 
 Fortescue is very emphatic in his preference for a jury 
 system above anything that the civil law could offer. Yet 
 he saw clearly enough that there was no absolute perfection 
 in the system, that it depended largely upon the existence 
 of a stable, independent, and prosperous social order. It 
 could not be transported into France. This argument 
 gives occasion for a famous description of England’s pros- 
 perity, which, rose-coloured though it be, bears yet a sub- 
 stantial testimony to the condition of the country. It is 
 the more remarkable when we remember that Fortescue 
 
 had just lived through the Wars of the Roses. 
 
 England is a country so fertile, that, comparing it acre for acre, 
 it gives place to no one other country: it almost produces things 
 spontaneous, without man’s labour or toil. The fields, the plains, 
 
 1 The apparent vigour of Fortescue’s language owes much to his eighteenth- 
 century translator. 
 
 74 
 
SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 
 
 groves, woodlands, all sorts of lands spring and prosper there so 
 quick, they are so luxuriant, that even uncultivated spots of land 
 often bring in more profit to the occupant than those which are 
 manured and tilled ; though those too are very fruitful in plentiful 
 crops of corn. ‘The feeding lands are likewise enclosed with 
 hedgerows and ditches, planted with trees which fence the herds 
 and flocks from bleak winds and sultry heats, and are for the most 
 part so well watered, that they do not want the attendance of the 
 hind, either day or night. ‘There are neither wolves, bears, nor 
 lions in England ; the sheep lie out a nights without their shep- 
 herds, penned-up in folds, and the lands are improving at the same 
 time ; whence it comes to pass, that the inhabitants are seldom 
 fatigued with hard labour ; they lead a life more spiritual and refined. 
 
 The inhabitants are rich in gold, silver, and in all the necessaries 
 and conveniences of life. They drink no water, unless at certain 
 times, upon a religious score, and by way of doing penance. “They 
 are fed, in great abundance, with all sorts of flesh and fish, of 
 which they have plenty everywhere: they are clothed throughout 
 in good woollens: their bedding and other furniture in their 
 houses are of wool, and that in great store: they are also well 
 provided with all other sorts of household goods and necessary 
 implements for husbandry: every one, according to his rank, hath 
 all things which conduce to make life easy and happy. 
 
 There are other interesting passages which illustrate the 
 condition of the English law of bondage—of serfdom, or 
 of slavery—during the fifteenth century, the period when 
 serfdom, in fact, was rapidly disappearing. Fortescue 
 has a habit of keeping close to the facts, of showing how 
 economic facts and social conditions form the basis of law 
 and legal principles; in this he belongs emphatically to 
 the historical school of political thought, and would have 
 delighted the heart of Bodin, of Montesquieu, of Burke. 
 There is nothing ‘ high-flown’ about Sir John Fortescue. 
 
 The very natural question of the Prince as to why English 
 law was not studied in the universities leads the Chancellor 
 on to the quaint description of the Inns of Court, from which 
 
 75 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 I have already quoted. He gives much curious informa- 
 tion about the Inns and their methods of procedure, 
 and finally justifies even “the law’s delay”’ by pointing 
 out how much more convenient it is not to be hanged too 
 promptly ! 
 
 In the last chapter the Prince puts a characteristic gloss 
 upon the saying of the doctors of the law: “Imperator gerit 
 omnia iura sua in scrinio pectoris sui. . . . Not that he 
 actually knows all the laws, but as he apprehends the prin- 
 ciples of them, their method and nature, he may properly 
 enough be said to understand them all.” Fortescue’s 
 respect for the civil law, when combined with his regard for 
 the English Constitution, seems almost to lead him into 
 that perilous pastime known as running with the hare and 
 hunting with the hounds. He reconciles the irreconcilable. 
 On this note he ends what is probably the first work on 
 comparative jurisprudence written in England, if not in 
 Europe. 
 
 The Monarchia, or Governance of England is the latest of 
 Fortescue’s writings: it is written in English and is even 
 more practical than the Praise of the Laws, and it approaches 
 more nearly than either of his previous works the form and 
 colour of a political pamphlet. In its practical sugges- 
 tions, and its analysis of the present discontents, it is new; 
 in its political theory it merely repeats the principles of 
 the two earlier treatises. 
 
 The author distinguishes once again the two kinds of 
 kingdom, the dominium regale and the dominium politicum 
 et regale, ignoring the dominium politicum of which he had 
 previously written. He recapitulates his own description 
 of their respective powers and their different origins; he 
 argues once more that the absolute king possesses nothing 
 which is not possessed by the politic king, save the power 
 to do wrong. And this is really no added power: “To 
 
 76 
 
SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 
 
 be able to sin is not power or liberty, no more than to be 
 able to grow old or rotten.”’ 
 
 From theory Fortescue turns to facts—the wealth or 
 poverty of England or France, and the respective revenues 
 of their kings. Poverty is the worst of sins in a king, for, 
 as Aristotle said in the Exhics, ‘‘it is impossible for a poor 
 man to do good works.” Fortescue goes on to a close 
 analysis of the king’s ordinary and extraordinary charges, 
 which throws interesting light upon the administration in 
 the fifteenth century. The “ king’s charges” actually im- 
 plies the whole public revenue, and hence under this head 
 Fortescue is able to discuss the keeping of the Marches, 
 or the need for a navy to keep off rovers, to protect 
 merchants, and to save the country from invasion. The 
 extraordinary charges differ little from the ordinary, save 
 that they are irregular or unexpected. ‘They imply the 
 need for an emergency power, such as Fortescue had spoken 
 of in the De Natura Legis Nature, when he declared that a 
 politic king must sometimes act regally. A sudden in- 
 vasion, for example, must be met out of the king’s own 
 coffers, before he can have any aid from his people. All 
 this part of Fortescue’s work is ostensibly practical, not 
 theoretical—but occasionally a practical difficulty involves 
 the definition of an abstract right. 
 
 The king’s function may best be defined in borrowing 
 the papal title Servus servorum Dei, but the people, in re- 
 turn, must remember that the labourer is worthy of his 
 hire. This argument leads on, naturally enough, to the 
 well-known description of the over-mighty subject, and 
 the danger he may prove to the king. Fortescue is rather 
 optimistic in his view of the motives behind this over- 
 powerful rival: ‘‘ Man’s courage is so noble, that naturally 
 he aspireth to high things.” But Fortescue was apt to 
 impute high motives; even the multitude of thieves yearly 
 
 Af 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 hanged in England proves, not the dishonesty of the 
 English nor the vigour of their judges, but only their 
 high spirit, so infinitely greater than that of the French, 
 of whom few indeed had spirit enough to steal, still less 
 to be hanged for it! Fortescue’s experiences in Scotland 
 seem to have been impressive, for he asserts that there is 
 no man hanged in Scotland in seven years for robbery ; 
 the hearts of Scotsmen will not serve them to go beyond 
 larceny ! 
 
 Fortescue also discusses the parallel question whether 
 it was wise to keep the commons poor in order that they 
 should be unable to rebel. He supplies two answers to 
 his own question: first, England’s strength lay in her 
 archers, and if the class from which the archers were re- 
 cruited was enfeebled by poverty the State would lose its 
 best line of defence; secondly, poor men are always the 
 most ready to risk a rising, “and thrifty men have been 
 loath thereto, for dread of losing their goods.” If they 
 do join it is for fear that the poor will take their goods by 
 force. Fortescue again insists on having the argument 
 on his side, whatever the facts. Men will rise, he says, 
 “for lack of goods, or for lack of justice. But certainly 
 when they lack goods, they will rise, saying that they lack 
 justice.” Fortescue belongs to the group who, with Sully, 
 believe that risings are caused by “impatience de souffrir,” 
 and not to those complacent followers of Hobbes, who 
 believe that ‘‘ men be most troublesome when they be most 
 at ease.”’ It is in this detailed social outlook that Fortescue 
 is most in advance of his times, and yet his whole attitude 
 is curiously unlike that of the typical Renaissance statesman. 
 
 The second main question in T’he Governance of England 
 is the appointment and composition of the king’s Council. 
 This is a strictly practical question, in which Fortescue is 
 drawing almost entirely upon experience, and finds little 
 
 78 
 
SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 
 
 help in the scholastic authorities on politics. Indeed, the 
 chapters which deal with this subject quote no authorities 
 whatever, save the one maxim from the Gospels: ‘‘ No man 
 can serve two masters.” 
 
 Fortescue’s main objects in his reformation of the Council 
 were, first, to obtain men devoted to the service of the State 
 rather than to their own ends; secondly, to obtain men 
 who should be expert counsellors; and, thirdly, to reduce 
 the Council to a manageable size. His first scheme con- 
 templates a body of thirty-two men, of whom twenty-four 
 commoners are permanent councillors, and eight lords, 
 spiritual and temporal, who change every year; a second 
 scheme proposes only twenty. Their work was to be partly 
 administrative and partly deliberative, and they were to 
 prepare legislative business for the Parliament and thereby 
 save much valuable time. 
 
 Fortescue shows very clearly how well he understands 
 the difficulty of securing an efficient, honest, and faithful 
 executive; he is laying down the lines on which first the 
 Tudor Council, and secondly the modern Cabinet, have 
 needed to be developed. He knows perfectly well that 
 no politic king can keep the executive solely in his own 
 hands, and he recognises that the traditional Council is out 
 of date. Yet he is singularly cautious; he never discusses 
 the details of representative government, the limits of 
 citizenship, or the methods by which consent might be 
 given. He makes no use of the precedent of the minority 
 of Henry VI, when the Council was chosen in Parliament. 
 He is essentially not a theorist, but a man driven now and 
 again to evolve a theory which should provide a perma- 
 nent basis for his desired reforms. He prefers to speak 
 about the case before him, rather than to judge abstract 
 questions. 
 
 He seldom reaches any very high level of thought; he 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 was a plain man, that loved his country. But that love 
 was so strong that at last it roused him to eloquence. In 
 what is essentially his last chapter (xx) he describes what 
 great good will come of the firm endowing of the Crown— 
 of a satisfactory provision for a revenue, as we should say. 
 “The king who should make such an endowment shall do 
 thereby daily more alms than shall be done by all the founda- 
 tions that ever were made in England, and by reason of 
 this foundation all men shall every day be the merryer, the 
 surer, and shall fare the better in his body and all his goods. 
 For this shall be a College in which shall sing and pray 
 for evermore all the men of England spiritual and temporal.” 
 “We shall now,” he concludes, “ live under justice, which 
 we have not done of long time, God knoweth.” 
 
 The cobbler sticks to his last, even to the end, and the 
 judge, who had troubled himself so often over the fate of 
 the innocent, can only talk of politics or of religion in terms 
 of justice. Practical though he was, he moved a little 
 uneasily in an atmosphere of expediency. It is hardly pos- 
 sible to read Fortescue without seeking, at every turn, to 
 remember some sharply contrasted dictum of Machiavelli. 
 
 It would be natural to seek further light upon Fortescue’s 
 personality in the fragmentary evidence of the Year-Books. 
 If it has been possible to reconstruct the witty, irascible, 
 homely temperament of Sir William Bereford, Chief Justice 
 in Edward II’s reign, surely a century later there should 
 be signs of the character and influence of one of the greatest 
 English judges. Lord Clermont, in the Collected Works 
 of Fortescue, has brought together a large number of pas- 
 sages from the Year-books in which Fortescue’s opinions 
 or decisions are quoted. But they are singularly colour- 
 less ; nothing comparable to Bereford emerges. Fortescue 
 remains, when one has gone through them, wise, measured, 
 sensible, moderate, just, and even kindly, yet without 
 80 
 
SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 
 
 humour. But the reader knows no more of Fortescue the 
 man than before. ) 
 
 The most famous legal question in which Fortescue 
 was concerned was a matter of Parliamentary privilege— 
 the lawfulness of Thorp’s imprisonment, on which the 
 Lords asked the judges for an opinion. The Chief Justice 
 Fortescue, in the name of all the justices, after ‘‘ sad com- 
 munication and mature deliberation,’ answered and said 
 “that they ought not to answer to that question; for it 
 hath not been used aforetime that the justices should in 
 any wise determine the privilege of the High Court of 
 Parliament; for it is so high and so mighty in its nature 
 that it may make law, and the determination and knowledge 
 of that privilege belongeth to the Lords of the Parliament, 
 and not to the justices.” 
 
 The famous reply tells us little of Fortescue himself, 
 but it is clear evidence of the critical times in which he 
 lived, and the crucial questions of constitutional law and 
 custom with which he was accustomed to deal. Parlia- 
 ment had secured its own existence in the fourteenth cen- 
 tury; in the fifteenth century it had to adjust its claim to 
 those of other members of the Constitution. ‘There was 
 much shaking down of ill bed-fellows to be done. Fortes- 
 cue, who brought so little individual prejudice to his task, 
 was peculiarly fitted to build up customs and principles 
 that should endure. 
 
 It is open, I suppose, to a contributor to this book to 
 attach each great thinker to the Renaissance or to the 
 Reformation at choice. Fortescue lived in an age when 
 religious changes were inevitably approaching, when sharp 
 questionings were not to be abated by soft words. The 
 
 1 Cf. also ‘“‘ The Lancastrian Constitution,” by T. F. T. Plucknett, in 
 Tudor Studies, edited by R. W. Seton-Watson. 
 F 81 
 
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 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 contemporary with whom he is most naturally compared 1s 
 Pecock—who ventured even to assert that Aristotle had 
 sometimes been wrong, and in any case was nothing but an 
 ‘* ensearcher to find out truth, as other men were, and are.” 
 Yet in religion it 1s impossible to trace in Fortescue any 
 shade of influence either of Reformation or Renaissance. 
 He was entirely orthodox; in the De Natura Legis Nature 
 he expressly and in advance withdraws any statement that 
 may, unknown to him, savour of heresy, or be condemned 
 by the Church. | 
 
 Fortescue’s opinions on the papal power are curiously 
 opposed to his view of limited monarchy. The Pope is 
 Summus Pontifex, having supreme power, to whom all 
 earthly power is subject, even to the kissing of his feet 
 (summam habens potestatem, cui omnis potestas terrena, usque 
 ad pedum oscula, est subiecta). ‘This he ‘takes for granted 
 without discussion. Dr Figgis sums up the views of the 
 Conciliar writers as a belief that the most perfect possible 
 constitution, left by Christ to his Church, was a polity— 
 a mixed or limited monarchy—in which the monarch is 
 checked by a continual Council and both by a large repre- 
 sentative body. This belief, though propped up by appeals 
 to Aristotle, was actually drawn from the facts of the political 
 world of their day. Now Fortescue was perfectly content 
 to hold one theory for the secular state and another for the 
 Papacy. He never argues from one to the other. He 
 recognises General Councils as an institution well estab- 
 lished, to which the king must count upon sending his 
 representatives and procurators. Yet the Pope is both 
 Rex and Sacerdos, and ‘“‘compelleth all princes as well 
 temporal as spiritual to come to his Great Councils.” 
 Fortescue lived, perhaps, a generation too late to have been 
 touched by the Conciliar theory. Mr Plummer says: “It 
 is evident that Fortescue was strongly influenced by the 
 82 
 
SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 
 
 papal reaction which followed the Council of Constance.” 
 Yet it is fair to notice that these papalist sentiments occur 
 in his recantation of Lancastrian views, in the midst of a 
 very strained argument and piece of special pleading. 
 
 Even in his personal religion Fortescue was little more 
 than an extremely cautious Job, looking out, a trifle puzzled, 
 at the spectacle of the wicked flourishing like a green bay- 
 tree. He wrote a little Dialogue between Faith and Under- 
 standing, in which his resigned yet troubled attitude stands 
 out very clearly and individually. ‘“‘ Alas, how many just 
 and peaceable creatures have borne the pain and anguish 
 of this war! Alas, how many men of honest living have 
 suffered death! . . . I see the naughty and reproveable 
 people helped with riches, and the good honest people 
 beggars and needy.” 
 
 The only solution he can reach is to remind himself 
 again and again of the greatness of God. ‘“‘ Canst thou, 
 as thou supposest, know the just man from the sinner, and 
 be ascertained of the secret thoughts which God hath 
 reserved to Himself ?”’ ‘Art thou not remembered how it 
 is written that lack of justice and untrue deeds make realms 
 ready to be changed?” Or again: “‘ The Word of God 
 over-cometh our judgments and judgeth them, and His 
 infinite power justifieth all His works in doing them, for He 
 is a Justice of Himself.” ‘The Chief Justice is not to be led 
 away by any trouble or tragedy beyond his consistent con- 
 viction: ‘“‘ Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? ”’ 
 
 What is specially noticeable about this little tract is not 
 the depth or courage of its thought; it is remarkable for 
 neither, but for the fact that in the fifteenth century it bears 
 Witness to the vivid personal religion of a busy man of 
 politics—a religion limited but undegraded by the degrada- 
 tion of the Church, untouched by the materialisation of 
 religious teaching. Fortescue’s religion—the religion of a 
 
 83 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 layman—trings as true as the cloistered devotion of ‘Thomas 
 a Kempis. . The only hint of modernity lies in the fact 
 that he, a layman, writes of religion in English, and there- 
 by links himself with the long movement of thought that 
 produced the English Bible. 
 
 It remains only to attempt some brief general estimate of 
 Fortescue’s place in the political thought of England and 
 of Europe. 
 
 Not only is he one of the earliest writers on comparative 
 jurisprudence, and in some degree a forerunner of Machia- 
 velli in his close intertwining of the theory of politics and 
 the facts of history; not only was he a practical statesman 
 and a revered judge; he was also one of the strongest 
 influences both in suggesting the machinery of the Tudor 
 despotism and in inspiring the Stuart lawyers in their 
 revolt against that despotism. ‘This apparent paradox is 
 due to the fact that Fortescue never quite followed his 
 argument as far as it would lead. He knew who should 
 compose the Council; he never really faced the question 
 who should choose them. He knew that Parliament was 
 independent of the judges, but he never discussed the 
 membership of Parliament nor the qualifications of electors. 
 Hence his influence is felt by both parties, just as some of 
 his opinions tend to face both ways. The Tudors worked 
 on from his technical and practical experience; the lawyers 
 of the seventeenth century inherited and employed his 
 principle. 
 
 But the more we study the principles behind Fortescue’s 
 life and work the more convinced we grow that he is 
 ‘not typical of the Renaissance—that he 1s just an English- 
 man, wise above the average, honest above the average; 
 
 1 I do not propose to go farther into the question of Fortescue’s influence 
 on later generations, for it has been most admirably worked out by Dr Skeel 
 in the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society for 1916. Little or nothing 
 could be added to her treatment of the subject. 
 
 84 
 
SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 
 
 sane, scholarly, yet practical; a lover of books, who 
 could throw away books when necessary, and rely upon 
 experience; a lover of justice, tolerant, humane, patient, 
 talking little of liberty, still less of freedom of thought, 
 yet spending laborious days and nights in endeavouring 
 to give to his fellows that justice which is the tangible side 
 of liberty. He had been in France, and he thought little 
 indeed of the character and habits of Frenchmen; he had 
 been in Scotland, and returned critical of the Scot; he made 
 no claim to be cosmopolitan in his sympathies: he 1s frankly 
 insular, not from ignorance, but by preference. 
 
 He was emphatically an Englishman living at the period 
 to which the Renaissance is commonly assigned: if he 
 belongs to the Renaissance it is to that peculiar native form 
 of the movement which I tried to define in the early part 
 of this lecture, and which to the average Englishman appears 
 infinitely wiser and sounder than the ecstasies of the Italian 
 or the furies of the German Renaissance. 
 
 After such an inconclusive conclusion, perhaps I may be 
 thought merely arrogant if | borrow for my final sentence 
 the very words of Fortescue: “Since the intention is 
 answered wherewith you were moved to this conference, 
 time and reason require that we put an end to it.” 
 
 A. E. Levetrr 
 
 1 His Monarchia has indeed been translated into German, but the editor 
 found hardly an original reflection to make upon it. 
 
 85 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 The Works of Sir Fohn Fortescue, collected and arranged by Thomas (Fortes- 
 cue), Lord Clermont. 2 vols. 1869. 
 
 FortescuE, Sir Joun: The Governance of England: otherwise called the 
 Difference between an Absolute and a Limited Monarchy. Edited with 
 notes by Charles Plummer. 1885. 
 
 ForTEscuk, Sir Joun: Commendation of the Laws of England. 'The trans- 
 lation into English of De Laudibus Legum Anglia, by Francis Grigor. 
 1917 (reprint of edition of 1825). 
 
 SxeEL, C. A. J.: “ The Influence of the Writings of Sir John Fortescue,” in 
 Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 1916, 3rd series, vol. x. 
 
 English Historical Review. (a) 1911: note by J. P. Gilson on a literary 
 
 fragment, possibly by Fortescue. (4) 1912: document and note by 
 Miss Cora Scofield. 
 
 Hoxpswortu, W. S.: History of English Law, vol. ii. 
 
 86 
 
IV 
 NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 
 I 
 
 O one who visits Hereford Cathedral can fail to 
 N: struck by the marvellous Mappa Mundi of 
 
 Richard de Haldingham, which adorns the south 
 choir aisle. It represents the theological conception of 
 the world at the close of the thirteenth century. The 
 habitable earth which it portrays is flat and circular, like 
 a rimless plate, surrounded by a narrow fringe of ocean. At 
 the centre of the circle stands Jerusalem; at the extreme 
 east the Garden of Eden; midway between the two the 
 Tower of Babel. Round the margin at different points 
 are situated such places as the peninsula in which Gog and 
 Magog were interned by Alexander the Great, the Earthly 
 Paradise discovered by St Brandan, and the British Isles. 
 On various otherwise unoccupied spots in Asia and Africa 
 are to be found such interesting curiosities as the kingdom 
 of Prester John, the realm of the Amazons, the granaries 
 of Joseph, and the land of the Sciapodes, those fascinating 
 one-legged folk whose solitary foot was so large and adapt- 
 able that it not only carried them about with incredible 
 celerity, but also served them when they rested as a shelter 
 from the tropical sun. It would be difficult to conceive 
 any map which, in all its details, is more widely and wildly 
 remote from correspondence with geographical reality. 
 For even when it does present such features as the British 
 Isles or the Mediterranean Sea which undoubtedly exist, it 
 presents them in such forms and positions as make them 
 
 87 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 almost unrecognisable. We may safely say that not even 
 in the thirteenth century did it ever occur to any master 
 mariner to borrow this map, or make a copy of it, for pur- 
 poses of navigation. We may also confidently assert that 
 if he had done so his voyage would have resulted in speedy 
 and irretrievable disaster. 
 
 At the very time, however, when the pious prebendary 
 of Haldingham was concocting from the Scriptures and the 
 mythologies this fantastic travesty of the world as it actually 
 exists, Italian seamen—particularly those of Venice and 
 Genoa—on the basis of careful observation and repeated 
 experiment, were constructing for practical purposes porto- 
 Jani, or mariners’ charts, which give an amazingly accurate 
 and minute representation of that Mediterranean basin 
 wherein the main maritime commerce of the Middle Ages 
 was concentrated. Free from prejudice and prepossession, 
 unhampered by the postulates of theology, they depicted 
 lands and seas as they really were, and so laid the founda- 
 tions of the modern science of navigation. 
 
 All which is a parable and an analogy. Richard de 
 Haldingham was a contemporary of St Thomas Aquinas 
 and Dante. While he was drawing his fantastic map 
 they were expounding the principles of politics. And 
 the principles of politics as expounded by them bore, in 
 respect of remoteness from reality, a striking resemblance to 
 Richard’s cosmology. They both lived ideally in a unified 
 and symmetrical society—the Respublica Christiana—whose 
 supreme ruler was God, and whose final law was His Holy 
 Will. This society was administered mediately by two 
 human agents, the Pope and the Emperor, the one exer- 
 cising divine authority over all causes spiritual, the other 
 over all causes temporal.. Under the Pope served a hier- 
 archy of cardinals, bishops, and clergy ; under the Emperor 
 a corresponding hierarchy of kings, nobles, and knights. 
 88 
 
NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 
 
 ‘The only serious problem that disturbed the beatific serenity 
 
 of either St Thomas or Dante was the problem of the rela- 
 tion between the two powers, the spiritual and the temporal. 
 Were they co-ordinate and equal, or was one superior to 
 the other? How were the spheres of their jurisdiction 
 delimited? As to these problems the views of St Thomas 
 and Dante differed. ‘To the one the Papacy from its very 
 nature was the higher power; to the other the Empire 
 had an immemorial claim to universal authority. The 
 arguments by which these rival contentions were supported 
 were drawn from precisely the same sources as those from 
 which Richard de Haldingham filled his map with visionary 
 shapes and imaginary names. They were arguments from 
 the Scriptures, from the Fathers, from classical mythology, 
 from supposed natural history. They turned upon the 
 story of the Creation; upon the relation of the sun to the 
 moon ; of the soul to the body, of eternity to time; upon 
 Samuel’s attitude to Saul; upon the offerings of the Magi 
 to the infant Lord; upon the sufficiency of the two swords 
 possessed by Peter in the garden; upon the Saviour’s 
 parting command to the Apostles, and upon a multitude 
 of other similar irrelevancies. They were, indeed, schol- 
 astic exercises almost wholly devoid of any relation to the 
 actual politics of their age. For, at the very moment 
 when Richard de Haldingham was moving with his map to 
 Hereford, and while Dante was still in his prime, the Papal 
 Monarchy, which St ‘Thomas had exalted to the sky, passed 
 from the humiliation of Anagni to the debasement of the 
 ‘“ Babylonish Captivity” at Avignon. Similarly, the Holy 
 Roman Empire, to which Dante looked for the unification 
 and pacification of mankind, sank to the condition of a 
 mere German overlordship, and even in that limited sphere 
 ceased to function, since it failed to give even to Germany 
 either unity or peace. 
 
 89 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 In short, while medieval champions of Papacy and 
 Empire were contending in the academic empyrean for the 
 prize of a visionary world-dominion, actual authority over 
 the men of a distracted and disrupted Christendom was 
 being divided among a number of secular princes, out of 
 whose mortal conflicts and diabolical intrigues the modern 
 state-system was being evolved. Unchecked by either 
 papal or Imperial authority, regardless of both canon and 
 civil law, emancipated alike from the restraints of religion 
 and of ethics, the “ new monarchs ”’ of the political jungle 
 were displaying in a desperate struggle for existence those 
 qualities of the lion and the fox which in the earlier ages of 
 the cosmic process of biological evolution had enabled the 
 animal possessors of these qualities to survive and prevail. 
 The weapons in this fierce political struggle for existence 
 were war and diplomacy. On the one hand, new armies, 
 new means of offence and defence, new tactics and strategy, 
 and, above all, a new ferocity, completely changed the mili- 
 tary art from what it had been during the Middle Ages. 
 On the other hand, missions, embassies, royal visits, sup- 
 plemented by dispatches, memoranda, and reports, insti- 
 tuted a new science of diplomacy in which craft and guile 
 found a limitless field for exercise. [he princes who had 
 to defend themselves in arms against a circle of powerful, 
 alert, and merciless foes, and to protect themselves diplo- 
 matically against the conspiracies and intrigues of countless 
 malignant rivals both within and without their states, had 
 no use for the lofty speculations of Aquinas or Dante re- 
 specting the two powers, the two lights, the two swords, 
 and the general duality of things. What they required was 
 not a Mappa Mundi giving them sanctified information 
 respecting the imaginary situation of the Garden of Eden, 
 the Tower of Babel, and the kingdom of Prester John; it 
 was a portolano providing, in the form of a precise chart, 
 
 go 
 
NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 
 
 the data indispensable for the navigation of the stormy 
 and rock-infested seas on which their frail barques were 
 tossing. It was such a portolano that Machiavelli professed 
 to provide. His prime achievement, indeed, was to change 
 the method of political speculation ; to make it once again, 
 ‘as it had been in Aristotle’s day, inductive and historical ; 
 to bring it back from the heavens to the earth; to render 
 it (so he hoped) practical and useful. He converted an 
 abstract political philosophy, subordinate to ethics and 
 theology, into an independent art of government divorced 
 from both morals and religion. 
 
 II 
 
 Nicolo Machiavelli was born at Florence in 1469. 
 This was the year in which Lorenzo the Magnificent 
 began that period of uncrowned principality (1469-92) 
 wherein the splendid city of Machtavelli’s birth attained 
 the summit of its glory and assumed the undisputed leader- 
 ship in the scholarship, the thought, and the art of the 
 Renaissance. It was also, by a coincidence, the year in 
 which occurred the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and 
 Isabella of Castile—an event which some historians speak 
 of as marking the beginning of modern history, since it 
 led to the unification of the Christian powers of the Penin- 
 sula, the conquest of Granada, the discovery of America, 
 and the establishment of a century of Spanish ascendancy 
 in Europe. It was significant that Machiavelli should 
 thus have been born in the heyday of the Renaissance, and 
 that he should have spent his youth amid the vast and rapid 
 changes which inaugurated the era of the modern national 
 states. For no one of whom we have record so early or so 
 completely divested himself of the Middle Ages, or displayed 
 himself so nakedly to his contemporaries, as the New Man. 
 
 ‘ 7} 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 Of his early life we know little. His family was Tuscan, 
 old and noble. His father, Bernardo, followed the law, 
 and occasionally held public appointments in Florence: he 
 was also a landowner in a small way, drawing rents which 
 were sufficient to relieve him—and his son Nicolo after 
 him—from the fear of extreme poverty. Nicolo, although 
 he soon showed an acuteness of mind which raised him 
 above the level of his family and his neighbours, did not 
 receive a very elaborate education: he learned to write 
 Latin, but apparently not to read Greek. “The com- 
 parative restriction of his culture,” says Villari, in words 
 which should cheer and console modern undergraduates, 
 “had the inestimable advantage of preserving the sponta- 
 neous originality of his genius and his style, and preventing 
 them from being suffocated beneath a dead weight of erudi- 
 tion.” So long as the rule of the Medici endured in 
 Florence Machiavelli had, it would seem, no regular occu- 
 pation. But the expulsion of Lorenzo’s unworthy son, 
 Piero, by the French in 1494, and the establishment of the 
 republic, opened to him the way of civicemployment. His 
 study of Livy and Polybius had made him convincedly 
 republican in sentiment. He looked with enthusiasm to 
 the renewal in Florence of the great days of antique Rome, 
 and he held the fervent hope that through the Florence of 
 his day, as through the Rome of two thousand years earlier, 
 Italy would attain to unity and peace. 
 
 At first, it. would appear, Machiavelli attached himself 
 to Savonarola, who, then in the flood-tide of his influence, 
 was preaching the salvation of Italy through moral reform 
 and religious revival, under French domination. But 
 Machiavelli lacked moral sense, was entirely devoid of 
 religious faith, and was filled with a loathing for foreigners. 
 Hence he soon drew away from the agitating friar, and 
 viewed with approval the means that were employed to 
 
 92 
 
NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 
 
 extinguish him (1498). In both the Discourses and The 
 Prince he examines with cold precision the cause of Savon- 
 arola’s collapse: it was, he decided, that he was unarmed, 
 and that behind the fury of his empty words, and the 
 passing frenzy which he roused in the fickle populace, there 
 was no force on which he could rely for the realisation of 
 his ideals. Machiavelli came to the conclusion, which all 
 his subsequent experience confirmed, that force directed by 
 craft is the only thing that counts in politics. 
 
 This subsequent experience of his was varied and 1m- 
 portant. In 1498 he was appointed secretary to the so- 
 called Second Chancery, otherwise known as “ The Ten” 
 —an administrative body specially concerned with the con- 
 duct of diplomacy and war. This office he held for fourteen 
 years, that is, until 1512, when the republican constitution 
 under which he served was overthrown and the Medicean 
 tyranny restored. He performed his duties as a Secretary 
 of State with conspicuous zeal, ability, fidelity, and success. 
 In 1502, when his friend Piero Soderini—to whom he refers 
 in many passages of his writings—was appointed perpetual 
 Gonfalonier, he became, as his confidential adviser and 
 trusted agent, one of the most influential men not only in 
 Florence, but in Italy as a whole. His high position and 
 the growing recognition of his exceptional powers of mind 
 caused him to be sent by the Florentine Signory on a 
 number of important military and political missions. On 
 the one hand, he had to raise troops, hire mercenaries, 
 make alliances, secure auxiliaries, and even conduct opera- 
 tions, in the long-drawn war with Pisa. On the other hand, 
 he had to visit many Courts and camps, in order that he 
 might counter conspiracies against his beloved city, break 
 up hostile confederations, secure the withdrawal of un- 
 reasonable demands, and cement doubtful friendships. 
 
 His task was a far from enviable one. Since the death 
 
 93 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 of Lorenzo de’ Medici in 1492 a new and critical condition 
 of things had arisen in Italy. The foreigners had begun 
 to pour their armies into the peninsula. The French 
 invasion of 1494 had been followed by incursions of 
 Spaniards, Germans, and Swiss, until Italy had become the 
 battleground of the ferocious monarchs and marauders of 
 the New Europe. It was the French with whom Florence, 
 and Machiavelli as its representative, had most todo. ‘The 
 French had driven out the Medici in 1494; the French 
 were the nominal allies of the Florentines in their efforts 
 to conquer the intractable city of Pisa (which was supported 
 by Spain and the Empire); the French were their main 
 bulwark against the machinations of Cesar Borgia and the 
 exiled Piero de’ Medici. The Florentine Republic, in 
 short, existed only by sufferance of the French, and the 
 French king, Louis XII, was entirely aware of the fact. 
 Hence neither he nor his subordinates felt it at all necessary 
 to conceal their contempt for Florence, their indifference 
 to Machiavelli, or their complete unconcern as to what 
 anyone in Tuscany said or did. They mulcted the Floren- 
 tines of money; they subjected them to the grossest in- 
 sults; they deserted them in critical emergencies; they 
 finally left them naked to the vengeance of their foes. Four 
 times was Machiavelli sent to Louis XII to plead for better 
 treatment, and the humiliations which he was compelled 
 impotently to suffer ate like a red-hot iron into his soul. 
 How was it, he asked, that the French were so much stronger 
 than the Italians that they could do with them what they 
 liked? How was it that they could march from end to 
 end of their peninsula without opposition ; could sack their 
 cities, overthrow their governments, plunder their treasures, 
 slay their men, and violate their women, with complete 
 impunity? How was it that the representative of an 
 Italian state, such as Florence—a state eminent throughout 
 
 a4 
 
NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 
 
 Christendom in commerce, finance, art, and learning— 
 could be treated with a contempt reserved in other lands 
 for serfs and dogs? ‘The answer, to Machiavelli, was 
 plain: the Italians lacked political unity, and the small 
 states among which they were divided lacked, whether 
 singly or in combination, military power. 
 
 III 
 
 The two obvious weaknesses of Italy in Machtavelli’s day 
 were, indeed, political disunion and military incapacity. 
 
 The outstanding political phenomenon of the period was 
 the formation of strong national states in the west of Europe. 
 First, England had attained to unity and self-consciousness 
 during the long and fiery process of the Hundred Years 
 War. The subsequent Wars of the Roses, by eliminating 
 the feudal nobility, had completed her consolidation. 
 Under the firm and patriotic rule of the Tudor kings she 
 had begun to enjoy peace, prosperity, power. Secondly, 
 France had grown from a distracted collection of un- 
 governable fiefs into a mighty monarchy. One by one the 
 great lordships had been subordinated to the Crown, until, 
 with the acquisition of Burgundy and Brittany in Machia- 
 velli’s own time, the direct royal authority had been estab- 
 lished over all the vast territory of the realm. Thirdly, 
 Spain had arisen, as if by miracle, from the chaos and con- 
 fusion of eight centuries of religious conflict and civil war. 
 The Christian states of Leon, Castile, Navarre, Aragon, 
 Catalonia, had all been brought under the rule of the joint 
 monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella. ‘The last Moorish en- 
 clave, Granada, had been absorbed. A vigorous religious 
 unity had been impressed upon a newly created and proudly 
 conscious Spanish nation. 
 
 Even in Germany a national spirit was moving—a spirit 
 
 7) 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 which was destined, ere the end of Machiavelli’s life, to 
 manifest itself in the upheaval of the Reformation. The 
 Emperor Maximilian, moreover, amid the distractions of 
 his diversions and dissipations, was striving to re-establish 
 some sort of central government, with courts and councils, 
 military forces, and calculable revenue. Machiavelli anti- 
 cipated the speedy unification of Germany, in spite of 
 Maximilian’s ineffectiveness, because it already had a titular 
 head, because it possessed racial homogeneity, because it 
 was peopled by men accustomed to war, but above all 
 because it was the home in a special degree of such virtue 
 as still remained upon the earth. 
 
 The case of Italy, however, was very different. In- 
 tellectually and esthetically in the van of all European 
 peoples, morally and politically she lagged far in the rear. 
 Her people, widely diverse in race and culture, were 
 utterly degenerate and corrupt; she had lost all mili- 
 tary capacity; her princes were craven and criminal; her 
 Church was secularised and incredibly depraved; she was 
 torn by violent schisms and incessant intrigues. No bond 
 of any sort of unity held together her struggling atoms. 
 The task of consolidating her, and making a nation of her, 
 seemed to be beyond the reach of any normal means. And 
 yet consolidated, nationalised, re-created, she must be, if 
 she were to hold her own with the New Monarchs, if she 
 were to be able to expel the foreign invaders, if she were 
 to succeed in restoring order and in suppressing the orgy 
 of villainy by which she was degraded and disgraced. 
 
 Five main states divided the peninsula between them. 
 In the north the duchy of Milan and the republic of Venice 
 contended for dominance in the Lombard Plain and for con- 
 trol of the eastern passes of the Alps. In the south the king- 
 dom of Naples, under a line of illegitimate and treacherous 
 
 1 Cf. Discourses on Livy, I, 55. 
 
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NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 
 
 Aragonese rulers, contended for power and dominion 
 against a resistant and fulminating Papacy. Between the 
 two pairs of combatants Tuscany, under the hegemony 
 of Florence, held a fluctuating balance. Normally, the 
 Papacy and Venice were allied against Milan and Naples; 
 but departures from the norm were frequent and bewilder- 
 ing. Hence the study of Italian politics in the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries is like an attempt to solve a com- 
 plicated puzzle. One dominant fact, however, emerges 
 from the study. It is that in the game of politics as played 
 in Italy at that time no rules of honour or morality what- 
 soever were observed. ‘Treasons, betrayals, poisonings, 
 assassinations, perjuries, hypocrisies, sacrileges, infidelities— 
 all kinds of base and hateful villainies—were employed 
 without scruple or remorse. The Papacy in particular, 
 under such Popes as Sixtus IV, Alexander VI, and Julius IJ, 
 forgetting its sacred nature, and ignoring its international 
 responsibilities, made itself notorious for its violence, selfish- 
 ness, treachery, and mendacity. Machiavelli came to regard 
 it as the root cause of Italy’s disunion and debasement. 
 Another cause, however, the importance of which pro- 
 foundly impressed him, was the military weakness of the 
 Italians. Individual Italians, such as Castruccio Castracani 
 of Lucca (whose life he made the basis of a notable romance), 
 showed, it is true, both bravery and capacity. But the 
 people of the peninsula, as a whole, were soft and effemi- 
 nate, cowardly and unwarlike, engrossed in commerce and 
 finance, distracted from virtue by philosophy and art, 
 debilitated by sensuality, depraved by scepticism. ‘They 
 were, indeed, extremely quarrelsome, and they were ex- 
 perts in the use of poison and the dagger; but they pre- 
 ferred to wage their wars by proxy—that is, by means of 
 companies of hired mercenaries, or by means of armies of 
 auxiliaries drawn from foreign lands. So long as Italy’s 
 
 SG 97 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 quarrels were merely domestic this did not matter much. 
 Her wars became little more than bloodless games, wherein 
 treachery and bribery played a more decisive part than 
 force or military skill. But it was another matter when she 
 had to deal with the hosts of the new nations who came 
 across the mountains or the seas to slay, to plunder, and to 
 subjugate. 
 
 Northern Europe had been undergoing a military revo- 
 lution. ‘The days of feudal levies, armour-clad knights, 
 battlemented castles, and picturesque chivalry were over. 
 Everywhere national armies—large forces of foot-soldiers 
 drawn mainly from the third estate—equipped with new 
 weapons, and supported by that satanic novelty, artillery, 
 were making havoc of old military conventions, trans- 
 forming the art of war, and reconstructing the political 
 framework of the Continent. First France, by the famous 
 Ordonnance of Orleans in 1439, had established the force 
 which had finally cleared both Normandy and Aquitaine of 
 the English, and brought the exhausting Hundred Years 
 War to a victorious end. Spain, Switzerland, the states of 
 Germany, all had followed suit. Even England was re- 
 -organising her national militia, and was building the Royal 
 Navy, which was destined to enable her from time to time 
 to determine the balance of power in Europe. Only Italy 
 remained inept, her coast unprotected, her passes unguarded, 
 her rich cities a prey to any invader, her fruitful plains 
 open to every spoiler. What, to Machiavelli, appeared the 
 remedy for this deplorable condition of affairs? 
 
 IV 
 
 For the salvation of Italy from internal disorder and 
 external oppression Machiavelli looked principally to the 
 military regeneration of the people. ‘The Nation in Arms 
 
 98 
 
NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 
 
 was his ideal. ‘“‘ All able-bodied men between the ages 
 of seventeen and forty should be drilled so as to be always 
 ready to defend their country.” The treacherous and 
 ineffective mercenaries should be dismissed. The danger- 
 ous and doubtful aid of alien auxiliaries should be refused. 
 Machiavelli was speaking of what he knew. He himself, 
 in the course of the protracted struggle between Florence 
 and Pisa, had had agonising experience of both the violent 
 perfidy of the Italian condottieri and the perfidious violence 
 of the French men-at-arms whom Louis XII had sent to 
 the nominal aid of the republic. The net result of their 
 operations had been the humiliation of Florence, the failure 
 of all her schemes, and the exhaustion of her treasury. 
 
 In all his great political works Machiavelli gives this 
 supreme military problem a prominent place. To take 
 the works in the order of their composition. (1) In The 
 Prince he devotes a whole section (chapters xli-xiv)— 
 about one-eighth of the entire book—to the question. 
 First he exposes, with numerous examples, the evils of the 
 condottieri system: “ If Italy,”’ he says, “‘ had not trusted 
 so many years to mercenary troops, she would not now be 
 ruined.” He blames “the ecclesiastical princes, strangers 
 to the art of war,” for introducing the vicious practice, the 
 _ final consequence of which is that “ Italy has been overrun 
 by Charles, pillaged by Louis, forced by Ferdinand, and 
 disgraced by the Switzers.’’ Secondly, he treats of the 
 perils which flow from the acceptance of the aid of foreign 
 auxiliaries, and he illustrates his thesis by the disasters 
 which accrued to Julius II from his Spanish allies, to 
 Florence from its French levies, to the Byzantines from 
 the Turkish stipendiaries, to Louis XI from the hired 
 Swiss, and to the later Roman Emperors from their Gothic 
 federati. Finally, he emphasises the prime importance of 
 
 1 The Art of War, Book I. 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 military skill to princes, and of military training to their 
 people: “ Princes,”’ he asserts, “ought to make the art 
 of war their sole duty and occupation, for it 1s peculiarly 
 the science of those who govern. War and the several 
 sorts of discipline and institutions relative to it should be 
 their only pursuits, the only profession they should follow, 
 and the object they ought always to have in view.”’ More- 
 over, they ‘‘ must above all things, as the very foundation 
 of the whole business, be furnished with soldiers of their 
 own natives.” 
 
 (2) In the Discourses on Livy, using the Romans as ex- 
 amples, he shows why “ mercenary soldiers were unprofit- 
 able’ and contends that “it 1s necessary in the maintaining 
 of a state, whether it be a republic or a kingdom, to arm the 
 native subjects, as we see all those have done who with their 
 armies have made any great conquests.”? But if the 
 mercenaries are unprofitable, foreign auxiliaries are much 
 worse: “ Of all kinds of soldiers the auxiliaries are the 
 most dangerous—therefore a prince or a republic should 
 rather take any other course than seek to bring auxiliary 
 soldiers into his country.”’? ‘The decadence of the Roman 
 Empire began, he considers, when the Imperial armies 
 ceased to be native and were recruited from Parthians and 
 Germans. 
 
 (3) The Art of War, one of Machiavelli’s most note- 
 worthy and original works, is, as its title implies, wholly 
 devoted to this cardinal theme. Its seven books are cast 
 in the form of dialogues, in which the successful Italian 
 commander, Fabrizio Calonna, expresses the views that 
 may be regarded as Machiavelli’s own. ‘“‘ The funda- 
 mental idea of The Art of War,” says Villari, “is that the 
 best militia can be formed by arming the people, and that 
 at all periods the infantry constitutes the backbone of an 
 
 1 Discourses, I, 44. 2 Ibid., II, 20. 8 Ibid., Il, 30. 
 IOO 
 
NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 
 
 army.’ 1 Or, in the words put into the mouth of Fabrizio, 
 “We are taught by history and experience, that all states 
 must be based upon national arms, and that by these alone 
 can they be securely defended.” Machiavelli regards the 
 Roman legion as the supreme model for imitation, but-he~ 
 considers that improvements in matters of detail are sug- 
 gested by examination of the military systems of the Swiss, 
 Germans, and Spanish foot-soldiers of his own day. He 
 describes his resultant ideal for an Italian national army. 
 It is curious—and it suggests the limitations of the literary 
 man when he is dealing with practical affairs—that he 
 would not equip his national force with firearms, but would 
 revert to javelins, pikes, swords, and bows and arrows! 
 Even artillery—which in his own day had played a decisive 
 part in the battles of Ravenna, Novara, and Marignano— 
 he regards as of little account. ‘‘ Cannon are so difficult 
 of management that if you aim ever so little too high their 
 shots pass over the enemy’s head, and if you lower them in 
 the least they fire into the ground. They are altogether 
 useless in a general engagement.” 2 Into Machiavelli’s 
 detailed discussions of the methods of training a militia, 
 the conduct of armies in the field, the principles of strategy 
 and tactics, the manner of quartering troops, and finally 
 the theories of fortification, it 1s unnecessary for us to enter. 
 Suffice it to say that The Art of War, as a whole, is a pioneer 
 treatise: it holds the same eminent place in military science 
 as The Prince does in political science. Moreover, the pur- 
 pose of the two works is the same: it 1s the emancipa- 
 tion and unification of Italy. Just as Machiavelli concludes 
 The Prince with the declaration, “‘ The first Italian who will 
 follow my councils shall, to his immortal honour, succeed 
 in the magnanimous enterprise of freeing his country,” 
 
 1 Villari, The Life and Times of Machiavelli, ii, 292. 
 2 The Art of War, Book III. 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 so does he end The Art of War with the words, “I declare 
 to you that whichsoever of the princes now holding states 
 in Italy shall first enter upon this road, he will be the first 
 to become lord of this country.” 
 
 (4) In the History of Florence, written toward the close 
 of his life, Machiavelli once more reverts to this dominant 
 military matter. Again and again he emphasises his con- 
 viction that the condottieri have been the cause of Italy’s 
 undoing, and his belief that her redemption can come only 
 by means of a return to the patriotic ways of the antique - 
 legionaries of Rome. 
 
 Machiavelli did not limit himself to words. During 
 the republican period of his life, in his official capacity, 
 he was able to secure authority from the Florentine Signory 
 to organise and equip a militia. For six years (1506-12) 
 he toiled unremittingly at the task, persevering amid the 
 most disheartening difficulties. In 1512, when the French 
 —the chief allies of the republic—were driven from Italy 
 by the Spaniards, Germans, and Swiss; when the hostile 
 Pope, Julius II, supported the exiled Medici in their efforts 
 to return; when all extraneous aid failed them—in 1512 
 the militia was put to the test of war. At the first puff 
 of gunpowder it turned tail and fled! The product of 
 Machiavelli’s six years of devoted labour vanished into thin 
 air, Florence fell; the Medici resumed their tyranny; 
 Machiavelli, having suffered imprisonment and torture, 
 passed into banishment. He realised that Italy needed 
 not only arms, but a man. 
 
 Vv 
 
 Machiavelli’s banishment to his country estate at San 
 Casciano provided him with leisure and opportunity to 
 ponder his past career, to consider the lessons of his 
 102 
 
NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 
 
 experience, and to reinforce his conclusions by parallels 
 drawn from Roman history. But for the ruin of his politi- 
 cal prospects in 1512 we should have had none of his great 
 literary works, and save for his official documents he would 
 have passed Almost inarticulate into oblivion. As it was, 
 he relieved the boredom of his enforced retirement from 
 affairs by diligent reading, hard thinking, and voluminous 
 writing ; seeking, moreover, by means of his pen, to win 
 his way back into the service of the state which he loved 
 with the purest devotion of his life. 
 
 He wrote primarily of the things which he himself had 
 seen and known. ‘True, he discoursed largely on Livy. 
 Nevertheless, he was a student ‘of current politics rather 
 than of history. His method was that of observation more 
 than of research. He was, indeed, devoid of the historic 
 spirit, and, if he drew extensively upon history in his works, 
 he did so uncritically and unscrupulously, being concerned 
 merely to find examples to support.conclusions already 
 reached. Legend suited him quite as well as fact. The 
 source Of his science of politics was, in truth, his own diplo- 
 matic experience. As Secretary of the Ten he had gone, 
 as we have remarked, during the fourteen years of his service, 
 on many important missions to Italian and other Courts. 
 Of these numerous missions the four of outstanding signi- 
 ficance were those to Louis XII in 1500, to Cesar Borgia 
 in 1502, to Pope Julius II in 1506, and to the Emperor 
 Maximilian in 1507. ‘The first and the last of these four 
 had taken him beyond the Alps; had revealed to him peoples 
 vaster and more virile than the Italians; had opened his 
 eyes to the meaning of nationality, patriotism, and civic 
 virtue; had filled him with speculations as to the means 
 by which the heterogeneous populations of his own 
 country—cultivated but corrupt, intellectually renascent 
 but morally decadent, individually quick but politically 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 dead—could be welded together and vitalised with a spirit 
 of unity. Huis speculations had taken rough shape in the 
 dispatches which he had sent from time to time to the 
 Ten, and so gradually in his official writings an art of’ 
 government had begun to formulate itself. ‘Thus a series 
 of political portolani had come into existence, specially 
 constructed to enable the statesmen of the Florentine 
 republic to steer the frail barque of their defenceless city 
 amid the storms of the tempestuous dawn of the modern 
 era, and among the shifting quicksands of the peculiarly 
 - treacherous diplomacy of the time. A state which had no 
 native army, but was at the mercy of hired condottieri and 
 alien auxiliaries, had to depend for the continuance of its 
 precarious existence upon ‘the craft and subtlety of its 
 politicians. Machiavelli had sought in his masterly dis- 
 patches to guide the helpless and distracted Signory along 
 ways of security. 
 
 His mission to the camp of the warlike Pope Julius II 
 had been important in that it had confirmed him in his 
 opinion that the prime cause of Italy’s disruption was 
 the existence of the States of the Church, and that the 
 most formidable obstacle to the unification of the peninsula 
 was the temporal power of the Papacy. This conviction 
 remained with him to the end of his days. His last 
 work, his unfinished History of Florence, although it was 
 written by order of a cardinal and was dedicated to a Pope, 
 is inspired throughout by a fierce and freely avowed detes- 
 tation of clerical rule. Having in the introductory book 
 portrayed the sad condition of Italy, Machiavelli concludes 
 —to quote Villari’s summary—‘‘ The sole remedy for 
 these evils is the institution of a national army under the 
 rule of a prince able to organise and command his troops, 
 and to use them for the defence and unity of the country, 
 by abasing the power of the Papacy, emancipating and 
 104. 
 
NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 
 fortifying the State, and leaving at his death a legacy of 
 
 good laws and civil institutions towards the establishment 
 of liberty.” + 
 
 The abasement of the power of the Papacy, however, 
 requires, he perceives, the effective existence of a national 
 army; and the effective existence of a national army 
 necessitates the rule of an autocratic and capable prince. 
 What sort of a person must the prince be who, in the 
 desperate circumstances of the time, can carry through 
 this titanic project of unification? The answer to this 
 question had been provided by the experience which 
 Machiavelli had gained on the most remarkable of all 
 his diplomatic missions, namely, that to the moving camp 
 of Cesar Borgia in 1502—at Urbino, Imola, Cesena, 
 Sinigaglia. 
 
 In 1502 Cesar Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI, had 
 been engaged in his father’s name, but on his own behalf, 
 in reducing the Romagna. Nominally a portion of the 
 States of the Church, the Romagna had, during the eclipse 
 of the Papacy in the Captivity and the Schism, passed into 
 the hands of a number of petty tyrants, whom it had proved 
 impossible to dispossess or control. Cesar, having pro- 
 cured from the papal Curia the cession of the Romagna 
 as a dukedom, had been employed in expelling the tyrants 
 and establishing an orderly government. MHaving few 
 forces of his own, he had been compelled to operate with 
 mercenaries under such leaders, then noted, as Paolo Orsini, 
 Vitellozzo Vitelli, and Oliverotto of Fermo. But he had 
 been mainly dependent on Gascon and Swiss auxiliaries pro- 
 vided under treaty by Louis XII of France. His little war 
 had raged within a few miles of the Tuscan frontier, and 
 Florence had been perturbed both by raids into her territories 
 and also by pressing demands on Cesar’s part for men 
 
 1 Villari, The Life and Times of Machiavelli, ii, 394. 
 IOS 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 and money. Machiavelli had been sent—at first nominally 
 under Bishop Francesco Soderini—to Czsar’s headquarters 
 to ward off the Duke’s hostility, mitigate his demands, 
 and if possible safeguard Florence from injury and spolia- 
 tion. On the whole, he had succeeded in his purpose, 
 and he had secured the cordial commendation of the 
 Signory. The fifty-two letters, still extant, which he had 
 penned from the Borgian base contain not only the most 
 vivid and authentic of all existing pictures of Duke Cesar 
 at the height of his fortune, but also a clear forecast of that 
 science of statecraft which ten years later Machiavelli was 
 to embody in The Prince. 
 
 For some six months in 1502 Machiavelli had had 
 the formidable Caesar under close and almost constant 
 observation. Although his diplomatic enemy, engaged 
 with him in an incessant contest of subtlety and wit, yet 
 he had acquired for him an immense admiration. His 
 quickness, his courage, his secrecy, his terrific vigour, 
 his iron resolution, his remorseless severity, his amazing 
 success, had filled Machiavelli with wonder and envy. He 
 had contrasted his mode of procedure with the slow, vacil- 
 lating, inept feebleness of the Florentine Signory. In 
 particular, he had watched with the most profound interest 
 and appreciation the way in which he had succeeded in 
 emancipating himself from his faithless mercenaries, and 
 in rendering himself independent of his dangerous French 
 auxiliaries, by winning the confidence of his new subjects 
 and building up a native army. In Cesar Borgia Machia- 
 velli had found a prince who might, if fortune had continued 
 to favour him, have accomplished the desire of his heart. 
 In Cesar Borgia’s methods he had seen what appeared to 
 him to be the only means by which the revivification of 
 Italy could be effected, the foreigner expelled, and unity 
 achieved. 
 
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NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 
 
 VI 
 
 Machiavelli’s sympathies were wholly republican ; one of 
 the finer traits in his cynical and repellent character is his 
 faith in the people—a faith, we may remark, not very easy to 
 reconcile with his pessimistic estimate of individual human 
 nature. If ever the clarity of his style begins to glow with 
 the warmth of generous emotion it is when he speaks of 
 the virtues of the Roman commonwealth or the liberties 
 of his native city. His Discourses on Livy are eloquent of 
 democratic enthusiasm, and it was the reading of them to 
 the select assembly which used to meet in the Oricellarit 
 Gardens which inspired the Soderini conspiracy against 
 the Medicean tyranny in 1522.1 But he was entirely 
 aware that republican institutions are possible only to a 
 virtuous people; that is to say, to a people courageous, 
 simple and pure in life, self-sacrificing, devoted to the ser- 
 vice of the State and zealous for the common weal. Such 
 a people were the ancient Romans of whom he read credu- 
 lously in the First Decade of Livy and in the voluminous 
 eulogies of Polybius. Such too, he thought, were the 
 Swiss and the Germans of his own day. But such were 
 not the contemporary Italians. His experiences in Florence, 
 especially in relation to his militia, coupled with his observa- 
 tions in the Papal States, Venice, Milan, and Naples, all 
 filled him with the conviction that, although Italy might 
 be ready for republicanism when she should have been 
 disciplined, united, regenerated, yet in her existing condition 
 her only hope lay in the stern and strong autocracy of a 
 militant and politic prince—such a prince as Cesar Borgia 
 had been in his prime, such a prince as Giuliano or Lorenzo 
 de’ Medici might conceivably be. 
 
 By what means should a prince seek to attain to ascend- 
 
 1 Villari, The Life and Times of Machiavelli, ii, 333. 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 ancy in such an Italy as that of Machiavelli’s day, and, 
 having attained to it, by what means should he seek to 
 keep it? That is the question which Machiavelli set him- 
 self to answer in the most famous—or infamous—of all 
 his works, the treatise entitled J/ Principe. ‘This brief 
 but pungent treatise, written in the latter half of the year 
 1513, was composed for, dedicated to, and intended for 
 the exclusive perusal of the Medicean tyrant who had 
 overthrown the Florentine republic the year before. It 
 is imperative that those who read it should realise that they 
 were not meant to do so. It was not written for them. 
 It was a paper of private and confidential instructions 
 prepared for the personal and peculiar use of a particular 
 individual. It was not a general dissertation on the science 
 of politics or the art of government. It was not compiled 
 for publication, nor was it in fact published until five 
 years after Machiavelli’s death (1532), when an injudicious 
 Pope—Clement VII, cousin of the man to whom it had 
 been dedicated—imprudently let it loose upon the world. 
 Its whole efficacy depended upon its zot being published : 
 for in vain is the snare set in the sight of any bird! The 
 very success of such craft and guile as Machiavelli com- 
 mends hangs upon the faith 1n the honesty and sincerity 
 of the deceiver. ‘To proclaim to the world that you are 
 going to tell lies renders it useless for you to do so. Your 
 very truth is not believed. 
 
 The Prince, then, is a vade mecum dedicated to the use 
 of the Medici—first Giuliano; secondly, after Giuliano’s 
 death in 1516, Lorenzo. ‘That Machiavelli should have 
 sought to serve the Medici 1s, indeed, at first sight, sur- 
 prising ; for the whole of his public life had been spent in 
 trying to prevent their return to Florence; and when, in 
 spite of him, they had come back he had suffered much 
 
 inconvenience at their hands—including dismissal from 
 108 
 
NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 
 
 office, exile, imprisonment, and torture on the rack. When, 
 in fact, The Prince passed into circulation it was its dedica- 
 tion to the Medici rather than its surrender to the devil 
 that caused astonishment and adverse criticism in Italy. 
 It was not its obvious abandonment of morality, but its 
 apparent desertion of the republican cause which excited 
 scandal and demanded explanation. To us the explana- 
 tion is fairly clear : Italy, in Machiavelli’s opinion, needed 
 a despot ; and Machiavelli quite obviously needed and 
 desired employment. Hence he addressed the Medici, 
 who at the moment were doubly powerful in the posses- 
 sion of both Tuscany and the Papacy. On the one hand: 
 ‘““ May your illustrious house, strong in all the hopes which 
 justice gives our cause, deign to undertake this noble 
 enterprise,” z.e., the deliverance and consolidation of Italy. 
 On the other hand: “If from your elevated position you 
 should condescend to look down on a person in my lowly 
 station, you will see how long and how unworthily I have 
 been persecuted by the extreme and unrelenting malevo- 
 lence of fortune.” ? 
 
 Apart from the Dedication, the twenty-six chapters of 
 The Prince fall into five groups. The first group (i—x1) 
 treats of generalities, the greater part being devoted to the 
 classification of principalities in respect of their nature 
 and mode of acquisition. In this section by far the most 
 noteworthy chapter-ts*that (vi1) which contains Machtavell1’s 
 account of the meteoric career of Cesar Borgia, whom he 
 idealises, under the name of Valentino, until he becomes a 
 mythological being, the embodiment of sheer, unmitigated 
 statecraft. He holds him up as a perfect model for a 
 new prince who would secure himself in his principality. 
 He does this with his eyes open, knowing intimately well 
 the appalling crimes—murders, assassinations, treacheries, 
 
 1 The Prince, ch. xxvii. 2 Ibid., Dedication. 
 fete) 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 duplicities, debaucheries, sacrileges—of which this terrible — 
 adventurer had been guilty. In one of his earlier writings, 
 the so-called first Decennale (1 504), he had truly and frankly 
 described him as ‘‘a man without compassion, rebellious 
 to Christ, the Hydra, the basilisk, deserving of the most 
 wretched end.” But in spite of this he exalts him in The 
 Prince as a model, because he sees in his methods, frightful 
 and immoral as they are, the only hope of success in the 
 task which the New Prince has to face in the Italy of his 
 day. What these methods are he reserves for explicit 
 treatment in the third section of his work. 
 
 The second group of chapters (xii—xiv) 1s, as we have 
 already remarked, devoted to military matters. Machiavelli 
 writes with an Bpuioue intensity of conviction. His purpose 
 in writing is eminently practical: ‘‘ My aim,’ he says, 
 “is to write for the advantage of him who understands me.” 
 He descants on the curse of mercenary armies, his argument 
 being pointed by the stories of how Sforza betrayed Naples, 
 Vitelli Florence, and Carmagnola Venice. He passes on 
 to treat of the peril of trusting to foreign auxiliaries, with 
 instances drawn from the disasters which Italy has suffered 
 at the hands of French and Spanish allies. Finally, he 
 emphasises the importance of military skill to princes, and 
 shows how they can acquire it—practically, by exercises and 
 by the pursuit of the chase; theoretically, by the study of 
 history and the lives of great commanders. 
 
 The third group of chapters (xv—xvill) brings us to the 
 heart of the treatise, and displays to us the essence of what 
 is called . Machiavellism: that is to say, politics divorced from 
 ethics. The keynoté is struck in the sentence: “That 
 man who will profess honesty in all his actions must needs 
 go to ruin among so many that are dishonest; there- 
 fore it is necessary for a prince who desires to preserve 
 himself to be able to make use of that honesty and to lay it 
 IIO 
 
NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 
 
 aside as need shall require.” And as with honesty, so with 
 mercy and compassion. ‘Then follows a detailed examina- 
 tion of the circumstances in which—dquite irrespective of 
 moral considerations—a prince should be liberal or parsi- 
 monious, cruel or merciful, faithful to his word or perfidious. 
 The illustrations by means of which Machiavelli points his 
 narrative throw a lurid light into the abysses of Italian 
 politics in the Renaissance period, especially when, as his 
 supreme example of successful mendacity and merciless 
 treachery, Machiavelli selects Pope Alexander VI. To 
 the problems raised by Machiavellism we must return 
 ina moment. They are living and burning problems, and 
 it is by reason of their continuing urgency that the present- 
 day study of Machiavelli is worth while. 
 
 The fourth group of chapters (xix—xxv) sinks from the 
 giddy heights of political non-morality attained in the pre- 
 ceding group down to a rather dull level of commonplace 
 maxims of prudence. ‘The prince is instructed how to 
 avoid contempt and hatred, how to secure popularity, how 
 to acquire respect and reputation, how to steer a happy 
 mean between excessive hauteur and undue familiarity, 
 and soon. The unhappy examples of Ferrante of Naples 
 and Ludovico of Milan point the moral and adorn the 
 tale. 
 
 The fifth and final division of The Prince consists of the 
 solitary and magnificent twenty-sixth chapter, in which the 
 Medici are exhorted to rise to the height of the great op- 
 portunity which lies before them, to establish their authority, 
 to call the Italians to arms, to expel the barbarians, and to 
 reign as saviours of their country. How does this splen- 
 did and stirring appeal—the herald cry of Italian national 
 unity—accord with the diabolical devices described in 
 chapters xv—xviil as appropriate for the realisation of the 
 ideal? Neither to Machiavelli nor to his contemporaries 
 
 III 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 did there appear anything incongruous between a noble 
 political end and grossly immoral means. How does the 
 case seem to us? 
 
 Vil 
 
 Machiavelli was above and beyond all else a prophet and 
 a preacher of the principle of patriotism and the idea of the 
 national state. Now, on the one hand, the principle of 
 patriotism seems to be a lower ideal than the cosmopolitan 
 conception which had dominated the Middle Ages ; and 
 the idea of the national state appears to be a less lofty one 
 than the medizval idea of a Universal Christendom based 
 upon religion and ruled by a Vicegerent of God. But, 
 on the other hand, it must be borne in mind that the medi- 
 eval principle of Christian brotherhood, and the medizval 
 ideal of an ecumenical Church-State, had never been even 
 approximately realised in fact. The horrid actuality of 
 the thousand years which separated Machiavelli from the 
 deposition of Romulus Augustulus had been a weltering 
 chaos of conflicting clans, struggling tribes, anarchic fiefs, 
 and encroaching kingships, stirred up incessantly by re- 
 bellious bishops, and kept at the boil by fulminating Popes. 
 Never had there been'a more marked contrast between 
 theory and practice; never had the Mappa Mundi been 
 more entirely unrelated to the facts of human geography. 
 Hence, if in the realm of abstract doctrine the national 
 state suggested a decline from the unity of Christendom, 
 in the realm of concrete politics it stood for an immense 
 and incalculably beneficial advance upon the parochialism, 
 localism, tribalism, and feudalism which had been the actual 
 condition of the Dark Ages. Machiavelli clearly perceived 
 the enormous advantages which France had gained by the 
 absorption of the great fiefs, and by the centralisation of 
 112 
 
NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 
 
 the government of the country under the Capetian and 
 Valois kings. Not less clearly did he see the benefits 
 which had accrued to Spain through her unification under 
 the Catholic kings. From his observations he concluded 
 that it was vitally necessary for Italy to pass through the 
 same process of consolidation, and to attain to the same 
 condition of unity. 
 
 The ideal form of national state which Machiavelli pro- 
 jected for Italy was undoubtedly a republic modelled upon 
 the Roman commonwealth as portrayed by Livy. But he 
 realised that the conditions which had rendered possible 
 the unification of the peninsula under the old city-state 
 were absent in his own day. If the consolidation of France 
 and Spain had been effected only by means of the force and 
 craft of exceptionally able monarchs, how much more did 
 the disorder of Italy demand the exercise of the vigour, 
 the subtlety, the swiftness, and the secrecy which an auto- 
 cratic prince alone could provide! ‘The all-important thing 
 was the establishment of the national state. Both the form 
 which it should take and the means by which it should be 
 established were secondary concerns. - 
 
 This question of means brings us to the heart of the 
 Machiavelli problem. For the essence of Machiavellism 
 is the doctrine that the end justifies the means, It implies 
 the deliberate dissociation of politics from ethics, and the 
 assertion that the plea of ‘ reasons of state’ is a sufficient 
 answer to any and every accusation of cruelty or deceit. 
 Perhaps the two clearest summaries of the doctrine presented 
 by Machiavelli himself are the following, the first from 
 the Discourses, the second from The Prince: ‘‘ Where the 
 deliberation is wholly touching the safety of the fatherland 
 there ought to be no consideration of just or unjust, pitiful 
 or cruel, honourable or dishonourable, but rather, all other 
 respect being laid aside, that course ought to be taken which 
 
 H 113 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 may preserve the life and maintain the liberty thereof” ; 
 and, “‘ Let a prince, therefore, take the surest courses he 
 can to maintain his life and state ; the means shall always 
 be thought honourable” ?—the means specially alluded 
 
 to by Machiavelli being those which he has just been 
 describing as analogous to the merciless ferocity of the lion 
 and the unscrupulous craftiness of the fox. The statesman, 
 in Machiavelli’s view, is emancipated from the ordinary 
 restraints of morality. In the interests of his country he is 
 entitled, nay, is on occasion required, to commit acts of 
 violence and to perpetrate frauds which if performed on his 
 own account in private life would brand him as a criminal 
 and a scoundrel. He must not shrink, if reasons of state 
 demand it, from any cruelty however great, or from any 
 perfidy however base. 
 
 That is Machiavellism. It is the doctrine that terror- 
 ism and treachery are legitimate instruments in politics. 
 Machiavelli does not urge their indiscriminate use. He 
 
 “=recognises the fact that they are dangerous instruments, 
 prefers the normal employment of the safer implements of 
 ethics, blames such operators as Agathocles of Syracuse 
 and Oliverotto of Fermo for employing them too freely. 
 
 —.. But, all the same, he regards them as essential elements 
 in the statesman’s equipment, and he severely condemns 
 those who have failed to employ them when emergency 
 has demanded their use. Romulus, he considers, was 
 justified in slaying his brother Remus, for unity of control 
 was necessary for the successful founding of Rome; hence 
 “though the act accuse him, the effect excuses him—for 
 though he that uses violence to waste is blameworthy, not 
 he that uses it for redress and order.’”’* Similarly he de- 
 fends the sanguinary severity of Brutus after his overthrow 
 1 Discourses, ITI, xli. 2 The Prince, ch. xxviii. 
 3 JTbid., ch. viii. 4 Discourses, I, ix. 
 
 114 
 
NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 
 
 of the Tarquinian monarchy, in words which might have 
 been employed by Lenin in 1917: ‘ This is always well 
 known to those who read ancient stories, how that after 
 the change of a state, either from a republic into a tyranny 
 or from a tyranny into a republic, some memorable execu- 
 tion upon the enemies of the present condition is needful.” 4 
 Conversely he contemptuously condemns Gian Paolo 
 Baglioni of Perugia, who, when he was resisting the papal 
 claims to overlordship over his city, failed through squeam- 
 ishness and ‘‘ base cowardice ” to avail himself of a golden 
 opportunity of decisive victory and everlasting renown 
 which Fortune offered to him. Pope Julius II having 
 rashly visited Perugia, unguarded, together with twenty- 
 four cardinals, Gian Paolo omitted to exterminate the lot 
 of them. ‘‘ He had not the courage,”’ says Machiavelli, 
 “to do an exploit that every one would have admired, a 
 deed that would have given him an everlasting memory, 
 an act whose greatness would have surpassed all infamy.” 2 
 His weakness was aggravated by the fact that the cardinals 
 “had the best of all their jewels with them!” Hence, 
 when some time afterward Pope Julius overthrew him and 
 strung him up on a gibbet, he paid a fitting penalty for his 
 indecision and lack of enterprise. 
 
 As with violence, so with craft and fraud: ‘“‘ How com- 
 mendable it is in a prince to keep his word and live with 
 integrity, not making use of cunning and subtlety, every 
 one knows well; yet we see by experience in these our days 
 that those princes have effected great matters who have 
 made small reckoning of keeping their words and have 
 known by their craft to turn and wind men about and in 
 the end have overcome those who have grounded upon 
 the truth.’3 And again, “It is necessary for a prince 
 that will achieve great matters to learn to be a cunning 
 
 1 Discourses, III, iii. 2 T[bid., I, xxvii. 3 The Prince, ch. xviii. 
 
 IIS 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 deceiver,” } for “that man who will profess honesty in all his 
 actions must needs go to ruin amongst so many that are dis- 
 honest. Wherefore it is necessary for a prince who desires to 
 preserve himself to be able to make use of honesty or to lay 
 it aside as need shall require.” 2 Machiavelli in both The 
 Prince and the Discourses gives many examples, drawn from 
 history and his own observation, of what he regards as 
 successful chicanery. But he reserves his highest eulogies 
 for Pope Alexander VI, who, he says, “ never did anything 
 else than deceive men, and never meant otherwise, and always 
 found whom to work upon.” “ Yet,’’ he adds, “‘ never was 
 there a man who would protest more effectually, or aver 
 anything with more solemn oaths and observe less than he; 
 nevertheless, his deceptions all succeeded, for he knew how 
 to play his part cunningly.” 3 
 
 If, however, Machiavelli admires one ruler for his con- 
 summate mendacity and another for his remorseless ferocity, 
 he sees the perfect combination of the qualities of the lion 
 and the fox—terrorism and treachery—in Cesar Borgia, 
 to whose baleful career he again and again recurs, as though 
 irresistibly fascinated. Cesar Borgia in 1502—the year 
 of his highest power and luckiest fortuné—supplies the 
 perfect model of the methods by which alone, Machiavelli 
 thinks, the overthrow of the condottieri, the expulsion of the 
 foreigners, and the salvation of Italy can be secured. 
 
 Vill 
 
 What is the verdict of history upon Machiavellism—that 
 is to say, upon the doctrine that the end justifies the means, 
 that ethics have no relevance to politics, that reasons of 
 state excuse all deviations from the moral law, and that 
 Satan may properly be called in to cast out Satan? The 
 
 1 Discourses, II, xiii. 2 The Prince, ch. xx. 8 Tbid., ch. xviii. 
 
 116 
 
NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 
 
 . ry e ° * @ ; es » a i 
 verdict of history is, it seems to me, one of decisive con- ? /)/)*' 
 demnation and emphatic rejection. And yet the doctrine | 4» / 
 
 has persisted, and still persists, with a strange vitality. In 
 the sixteenth century, in spite of the denunciation of both 
 Catholic and Protestant theologians, The Prince became. the 
 text-book of monarchs; while the unscrupulous practices 
 which it recognised established themselves as the common 
 devices of politicians. ‘The massacre of St Bartholomew’s 
 Day 1572, for instance, was regarded as a perfect exposition 
 of Machiavellian craft and violence. In the seventeenth 
 and eighteenth centuries, when the furies of the wars of 
 religion had died down, the more sanguinary aspects of 
 Machiavellism ceased to display themselves so conspicu- 
 ously as before, and its prime manifestations had to be 
 sought in the dark intricacies of diplomacy. Napoleon I, 
 however, was a Machiavellian in both senses of the term: 
 he believed equally in violence and in fraud as legitimate, 
 and at times necessary, instruments of policy. His sinister 
 influence dominated many of the makers of nineteenth- 
 century history, and his Machiavellian principles found 
 disciples and exemplars in such men as Metternich, Louis 
 Philippe, Napoleon III, Bismarck, and Cavour. 
 
 In the Italy of Cavour, indeed, a formal revival of the 
 Machiavellian cult took place in the middle of the nineteenth 
 century. Machiavelli was recognised and exalted as a 
 pioneer of the unification of the peninsula, and the methods 
 which he had suggested as necessary for the realisation of 
 his ideal in the sixteenth century were accepted as appro- 
 priate and inevitable in the laterage. But it was in Germany 
 that the most formidable recrudescence of Machiavellism 
 took place. ‘The philosophy of Hegel prepared the Teu- 
 tonic mind for an exaltation of the State. The disintegra- 
 tion of the Fatherland after the Napoleonic wars made its 
 reconstruction on a national basis imperative. The task 
 
 117 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 of reconstruction was one of almost superhuman difficulty, 
 and it seemed to call for methods of “‘ blood and iron,” and 
 methods of craft and guile, similar to those which Machia- 
 velli had expounded and Cesar Borgia had exemplified. 
 Hence men like Bismarck adopted and applied them, and 
 men like Treitschke defended and glorified them. The 
 apparent success of Machiavellian methods in the making 
 of the German Empire caused the principles of The Prince 
 to establish themselves as fundamental postulates of 
 Prussian politics. In 1914 they received their perfect ex- 
 position in the shameless perfidy which violated the solemn 
 guarantees of Belgian neutrality, and in the diabolical 
 cruelty which sought to extinguish Belgian independence 
 in agony and blood. From Germany, as part of the heritage 
 of Karl Marx, Machiavellism spread to Russia, where 
 since 1917 it has displayed itself in the appalling terrorism 
 and abysmal treachery of Bolshevism. Hence we see now, 
 even more clearly than Lord Morley could see when in 1897 
 he delivered his Romanes Lecture, that Machiavelli “ repre- 
 sents certain living forces in our actual world,” and that, as 
 Lord Acton remarked, “ he is a contemporary influence.” 
 
 Nevertheless, I hold that both the conscience of mankind 
 and the verdict of history have declared themselves de- 
 cisively against Machiavellism. The one says that it is 
 theoretically indefensible, the other that it is practically 
 unsound. (1) J¢ is theoretically indefensible. ‘The State is 
 not, as Machiavelli and his disciples regard it, an end in 
 itself. It is merely a means to the good life of its mem- 
 bers individually and collectively. It is a moral institution 
 whose supreme purpose is the definition and maintenance 
 of justice. ustitia remota, quid aliud est regnum quam 
 grande latrocinium: in the absence of justice what is the 
 state but organised brigandage on a large scale? AA state 
 established for any other end than the realisation of the moral 
 II8 
 
NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 
 
 law had better not exist at all. And this ethical end cannot 
 be dissociated from the means by which its attainment is 
 sought. ‘There must be congruity between the two. As 
 well might you expect to gather figs from thistles as look 
 for the fruit of justice from a root of violence and deceit. 
 (2) lt is practically a failure. ‘The verdict of history is that 
 Machiavellism has not in fact succeeded. In the long run 
 the lion and the fox do not prevail; the cruelty of the one 
 and the craft of the other not only do not save them, but 
 are the very causes of their destruction. As Talleyrand 
 might have said, Machiavellism is worse than a crime ; it 
 isa mistake. In the sixteenth century Gentillet condemned 
 it because of the ruin which it brought to those who 
 practised it; in the seventeenth century Richelieu, who 
 had no moral objection to it, warned his king against it 
 because of its fatal consequences.1 In the eighteenth 
 century Voltaire, who will not be suspected of Puritanism, 
 in a famous letter to Frederick the Great of Prussia—one 
 of the most consummate practitioners of the Machiavellian ' 
 politic—condemned the art of The Prince: “‘ Cet art,” he 
 said, ‘‘ que l’on doit mettre 4 cété de celui des Locustes et 
 des Brinvilliers, a pu donner a quelques tyrans une puissance 
 passagére, comme le poison peut procurer un héritage; 
 mais il n’a jamais fait ni de grands hommes ni des hommes 
 heureux, cela est bien certain.” In the nineteenth century 
 Lord Morley concluded his Romanes Lecture in the same 
 strain. After expounding and denouncing the Machia- 
 vellian principle he says, ‘‘ The effect was fatal even for his 
 own purpose, for what he put aside, whether for the sake 
 of argument, or because he thought them in substance 
 irrelevant, were nothing less than the living forces by which 
 societies subsist and governments are strong.” 
 
 These weighty opinions are borne out by the chronicle 
 
 1 Richelieu, Testament Politique, ii, 6. 
 
 119 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 of events. Machiavelli made shipwreck of his own life 
 because with excessive subtlety and with shameless lack of 
 principle he sought to run with the republican hare and — 
 hunt with the Medicean hounds; when in 1527 the Medici 
 fell and the republic was restored he found that he had 
 succeeded in earning the ineradicable distrust of both 
 parties. Hence he was left to die in dishonour, dis- 
 illusionment, destitution, and disgust. Similarly his hero, 
 Cesar Borgia, excited so unutterable a loathing and dread 
 by his ferocity and perfidy that, wholly apart from ill- 
 fortune, he was hounded out of Italy and sent to perish in 
 the Pyrenees. ‘The record of the Machiavellians in all 
 ages is the same—a brief and unsubstantial triumph due to 
 terror and surprise, followed by permanent and irretrievable 
 ruin when the conscience and the courage of mankind have 
 revived. In our own day the perfidy and barbarity of the 
 Germans toward the Belgians, which they hoped would 
 carry them to speedy victory in the autumn of 1914, were 
 the very causes which brought Britain, Italy, and America 
 into the War against them, and ensured their ultimate 
 defeat. The similar and even more atrocious crimes of 
 the Russian Bolsheviks—ruthless cruelty and bottomless 
 mendacity erected into a system and avowed with a brazen 
 effrontery never before equalled—have not as yet completely 
 worked out their appropriate and inevitable catastrophe. 
 But they are very near doing so. No self-respecting Power 
 will touch their blood-stained hands; no Power of any sort 
 can trust their perjured word. They are outcasts from the 
 community of nations, and their only hope of a brief post- 
 ponement of their doom is to extend to other countries the 
 depredations with which they have desolated their own. 
 
 Signor Mussolini in Italy avows himself a Machiavellian 
 and says, “I believe Machiavelli’s Prince to be the states- 
 man’s supreme guide.” If he means, as he appears to, 
 120 
 
NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 
 
 no more than that a statesman must show strength, decision, 
 resolution, all may be well. But if, as some of his followers 
 seem to assume, he means that such deeds as the murder 
 of Signor Matteotti are legitimate means of political pro- 
 cedure, then—as the conscience of Italy and the civilised 
 world has made abundantly clear—his day of authority will 
 be short. 
 
 To sum up the matter in a nutshell: Machiavelli with 
 all his acuteness of observation had a singular faculty for 
 failing to see factors of the first importance. Loudly as he 
 professed to see things as they really were, he saw them as 
 they really were not. Just as he depicted an art of war in 
 which artillery played no part, so he depicted an art of 
 government in which neither morals nor religion had any 
 place. His estimate of human nature, on which his whole . 
 political system was based, was radically mistaken. He — 
 regarded man as entirely bad, and founded his system on 
 that false assumption. He ignored goodness in man just 
 as he ignored gunpowder in war. Goodness and gun- 
 powder! Could a man of the early sixteenth century 
 who professed to be practical have made two more colossal 
 errors of omission? In the art of war the development 
 of firearms has swept the Machiavellian precepts into ridi- 
 cule and oblivion. In the art of politics the conscience 
 of mankind has repudiated the Machiavellian maxims, and 
 the experience of the human race has demonstrated their 
 folly. The records of history tend to show that Socrates 
 and Plato were right when they said that in the long run 
 the knave and the fool are one and the same. For human 
 society is established on moral foundations, and righteous- 
 ness must in the end prevail. 
 
 ye. b Tue Epiror 
 
 I21I 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 A. Primary SOURCES 
 
 Tutte le Opere di Nicolo Machiavelli. 1550. 
 
 Ll Principe, edited by L. A. Burd, with an Introduction by Lord Acton. 
 18gI. 
 
 The Peiies translated by N. H. Thomson. 1882. 
 
 Discourses on Livy, translated by N. H.’Thomson. 1883. 
 
 Historical, Political and Diplomatic Writings of Machiavelli, translated by 
 C. E. Detmold. 4 vols. 1882. 
 
 B. SECONDARY SOURCES 
 
 Burp, L. A.: “ Machiavelli,” in The Cambridge Modern History, vol. i. 
 1902. 
 
 ean W. A.: History of Political Theories, Ancient and Medieval. 
 IgIo. 
 
 ee : Machiavelli and the Modern State. 1904. 
 
 Feverein, E.: “ Zur Machiavelli-Frage,” in Historische Zeitschrift. 1868. 
 
 Franck, A.: Réformateurs et publicistes de [ Europe, vol.i. 1864. 
 
 Macautay, Lorp: ‘ Machiavelli,” in Critical and Historical Essays. 1827. 
 
 Mancini, P. S.: Prelezioni con un Saggio sul Machiavelli. 1876. 
 
 Mortty, Lorp: Machiavelli (‘The Romanes Lecture, 1897). 
 
 Munpt, T.: Nicolo Machiavelli und das System der modernen Politik. 1867. 
 
 Nitti, F.: Machiavelli nella Vita e nelle Opere. 1876. 
 
 Owen, ].: Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. 1893. 
 
 Symonps, J. A.: The Renaissance in Italy, vol.i, Chapters Vand VI. 1875. 
 
 Tomasino, O.: La Vita e gli Scritti di Nicolo Machiavelli. 1883. 
 
 Virart, P.: The Life and Times of Machiavelli (translated by Linda Villar). 
 1878. 
 
 122 
 
Vv 
 SIR THOMAS MORE 
 
 more familiarly than any other man of his century. 
 Written in the first instance by his devoted admirers, 
 his life has for us an intimacy that is indeed a valued posses- 
 sion. In this, strangely enough, he shares the good for- 
 tune of a man for whom he had but a qualified admiration. 
 Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey and Roper’s Life of More stand 
 in a place apart in early biography. Yet Wolsey’s life has 
 been subjected to a fiercer light than More’s, and there 
 are some who feel that More’s life has yet to be written. 
 Probably nothing worth the saying remains to be said about 
 his Utopia, but much that ought not to have been said about 
 the so-called intolerance of its author’s later days has found 
 a hearing mainly because we have not known our man. 
 That More attached very definite importance to the 
 influence of the experience he gained in the household of 
 John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, is indicated by 
 his references to the old Cardinal not only in his Utopia 
 but also in his History of Richard JIJ*+ His admiration 
 for Morton is significant when we recall the insistence with 
 which, as archbishop, he had pursued his determination 
 to bring under his discipline his provincial monasteries, 
 and particularly the powerful Benedictine house of St 
 Albans. ‘There was a rough, homespun virtue in Morton, 
 a blunt directness that More admired, an intrepidity that 
 
 1E is perhaps true to say of More that we know him 
 
 1 For the question of More’s authorship of Richard III see Joseph Delcourt, 
 Essai sur la langue de Siy Thomas More, pp. 388 ff. 
 
 123 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 was not without influence on his admirer and struck in 
 him an answering note. Morton was one of the great 
 figures of the Renaissance in England, a good Englishman, 
 a bold statesman, a wise builder, and a resolute reformer 
 with a keen eye for soundness in essentials. While much 
 of the first part of More’s Utopia is taken up with his analysis 
 of the evils of the day, social and economic, we are conscious 
 that Morton stands out before us as a man to whom the 
 reform of such things was a matter of moment. One 
 remark of More’s throws a strong light on the old man: 
 “ He took delight many times with rough speech to prove 
 what prompt wit and bold spirit were in every man.” And 
 it was for the like qualities that Morton himself commended 
 More, ‘‘in whose wit and towardness,’’ Roper tells us, 
 “the Cardinal much delighted.” 
 
 In this household of Renaissance culture, enrolled as a 
 chaplain, although he apparently never proceeded beyond 
 the degree of acolyte (1490), when More was twelve years 
 old was the dramatist Henry Medwall. I never lose an 
 opportunity of introducing Medwall to the notice of those 
 admirers of More who do not already know his play of 
 Fulgens and Lucres. It is based on a translation of a pretty 
 story written more than fifty years earlier by a Petrarchan 
 humanist of Pistoja. In it we find for the first time in our 
 drama a romantic comedy of purely secular and social 
 interest. It has, moreover, an admirably comic underplot 
 provided by two boys who step in among the players as 
 Roper says More used to do. The only copy of the play 
 that has survived was printed by More’s brother-in-law, 
 John Rastell, and although this copy has now gone to 
 Mr Henry Huntington’s library in California he has made 
 it available for scholars in an edition in facsimile. 
 
 “For his better furtherance in learning ’’ Morton placed 
 More at Oxford (1492-4), where he came under the 
 124 
 
SIR THOMAS MORE 
 
 influence of Grocyn and Linacre. In after years, when, 
 having resigned his Chancellorship, he called his family 
 about him to discuss with them how they might best econo- 
 mise and what retrenchments they must make, he suggested 
 as a fair level for their first descent a Lincoln’s Inn diet. 
 If need be they might sink to the fare of an Inn of Chan- 
 cery, and, at the very worst, fall to Oxford fare, ‘‘ so they 
 kept companie and were merrie together.” The passage 
 from Morton’s household to Oxford took all these stages 
 in one leap, and his father, as if to bend him to his 
 task and wean him of any softness developed in Morton’s 
 household, ‘‘ so used the matter to the end that he should 
 only follow his learning and study that he allowed him but 
 only necessaries; nor not a penny he would give him to 
 waste on pastime.” 
 
 From Oxford he passed to New Inn and Lincoln’s Inn, 
 whence he emerged an utter barrister, but also a confirmed 
 humanist. He had both fulfilled and defeated his father’s 
 strictest requirements, as he showed when he accepted in 
 I 501 the invitation of Grocyn to read a course of lectures 
 in Grocyn’s church, St Lawrence Jewry—the parish church 
 of his father, John More—on the De Civitate Det. Whether 
 any earlier example of such a reading by a layman in a City 
 church can be cited I do not know, but it is safe to venture 
 the opinion that none had done it at the age of twenty-three. 
 
 One sees here the hand and influence of John Colet, 
 who, since More had come down from Oxford, had returned 
 from Italy and made himself felt by the new spirit he intro- 
 duced into theological study. In his departure from the 
 traditional methods of scholastic interpretation and in his 
 zeal for a reform of the spirit as well as the letter of doctrinal 
 teaching Colet had in More a devoted admirer. He was 
 an outspoken and intrepid reformer, of strict but humane 
 principles, a shrewd idealist, one of the thinkers of the time 
 
 125 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 to whom More was indebted for some of the many criticisms 
 of contemporary life that we find in his Usopia. ‘Thus in 
 his Exposition of Romans we read that “ the law of nations 
 is the Jaw of our corrupter Nature ; a law which has brought 
 in ideas of meum and tuum, that is, of property and robbery; 
 ideas clean contrary to a good and unsophisticated nature, 
 for that would have a community in all things.”’ ‘To Colet 
 the most disadvantageous peace is to be preferred to the 
 justest war, nor was More himself more emphatic about 
 the perversity of the legal mind and the futility of penalising 
 the ignorant and irresponsible. As Hythlodaye puts it, 
 ‘We first make thieves and then punish them.” The two 
 men had more in common than merely their views and 
 aspirations. In both there was a certain stubbornness of 
 temper and inflexible self-control, and these qualities sprang 
 in both men from simple religious conviction and experi- 
 ence which to Erasmus appeared to have in it something 
 of superstition. 
 
 Erasmus’ first visit to England in 1499 was an event of 
 supreme importance both to himself and More. If the 
 zeal and austerer virtues of Colet awoke a response in 
 More, so too did Erasmus’ avidity for the humanities, his 
 liberal scholarship, his reckless and witty satire, and his 
 hatred of pedantry. But before his return in 1505 More 
 was much in the company of a third scholar, the man whom 
 Colet secured later to be the first High Master of the school 
 he founded in St Paul’s Churchyard, William Lilly, author 
 of the famous grammar. ‘The two meditated the serious 
 step of taking priest’s orders. ‘They appear to have lived 
 together for some time within the precincts of the Charter- 
 house. The expression which More applies to Lilly, 
 clarissimus mearum rerum socius, seems to refer to something 
 more than common tastes and pursuits, though they were 
 associated in a joint translation of Greek epigrams. In a 
 126 
 
SIR THOMAS MORE 
 
 charming letter to Colet, who was in the country, More 
 gives us a pretty picture of his associates at this time. 
 ‘““Do come back,” he writes, “though here in town the 
 expanse above is cut off not by the horizon, but by house 
 tops. In your absence Grocyn is the sole director of my 
 life, Linacre is my tutor in study, and my concerns, all of 
 them, I share with dear Lilly.” 
 
 Yet all along it has been obvious that More was not to 
 become a recluse. Weare told by Cresacre More that 
 ““when More determined to marry he proposed to himself 
 - for a pattern in life a singular layman, John Picus, Earl of 
 Mirandula, . . . whose life he translated and set out.” 
 More’s interest in Pico was probably derived through 
 Colet. The facts of Colet’s Italian journey are obscure, 
 but Lupton seems to be fairly confident that he stayed in 
 Florence and may have come under Savonarola’s influence. 
 He may well, indeed, have been in the city in 1495 at 
 the time of Pico’s death. If so, one can well understand 
 More’s interest in the astonishing young humanist who had 
 invited to Florence the fiery preacher who was to attempt 
 to set up a strictly ordered Christian state—a Christian 
 theocracy in which private interests should be sacrificed to 
 the common good, and in the hearts of whose citizens God 
 should reign. Pico died on the eve of this experiment, 
 and More’s life of him makes no reference to Savonarola’s 
 theocratic scheme. What appealed to More in Pico was 
 his resolution of the conflicting claims of scholarship, affairs, 
 and the religious life. The little work is dedicated to “‘ his 
 beloved sister in Christ Joyeuce Leigh,” ! who, I find from 
 her mother’s will (1507), was a nun of the Minoresses of 
 Aldgate. The Life of Pico belongs, I think, to the close 
 of More’s Carthusian days. 
 
 1 Joyce Leigh’s brother was Edward Leigh, later Archbishop of York, a 
 critic of Erasmus’ New Testament. The Leighs and the Mores were fellow- 
 parishioners. 
 
 124 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 He emerged from the comparative seclusion of his 
 chamber-fellowship with Lilly in the Charterhouse to fall into 
 trouble as a Member of Parliament in 1504 for opposing— 
 ‘“a beardless boy ”—an exorbitant demand of Henry VII ; 
 wherefore his father was imprisoned and fined. A year 
 later (1505) he married Jane Colt, of Netherhall in Essex, 
 and when Erasmus visited the young householders in the 
 first year of their married life the two Hellenists interested 
 themselves in translating Lucian. Erasmus has left in his 
 Colloqguies an amusing but significant picture of More and 
 Jane Colt, which Mr P. S. Allen has identified for us. 
 
 Erasmus writes as follows : 
 
 A young gentleman married a maiden of seventeen years who had 
 been educated in the country and who, being inexperienced, he 
 trusted to form easily in manners to hisown humour. He began to 
 instruct her in literature and music, and by degrees to repeat the 
 heads of sermons which she heard, and generally to acquire the ac- 
 complishments he wished her to possess. Used at home to nothing 
 but gossip and play she at length refused to submit to further train- 
 ing and when pressed about it threw herself down and beat her head 
 on the ground as though she wished for death. Her husband con- 
 cealed his resentment and carried her off for a holiday to her home. 
 Out hunting with his father-in-law he told his troubles and was 
 urged to use his authority and beat her. He replied that he knew 
 his power but had much rather that she were persuaded than come to 
 these extremities. “he father seized a proper moment and looking 
 severely on the girl told her how homely she was, how disagreeable, 
 and how lucky to have a husband at all; yet he had found her the 
 best-natured man in the world, and she disobeyed him. She returned 
 to her husband and threw herself on the ground saying, “‘ From this 
 time forward you shall find me another sort of person.” She kept 
 her resolution, and to her dying day went readily and cheerfully about 
 any duty, however simple, if her husband would have it so.1 
 
 1 John Colt’s confidence in More is shown in his will, drawn up (1521) ten 
 years after his daughter’s death. He left ten marks a year to ‘‘ Sir Thomas 
 More, Knyght, to the fynding of my young son Thomas Colt till he come to 
 the age of xx yeres and he to order hym and bring hym up in lerning as he 
 thinketh best.’” We may also note that to his “‘ son More ”’ he left his best col. 
 
 128 
 
SIR THOMAS MORE 
 
 Here we must pause for a moment to consider the trans- 
 lations from Lucian. Whatever deficiencies there may have 
 been in More’s Greek when he had finished his course at 
 Lincoln’s Inn, his intimacy with Grocyn, Linacre, and his 
 friend Lilly had more than made good. He was probably 
 familiar with as much Greek as he allowed Hythlodaye to 
 introduce into Utopia. But if we picture Erasmus dis- 
 covering his younger friend prepared in the first year of 
 his married life for relaxation we may imagine how happily 
 Lucian met the situation. Here one learnt how to con- 
 trovert without heat, how to undermine the entrenchments 
 of pedantry and ignorance by irony, and tease the adversary 
 by raillery into some acknowledgment of the truth. Above 
 all, one learnt to be daring in the invention of ingenious 
 conceits. Ina word, here was something that went to the 
 making of Utopia along with Plato. I suppose it would be 
 considered most improper to describe the Usopia as Lucianic, 
 but I wonder whether Lucian has had as much credit for 
 it as he deserves! But More himself was Lucianic in his 
 mastery of irony, and therefore he confounds the simple. 
 An example may be appropriate. 
 
 His sister Joan married a lawyer of the Middle Temple, 
 John Rastell of Coventry, whose father was of the quorum 
 for Warwickshire along with the famous Sir ‘Thomas 
 Littleton. Rastell was appointed coroner of Coventry (in 
 succession to his father) soon after his marriage. More 
 visited his sister in 1507, and in 1519, by way of showing 
 the infatuation and perversity of the kind of man who 
 was attacking the New Testament of Erasmus, he told 
 an amusing story of an incident that befell him during 
 his visit. A certain friar, an old Franciscan, had won a 
 remarkable following in the city by urging the efficacy of 
 
 1 The dialogues and declamations that More published were the Tyvannicide 
 (Henry VII was on the throne), the Liar, the Cynic, and the Necromantia. 
 
 I 129 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 Our Lady’s Psalter. More had hardly alighted when the 
 
 question was put to him whether a man could possibly 
 be damned who read Our Lady’s Psalter daily. More’s 
 retort that it was “‘ an easy way to heaven ”’ did not suffice. 
 He was asked out to supper, and the friar himself turned up 
 followed by a boy carrying his evidences. The question 
 was asked again. More remained silent, but the friar 
 held forth for two hours. Then More replied judicially 
 that though a prince might grant a pardon at the Queen- 
 mother’s request, he would hardly make a law granting 
 general immunity to all who should perform some office 
 for her. But the friar was extolled and More laughed at 
 for a fool. 
 
 More’s anecdote is confirmed in a strange way by the will 
 of Thomas Bonde, who died during Rastell’s coronership, 
 bequeathing to the town the well-known hospital at Bablake, 
 of which Coventry is still justly proud, for ten poor men of 
 the two great guilds, “ the said ten poor men being bounden 
 every day to say three times Our Lady’s Psalter for all 
 the brethren and sustren of the guild.” In the same year, 
 1507, there died at Coventry a wealthy merchant, Richard 
 Cook, who appointed Rastell overseer of his will and be- 
 queathed “‘one Bible in English” to Trinity Church, 
 Coventry, and another to the parish church of Walsall. 
 One wonders whether this does not suggest a note of 
 Lollardy. If so, it is interesting to find that More’s brother- 
 in-law was looked upon by the donor as the kind of man who 
 was likely to see the matter carried through. It would 
 be interesting to know more about this “‘ Bible in English.” 
 We know More’s attitude toward the “ easy way to heaven,” 
 but no more than that. It is perhaps significant that 
 Rastell resigned his coronership a year later and came to 
 London. 
 
 Meanwhile Erasmus had visited Italy, and when he 
 130 
 
SIR THOMAS MORE 
 
 returned to England in 1509, the year of the accession of 
 Henry VIII, he wrote in More’s house in Bucklersbury 
 his Praise of Folly, the Encomium Morie. He remained 
 in England for five years engaged on the great work of his 
 life, his edition of the New Testament and the Letters of 
 St Jerome. His time was spent between Cambridge and 
 London, and he was well befriended by Warham, Mountjoy, 
 and Fisher. ‘These were the years immediately preceding 
 the Utopia. ‘The years of Erasmus’ sojourn in England 
 coincide in part with More’s tenure of an important legal 
 office, as Under-Sheriff of the City, to which he was appointed 
 on September 3, 1510. He was granted leave of absence 
 to join the King’s embassy to Flanders on May 6, 1514, 
 and resigned finally to be absorbed in the royal service on 
 July 23, 1518. It was shortly after this that Erasmus 
 wrote the famous letter to Von Hutten which may be called 
 his “* Life of More.” 
 
 More was, he tells us, a man of medium height, of a 
 clear complexion in which there shone the faint glow of 
 health. His hair was dark auburn, his eyes full of happi- 
 ness: a pleasant, friendly, cheerful face, with a readiness 
 to smile, inclined toward merriment rather than dignity. 
 His hands were a little coarse; he was careless of his 
 personal appearance, and his general health indicated that 
 he might live long. No one could be less fastidious about 
 his food. His drink was the thinnest of small beer; wine 
 he drank in a loving-cup, lest he should seem unsociable ; 
 milk foods and fruit and particularly eggs were his favourite 
 dishes ; he had a penetrating but not aggressive voice, and 
 his speech was singularly articulate and deliberate. He 
 did not sing, but he was fond of music. In dress he liked 
 simplicity, and he had nousefor formal politeness. Because 
 he held equality dear, and hated the high hand, he shunned 
 
 intimacy with princes at one time. Of freedom and leisure 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 he could never have enough, yet when need arose no one 
 was more ready to take trouble. His straightforward, 
 loyal nature endowed him for friendship, and in his circle 
 of friends were men of every degree. His chief enjoy- 
 ment in life was the company of like-minded men, candid 
 and sincere. He was a delightful man to live with. He 
 had a gift for cheering the depressed, and from his earliest 
 days he delighted in jokes. As a young man he wrote 
 and acted in little plays; he amused himself with epigrams 
 and took special pleasure in Lucian. It was he who made 
 Erasmus write The Praise of Folly. He got mirth out of 
 everything, even the gravest matters. With women he was 
 full of jesting and fun. He had the philosophical mind. 
 Like the Pythagorean philosopher, wandering through the 
 market and watching the buyers and sellers, no one was 
 less swayed by public opinion, and no one showed more 
 common sense in his inferences. He loved animals, and 
 studied their individuality. He kept all sorts of birds, 
 and had a menagerie of apes, foxes, beavers, weasels, and ~ 
 _ other rare beasts. His house was full of interesting things. 
 In his relations with women a union of spirits meant more 
 for him than bodily charms. As a young man he took up 
 Greek literature and philosophy, to the distress of his father, 
 an upright man, an authority on English law and in general 
 a man of sound sense, who, to check his son’s proclivities, 
 cut off all supplies and indeed almost disowned him; but 
 the profession of law in England was the highway to success, 
 and when Erasmus knew him no professional lawyer had a 
 better practice than More. Yet old men and priests had 
 attended his lectures on Augustine’s City of God and did not 
 disdain to learn sacred things from a young layman. At 
 the same time, in spite of his interest in Greek literature and 
 philosophy, he had turned with all his strength to preparing — 
 himself for the priesthood. He had almost embraced 
 I 32 
 
 $ 
 
SIR THOMAS MORE 
 
 this ministry, but, being unable to master the desire for 
 a wife, he made his choice. “‘ He married a young girl 
 of good family, who had been brought up in her parents’ 
 home in the country; choosing her yet undeveloped that 
 he might more readily mould her to his tastes. He had her 
 taught literature and trained her in every kind of music. 
 She was just growing into a charming life’s companion for 
 him when she died,” leaving him with four children. To 
 secure the welfare of his children he married a widow of 
 a London citizen, whom he trained to compliance by his 
 buoyant gaiety. With the same gaiety and charm he 
 ruled his whole household. Money had no charms for him. 
 When his household was provided for, and the well-being 
 of his children secured, he spent freely. In his legal prac- 
 tice he thought more of the advantage of his clients than 
 his own. He was much beloved in the City. Indeed, 
 he had resolved to be content with his position there, but 
 his sound conduct of business on embassies made that im- 
 possible. Henry VIII dragged him to Court—‘dragged’ 
 is the only word. He had a genius for arbitration, yet no 
 one ever induced him to accept a present. It was their 
 common studies that brought More and Erasmus together. 
 Fis first years were given to poetry; then for a long time 
 he experimented to acquire a flexible prose style. He 
 took special pleasure in paradoxical themes, because they 
 supplied a keener exercise for ingenuity. Thus while 
 he was still a young man he worked upon a dialogue in 
 which he maintained Plato’s principle of community in 
 all things, even in wives. In order to see what progress 
 he had made he invited Erasmus to complete with him and 
 reply to Lucian’s Tyrannicide. Wis purpose in the Usopia 
 was to show whence evils spring in states, but he modelled 
 it on his knowledge of the English Constitution. No one 
 was happier at impromptu speaking. He was a man of 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 true piety ; his religious practices were definite and regular ; 
 when he spoke of the world to come you could see that he 
 was speaking with assurance. 
 
 I have given the foregoing picture of More at some 
 length, because it describes the man as Erasmus had come 
 to know him during his four visits to England between 
 1499 and 1516: and particularly during his lengthy 
 sojourn here in the five years from 1509 to 1514. ‘The 
 Lutheran revolt had not broken out when Erasmus carried 
 off More’s Lucian for Froben to print at Basel. Of Von 
 Hutten, at whose request Erasmus had drawn this portrait 
 of More, this only need be said: that he was in part at 
 least the author of Epistole Obscurorum Virorum, the coarsest 
 of caricatures of the monks, but so witty that many attributed 
 it to Erasmus. I see no reason to doubt that, as Erasmus 
 suggests, it was More’s admiration for the satirical wit 
 of Von Hutten that led to the request for a sketch of the 
 author of Utopia. ‘That Von Hutten becamea violent cham- 
 pion of Luther is only too well known, but in 1519 the 
 Lutheran storm had not fully developed. 
 
 Erasmus left England in 1514. In that year More 
 obtained leave of absence on May 6 from the Court of 
 Aldermen to accompany the embassy to Flanders. He left. 
 in the spring of the following year, but in the meantime 
 the City had been greatly stirred by the tragic affair of the 
 heresy and death of Richard Hunne. A careful investiga- 
 tion of the facts of Hunne’s case will be found in Miss 
 Jeffries Davis’ article on ‘‘ Ecclesiastical History’ in the | 
 Victoria County History of London, where its significance 
 in the story of the Reformation in London is justly empha- 
 sised. Hunne was found hanged in the Christmas of 1514 
 in the Lollards’ ‘Tower, where he was awaiting a charge 
 of refusing the customary burial gift or mortuary claimed by 
 the priest of a Stepney church on the occasion of the burial 
 
 134 
 
SIR THOMAS MORE 
 
 of Hunne’s infant son. Many in the City said that Hunne 
 had been put to death, and this view the coroner’s inquest 
 upheld. A subsequent inquiry traversed this verdict, and 
 More felt so strongly the iniquity of the verdict given at 
 the coroner’s inquest that he resurveyed the whole case 
 in his Dialogue of Heresies in 1528. ‘There were other 
 charges pending against Hunne that explain More’s atti- 
 tude. He was the spokesman of a general attack against 
 bishops and priests: he was an open supporter of the heretic 
 Joan Baker : he had, moreover, in his keeping divers English 
 books prohibited and damned by the law—as the Apocalypse 
 in English, Epistles and Gospels in English, Wycliffe’s 
 works, and other erroneous books “in which he hath been 
 a long time accustomed to read, teach and study daily.” 
 From the point of view of the ecclesiastical historian the 
 interest of Hunne’s case lies in the fact that his resistance 
 to the claims of the clergy to offerings was supported by 
 popular feeling in the City, where the whole question of 
 tithes and offerings was in debate. ‘Though the coroner’s 
 inquest had found for murder the ecclesiastical court had 
 traversed the finding and post mortem adjudged Hunne a 
 heretic. His goods thus became confiscate to the Crown, 
 and his daughters Margaret and Mary became the King’s 
 wards. More’s brother-in-law, John Rastell, was rewarded 
 for his services in the French war by a grant on terms | 
 of the lands, tenements, goods, and debts of the heretic 
 Richard Hunne, together with the wardship of Hunne’s 
 two daughters. It is interesting to learn that Rastell 
 had in mind that the two girls would in due time become 
 the wives of his own sons John and William. 
 
 The Hunne case, therefore, was exciting London on the 
 eve of More’s departure for Flanders, where his Usopia was 
 to have its birth. I do not admit that there is any incon- 
 sistency in More’s Utopian views on religious toleration 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 and his attitude toward the Hunne case. It is, of course, 
 the same attitude that led him subsequently into his attacks 
 on Luther and to his controversial writings. His attitude 
 toward heresy was defined before he wrote his Uropia, 
 and he never departed from it; but to this question we 
 shall return presently. 
 
 The embassy to Flanders in 1515 kept More away from 
 England over six months, but it led to the establishment 
 of intimacy with Cuthbert Tunstall, his fellow-ambassador, 
 Jerome Busleiden of Mechlin, a collector and bibliophile, 
 and, above all, with Peter Giles, the good friend of Erasmus. 
 The diptych of Erasmus and Giles which Quintin Matsys 
 painted for presentation to More in 1517 ought to appear 
 as a frontispiece to every proper edition of the Usopia, for 
 the famous “‘ second book ”’ occupied a good part of More’s 
 leisure time while he enjoyed the company of this friend 
 of Erasmus. If he finished while he was abroad Hythlo- 
 daye’s narrative account of the ideal pagan state, nothing 
 could be more natural on his return home than to set out 
 by way of introduction and contrast the same adventurer’s 
 experience of England. But something should be said 
 of More’s attitude toward the publication of his book. 
 This has been worked out admirably by Mr Allen. Early 
 in September 1516 More entrusted his manuscript to 
 Erasmus, who was to look after the rest of the business— 
 that 1s, get it published. Three weeks later he wrote 
 again, Showing some anxiety that it should come out soon, 
 and particularly that it should be supported by commenda- 
 tory letters, not from scholars only, but also from well- 
 known public men. It is interesting to find that he had 
 kept his secret from Tunstall, for he asks Erasmus whether 
 he has yet been let into it. Early in October More 
 received an answer, reporting progress; and in the middle 
 of the month Erasmus wrote to Giles, inviting him to send 
 136 
 
SIR THOMAS MORE 
 
 a preface, addressed preferably to Busleiden, not to himself. 
 On October 31 More again wrote, wondering whether 
 Tunstall and the others liked it. One gathers from this 
 letter that More was distinctly concerned as to what men 
 of learning might make of his communistic state. In the 
 middle of November Erasmus reported that Utopia was in 
 the printer’s hands, and three weeks later More had received 
 Tunstall’s compliments. ‘‘ You cannot think how elated I 
 am, how I have grown in stature and hold my head higher ; 
 so constantly do I imagine myself in the part of sovereign 
 of Utopia. . . . But alas! the coming of daylight has dis- 
 pelled the dream and shaken me off my throne, and sends 
 me back to the daily mill of the courts.” 
 
 On December 15 he writes to Erasmus, “‘I am daily 
 expecting my Usopia, with the feelings of a mother awaiting 
 the return of her son from abroad.”” On January 4 Mount- 
 joy had received a copy from Erasmus, and More’s period 
 of waiting was over. ‘This brief statement shows clearly 
 enough that More was conscious that this was no ordinary 
 event. If the world now recognises in his little book one 
 of its greatest masterpieces, is it to be wondered at that 
 its author was more than ordinarily anxious as the time 
 of its publication drew near? Erasmus seems to have been 
 a little dubious about the venture, and it was not until 
 he contributed his prefatory letter to Froben’s later edition 
 that he spoke out; by which time the book had been gener- 
 ally acclaimed by the cosmopolitan world of scholars. 
 
 In his younger days, as we have already seen, More took 
 special pleasure in developing themes of a paradoxical 
 nature, which provided a keen exercise for his ingenuity ; 
 and at one time he had worked upon a dialogue in which 
 he maintained Plato’s principle of community in all things. 
 Of this earlier experiment in Utopianism we know no more, 
 but his seven months’ sojourn in the Low Countries in the 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 stimulating society of his scholarly and friendly hosts must, 
 as it does with all of us when we are under the exciting 
 influence of foreign experience, have awakened all that was 
 keenest and most entertaining in him. ‘That he should 
 be called upon to explain to his friends his view of the state 
 of things in England and to compare it with that which he 
 saw around him is natural enough. And Erasmus is right 
 in describing Usopia as an attempt to show whence spring 
 the evils of states. If in his lectures on the De Civitate 
 Dei he had distinguished, as St Augustine does, the State 
 or the city of men from the Church or the City of God, 
 it was with the city of men, the State, that Usopia dealt. 
 He therefore in nowise handles in it the wider conception 
 of St Augustine that ultimately and in every real sense 
 the true State is the Church. ‘That this was More’s central 
 position his whole life is a witness not less than his death. 
 Like St Augustine he felt the demand for absolute authority 
 in a capricious world; the State must merge in the Church, 
 the civil power become the weapon of the Church, legis- 
 lator and magistrate be but sons of the Church, bound 
 to carry out the Church’s aims; the Empire must be the 
 instrument and vassal of the Church. If this is a fair 
 statement of the practical teaching of the De Civitate Dei 
 it is none the less ultimately the principle for which More 
 gave his life. With this higher conception More is not 
 concerned in his Usopia: he is dealing only with the city 
 of men. His Uvsopia is the criticism of the social and 
 political life of the day, by the Hellenist standards of one 
 who has the shrewd practical instinct of the reformer. He 
 applies in a somewhat Lucianic manner the philosophy 
 he had learnt from Plato and the ideas he had got from 
 Plutarch to conditions and problems that he found at his 
 door. But it is as a citizen of the city of men, and not as 
 a citizen of the City of God, that he takes his stand. ‘There- 
 138 
 
SIR THOMAS MORE 
 
 fore what More may say of religious toleration among the 
 Utopians must be considered as having reference to such 
 religion only as men by the light of their natural reason 
 may enjoy. Impartiality would be a better name for it 
 than toleration. Compulsion in matters of speculation 
 would, of course, be unreasonable; nor, indeed, would it 
 have been possible, had impartiality not been the rule of the 
 Utopians, for Hythlodaye and his fellows to have taught 
 the elements of Christianity to the Utopians. Subsequent 
 history happens to have shown the State developing its 
 control of the social organism, while the Church has virtually 
 been disestablished ; but in More’s day, as in the days when 
 our Litany took its present form, men could not think of 
 false doctrine, heresy, and schism without coupling with 
 them sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion, and attri- 
 buting all of these evils to hardness of heart and contempt 
 of God’s word and commandment—or, as More perhaps 
 would have said, contempt of “ the Holy Church Universal.” 
 In the epitaph which More composed shortly before his 
 death for his own tomb—his last retort to the heretics— 
 he described himself as ‘‘ not odious to the nobility nor 
 unpleasant to the people, yet to thieves, murderers and 
 heretics grievous.’”’ He saw in heresy a crime against 
 social order, akin to theft and murder. It is no more 
 reasonable to question More’s consistency in this matter 
 by the dramatic dialogue of his Utopia than it would be to 
 criticise his attitude to the divorce of Henry VIII—the 
 ultimate cause of his death—by referring to Hythlodaye’s 
 account of the easy terms on which the Utopians granted 
 a separation. But I am at a loss to know how to think of 
 those who derive any ideals of toleration from More’s 
 Utopia. Politically it was the most intolerant of despotisms. 
 Even the colonists had to hold themselves ready to return 
 home to adjust or stabilise the population. The individual 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 must subordinate himself to the system. Nor did toleration 
 —at first a modern political expedient—exist in the religious 
 organisation of Utopia. A man who did not believe in the 
 immortality of the soul, in a future life with its rewards 
 and punishments, or held that the world was the plaything 
 of chance, was a man of base mind unfit to hold office in 
 the State, who was not allowed to air his views in public. 
 He degraded man below the brute; for there was a sect 
 that held that even brutes had immortal souls of an inferior 
 kind. 
 
 It has not been emphasised often enough by More’s 
 biographers that “‘ he solemnly observed both in earnest 
 and in jest to show no change of countenance in anything 
 that he happened to speak.” Weare apt, I think, to suffer 
 from our inability to keep pace with the brilliant flashes 
 of More’s irony. We condemn, for instance, the Utopian 
 use of slaves, but forget to notice that slavery in Utopia 
 was a better lot than drudgery elsewhere, and that sometimes 
 a poor labourer voluntarily exchanges drudgery in another 
 country for slavery there. 
 
 The form that this chapter has taken forbids that I should 
 do more than give to his Utopia its place in More’s busy 
 life. Indeed, I can pass on, leaving my readers in better 
 hands than mine if they will consult Dr Barker’s article on 
 the later developments of Plato’s political theory in the 
 appendix to his work on Greek Political Thought, or Miss 
 Hertzler’s compendious History of Utopian Thought. 
 
 The New Year of 1517 that opened with the publication 
 of Utopia was a year of interest. On May Day—the famous 
 Evil May Day—the apprentices of London arose in a 
 violent demonstration against the foreign artificers and 
 artisans in the City, and in quelling the tumult tradition 
 has it that More played a distinguished part as mediator. 
 It is the stirring scene of More’s address to the mob that 
 140 
 
SIR THOMAS MORE 
 
 is attributed to Shakespeare in the play of Sir Thomas More. 
 A little later in the summer his brother-in-law Rastell set 
 out as captain-merchant of the Barbara on a voyage to the 
 new-found lands. His crew mutinied and set him ashore 
 at Waterford, and it is amusing to find that the trouble was 
 caused in part by an agitator who had been one of the insti- 
 gators of the May Day riots and had signed on as a hand on 
 the Barbara to escape justice. On the eve of All Saints in 
 the same year Luther nailed his ninety-five theses against 
 indulgences on the door of the ducal palace church at 
 Wittenberg. But it was not until 1520 that Luther’s 
 breach with Rome became complete, and Pope Leo X 
 issued his famous bull. 
 
 Meanwhile More had been induced by the King to leave 
 his City office, and had been absorbed in the service of the 
 Court. His promotions were rapid, but it was at the cost 
 of almost everything that he valued most. It was some 
 recompense that it gave him the means to serve his friends 
 and protégés, and advance their fortunes. But his four 
 children were now at an interesting age. In 1520, when 
 her father left England for the Field of-the-Cloth of Gold, 
 Margaret More was fifteen and John was ten. The edu- 
 cation of his children was now the thing nearest to his heart. 
 Erasmus described his house as an academy, or rather a 
 school or university of Christian teaching wherein all studied 
 all the branches of a liberal education. A letter written to his 
 tutor Gunnell in 1521, when More, just knighted and made 
 Under-Treasurer of the Household, was abroad in the 
 King’s service, sets out the educational aims by which he 
 would have his school guided: above all, he would have his 
 daughters carry their learning modestly. Nothing can be 
 prettier than the letters he wrote to his children and their 
 friends as he followed the Court. Most of them have been 
 gathered by Dr Foster Watson in his book on Vives and the 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 Renaissance Education of Women. Particularly pretty is the 
 following passage from one of his letters to Margaret : 
 
 Thomas More sendeth hearty greeting to his dearest daughter 
 Margaret. I will let pass to tell you, my sweetest daughter, how 
 much your letter delighted me; you may imagine how exceedingly 
 it pleased your father when you understand what affection the 
 reading of it raised in a stranger.. It happened me this evening 
 to sit with John [Voysey], Lord Bishop of Exeter, a learned man, 
 and by all men’s judgment, a most sincere man. As we were 
 talking together and I taking out of my pocket a paper which 
 was to the purpose we were talking of, I pulled out by chance 
 therewith your letter. The handwriting pleasing him, he took 
 it from me and looked on it ; when he perceived it by the salutation 
 to be a woman’s, he began more greedily to read it, novelty inviting 
 him thereunto; but when he had read it and understood that it 
 was your writing which he never could have believed if I had not 
 seriously afirmed it; ‘‘such a letter ’—I will say no more—yet 
 why should not I report that which he said unto me—“ So pure 
 a style, so good Latin, so eloquent, so full of sweet affections ”— 
 he was marvellously ravished with it. When I perceived that I 
 brought forth also an oration of yours, which he reading, and also 
 many of your verses, he was so moved with the matter so unlooked — 
 for, that the very countenance and gesture of the man, free from 
 all flattery and deceit, betrayed that his mind was more than his 
 words could utter, although he uttered many to your great praise ; 
 and forthwith he drew out of his pocket a portegue 1 which you 
 shall receive enclosed herein. I could not possibly shun the 
 taking of it, but he would needs send it unto you, as a sign of his 
 dear affection towards you, although by all means I endeavoured 
 to give it him again ; which was the cause I showed him more of 
 your other sister’s works ; for I was afraid lest I should have been 
 thought to have showed them of purpose because he should bestow 
 the like courtesy upon them ; for it troubles me sore that I must 
 needs take this of him; but he isso worthy a man, as I have said, 
 that it is a happiness to please him thus. Write carefully unto him, 
 and as eloquently as you are able, to give him thanks therefore. 
 Farewell. From the court, this 11th of September, even almost 
 at mid-night. 
 
 1 Or portague, a gold coin worth £3 Ios. or more. 
 142 
 
SIR THOMAS MORE 
 
 Of all the villains in English history Henry VIII to me is 
 the hardest to forgive, when one thinks of all the beautiful 
 things he smashed. 
 
 One matter that has perhaps been overlooked by More’s 
 biographers is the intensity of his patriotism. To illus- 
 trate my point we must go back a little. In the French 
 war of the early years of Henry’s reign the largest vessel 
 in the English Navy, the Regent, had gone down in flames 
 grappled with the French Cordighera. ‘The French Queen’s 
 secretary, Brixius, wrote some extravagant verses eulogising 
 the part the French had taken in the disaster, and More 
 had retorted in several epigrams which he published in 1518. 
 Brixius replied by a scornful criticism of More’s Latin, and 
 he in turn retorted in his Epistola ad Germanum Brixium in 
 1520. Erasmus had to step in to stop the feud. It is this 
 same spirit of jealous patriotism that marks his first en- 
 counter with Luther. Henry VIII had responded to the 
 appeal of Leo X by replying to Luther’s attack on the 
 Papacy with his Assertio Septem Sacramentorum. In this 
 he opposes Luther’s view of indulgences, defends the 
 supremacy of the Pope, and reasserts the doctrine of the 
 sacraments of the Church. Luther seized the opportunity 
 of engaging with a royal controversialist. He attacked 
 the King in a scurrilous pamphlet full of personal abuse 
 in Latin and German. ‘The King could not with dignity 
 remain in the arena, and it was left to More under the 
 pseudonym of William Ross to reply with insult for 
 insult on the ground his adversary had adopted. If his 
 flyting with Brixius seems to us a little provocative it is 
 very hard to justify his Responsio ad Convitia Martini Lutheri 
 on any grounds of good taste. We must simply see in 
 it an element in More’s composition which is generally 
 overlooked. I sometimes wonder what Erasmus had in 
 mind when he described More’s hands as a little coarse— 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 subrustice. But More’s character rather gains than loses 
 by seeing it whole. 
 
 It was at this conjuncture that he addressed his defence 
 of the teaching of Greek and the fair humanities to the 
 conservative Trojans of Oxford, while at the same time he 
 was writing for himself his devotional treatise on The Four 
 Last Things. 
 
 Wolsey took up the Lutheran challenge with great 
 energy, fighting it through the machinery of the ecclesi- 
 astical courts. Unfortunately he devoted quite as much 
 energy to the raising of his great subsidy in 1524, and the 
 City, already hostile to the clergy, their tithes, and their 
 offerings, resisted in secret both his attack on Lutheranism 
 and his demand for money. ‘The dissemination of heresy 
 was chiefly fostered by the importation of printed matter 
 from Germany and the Low Countries, and so strict a 
 watch was kept on the London booksellers and printers 
 that even Margaret Roper was caught in the net of the 
 good Tunstall’s Vicar-General. ‘There were then, as now, 
 many who thought Erasmus responsible for the origin 
 of Lutheranism. Margaret Roper had translated his 
 treatise on the Paternoster, and young Thomas Bertelet, 
 soon to become the King’s printer, had printed her work 
 without a licence. He was called to answer for his offence, 
 but, as a second edition bearing a full-page cut of Wolsey’s 
 arms appeared almost immediately, ample amends seem to 
 have been made. The preface to this little book is one 
 of the prettiest things in the story of the school of More. 
 It is addressed by the young tutor Richard Herd to one of 
 More’s nieces, and should be known to all who are inter- 
 ested in the early history of the education of women. ‘They 
 will find it in Dr Foster Watson’s little book on Vives, to 
 which reference has already been made. 
 
 The methods of the ecclesiastical courts, framed originally 
 
 144 
 
SIR THOMAS MORE 
 
 to meet the heresy of the Lollards in the days before printing, 
 were now inadequate. The appearance of Tyndale’s New 
 Testament in 1526 and the secret importation and distribu- 
 tion of copies demonstrated the futility of the old machinery. 
 Tunstall adopted a new method, perhaps on More’s sug- 
 gestion—the method of instruction by controversy. He 
 licensed More to read heretical books and reply to them. 
 The subject-matter of More’s controversial works can have 
 little interest for the general reader to-day, nor for that 
 matter will he find them easily accessible, but to the student 
 of literature they have all the interest that springs from the 
 fact that the form he adopts reflects the methods of the 
 writers he likes best—St Augustine, Lucian, Plato, and, 
 we must add, the schoolmen, all in their ways masters of 
 the art of discussion. For these reasons, though we may 
 not be interested in its value as an important document for 
 the Church historian, we shall find great interest in the 
 Dialogue concerning Heresies. It is a Platonic dialogue in 
 which the case for the opposition is stated with no less 
 weight than that for orthodoxy. It is a masterpiece of its 
 kind. It belongs to the year 1528, when More was Chan- 
 cellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. His second essay, the 
 Supplication of Souls, is equally refreshing, but one busi- 
 ness begetteth another, and his controversies with Tyndale, 
 Barnes, and Frith are of a different order. In them More 
 makes the irretrievable mistake of answering his opponents 
 in the scholastic manner, point by point as they make them. 
 The form, therefore, is not the playful design in dialogue in 
 which all his best work is cast, but the forthright pedestrian 
 method of his antagonist. 
 
 He had now succeeded Wolsey in the Chancellorship. 
 The charge that he violently persecuted heretics to the 
 death cannot be maintained. He fought with the pen, 
 not with the brand and axe. He held the Great Seal for 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 less than three years. The King whom he was serving was 
 himself violating in act and deed the principles for which 
 More was striving. Less than two years after his resigna- 
 tion he was in the Tower, where he was to remain for fifteen 
 months. It is to the piety of his daughter Margaret in the 
 first instance that we owe the preservation of the writings 
 and letters that belong to this period. Their courage, 
 conviction, and simplicity are as impressive as their freshness 
 and wit. He had the most serene and real faith in the world 
 to come, as a place of great gladness. ‘‘ Farewell, my dear 
 child,” he wrote to Margaret on the day before he died, 
 “and pray for me and I shall for you and all your friends, 
 that we may merrily meet in heaven.”’ ‘The works he wrote 
 during his imprisonment are not controversial. Indeed, one 
 would gather from them that the storm was over. They 
 are a great achievement. In Holbein’s group of the More 
 family is shown a Boethius, one of the favourite books of 
 the More household. More’s ‘comfort against tribu- 
 lation,” written in prison, 1s his Consolations of Philosophy. 
 It is a cheerful book, cast once more in the form of a dia- 
 logue, and not without the interest of playful anecdote and 
 reminiscence. “‘ They that sow in tears shall,” to use 
 More’s words, “‘ have in heaven a merry laughing harvest 
 for ever.” 
 
 Joseph Addison, writing in The Spectator during Lent 
 on the theme of fortitude in the face of death, has this 
 remarkable passage : 
 
 More died upona point of religion, and is respected as a martyr by 
 that side for which he suffered. ‘Chat innocent mirth which had 
 been so conspicuous in his life did not forsake him to the last: he 
 maintained the same cheerfulness of heart upon the scaffold which 
 he used to shew at his table ; and upon laying his head on the block, 
 gave instances of that good humour with which he had always enter- 
 
 tained his friends in the most ordinary occurrences. His death was 
 of a piece with his life; there was nothing in it new, forced, or 
 
 146 
 
SIR THOMAS MORE 
 
 affected. He did not look upon the severing his head from his body 
 as a circumstance that ought to produce any change in the disposition 
 of his mind ; and as he died under a fixed and settled hope of im- 
 mortality, he thought any unusual degree of sorrow and concern 
 improper on such an occasion, as had nothing in it which could 
 deject or terrify him. 
 
 There is no great danger of imitation from this example ; men’s 
 natural fears will be a difficult guard against it. I shall only observe 
 that what was philosophy in this extraordinary man would be a 
 frenzy in one who does not resemble him as well in the cheerfulness 
 of his temper as in the sanctity of his life and manners, 
 
 It is strange after this noble passage to meet the French 
 historian Franck’s reflection on the fact that More died with 
 a jest on his lips: “‘ There is in death a sublime majesty 
 which it is one’s duty to respect. . . . Gaiety at this great 
 moment wounds us as a profanation.”” ‘This surely is to 
 treat the manner of More’s death as a violation of the laws 
 of classical tragedy; but perhaps Franck was not aware 
 of the words of one of More’s biographers which I have 
 already quoted, that ‘‘ this he solemnly observed both in 
 earnest and in jest to show no change of countenance in 
 anything that he happened to speak.” 
 
 A. W. Reep 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 A full and very scholarly bibliography by the late Mr Guthkelch will be 
 found in the edition of More’s Utopia by G. Sampson, in “‘ Bohn’s Popular 
 Library ” (G. Bell and Sons, Ltd.). ‘This edition contains the Latin text with 
 Robinson’s translation as well as Roper’s Life of More. 
 
 The later development of Utopian thought is the subject of an admirable 
 article in the appendix of Dr Ernest Barker’s work on Plato and his Pre- 
 decessors. Miss Hertzler’s History of Utopian Thought (Allen and Unwin) 
 is a useful compendium. A modern rendering of Utopia by Mr G. C. 
 Richards (Blackwell), with a useful introduction, should be noted. 
 
 Much the best modern study of More’s life and writings is to be found 
 
 147 
 
‘ 
 
 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 in Joseph Delcourt’s Essai sur la langue de Sir Thomas More (Paris, Didier, 
 1914). The English works have not found a second editor since More’s 
 nephew, William Rastell, edited them in Mary’s reign. An interesting 
 Selection has recently been published by P. S. and H. M. Allen (Oxford 
 University Press) and should become popular. It contains a rendering of 
 Erasmus’ Life of More. 
 
 Of the earlier lives those by Stapleton (in Tres Thoma) and Cresacre More 
 are unfortunately not readily accessible. ‘The best of the modern biographies 
 are those by Sir James Mackintosh, Father Bridgett (Te Life and Writings), 
 W. H. Hutton, and Sir Sidney Lee (in D.N.B.). 
 
 Dr Foster Watson has gathered much interesting material on the “ School 
 of More” in his Vives and the Renaissance Education of Women (Oxford 
 University Press), and the present writer has dealt with the influence of More’s 
 circle in the history of early Tudor drama in The Beginnings of the Romantic 
 and Secular Drama (Oxford University Press). 
 
 148 
 
VI 
 DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 
 RASMUS produced in his day an incredible amount 
 
 EL: literature, and an incredible number of books 
 have been written about him. To read all with 
 due attention is possible only for the student who gives 
 his life to it. Although I have read most of Erasmus 
 himself I have not read all, or nearly all, that even good 
 writers have said about him. That is a serious disqualifi- 
 cation. It is not the only nor perhaps the gravest one. 
 I have had no special training in the methods of historical 
 research as applied to the age of Erasmus: and yet except . 
 in relation to his age he cannot be altogether understood. 
 I have had to ask myself with what right I am to speak 
 of him publicly at all. 
 
 I have only this answer: I am (what Erasmus was) a 
 classical scholar. So far as J am that, my mind has been 
 fed on the same literature and ideals as his. That may 
 be my only justification for speaking of him now, yet I am 
 not afraid that an audience of historians will consider it 
 a poor one. It is no bad preparation for reading an author 
 to have lived in the same intellectual world with him. ‘To 
 do that completely is of course impossible, impossible even 
 among contemporaries. And Erasmus lived a long time 
 ago, in a world very different from ours. Any modern 
 student who found him easy to understand would only be 
 deceiving himself. However, no modern student is in the 
 least likely to find understanding easy. Erasmus puzzled 
 his own generation, let alone ours. It is reasonable to 
 
 149 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 believe that in some ways the puzzle is clearer to us than to 
 them, for, as the Greek proverb has it, “‘ Time that obscures 
 many things brings many into the light.” Yet on the whole 
 the shades about him must have multiplied and deepened. 
 I cannot penetrate them; but I have my lantern. I am 
 not tooapologetic about it, because I observe that concerning 
 Erasmus historians themselves are sharply divided. Most, 
 I think, are disposed to the unfavourable view, and even 
 the friendlier among them cannot dismiss him without a 
 grave admonition. That, if I may suggest the criticism, is 
 because Erasmus played, or seemed to play, a weak part 
 in the politics of his time; for I have noticed that historians 
 are inclined to forgive anything in a politician sooner than 
 weakness. Onthe other hand, to me it comes more natural 
 to see Erasmus as the scholar; and, so judging, 1 find my 
 opinion favourable. You will not blame me for thinking 
 that my point of view is at least equally legitimate with that 
 of the student of politics or theology. At any rate, it was 
 the point of view taken by Erasmus himself. I am content 
 to see him as he saw himself; and as Holbein saw him, with 
 the keen and subtle face intent upon the words he is tracing 
 in his fine Latin hand. 
 
 He has been called a coward or little better. It is easy 
 to see why; and if Erasmus had been mainly a man of 
 action the charge might be made good. But he was not, 
 and so the charge must be considered in another light. 
 We must try to see what his purpose really was, and call 
 him coward only if he failed, and basely failed, in that. 
 At best, the accusation of cowardice is not so much an 
 explanation as the refusal of one. Erasmus was an imagi- 
 native man, and a genius at that. Really, to call him just 
 a coward is not subtle enough! 1 waive the argument that 
 the explanation does not fit all the facts, that on occasion 
 Erasmus showed a good deal of courage. But is our case 
 150 
 
DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 
 
 not proved ? say his accusers. Is it not proved out of his 
 own mouth? Did he not confess that, for his part, he did 
 not aspire to the martyr’s crown and that, if he were tempted 
 like Peter, he would like Peter fall? I find this point so 
 often made by critics that I fear there must be something 
 wrong with my moral sense. | cannot help thinking that, 
 if Erasmus really felt like that, it was courageous of him 
 to say so. Of course, all who are ready to face the stake 
 for their convictions and to condemn Peter for his weak- 
 ness are entitled to cast the first stone. 
 
 The charge itself, however, is not so easily disposed of. 
 Take, what has always interested historians so much, the 
 attitude of Erasmus to Luther. Here, say many of them, 
 was a situation in which a man with sincere convictions 
 was bound to take sides; and Erasmus hedged. It could 
 only have been from self-interest or cowardice, or possibly 
 from a mixture of both. That is the suggestion, and, on 
 the face of it, it seems true. I am disposed to think myself 
 that there is some truth in it. The important issue is, 
 How much? The charge of self-interest is not usually 
 pressed, since in fact the hesitations of Erasmus merely 
 got him into disfavour with both parties. But the other 
 indictment remains, and demands a serious and reasoned 
 answer. ‘This answer I proceed to develop. But first 
 you will permit me this general observation. ‘The charge 
 of cowardice is based on the assumption that in the Lutheran 
 - Quarrel an honest man was bound to take the one side or 
 the other. Now logically, of course, that is a false assump- 
 tion; but I am not going to use the logical argument. 
 Erasmus might be intellectually convinced (as in fact he 
 was) that neither Luther nor his opponents were in the 
 right, and yet might feel it his duty to fight for the side he 
 thought least in the wrong. He did not so regard his 
 duty. He had another conception of it altogether. What 
 
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 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 was that? A very natural one for a scholar, if I am right, 
 and especially for Erasmus. His position in Europe was like 
 that of noother man. He was the representative scholar of 
 his age, listened to as no scholar has ever been before or 
 since. And in return Erasmus was true to scholarship ; 
 his bitterest enemy has not denied that. ‘The duty of the 
 scholar is to expound the true meaning, as he sees it, of the 
 written word. Erasmusdidthat. Ifthe meaning he found 
 was neither that of Luther nor of the schoolmen, whose fault 
 was it? People want him to take sides. But how can the 
 scholar take sides ? 
 
 For my own part I cannot see any clear answer to that 
 question. No man, it is true, can be merely a scholar 
 without ceasing to be something of a man ; but neither can 
 one be merely a statesman or a soldier without incurring 
 the same penalty. There may be certain rare occasions 
 (I think there are) when an attitude of impartiality does 
 more harm than good. But was the Reformation one of 
 these occasions? Was it really so important that Luther 
 should destroy his enemies or his enemies him? Are we 
 not really glad that neither the one thing happened nor 
 the other? It is surely time for the historical temper to 
 recover a little from the fierce passions of the great contro- 
 versy and do justice to Erasmus, because, with regard to that 
 controversy, it is becoming clearer every day that Erasmus 
 was in the main right. His criticism of the Lutheran position, 
 though sharp, is not, on its intellectual merits, unfair ; and 
 is in fact perhaps unanswerable. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is not always the man who is right in a 
 great question who is most admirable. ‘There is such a 
 thing as a noble error, and one would rather be Don Quixote 
 than the Barber. If the spirit of Erasmus had been more 
 exalted it might not have seen so clearly. For never was 
 anyone less of what is usually meant by a hero. Out of 
 152 
 
DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 
 
 a hundred illuminating passages the following brief ex- 
 tract from a letter to Marcus Laurinus! is indescribably 
 typical : 
 
 If anyone cannot love Erasmus for the weak Christian he is, 
 let him feel towards him in any way he pleases : I cannot be other 
 than I am. If Christ has imparted to any greater gifts of the 
 Spirit and he has confidence in himself, let him use them to the 
 glory of Christ. Meanwhile it is more to my mind to follow a 
 humbler, if only it be a safer, course. I cannot help execrating 
 strife, I cannot help loving peace and concord. I see in what 
 darkness even human affairs are involved, I see how much more 
 easily rebellion is excited than appeased ; and I have learned how 
 many are the devices of Satan. Nor may I trust my own spirit 
 through all issues ; so far am I from being able to pronounce with 
 confidence on the spirit of another man. My desire would be for 
 all to strive together to this end, that through the victory of Christ 
 an evangelical union of hearts may be formed among all men, that 
 peace may be preserved and methods of truth and reason be em- 
 ployed to secure the dignity of the priesthood on one hand and on 
 the other the liberties of the people, who it was the will of Our 
 Lord Jesus should be free. “Those who march on this goal will 
 find Erasmus heart and soul upon their side. But if any man 
 prefers to create confusion, I at least will go neither with him nor 
 before him. ‘They plead the workings of the Spirit.. Well, then, 
 let those on whom the Spirit of the Lord has breathed dance among 
 the prophets with my best wishes! On myself the Spirit has not 
 yet seized ; when it has, perhaps I also shall be called a Saul among 
 the prophets. 
 
 In a quarrel where the feelings of people are deeply 
 engaged the ironical man is sure to be unpopular and certain 
 to be misunderstood. It is very dificult when you have 
 some cause desperately at heart to believe in the sincerity 
 of an opponent who meets you with irony. If you dislike 
 him you will call him a humbug; and if you like him you 
 will say it is only his fun. Erasmus has encountered both 
 these opinions of him. I do not know whether he would 
 
 1 Opus Epistolarum, ed. P. S. and H. M. Allen, vol. v, 1542, p. 227. 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 have been more amused or exasperated if he could have 
 foreseen that he would be included with Luther in a series 
 of volumes entitled ‘‘ Heroes of the Reformation”’; but, since 
 he had so fine a sense of irony, I think he would have been 
 more amused. Let us be on our guard then with this man, 
 and not take him too literally at his word even when he says 
 he is no hero. He had a cause of his own, which was not 
 the cause of the dogmatists and the politicians, the cause 
 of good literature and sound scholarship—what he calls 
 bone litere. ‘Yo that he gave infinite devotion. Call him 
 what you like, in the world of letters Erasmus is a hero. 
 
 So much depends on the point of view. To get that 
 right is peculiarly difficult in the case of Erasmus because 
 of the man’s complexity of nature. Undoubtedly in many 
 ways he produces a bad impression. The Letters give us 
 the self-portrait of one ceaselessly concerned with the effect 
 of things on himself and his personal fortunes. Scholar- 
 ship and Erasmus are one in his mind. No doubt it is in 
 a sense just this egotism that gives the Lesters their vitality 
 and puts them by the side of the Lezters of Cicero. But, 
 while one is charmed, one is not always edified. On one 
 point perhaps a good deal of moral indignation has been 
 largely wasted. The begging letters, which at one period 
 in the career of Erasmus are frequent, and are always 
 possible from him, are nauseating enough. Yet he was no 
 worse in this respect than other Renaissance scholars, and 
 rather better than most. ‘That is a poor excuse, but he had 
 a much better one. Even a scholar cannot live on nothing, 
 and the contemporaries of Erasmus were apparently quite 
 happy to see Erasmus work for nothing. ‘The scandal 
 was not so much that he begged as that he was forced to 
 beg. The egotism of the man expresses itself in some- 
 thing quite different from this and something far more dis- 
 turbing. If only he could have forgotten himself a little 
 
 154 
 
DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 
 
 more! A man who cannot do this will inevitably seem on 
 occasion a time-server, a lover of compromise, a coward. 
 So these suspicions have fallen on Erasmus not unjustly. 
 But that does not prove them right. A timid man need 
 not be a coward, and a compromise is not necessarily in- 
 sincere. What I am disposed to challenge is the assump- 
 tion that, when the great test came, Erasmus lied to his 
 own soul and spun about it a cocoon of fine theories, which 
 he did not believe himself, and which in fact have no 
 meaning. 
 
 What then did Erasmus mean, and what is this doctrine 
 of his? It is this: that men should observe moderation. 
 And as a sort of corollary he adds that they should study the 
 ancient classics. ‘That is the whole gospel of Erasmus, 
 and I am driven to suppose that almost everybody regards 
 it as one of the feeblest ever produced by man. As if one 
 could steer one’s ship through the tempest of the Reforma- 
 tion by disregarding the winds and reading Cicero! Some- 
 thing like that is what people think of Erasmus. But it ts 
 a parody of what he meant, and comes from a misconcep- 
 tion. ‘The quality which he had in mind was what the 
 Greeks called Sophrosyne; and because Sophrosyne is the 
 informing spirit of ancient literature he recommended its 
 study there with a view not merely to imitating it in one’s 
 style, but also to following it in one’s conduct and char- 
 acter. The emotion, indeed, with which Erasmus suffuses 
 the doctrine is Christian; but the doctrine itself is Greek. 
 Only, what is applauded in the ancients is called Lao- 
 diceanism in Erasmus. I can see the point of those who 
 maintain that the times in which he lived were no times for 
 that policy of moderation, of compromise and arbitration, 
 which he never ceased to recommend; that the world’s 
 ills required a sharper surgery. But I cannot see for myself 
 that the age of Erasmus had less need of Sophrosyne than 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 another. I should have thought rather that it had more. 
 But, as it seems to me, people would not listen to the scholar, 
 not because his remedy was superficial, but because it went 
 too deep. It called for a change of spirit on both sides, 
 and both sides naturally found the demand insulting and 
 intolerable. 
 
 Obviously I cannot here discuss the full meaning of 
 Sophrosyne. But I may perhaps as a student of Greek be 
 allowed to say, a little dogmatically and not quite accurately, 
 but with approximate accuracy, that what it means 1s not 
 so much moderation as a passion for moderation. That 
 is apt to strike the modern man as a strange or even im- 
 possible emotion. Nevertheless, it was just this emotion 
 which created our European civilisation. And whenever 
 civilisation breaks down into barbarism it is only by a 
 passion for moderation that it can be rescued and restored. 
 That, at least, was the Greek view, the very definition of 
 the barbarian being for the Greeks the man who goes to 
 extremes. They thought him a weakling, and they proved 
 they were right by beating and then making a man of him. 
 The whole of ancient morality is based on the conviction that 
 moderation is strength—but moderation at white heat. 
 
 Now this is exactly what we find in Erasmus. His 
 love of peace, his hatred of faction and extremism, burns 
 everywhere in his writings. Of course, this emotion may 
 spring from mere weakness of character; I am not con- 
 cerned to deny that in the case of Erasmus. I do not feel 
 qualified either to deny or admit it. But these considera- 
 tions have nothing to do with the sincerity of the emotion 
 itself. It is obviously unfair to say that Erasmus was for 
 concord between the factions because that suited his own 
 interests. He was always the man for peace, and used to 
 plead its cause long before his own future was at stake. 
 It is more plausible to say that he identified himself with 
 156 
 
DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 
 
 scholarship and saw that the strife of parties would be fatal 
 to his profession. Well, and if he did, is that so ignoble 
 a fear? He was always ready to acknowledge that there 
 was something more important than scholarship—namely, 
 religion. But he could not see that the cause of true 
 religion was going to be served by the destruction of 
 scholarship. Rather the contrary. 
 
 The character of Erasmus is so fascinating that I find 
 it as difficult as other people to drop the subject. I shall 
 content myself with one contribution to the discussion, 
 and even in this I am not wholly original. Not enough 
 has been made of the physical constitution of Erasmus as 
 a key to much in his character. I realise that this is a very 
 dangerous line of explanation, but if it is carefully used it 
 will explain something. ‘There is, for instance, in Erasmus 
 a great deal of a quality which is perhaps best described 
 as petulance. Although at heart a kindly and even affec- 
 tionate man, he was constantly saying biting things, which 
 he afterward regretted and withdrew. No doubt if you 
 have as fine a gift of ridicule as Erasmus possessed you will 
 find it very hard not to use it on occasion. ‘That is only 
 human nature. ‘Thus, after Luther had made one of those 
 unsparing attacks of his, Erasmus replied that he would 
 wish Luther a better disposition, if Luther were not so 
 well satisfied with the one he had. You could hardly 
 expect a literary man to suppress a retort like that, once 
 he had thought of it. But Erasmus had not always this ex- 
 cuse. And here, I think, is where the physical explanation 
 comes in. 
 
 Erasmus enjoyed or suffered an extreme refinement of 
 the senses. We must, of course, remember his century. 
 It was a time when life was in some ways more splendid, 
 but was in most respects far coarser and more inconvenient 
 than it is now. ‘The distress of Erasmus at certain things 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 he describes will hardly strike the modern reader as ex- 
 cessive or even as anything but entirely justified. But in 
 the early sixteenth century, when nerves were strong and 
 sanitation weak, Erasmus must have appeared painfully 
 fastidious. Everybody remembers his account of German 
 inns, because everybody has read T’he Cloister and the Hearth. 
 But in that account there is, of course, an element of 
 humorous exaggeration. If it stood alone it would scarcely 
 be evidence in the matter. But it does not; the evidence 
 is almost everywhere in his writings, especially, as one 
 would expect, in the Lesters. Carlyle himself was not more 
 acutely aware of every kind of discomfort or more voluble 
 in his lamentations. Let Erasmus be given inferior wine, 
 or let him but smell fish cooking, or be put in a room with 
 a stove and the windows shut, and the world turns dark 
 to him. Nevertheless, he is far from being a morose man. 
 The very sensitiveness which made disagreeable things 
 hurt him so, intensified his perception of what was agree- 
 able. Obviously a nervous organisation of this kind, 
 though eminently favourable to the artist, will constantly 
 betray him into sallies of the spirit, which may fly in the 
 face of any doctrine of “ moderation.’ So the practice of 
 Erasmus does not always accord with his preaching. An 
 old-fashioned psychology would have said that there was 
 in him a conflict between the emotions and the will. Well, 
 that happens to most of us. 
 
 It is now more than time to say something about the 
 writings of Erasmus. ‘They, in fact, are the evidence I 
 would offer in support of the argument that all his life he 
 kept applying to questions of contemporary interest the 
 lessons he found in classical literature. I have not the 
 least doubt that any classical scholar who reads him fairly 
 through will accept that view. The Bible, of course, in 
 its original Hebrew and Greek counts as a classic. It is 
 158 
 
DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 
 
 no doubt the chief influence on Erasmus, but it is not the. 
 only one, and it is not the characteristic one. That is the 
 influence of what an older generation would have called the 
 pagan moralists. ‘This influence Erasmus combines with 
 Christianity, as it may very well be combined; and it is 
 this combination which is his special contribution to his 
 age. Historians have generally regarded him as a man 
 before his time, a preparer of the Reformation and the 
 modern world. What has not been sufficiently recognised 
 is that he produced this effect by the application not of new, 
 but of old, ideas. It is only another illustration of the 
 undying power of the Greek spirit to renew, as it were, 
 the minds of men. The Greek spirit, tending to judge 
 everything by its reasonableness, is a permanent solvent of 
 institutions. It had been absorbed to an extraordinary 
 degree by Erasmus. He is far more truly Greek than is, 
 for instance, Winckelmann, whom the esthetically minded 
 have tended to regard as a kind of reincarnation of an 
 ancient Greek. And that perhaps is why Erasmus finds 
 it so hard to understand religious mysticism unless it is 
 expressed in terms of human reason, and why he combines 
 this incapacity with a passionate interest in ethics. Nothing 
 could be more Greek. 
 
 No doubt it is difficult for the modern world to believe 
 that mere scholarship of this kind could produce the effect 
 which Erasmus undoubtedly produced. But there are 
 certain things which in this connexion the modern world 
 ought toremember. One is the character of his knowledge. 
 We make a distinction between literature and scholarship ; 
 Erasmus made none. In his eyes the one implied the other. 
 It followed, of course, that he wrote in Latin. That was in 
 any case inevitable if he was to reach the ear of educated 
 Europe. It is in many ways a pity, for his literary skill, 
 which makes almost a living speech of Latin, would have 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 accomplished wonders in Dutch or German. But a regret 
 of that kind is merely wasted and is a little ungrateful 
 besides. Let us be thankful for a scholar who can write 
 in any language. Erasmus at least could do that, and 
 therein lay the chief source of his power. But we have also 
 to remember in what estimation a scholar of his days was 
 held. The first flush of that revival of classical studies 
 which is the Renaissance in its narrower sense was over, 
 but the light was still spreading. To that light all active 
 minds were turning. The victory of the new scholarship 
 was complete; the old scholasticism was fighting a rear- 
 guard action, deserted by the Papacy itself. The verna- 
 culars, which in the Middle Ages had been good enough 
 for Dante and Chaucer, and were shortly to prove them- 
 selves good enough for Luther and Rabelais and Cervantes, 
 suffered a temporary but almost complete eclipse. Writing 
 in classical Latin became the mode. It became too much 
 the mode. ‘There were people who said that you must not 
 write a phrase or a word which could not be found in 
 Cicero. Erasmus writes amusingly against such people, 
 and he could afford to do so, because he quickly became 
 the master of all who were writing in Latin. His virtuosity 
 in the fashionable idiom is prodigious. He was, of course, 
 a great deal more than a virtuoso; he was without quali- 
 fication a great writer, rather perhaps in spite of his Latin 
 than because of it. ‘The point I am making here is that, 
 just at the time when he was writing, his facility in Latin 
 was a most powerful factor in creating and extending his 
 influence. 
 
 But if Erasmus had found no more to say than other 
 scholars of his age he would have charmed it, but never 
 moved it as he did. He had, however, a great deal to say. 
 While others had been content to write elegant Latin as 
 a mere literary exercise Erasmus used his Latin to dissolve 
 160 
 
DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 
 
 a whole system of thought. He did not do this alto- 
 gether deliberately; he was partly obeying instinct and the 
 “classical spirit’ he had acquired in his reading. And 
 naturally he did not perceive his mission at once. He said, 
 though long after its publication, that his first considerable 
 book, the ddages, was hastily put together to bring him 
 a little money in a financial crisis; in other words, it was a 
 potboiler. No doubt it was. ‘The book consisted of a 
 collection, steadily added to as edition followed edition, 
 of memorable or pointed sayings, apophthegms, from 
 ancient authors, with a running commentary by the editor. 
 Here, as in all his writing, Erasmus showed his flair for 
 a subject. The Adages exactly hit the taste of the age. 
 Every one loved a classical quotation, and here was a whole 
 forest of them. We shall probably always underestimate 
 the influence of the 4dages on European literature, because 
 we shall never realise how familiar they were to all educated 
 men. We may gain some idea of this from the Essais of 
 Montaigne and be set wondering thereby how much the 
 Adages may have meant to less original people. The book 
 may be said to have done its work by now. It never was 
 much more than a brilliant compilation. It would hardly 
 claim the attention of the ordinary reader at all if it were 
 _ not for its historical importance and, secondly, for its moral 
 tone, a tone characteristic of Erasmus and destined to 
 produce great effects. 
 
 This note is more clearly heard in a little book which 
 followed the first publication of the 4dages. He called it 
 Enchiridion Militis Christiani, playing on the double signi- 
 fication of éyyepidiov, which means both a short sword 
 and a handbook, It was written at the request of a lady 
 unhappily married to a military man, who used to beat 
 her a good deal, and was certain to beat her a great deal 
 more if he were to discover that the book, intended for 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 his reformation, had been written at his wife’s suggestion. 
 It was a delicate task, but Erasmus performed it, with what 
 effect on the military husband we do not know, but certainly 
 with a great effect on the public. It cannot fall within 
 the scope of this short chapter to analyse the successive 
 works of Erasmus. Nor, in fact, would any analysis give 
 a true idea of the Exchiridion;, for it is a series of moral 
 commonplaces treated in a manner which is not common- 
 place. You might as well try to analyse Horace. “ You 
 never think of changing your way of life, and yet you pray 
 God to let you live.” ‘“ The way to worship the Saints is 
 to imitate their virtues.” When a man can put things 
 like that, he will always find a response. The effect was 
 not in the least weakened—it was doubled—by the ethical 
 fervour of the Enchiridion. Questions of morals are so far 
 from being uninteresting to readers that there is almost 
 nothing else that does interest them, provided, of course, 
 that the treatment is interesting. Erasmus saw to that. 
 
 This interest in morals is highly characteristic of the 
 man. Itis what sets him apart from the run of Renaissance 
 scholars, who for the most part were interested only in 
 their scholarship. In that sphere, in the sphere of exact 
 scholarship, some of them excelled Erasmus, and could 
 detect solecisms in his style, although they could not equal 
 or approach it. But Erasmus brought his scholarship 
 to the business and bosoms of men. ‘Thus in the year 
 following the Exchiridion he wrote an Oration for the Duke 
 of Burgundy, which is a plea for peace. Erasmus was not 
 in the complete sense a pacifist, for he believed that some 
 things would justify a war. But he thought that war was 
 a measureless calamity in every case, and in almost every 
 case a crime. In the Oration, and in the later and finer 
 Complaint of Peace, he developed his doctrine. It was- 
 nothing new. ‘The evils of war had been a favourite topic 
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DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 
 
 of ancient eloquence, and in these pieces as in all his writing 
 one seems to hear the very voice of classical antiquity. 
 There is a true and, to my mind, a profound originality in 
 seeing that the spirit of the past was still alive and shaping 
 the present. One is apt to regard the man who wishes to 
 apply the lessons of the past to the present as a doctrinaire, 
 and so he is if he applies the wrong lessons. But a resur- 
 rection of the past, as history has frequently shown, can 
 in certain conditions prove the most fruitful of revolutions. 
 The Renaissance itself shows that in literature. In philo- 
 sophy, in ethics, even in religion, no one who understands the 
 facts supposes that the Greek influence is even yet worked 
 out. In this field Erasmus was the great pioneer. It took 
 more courage than some people think. This condemnation 
 of war, for instance, shows that. For it was not merely 
 academic, not merely the complaint of the scholar or the 
 thinker that his occupation is made impossible by violence, 
 not merely the complaint of a follower of the Prince of 
 Peace. It is presented with a mingling of reason and emo- 
 tion which makes it something altogether different from a 
 literary exercise or a simple cry of horror. When one re- 
 calls how much in the time of Erasmus war was regarded 
 as an indispensable instrument of policy, as an evil perhaps, 
 but a necessary and often a highly profitable evil, his 
 reasoned protest against it will not seem a small matter. 
 Every word of it was true, every word of it was needed, and 
 every word of it was an act of courage. 
 
 It was not as if the Complaint of Peace had been the work 
 of an unknown man. By the time of its publication 
 Erasmus was the most celebrated writer in Europe. He 
 had advanced to this position in a steady progress. ‘The 
 greatest single step had perhaps been made with the 
 Encomium Moria (Praise of Folly) in 1509. The Encomium 
 was written in interesting circumstances at the house 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 of Sir Thomas More, whose name suggested the sub- 
 ject, and to whom the little book is dedicated. It had 
 a quite extraordinary success. ‘The theme is, briefly, that 
 it is only folly that makes life tolerable. It is Folly 
 herself who argues this, but there is just enough in the 
 argument to give a bitter-sweet quality to one’s amusement. 
 We have, in fact, in the Excomium the most sustained 
 example of the irony of Erasmus. It is not a very delicate 
 irony like that of Plato, nor a savage irony like that of 
 Swift. But its comparative obviousness and good humour 
 rather helped than hindered its success with the public. 
 The Encomium is, I think, the book in which Erasmus 
 first completely found himself. For irony was native to 
 his mind. It was not, as some believed, a trick caught 
 from Lucian. Irony cannot be learnt. It springs from 
 the contact of a certain kind of intelligence with what is 
 inexplicable to it in human life, an intelligence which 
 naturally affects the reasonable and dreads above all else 
 to be swept away by emotion. ‘The Greek mind is like 
 this, and for that reason it is profoundly ironical, far more 
 than is generally recognised. Erasmus had a mind of this 
 temper, and so irony came as naturally to him as to Plato 
 or Lucian. 
 
 How would such a mind regard the Bible? That 
 was an interesting question, and the answer to it was 
 interesting. Erasmus edited the New Testament, with a 
 Latin translation. It does not in these days seem a very 
 startling thing to do, but people thought differently in 
 1517. The Vulgate was sacrosanct, and here was not 
 only an attempt to get behind it to its original Greek, but 
 an attempt to correct it as a translation. The new version 
 did in fact dissent from the Vulgate in some important 
 points, and the new text might be said to inaugurate the 
 age of critical scholarship in its application to the New 
 164 
 
DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 
 
 Testament. But let it be said at once that, judged by 
 modern standards, the critical value of the edition was 
 almost negligible. The problem was far more elaborate 
 than Erasmus dreamed. All the same, it was a great 
 work he accomplished. He saw broadly what was to be 
 done, and others came after him and did it. And that is 
 not all. ‘There were some things he did which the others 
 could not do, which perhaps no other scholar has ever 
 done so well. Let me explain, as briefly as I can, what 
 these things were. 
 
 The modern scholar tends to be a specialist. If, for 
 instance, he is capable of producing a critical text of the 
 New Testament he is probably not capable of producing 
 anything else. The task absorbs all his energies. That 
 may be a pity or it may not. But if we are to have the best 
 texts that are possible—and surelythose are what we want— 
 there is no alternative open to us. We need the specialist. 
 And clearly it is right that at least some scholars should 
 be willing to devote themselves entirely to one division or 
 subdivision of the field of scholarship. Erasmus, however, 
 was not a scholar of that type. His fabulous industry, 
 his acute and sensible mind, his feeling for style, enabled 
 him to do work in textual criticism which, measured by 
 the standards of the time, was more than competent. 
 But his strength was not here; it lay in what, for lack 
 of a better word, we may call interpretation. What the 
 original means—that was the great question for Erasmus. 
 And here his astonishing literary faculty came to his aid. 
 He could explain lucidly and even entertainingly what he 
 took to be the meaning of his author, however difficult. 
 There are some who appear to think that literary skill 1s 
 an illegitimate advantage which some scholars enjoy over 
 others. ‘That, of course, is nonsense. A certain amount 
 of literary skill is necessary for the interpretation of great 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 literature, because in a matter of such delicacy to miss by 
 an inch is as bad as missing by a mile. 
 
 Erasmus, then, could not be content with the bare text 
 of his New Peene. He added, as we have seen, a 
 translation, and this he further illuminated by a com- 
 mentary. ‘The modern critical scholar is scandalised by 
 the free and easy expansiveness of Erasmus, but he can 
 also observe that it achieved its purpose and even admit 
 that this purpose was more immediately important than 
 his own. Every student of the Bible knows how much 
 explanation it requires for the uncritical reader. What 
 Erasmus did was to weave together translation and explana- 
 tion in these Paraphrases of his. ‘The result was that many 
 a reader felt for the first time that he really understood 
 his Testament. ‘This, as much as the extreme interest 
 of having the Greek itself, was the reason why the edi- 
 tion of Erasmus made history. He was not perhaps the 
 first Higher Critic—a somewhat silly term in any case. 
 Laurentius Valla has a prior claim., But Erasmus brought 
 scholarship from the study into the market-place. He 
 found men agitated to the point of frenzy in defence of 
 their various dogmas and theologies. He said in effect, 
 ‘ Before we finally adopt this doctrine or the other, let us 
 see what the Bible actually says.” Naturally no party liked 
 this. It is hard to find that one has built a structure of 
 theory on a false or misunderstood reading. So the frenzy 
 rather increased than abated. But you will observe that 
 in this work of his upon the Bible, as in all he did and said, 
 it was the scholar that was acting and speaking, and only 
 incidentally the theologian and the politician. 
 
 The greatest purely literary success of Erasmus was 
 achieved by the Co//loquies. Characteristically, his object in 
 writing the work was practical. It is accurately described 
 in the full title of the first authorised edition: Formulas of 
 166 
 
DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 
 
 Familiar Conversations . . . useful not only for Polishing a boy's 
 Speech but also for Ordering of his Life. tis enough to make 
 the heart of the boldest boy sink. Yet in fact for anyone 
 who can read quite simple Latin the Colloguies is a delight- 
 ful book. It is, of course, more than that. We must, I 
 suppose, reckon it one of the most famous books of the 
 modern world, even if we no longer read it. It has only 
 to be read to be admired. So far as Erasmus had a model 
 it was Lucian. The Colloguies are mainly Lucianic in 
 form, and partly Lucianic in spirit. Yet there is a funda- 
 mental difference. Lucian—and in this opinion I fear I 
 may come into conflict with my fellow Grecians—Lucian 
 is not a great writer. Iam unwilling to admit that I take 
 less pleasure in him than do other people; and if to be 
 readable were everything in a writer, there is hardly any we 
 could put before Lucian. But there is no depth or passion 
 in him, and so I cannot agree with those critics who would 
 put him in the same fiery sphere as Swift and Voltaire. It 
 may be asked, What of Lucian’s irony? I answer, a trick 
 of style. ‘True irony sounds a deeper note. 
 
 This note one does hear in Erasmus. Let me, for 
 the sake of illustration, take a passage—not one of his 
 famous passages—from the “ colloquy’ between Charon 
 and Alastor. I give it in the translation of Sir Roger 
 L’Estrange (1699), than which nothing could be more 
 vivid. ‘The conversation between the two devils has for its 
 subject ‘‘ Hell Broke Loose”’; and it proceeds in this manner: 
 
 Alastor. But what says Fame upon the whole matter ? 
 
 Charon. She speaks of Three Great Potentates, that are mortally 
 bent upon the ruin of one another, insomuch that they have pos- 
 sessed every part of Christendom with this fury of Rage and 4m- 
 bition. ‘These Three are sufficient to engage all the lesser Princes 
 and States in their quarrel ; and so we/fu/, that they’ll rather perish 
 than yield. “he Dane, the Pole, the Scot, nay, and the Turk 
 Himself, are dipt in the broil and the design. ‘The contagion is 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 got into Spain, Britany [2.e., Britain], Italy and France: nay, 
 besides these feuds of hostility and arms, there’s a worse matter 
 yet behind : that is to say, there is a malignity that takes its rise 
 from a diversity of opznions, which has debauched men’s minds and 
 manners to so unnatural and insociable a degree, that it has left 
 neither faith nor friendship in the world. It has broken all con- 
 fidence betwixt brother and brother, husband and wife; and it is 
 to be hoped that this distraction will one day produce a glorious 
 Confusion, to the very desolation of mankind. For these con- 
 troversies of the tongue and of the pen will come at last to be 
 tried by the sword’s point. 
 
 Alastor. And Fame has said no more in all this than what these 
 very ears and eyes have heard and seen. For I have been a con- 
 stant companion and assistant to these Furies, and can speak upon 
 knowledge, that they have approved themselves worthy of their 
 name and office. 
 
 Charon. Right, but men’s minds are variable ; and what if some 
 Devil should start up now to negotiate a peace? “There goes a 
 rumour, I can assure ye, of a certain scribling fellow (one Erasmus 
 they say) that has entered upon that province. 
 
 Alastor. Ay, ay: but he talks to the deaf. ‘There’s nobody 
 heeds him nowadays. He writ a kind of a Hue and Cry after Peace, 
 that he fancied to be either fed or banished; and after that an 
 Epitaph upon Peace Defunct, and all to no purpose. But then we 
 have those on the other hand that advance our cause as heartily as 
 the very Furzes themselves. 
 
 Charon. And what are they, I prithee ? 
 
 Alastor. You may observe up and down in the courts of Princes 
 certain Animals; some of them tricked up with feathers, others in 
 white, russet, ash-coloured frocks, gowns, habits; or call ’em what 
 you will. [Really Sir Roger is rather wild in his translation here, 
 but substantially right, as always.] “These are the instruments, 
 you must know, that are still irritating Kzmgs to the thirst of War 
 and Blood under the splendid notion of Empire and Glory: and 
 with the same art and industry they inflame the spirits of the 
 Nobility likewise and of the Common People. ‘Their sermons are 
 only harangues in honour of the outrages of Fire and Sword under 
 the character of a just, a religious, or a holy war. And which is yet 
 more wonderful, they make it to be Goa’s Cause on both sides. 
 God fights for us, is the cry of the French pulpits; and what have 
 
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DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 
 
 they to fear that have the Lord of Hosts for their Protector ?— 
 Acquit yourselves like men, say the English, and the Spaniard, and 
 the victory ts certain; for this is God’s cause, not Cesar’s. As for 
 those that fall in the battle, their souls mount as directly to Heaven, 
 as if they had wings to carry ’em thither, arms and all. 
 
 Charon. But do their disciples believe all this ? 
 
 Alastor. You cannot imagine the power of a well dissembled 
 Religion, where there’s youth, ignorance, ambition, and a natural 
 animosity to work upon. Tis an easy matter to impose, where 
 there is a previous propension to be decerved ! 
 
 This is the true irony, something different from the 
 undergraduate wit of Lucian. Like all great writing it 
 does not come merely from the intellect. But to deal 
 adequately with the Co//oguies is naturally impossible in a 
 brief chapter; scarcely in a volume could one trace out 
 and study its character and its influence. The humour 
 of the book, its realism, its novelistic quality, make it 
 prophetic of so much that was to follow. The study of 
 this is for the historian of literature, but it is not hard for 
 anyone to form some conception of the power and vitality, 
 the germinating virtue, of this old manual for schoolboys. 
 
 Afterward Erasmus became more deeply involved in the 
 Lutheran controversy. That in a sense was the tragedy 
 of his life, and all I can say of it I have already said. I 
 have tried to show that whatever he wrote was written 
 from the point of view and in the temper of the Greek 
 moralists, as he understood them. The lesson he never 
 wearied of preaching, the lesson of moderation, of avoiding 
 extremes, is nothing else than that doctrine of Sophrosyne 
 which, as I put it, and I think it was not too much to say, 
 is the informing spirit of all the best literature of ancient 
 Greece and Rome. It did not seem to him incompatible 
 with the Christian religion. On the contrary, it seemed 
 to him nearer to the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth than the 
 ardour of the Crusader. ‘That raises a point which will 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 perhaps never be settled, but for that very reason the world 
 will never be able to forget Erasmus. His own life indeed 
 ended upon the whole in failure, for the nations were too 
 angry with each other to listen to him. Nineteen hundred 
 years before him a greater writer than Erasmus said of 
 his own troubled times: “‘ Words no longer bore the same 
 relation to things, but had their meaning wrested to suit 
 the speaker’s mind. Inconsiderate daring was the courage 
 that makes a good comrade, prudent delay a fine name 
 for cowardice, cool reflection the caitiff’s excuse, to know 
 everything was to do nothing. Frenzied activity was the 
 true part of a man, to think out a safe plan of attack was 
 a specious excuse for shirking. ‘The extreme man was 
 always trusted, his opponent suspect.” 4 
 That is what happened to Erasmus. 
 
 J. A. K. Tuomson 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 The bibliography of Erasmus is naturally too large a matter to be dealt with 
 in a note. A long list of books and studies on the subject is appended to 
 Preserved Smith’s Lrasmus (1923), and to this the student may be referred. 
 The foundation of all exact study must be the great edition of the Letters by 
 Dr P. S. Allen (with Mrs Allen), Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, 
 begun in 1906 and still incomplete. It may be supplemented from the 
 Epistles of Erasmus by F. M. Nichols. Reprints of the more famous writings 
 of Erasmus are, of course, very numerous and generally accessible. 
 
 Of books concerning Erasmus there is no end. ‘The English reader may 
 be expected to have read Froude’s lectures, The Life and Letters of Erasmus 
 (1894). But he should not omit the Excyclopedia Britannica article, which 
 was written by Mark Pattison and revised by Dr Allen. ‘Two American 
 books may be recommended: Emerton’s Erasmus (1900), well written but 
 somewhat biased, and the book by Preserved Smith, very full and up to date, 
 but suffering a little from the writer’s incomplete sympathy or familiarity with 
 Latin scholarship. 
 
 1 Thucydides, iii, 82. 
 170 
 
Vil 
 MARTIN LUTHER 
 
 of what may be failure. Soon after I had begun to 
 
 study the writings of Martin Luther certain conclu- 
 sions began to force themselves upon me. But I note 
 with some misgiving that learned students of sixteenth- 
 century thought have come to conclusions startlingly 
 different. I find that Luther is spoken of as a great polliti- 
 cal thinker: whereas I do not myself find that he was, 
 in any strict sense, a political thinker at all. He has been 
 called a protagonist of something vaguely referred to as 
 “the theory of the Divine Right of Kings.” He has 
 even been described as a forerunner of the “ religion of 
 the State.” I have conscientiously tried to find some sort 
 ‘of justification for these high-sounding terms, and I must 
 confess that I have not succeeded. It seems to me that 
 the character of Luther’s political conceptions has often 
 been gravely misunderstood and that his influence upon 
 political thought has been both misrepresented and grossly 
 exaggerated. With whatever misgivings, I can but try to 
 present the facts as I see them. 
 
 I must begin with a few general assertions concerning 
 Luther himself. Obviously the best evidence, or the only 
 evidence, we have of the character of his thought consists 
 in his writings. ‘They, it will hardly be disputed, prove 
 this at least: that he was not in any sense, on any subject, a 
 systematic thinker. Patience and coolness are the primary 
 necessities for systematic thinking, and Luther was hot and 
 
 I7I 
 
 1E will be well, perhaps, to begin with a confession 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 impatient. He felt more than he considered, and on the 
 whole knew better what he did not believe than what he 
 believed. All his books are /ures de circonstance; they are 
 items in an excited controversy. He was always an im- 
 proviser ; and was always, I think, sincere in his utterance. 
 So strongly did he believe what, at the moment, he was 
 saying, and so important did it seem to him, that he habi- 
 tually exaggerates. I am inclined to say that no humbug 
 would have been so inconsistent as was Luther. 
 
 The world, I think, presented itself to Luther in two 
 quite different aspects. | He never succeeded in reconciling 
 his perceptions, and wavered between two points of view. 
 His most profound convictions were those he shared with 
 the later medieval mystics. He declared that he had 
 learned from the Theologia Germanica “‘ more of what God 
 and Christ and man and all things are” than from any 
 other writings save those of St Augustine and the Bible. 
 But his deepest convictions clashed continually with his 
 practical sense of what was immediately needed to secure 
 the establishment of a reformed Church or of reformed 
 Churches. It may be said of him that, in the long run, 
 he sacrificed his deepest convictions to mere ‘ practical’ 
 politics. “* Luther,’ said Caspar Schwenckfeld, “ has 
 brought us up out of the land of Egypt and left us to perish 
 in the wilderness.” But at least he did not himself see 
 that he was doing that. His incoherence arose from the 
 fact that he honestly held beliefs he could not reconcile. 
 
 By some writers much has been made of a change 
 supposed to have taken place in Luther’s views after 1525. 
 I do not think that any profound or important change 
 occurred except on one point; and even there it was not 
 complete. He was preaching the duty of obedience to 
 constituted authority as emphatically before 1525 as after; 
 after that year there appears only a more exclusive insistence 
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MARTIN LUTHER 
 
 on it. There is, after that year, more stress on the rights 
 of rulers, less on Christian liberty and the need of resistance ; 
 more on the need of order and less on the priesthood of man. 
 That this change was due to his desire to strengthen the 
 hands and to allay the fears of friendly princes there can 
 be no doubt. But it was a change of stress and not a 
 change of view. 
 
 One important respect there is in which his views do 
 seem to have altered. He started his career as a reformer 
 with a conception of ‘faith’ that he may have derived 
 from Catholic mysticism. By the ‘faith’ that justifies 
 he seems, at first, to have meant an intimate sense of the 
 presence and love of God, bringing with it assurance of 
 redemption and safety. It is difficult to be sure what, 
 in those early years, he meant by the ‘ Word of God.’ If 
 it were not quite das innere Wort of Hans Denck, at least 
 he did not identify it with the text of the Bible. But, 
 later, and after 1530 perhaps ordinarily, he seems to have 
 used the word ‘faith’ to signify mere conviction of the 
 validity of dogma; while the actual text of Scripture 
 tended to become for him the only ‘ Word’ of God. ‘The 
 change was never quite definite or quite clear to himself; 
 but as far as it went it was fundamentally important. It 
 affected, of necessity, both his theology and his politics. It 
 was, partly at least, his later conception of faith that made 
 it possible for him to accept, as satisfactory structures, the 
 churches set up in his name. It was partly this, also, that 
 brought about the change of his views on the great practical 
 question of toleration. 
 
 From these preliminary considerations I turn to an 
 attempt to summarise the content of Luther’s political 
 thought as it appears in his writings. As soon as one sets 
 out to do this it becomes apparent that, except by un- 
 avoidable implication, Luther never dealt at all with any 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 problem of political thought save so far as circumstances 
 forced him to do so. He never thought in terms of the 
 State at all. 
 
 Logically as well as chronologically Luther may be said 
 to have begun with a sweeping negative. In the three 
 great treatises of 1520 he not only utterly rejected the claims 
 of the Papacy, but asserted that no coercive power belongs 
 rightly to the Church as such, that the clergy are mere 
 subjects like other people and have no claim to special 
 privilege, and that the whole body of canon law is invalid. 
 From these negative declarations certain consequences 
 necessarily followed. Of the two sets of magistrates, civil 
 and ecclesiastical, theoretically governing a united Christen- 
 dom, the latter was in Lutheran theory abolished, the for- 
 mer survived alone. Ata blow Christendom was resolved 
 into a group, if not of states in the full sense, at least of 
 territorial magistracies, independent and secular. The civil 
 magistrate became at once the only guardian of law and 
 order and the only power that could undertake a legal and 
 official reformation of the Church. 
 
 Two remarks may be made before going farther. In 
 the first place, highly suggestive as it was, there was nothing 
 whatever that was new about this assertion, unless, perhaps, 
 the crudity with which it was made. That no coercive 
 power belongs rightly to the Church had been asserted in 
 the Defensor Pacis nearly two hundred years earlier. Luther 
 seems to have read that work; but, whether or no he had 
 actually read Part I of it, he never shows the least symptom 
 of having understood it. If he had understood it he would 
 assuredly have been shocked. 
 
 In the second place, this declaration that no coercive 
 power properly belonged to the Church, and that canon law 
 is not binding on anyone, was only what was made by all 
 the early Protestant reformers, and was one they could — 
 
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MARTIN LUTHER 
 
 hardly avoid making. It was clear from the outset that 
 no General Council that could be got together would be of 
 any use to them. The only General Council that could 
 conceivably have helped them would have been a Council 
 of Protestant Churches. In 1520 there were no Protes- 
 tant Churches. ‘The only possible allies of the Protestant 
 reformers were the secular Governments. ‘The assertion 
 that coercive authority rests solely with them simply had 
 to be made; and as a matter of course it was made. But 
 the making of it involved, for Luther, no theory of State 
 right. ‘The assertion was simply to the effect that the claims 
 of the Pope and clergy were based on nothing but imposture 
 and superstition. It was a mere negative. It is, of course, 
 true that later on the claims of the sacerdotium were revived, 
 in an altered form, by Calvinism. ‘The earlier reformers 
 simply denied them. 
 
 But in all very general statements lurks exaggeration. 
 The early Protestants were not, in fact, clear that the civil 
 power, released from papal control, was not still in some 
 sense subject to the Church. ‘They tended to hold to the 
 notion of a Church having power to distinguish truth from 
 error and declare the truth authoritatively. ‘‘ This power,” 
 Luther wrote in 1520, “the Church certainly has: that 
 she can distinguish the Word of God from the words of 
 men. . . . The mind pronounces with infallible assurance 
 that three and seven are ten and yet can give no reason 
 why this is true, while it cannot deny that it is. . . . Even 
 such a perception is there in the Church, by the illumina- 
 tion of the Spirit, in judging and approving of doctrines.” 
 The difficulty for the early Protestants was to say what 
 or where the Church is. There was no idea in their minds 
 of a State independent of any form of religion. 
 
 Beginning with these negative assertions Luther soon 
 had to go farther. As soon as he had made them he found 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 himself, as it were, face to face and alone with mere secular 
 authority. He did not need to concern himself with the 
 precise nature or derivation of that authority; and he never 
 did concern himself with any question on the subject. 
 But he was very much concerned with actual principalities 
 and powers and their possible or probable modes of action, 
 and with one special aspect of his own relation to them. 
 There was just one question of politics that circumstances 
 compelled all the early reformers to answer. It concerned 
 their own duty ina perilous position. ‘‘ We,” they put it, 
 ““ who have the truth, who desire to live and to worship 
 according to God’s Word and to order the Church in 
 accordance with the Scriptures, are regarded as heretics 
 and treated as criminals. What is our duty in relation 
 to the civil magistrates, who persecute us and contemn the 
 Word of God ?” 
 
 No sort of answer, however evasive, could be given to 
 this question that did not involve some sort of theory of 
 civil authority. The fact to be noted here is that all the 
 early reformers gave the same answer, even though it had 
 not for all of them quite the same meaning. ‘They all, 
 with one accord, proclaimed an all but unqualified duty of 
 obedience to any and every regularly constituted authority. 
 You must, of course, obey God rather than man: no one in 
 the sixteenth century so much as suggests the contrary. 
 But, though you may be justified in refusing to obey com- 
 mands clean contrary to the law of God, you cannot be justi- 
 fied in seeking to save yourself from punishment by any 
 kind of forcible resistance. At most, you will be justified 
 in flight. For armed rebellion there is no justification in 
 any case whatever. 
 
 It is important, at this point, to observe that almost all 
 the Protestant reformers assumed from the first that it was 
 necessary to set up formal and visible ‘Churches,’ with an 
 176 
 
MARTIN LUTHER) 
 
 official ministry, an official creed or ‘confession,’ a defined 
 system of government. ‘Their desire was, literally, to reform 
 theChurch. Theydesired todestroy, moreor lesscompletely, 
 the actual organisation and the doctrinal system of the papal 
 Church; but, for all that, the idea of the Church dominated 
 their minds. It existed for them, always, as a fact visible or 
 invisible. ‘They seem to have associated religion absolutely 
 with the idea of a visible Church and earthly authority. 
 When they discovered that it was not possible to set up a 
 renovated Church for all Christendom they became resolved 
 to organise local Churches. But without the co-operation of 
 the civil power they could not reasonably hope to do so. 
 There were, of course, dissenters among them. Caspar 
 Schwenckfeld denied that it was possible, intheactual circum- 
 stances, to establish any true visible Church. He desired 
 only the spread of the invisible Church, constituted by 
 those who had received the inward baptism of the Spirit and 
 become new men. But the mass even of the “ Anabaptists”’ 
 endeavoured to organise a formal and visible Church. ‘The 
 idea that obedience to the civil magistrate is a religious duty, 
 that is, a duty to God, and that forcible resistance to him is 
 in no case justified, was as old as Christianity. It is, neverthe- 
 less, a striking fact that all the early Protestants make this 
 assertion. I do not think it difficult to see why they did 
 so. ‘They themselves said that they found the doctrine 
 in the Scriptures; but, later on, other Protestants found 
 there doctrines very different. But on the one hand was 
 the consciousness of the perilous pass into which they 
 had come, of the peril of their cause; on the other was 
 the hope of support from those constituted authorities 
 they could not but fear. The one thing they could not 
 afford to do was to antagonise the secular power. They 
 followed the line of least resistance at the moment. | 
 am not suggesting any conscious insincerity. But the 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 subsequent history of Protestantism in the sixteenth century 
 seems to prove that everywhere and always the attitude 
 of Protestants toward the civil authority was determined 
 by their particular circumstances. 
 
 Luther’s answer to the question of the duty of subject 
 to ruler was merely that which was given by all Protestants, 
 save a few fanatics, down to the time of the Magdeburg 
 treatises of 1550. From 1520 onward his language on the 
 subject was less emphatic than Tyndale’s and not so lucidly 
 explicit as Calvin’s; but it was clear enough. Luther 
 was, in his way, a patriotic German. He was hoping, in 
 1520, for the establishment of a national German Church, 
 freed from the Pope and united under the Emperor and the 
 Bible. But, from 1521 onward, the attitude of Charles V 
 made it clear that no such construction was possible. 
 Thenceforward Luther could see in Germany only a chaos 
 of conflicting claims and jurisdictions. In theory he 
 greatly simplified that confusion by eliminating the claims 
 of bishops and monasteries and chapters and clergy 
 generally. ‘There remained a multitude of ‘magistrates,’ 
 of various degrees, in more or less indefinite relation to 
 each other and to the Emperor. So far as he thought 
 politically, Luther thought only of Germany. On the 
 question of the legal relation of magistrates of the Empire 
 one to another he always spoke with great caution or 
 refused to speak at all. It may perhaps be held, he told 
 the Elector of Saxony in 1530, that princes of the Empire 
 have, in certain cases, a legal right to resist the Emperor 
 by force; but all that he is certain of is that no true 
 Christian can set himself so to oppose his ruler, be he 
 good or evil, but will rather suffer all manner of injustice. 
 The Scriptures speak quite plainly. God has commanded 
 obedience to magistrates in all things lawful by the law of 
 God and has forbidden active resistance in any case and 
 178 
 
MARTIN LUTHER 
 
 for any cause. The inferior magistrate must obey his 
 superior; the duty of the common man is simply to obey 
 the magistrate. ‘‘God Almighty has made our princes 
 mad”; but he has ordered us to obey them; and whoso 
 resisteth shall receive damnation. It is not a question of 
 how magistrates came to be where they are. Luther in- 
 sists simply that God has commanded obedience to such 
 magistrates as there are. Simply because this is so and 
 for no other reason whatever, we must regard our magis- 
 trates, good or bad, as set over us by God. “I will side 
 always,” he declared in 1520, “‘ with him, however unjust, 
 who endures rebellion and against him who rebels, however 
 justly.” To plead rights in the face of God’s plain com- 
 mand is impious as well as illogical. 
 
 The command of God is all-sufficient; but Luther saw 
 two good reasons for the command. If it should once 
 be admitted, he wrote to the Elector of Saxony, that men 
 have a right to resist their ruler whenever their ruler do 
 wrong, ‘‘ there would remain neither authority nor obedi- 
 ence in all the world.” Herr Omnes cannot truly dis- 
 tinguish between right and wrong and is given to striking 
 passionately, at random. But, further, Luther’s deepest 
 conviction on this matter was that force and violence can 
 never be a real remedy for anything. He expressed himself 
 in that sense again and again. Rebellion is not only a 
 breach of God’s express commandment; it is foolish also 
 and worse than futile. The mass of men are real Chris- 
 tians in no sense, and to rebel or to assert a right to rebel 
 is merely to give increased opportunity to the wicked. 
 Nothing is so satisfactory to the devil as civil commotion 
 and conflict. No good can come of it; and in the infernal 
 turmoil it is the innocent, and not the guilty, who suffer. 
 The Word of God needs not man’s weapons, and God is 
 always on the side of right. If you have faith you will be 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 content in that knowledge, and in quietness and confidence 
 shall be your strength. You will, quite simply, obey God’s 
 Word, knowing that to use violence is but adding evil to 
 evil. 
 
 But, simple as the view expressed seems to be, it was 
 not quite so simple as itseems. Up to 1525, at all events, 
 Luther was as conscious of the need of insisting on the 
 duty of passive, as on the wickedness of active, resistance. 
 The principle that we must always obey God rather than 
 man covered, for Luther, a formidable array of cases and 
 occasions. In the treatise Von Weltlicher Uberkeyt, pub- 
 lished at Wittenberg in 1523, which contains the most 
 complete exposition of his political views that he ever 
 made, he is largely occupied in asserting divinely estab- 
 lished limits to all human authority. If, after the Peasants’ 
 Revolt, he was more concerned to emphasise the Christian’s 
 duty of submission, that was only because it seemed to him 
 that the times required him to do so. 
 
 He asserts, with the utmost emphasis, that the civil 
 magistrate has no authority at all in relation to Christian 
 conscience and belief. It is for him to reform the Church; 
 but it 1s not for him to say what men shall believe or how 
 they shall worship. That can be settled only by reference 
 to the Scriptures. “‘’The temporal regiment has laws that 
 reach no farther than body and goods and what mere 
 earthly things there are besides. For over souls God 
 neither can nor will allow that anyone rule but Himself 
 only.” Only a fool, indeed, would claim such authority. 
 ‘For no man can kill a soul nor give it life nor send it to 
 heaven or to hell.” 
 
 Princes, he declares, are ‘commonly the greatest fools 
 or the worst scoundrels upon earth.” And though evil 
 must not be forcibly resisted, yet ‘‘ one must not serve nor 
 follow nor obey it with one foot or one finger.” If your 
 180 
 
MARTIN LUTHER 
 
 prince command you to believe this or that, or to put away 
 your Bibles, “‘ you shall answer that it becometh not Lucifer 
 to sit next to God. Dear Lord (you shall say), I owe you 
 obedience in body and goods; command me in the 
 measure of your earthly authority, and I will obey. But 
 if you would take away my belief and my Scriptures, then 
 will I not obey. . . . And if, for that, he take away your 
 goods and punish your disobedience, be happy and thank 
 God that you are worthy to suffer for His Word’s sake. 
 Let him rage, the fool! he will find his judge.” 
 
 But there is far more than this. The duty of obeying 
 God rather than man limits the rights of the civil magis- 
 trate only incidentally. For Luther the limitations of 
 rightful authority arose essentially from the nature of law. 
 We are apt to be misled when we find some one in the 
 sixteenth century asserting that there is no justification 
 for any kind of active resistance to constituted authority. 
 We have come to associate the idea of political authority 
 with that of a law-making power. ‘That association hardly 
 existed for Luther. 
 
 In Luther’s view human law and government are only 
 requisite because men are not Christians. True Christians, 
 he says, need no temporal power to rule them: it is the 
 temporal power that needs them. The function of the 
 civil magistrate is mainly the administration and en- 
 forcement of a law that, for the most part, exists unal- 
 terably. Customary or Imperial law, all merely man-made 
 law, is binding only so far as it conforms to two other 
 systems: to the law of God expressed in the Scriptures 
 and to the law of God expressed in what Luther calls 
 naturlich Recht. ‘This strictly medieval conception is the 
 groundwork of all Luther’s thought on government. 
 Absolute obedience is due to the magistrate in the 
 exercise of his proper function, and active resistance is 
 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 forbidden in all cases. But refusal to obey is justified by 
 any contravention of the law of God, which includes the 
 ‘“‘law of nature.” And the law of nature has its voice in 
 the human conscience. Luther does not deny that a human 
 power to make law exists, in a secondary sense. Law 
 consists essentially in the Scriptures and in the conscience 
 of man. But the precepts and principles of natural and 
 of Scriptural law alike require adjustment to a complex 
 of circumstance. Hence arises the necessity for a jus 
 potivum. Allthe same, Luther was impatient and suspicious 
 of all mere man-made law; and almost as much as the 
 canon law did he dislike the Corpus Furis Civilis. Law may 
 be necessary, he admitted; but he was sure there was 
 far too much of it. The mass of man-made law, with its 
 definitions, its subtleties, its technicalities, seemed to him 
 useless or worse than useless. For the right judging of 
 disputes among men, he declared, only a good conscience 
 and love and reason are wanted. ‘‘If a judge have love 
 and wisdom, law-books are worse than useless to him. . . . 
 But without love and natural right [Nazurrecht] you will 
 never be in accord with the Will of God, though you have 
 devoured the Jurists and all their books.” It is vastly 
 better, he declared, to appoint good judges than to make 
 laws, however good. ‘“ All cases should be decided by 
 natural justice.’ 
 
 The assertion that Luther exalted the secular state 
 seems to me completely erroneous. Only in the most 
 limited sense did he recognise the State at all. He had 
 no sort of theory of state-right, nor had he any conception 
 of a sovereign law-making power. The State was, for him, 
 an accidental result of God’s command to obey magistrates. 
 By that command, since the jurisdictions of magistrates 
 are territorial, the territorial state was created It exists, 
 it is true, for the sake of peace and order; but it was not 
 182 
 
MARTIN LUTHER 
 
 the need of order that created it. It was created simply 
 by God’s command, and that command was, it seems, 
 given only because men are wicked. Luther seems to 
 me to have had no conception of the State except as a group 
 or system of governing ‘ magistrates.’ The prince is 
 generally a fool or a rascal; but obedience is due to him. 
 His authority is limited by the law of God ; that is, by the 
 text of Scripture and by natural law. But he must not be 
 forcibly resisted. Rebellion is forbidden by Scripture, 
 and violence is never a remedy. On the other hand, 
 of man-made law the less the better. We all know 
 what is right, and where we cannot see the Scriptures 
 will guide us. ‘“‘ Love needs no law,” and if we were all 
 Christians we should need neither law nor prince. I think 
 Luther was about as far as it is possible to be from a 
 ‘religion of the state.’ The religion of the state is for 
 those who have no other. 
 
 From 1520 onward Luther was teaching that it is the 
 duty of the secular magistrate to undertake the reform of 
 the Church. After 1521 he was asserting that every prince 
 of the Empire was bound to do all he could to set up a 
 reformed Church in his own dominions. The question 
 “What constitutes a true Church?” had, then, to be 
 faced. Luther’s answer to this question, though less clear 
 and explicit, was the same, up to a certain point, as that 
 of Calvin. Distinction must be made between the true 
 Church universal and the Church visible or external. The 
 universal Church, on earth, consists only of those who 
 know and do the will of the Lord. But no one can 
 know that anyone else is a member of that Church. It 
 is, doubtless, infallible, but it has, unfortunately, no pos- 
 sible collective utterance. But any visible and organised 
 Church that is soundly based on the Scriptures, in which 
 the pure Word of God is preached and the sacraments duly 
 
 183 
 
\ 
 
 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 ministered, is a true Church. It is the duty of all secular 
 princes to establish and maintain such Churches. In 
 doing this work of righteousness the prince may organise 
 the Church as he thinks fit in relation to mere earthly 
 and temporal needs. He may confiscate existing Church 
 property, he may appoint to benefice, he may deprive the 
 clergy of all special jurisdiction. All this was taught 
 by Luther with an increasingly emphatic clearness. But 
 there was evidently a difficulty. Since no infallible person 
 or court exists, who is to say when or where the pure Word 
 of God is preached and the sacraments are duly ministered ? 
 Luther had no answer to the question. He answered | 
 it by referring the inquirer to the Scriptures: but it was 
 just the meaning or bearing of the revelation in the Scrip- 
 tures that was disputed. Implicit in his teaching was the 
 assertion that his own interpretation of God’s revealed 
 Will could not reasonably be disputed. But the point I 
 must insist upon here is that never did Luther admit for a 
 moment that the civil magistrate had any authority whatever 
 in relation to doctrine or to the sacraments. It is not for 
 him to say what is true religion and what right worship. 
 He must take that from the Bible. Luther would never 
 have admitted that to say it is the duty of a Government to 
 maintain true religion is to say that the ruler is bound to 
 maintain any religion he happens to think true. What 
 true religion is may, according to Luther, easily be settled 
 by reference to the Scriptures. ‘The ruler is bound to 
 maintain true religion and has no choice about it. 
 
 There remained a question of vast practical importance. 
 Is the prince bound, for the maintenance of true religion, 
 forcibly to suppress false doctrine and false worship within 
 his own dominions ? On this great question of toleration, as 
 we call it, debated throughout the sixteenth century, Luther’s 
 utterances, taken as a whole, are not merely incoherent, 
 184 
 
MARTIN LUTHER 
 
 they are flatly self-contradictory. Castellion, later, was able 
 to quote him in support of his plea for universal toleration; 
 while Beza, righteously indignant at such a use of the great 
 
 name, was able, as well, to quote him on the other side. 
 To the question, considered as a practical one, there 
 were three possible answers and only three: and, in the 
 course of the sixteenth century, they were all three given. 
 It might be held that the civil sovereign was under a posi- 
 tive obligation to maintain true religion by force and use 
 his sword to exterminate the wolves that threatened the fold. 
 This was the view taken by Calvin and his followers and 
 by large sections of the Catholics, including the Pope. 
 Secondly, it might be held that though the secular sovereign 
 had a right to suppress heresy by force he was under no 
 obligation to do so. It lay with him to ‘tolerate’ or not 
 as seemed good to him and to ‘ persecute’ as little or as 
 much as he chose. ‘This, of course, was the view that 
 all Governments tended to take. Thirdly, it was held, 
 not by isolated thinkers, but by considerable groups of 
 people, that the sovereign had no such right, but was 
 bound to allow his subjects to believe what they could and 
 live and worship accordingly, just so far as was consistent 
 with the maintenance of social order. It is important here 
 to note that only the second of these positions was consistent 
 with any theory of absolute or unlimited State authority. 
 Luther gave the first of these answers to the question; 
 and he gave the third. He never gave the second. His 
 inconsistency was due to the fact that on this question 
 of toleration, even more than on any other, his deepest 
 convictions were at war with his sense of what was prac- 
 tically and immediately necessary. From 1520 to 1525 
 he spoke for freedom fairly consistently. It may be said 
 thatin those years he was claiming aright of private judgment 
 in religion not only for himself—that every one was really 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 doing—but for other people. The use of force to propagate 
 the Gospel, he declared in 1522, delights thedevil. ‘Faith 
 must be voluntary.” In Vou Weltlicher Uberkeyt, in 1523, 
 he asserted in the strongest language that religious belief 
 is an entirely personal matter and that to make it a subject 
 of legal prohibitions and penalties is unjust and absurd. 
 ‘““A judge,” he wrote, “‘ should and must be very certain 
 in giving judgment and have all things before him in clear 
 light. But the thoughts and meanings of the soul can be 
 manifest to none but God. Therefore it is futile and im- 
 possible to command or to force any man to believe this or 
 that. . . . Thus is it each man’s own business what he 
 believe; and he himself must see to it that he believe 
 aright. As little as another can go to heaven or to hell 
 for me and as little as he can shut or open to me heaven or 
 hell, so little can he drive me to belief or to disbelief.’’ From 
 this he went on to point out that Governments, by the use 
 of force, can, at most, compel people to say they believe what 
 they do not believe. It is better, he declared, that they 
 should err than that they should lie. 
 
 ‘* Heresy,” he added, “‘ can never be contained by force. 
 . . . God’s word must do the fighting here; and if that 
 avail not, then will it remain unchecked by temporal 
 authorities, though they fill the world with blood. Heresy 
 is a spiritual thing, cut with no iron, burned with no fire, 
 drowned with no water. It is God’s Word only that can 
 avail. ‘There is no greater strengthener of faith and of 
 heresy than to work against it without the Word of God 
 and by mere force. . . . For we cannot go about even 
 worldly things with mere force, unless injustice has already 
 been overcome by justice. How much more hopeless is 
 it in these high, spiritual matters ! . . . Though we should 
 burn every Jew and heretic by force, yet neither were there 
 nor will there be one conquered or converted thereby.”’ So 
 186 
 
MARTIN LUTHER 
 
 Luther wrote at his best and at the height of his influence. 
 And again, in his circular of 1524 to the Saxon princes, 
 he declared that even Anabaptists should be allowed to 
 preach freely. ‘‘ All should preach freely and stoutly as 
 they are able and against whom they please. . . . Let the 
 spirits fall upon one another and fight it out.” 
 
 Yet, as early as 1523, Luther declared that the public 
 celebration of Mass is public blasphemy and should be 
 put down by public authority. This gross inconsistency 
 was curtly pointed out in a letter written to him by the 
 Elector of Saxony. In 1525, under pressure of circum- 
 stances, he began to wobble badly: no one who does not 
 know a good deal about the conditions can realise how 
 severe that pressure was. In that year he declared that 
 the secular ruler must protect his people by force against 
 the diabolical activities of Anabaptists—a flat contradiction 
 of his circular of the previous year. From that time on- 
 ward to about 1530 he continued to contradict himself 
 at intervals. In 1527-8 he acquiesced in the taking of 
 severe measures against Catholics and Anabaptists. In 
 1520 he says that every one is free to believe what he 
 pleases, but should not be allowed to teach what he pleases. 
 If a man wish to attack the true faith, “ let him go where 
 there are no Christians and do as he likes there.” Yet as 
 late as 1531, in his Preface to the Shorter Catechism, he 
 declared that ‘‘we neither can nor should force anyone 
 into the faith.” 
 
 Circumstances were too much for him, and after 1531 
 he went over almost completely to the side of those who, 
 for one reason or another, believed in the maintenance 
 of pure religion by force. In 1533 he laid down the 
 general principle that it is the duty of the magistrate to 
 use his sword for all it is worth for the destruction 
 of false doctrine and false worship. To that principle he 
 
 187 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 thereafter fairly consistently adhered. And yet, though he 
 seems to have convinced himself that only by the use of 
 the civil sword against heretics and blasphemers could 
 true religion actually be maintained, it seems that to the 
 end he must have had misgivings and inward revulsions. 
 In his very last sermon, preached on February 7, 1546, less 
 than a fortnight before his death, on the parable of the 
 tares, he reverted to his earlier view. It is useless, he de- 
 clared, to attempt to destroy heresy by force: the tares, 
 even Catholics and Anabaptists, must be left in the field 
 till the last harvest. 
 
 I wish to emphasise the point that, whatever his view at 
 the moment, there is just one thing that Luther never 
 says. He says that religious persecution is futile, he even 
 says it is unjust; he says it is necessary, and he says it is 
 a duty. But never for a moment did he admit that it 
 was for the secular sovereign to decide for himself whether 
 or no to tolerate heresy. ‘To him persecution was either 
 altogether wrong or it was a sheer duty. He never quite 
 knew which it was. But in this as in other matters Luther’s 
 view was never reconcilable with any theory of absolutism 
 in the State. 
 
 I have now summarised all the political thought that 
 I can find in Luther’s writings. So far as I can see 
 there is no more. It seems evident that his thought 
 was essentially unpolitical. He represented, incoherently, 
 divergent tendencies in early Protestant political thought, 
 which all found clearer and more complete expression 
 
 later. He was not a forerunner of the religion of the — 
 
 State, he was not even a forerunner of Bodin; but 
 he was, politically, a forerunner at once of Calvin and of 
 Knox, of Castellion and the Armenians, and even of the 
 Mennonites. ‘There is nothing distinctive or peculiar in 
 his teaching on the duty of subject to ruler. ‘There is really 
 188 
 
MARTIN LUTHER 
 
 nothing distinctive in his political thought at all, except 
 that part of it which derived from his mysticism: nk pro- 
 found pacifism, his conviction that violence was no remedy 
 for anything, his dislike and suspicion of man-made law, 
 his occasional glimpses of a Christian commonwealth 
 which needed neither law nor magistrate. I must adda few 
 words about his political influence. The question of a 
 man’s influence is always a very difficult one. We are apt 
 to forget that one man’s influence on another is a very 
 complex thing. There are always at least two people 
 concerned. We are apt to forget that the same word or 
 deed may influence two men in opposite directions. As 
 for the* written word, there is a constant tendency to 
 overestimate its power; and this tendency is especially 
 strong among bookish people. It seems to me that there 
 has been a deal of wild talk about Luther’s influence and, 
 at times, really grotesque exaggeration. It has been said 
 that ‘‘had there been no Luther there could never have 
 been a Louis XIV.”’ I think that even the fascination of 
 epigram could hardly take a man farther from the truth 
 than that. The remark seems quite meaningless, unless 
 we substitute the word Reformation for the word Luther. 
 But had there been no Reformation the Europe of the early 
 sixteenth century would have been quite unlike what it 
 was. Of what, in that case, would have been later we ob- 
 viously know nothing. Actually no connexion can be traced 
 between Luther and Louis XIV. The development that 
 took place in France was completely independent of Luther. 
 In Luther’s lifetime French lawyers were already expounding 
 a theory of the French State far more absolutist and far 
 more coherent than any theory of Luther’s. If it had been 
 said that had there been no law school in the University of 
 Toulouse there could have been no Louis XIV it would 
 not have been true, but it would have been intelligible. 
 189g 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 Luther’s courageous stand against principalities and 
 powers from 1517 to 1521 was potent as an example 
 and as a stimulant all over Western Christendom. It 
 was the interest his conduct aroused and the prestige 
 it brought him that gave their immense vogue to the 
 treatises of 1520. It was in that year and-in the few 
 years immediately following that his personal influence 
 was greatest. But it is impossible to attribute to his 
 stimulating example any definite results in the world 
 of political thought. It was certainly of importance that 
 such a man should have preached, with a constant and 
 increasing emphasis, the duty of obedience to the civil 
 magistrate and the wrongfulness in all cases of armed 
 resistance and rebellion. Few, indeed, at the time, can 
 have formed any definite notion of Luther’s political 
 doctrines as a whole. But what the common man needs 
 and seeks is merely a practical conclusion and rule of life. 
 In Germany, at least, Luther must have done a good 
 deal to strengthen that tendency to regard rebellion against 
 constituted civil authority as rebellion against God, which, 
 strong ever since St Paul’s time, was in the sixteenth 
 century becoming stronger than ever it had been. But 
 facts do not seem to justify us in saying more than this. 
 Everywhere in the first half of the sixteenth century the 
 Protestants were preaching the same doctrine. Even the 
 mass of those currently called Anabaptists taught sub- 
 mission to civil authority. Nor was there anything at all 
 distinctively Protestant about this view. ‘The same con- 
 clusion was being simultaneously taught, from a different 
 point of view, in the law schools of France and Italy. It 
 was taught by Bishop Gardiner as well as by Tyndale and 
 asserted as clearly by L’Hépital as by Calvin. 
 
 It is clear, too, that if Luther’s influence drew many 
 in the direction of a submissive dependence upon civil 
 190 
 
MARTIN LUTHER 
 
 authority he must have moved many others in a quite con- 
 trary direction. His insistence on the duty of resisting man 
 in obedience to God, his early insistence on natural priest- 
 hood and Christian liberty, above all, perhaps, his insist- 
 ence that a truly Christian community would need neither 
 law nor magistrate, must have drawn many minds toward 
 whatis roughly called Anabaptism. Those who accused him, 
 in spite of his emphatic assertions of the duty of submission, 
 of inciting to violent revolution, were not so very far wrong. 
 “I believe,’’ he wrote in 1520, “‘ that there is on earth, 
 wide as the world, but one holy, common Christian Church, 
 which is no other than the community of the saints... . 
 I believe that in this community or Christendom all things 
 are in common and each man’s goods are the other’s, and 
 nothing is simply a man’s own.”’ Luther’s thought was 
 nearer that of the Anabaptists than he himself was aware. 
 
 Luther has been far too much identified with the results 
 of the Reformation in Germany and even in Europe at 
 large. He has been far too much identified with what is 
 called “‘ Lutheranism.” His influence in Germany and 
 in the lands to the north of it was great ; in the Nether- 
 lands it was considerable, in England slight, and in France 
 it is hardly traceable after 1525. Ideally there is little 
 connexion between his teaching and the systems of govern- 
 ment that were established in Germany by the princes he 
 tried to use and who made use of him. He gave his great 
 name to state-ridden Churches along with but small measure 
 of his great spirit. He ought to have known better than 
 to do so: we may say, perhaps, that he did know better, 
 though he never knew it. His life was a tragedy, that he 
 never, himself, appreciated. 
 
 J. W. ALLEN 
 
 1gI 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 A. PrimMARY SOURCES 
 
 Lutuer, Martin: Werke. Kritische Gesammtausgabe. Weimar, 1883- 
 
 1904. 
 
 Oyen Latina ad Reformationis Historiam Imprimis Pertinentia. Frank- 
 fort, 1865-73. f 
 
 Briefwechsel, edited by C. A. Burkhardt. Leipzig, 1866. 
 
 Briefwechsel, edited by W. Enders. Frankfort, 1884-93. 
 
 Die drei Reformationsschriften Luthers vom Fahre 1520. Gotha, 1884. 
 
 The Three Primary Works of Luther, translated by Wace and Buchheim. 
 London, 1885. 
 
 Table Talk, edited by Hazlitt. London, 1goo. 
 
 B. SECONDARY SOURCES 
 
 Jacos, H. E.: Martin Luther. New York, 1898. 
 
 Koéstuin, J.: Martin Luther, sein Leben und seine Schriften. Elberfeld, 
 1875. 
 
 Linpsay, 'T.. M.: Luther and the German Reformation. Edinburgh, 1900. 
 
 Metancutuon, P.: Historia de Vita et Actis Lutheri. Wittenberg, 1545. 
 
 Murray, R. H.: Erasmus and Luther. London, 1920. 
 
 Warine, L. H.: The Political Theories of Martin Luther. New York, 
 IQIO. 
 
 192 
 
VIII 
 JOHN CALVIN 
 
 HE critical point in the life of Calvin is the year 
 1536. In that year he published the first edition 
 
 of his Institutes of the Christian Religion and almost 
 at once stood out in the public eye as the leading intellect 
 of the reforming movement. In the same year he took up 
 his abode in Geneva, from which city, with one short 
 interval, he was to exercise a growing and determinative 
 influence on the thought and politics of Europe. It was 
 by what must seem to the outward eye an accident that the 
 city of Geneva claimed its greatest citizen. Calvin had 
 no intention of staying there and no desire to spend his life 
 in tasks of government and leadership. He was looking 
 forward to a career of study and authorship in which he 
 would defend and expound by the pen the divine truth 
 which he had only lately fully understood. The French 
 preacher Farel, who was attempting to direct the Protestant 
 but turbulent citizens of Geneva, spoke then to an unwilling 
 man when he urged Calvin to share with him the task 
 which seemed beyond his own powers. ‘The vehement 
 adjuration with which Farel warned him not to refuse the 
 call struck on Calvin’s mind with the force of a divine 
 command, and he recognised, in later years, the working 
 of Providence through this sudden appeal, carrying him 
 where he would not and to destinies which he had not 
 chosen. 
 The man who thus entered upon his life-work was not 
 unformed. On the contrary, though he was only twenty- 
 
 N 193 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 seven years of age, the foundations of his character and 
 thought had already been laid, and it was a person of 
 settled convictions and determined outlook who became a 
 coadjutor and soon almost an autocrat in the Protestant 
 republic. Born at Noyon in Picardy, he was the son of 
 an ecclesiastical official, his father being the procurator fiscal 
 and secretary tothe bishop. In his earliest years he became 
 familiar with the abuses which prevailed in the old ecclesi- 
 astical system, since the see of Noyon was the appanage of 
 a powerful aristocratic family and was the scene of un- 
 dignified quarrels between the bishop and the chapter of 
 the cathedral. Ata tender age also Calvin began to profit 
 by these abuses and, when twelve years old, obtained a 
 chaplaincy through the influence of his father. Partly 
 supported by the revenue thus acquired, he studied in the 
 University of Paris with a view to qualifying himself for 
 an ecclesiastical career. After four years of life in Paris, 
 however, he began the study of law, which he pursued with 
 great diligence in Orleans and Bourges. The change in the 
 direction of his studies appears to have been due primarily 
 to the instigation of his father, who was probably not 
 unable to read the signs of the times ; nevertheless, Calvin 
 seems to have found in law a subject congenial to his mind. 
 We shall understand him better if we remember his years 
 at Orleans and Bourges. The first-fruits of this period of 
 intellectual activity appeared in a commentary on Seneca’s 
 De Clementia, which gave promise that its author would 
 become one of the foremost scholars of his time. One 
 characteristic of this work, however, leads to the question 
 when the mind of Calvin began to move toward the new 
 views of religion. ‘There is no evidence in the Commentary 
 of interest in theological questions; but it is certain that 
 its author had already come under the influence of men 
 such as Olivetan and Lefévre, who were adherents of 
 
 194 
 
JOHN CALVIN 
 
 the evangelical faith. It is clear, however, that shortly 
 after its publication Calvin definitely abandoned all inten- 
 tion of being ordained to the priesthood and ranged himself 
 with the reforming party. The turning-point came in 1533, 
 when Nicholas Cop, Rector of the University of Paris, 
 delivered an inaugural address advocating the New Testa- 
 ment as the basis of theology. It is believed that Calvin 
 had a great share in the composition of this address, and 
 it is at least certain that he withdrew to Basel during the 
 outcry which followed, apparently regarding the event as a 
 definite breach with the past. 
 
 We may thus discern, besides the influence of the 
 new interest in and understanding of the Bible, two other 
 formative influences which left an abiding impression on 
 Calvin’s mind. He was a humanist. All the greater re- 
 formers were to some extent children of the new learning, 
 but none had perhaps so clear a right in the family as he. 
 Calvin’s most permanent contribution to literature is to be 
 found in his commentaries on Scripture. ‘They bear the 
 marks of one who had learned in the school of classical 
 studies to interpret the meaning of an author and to con- 
 sider the circumstances in which he wrote. And he was 
 a lawyer. It is to this, perhaps, that we should attribute 
 the less attractive elements in his thinking. His theology 
 is legal, and his mind is clear rather than capacious, ruthless 
 in logic rather than rich in reflection. 
 
 The Reformation was not like a river which becomes 
 sundered into two streams at some distance from its source. 
 There were two streams from the beginning, one rising 
 in Germany, the other in Switzerland. Calvin belongs to 
 the Swiss Reformation. Though both Zwingli and Calvin 
 were influenced by Luther, the former was preaching his 
 new doctrine before any writing of the German reformer 
 came into his hands, and the latter from the beginning 
 
 195 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 maintained an independent position. The Reformed 
 Church which has as its Fathers Zwingli and Calvin 
 shared, of course, in the Lutheran hostility to Rome and 
 co-operated in this common controversy. From the out- 
 set, however, the Reformed Church exhibited many im- 
 portant differences from its Lutheran sister. It arose, not 
 as the Lutheran movement in monarchical states, but in 
 republics, and it naturally tended to take a more democratic 
 colour. Closely connected with this is its international 
 character. While the Lutheran movement allied itself 
 with national Governments, and organised itself in state 
 and national Churches, the Calvinist movement escaped 
 this limitation and approached the status of a universal 
 Church transcending national frontiers and opposing to 
 the world-wide claim of Rome a pretension not less com- 
 prehensive. During the later years of his life in Geneva 
 Calvin ruled by his influence an ecclesiastical organisation 
 scarcely less united and scarcely less extensive than that 
 which acknowledged the Pope. The difference in spirit 
 between the Lutheran and Calvinist Churches was partly 
 reflected and partly caused by a difference in theological 
 standpoint. ‘The Lutheran theology was less drastic in its 
 reaction against the old system, and in spite of the violence 
 of his language Luther desired no violent break with the past. 
 The form of worship was changed as little as possible; the 
 Mass in its essential features was preserved; and, as is 
 well known, Luther maintained a stubborn resistance to 
 any doctrine of the Eucharist which would deny the real 
 presence. ‘The Lutherans had no theoretical objection to 
 episcopacy so long as the bishops would allow the pure 
 Gospel to be preached, by which they meant the doctrine 
 of justification by faith. ‘There was not even a necessary 
 and de fide opposition to the Papacy as an institution. 
 Melanchthon declared that he had no objection to recog- 
 196 
 
JOHN CALVIN 
 
 nising the authority of the Pope jure humano, provided 
 that the Pope did not oppose the Gospel. 
 
 ‘* Calvinism was in a sense quite unknown to Lutheranism 
 the conscious and constant antithesis to Rome.’”’1 ‘These 
 words of Dr Fairbairn are true. The legal and logical 
 intelligence of Calvin could not be satisfied with compro- 
 mise and uncertainty. He was happy only with antitheses, 
 and his power in the world of the sixteenth century arose 
 chiefly from the fact that he provided the Reformation with 
 a scheme of doctrine as coherent and an ideal of Church 
 order as definite as those of the Roman enemies. ‘To the 
 infallibility of the Church was opposed the infallibility 
 of the Word of God, to the rounded system of scholastic 
 theology, based on Aristotle and the dogmas of the Church, 
 was opposed a scheme of doctrine founded on one leading 
 thought—the sovereignty of God. 
 
 Though the Calvinistic theology has real and important 
 characteristics which differentiate it from the Lutheran, 
 we must beware of exaggerating them into a radical oppo- 
 sition. ‘The difference is one of emphasis and order of 
 thought, not of actual disagreement. The theology of 
 the orthodox Reformation as a whole was based upon the 
 assertion of the supreme authority of Scripture, and in 
 this matter Calvin is its true child. It would be a great 
 mistake to regard him as primarily a philosopher working 
 out a view of the world from the starting-point of a prin- 
 ciple which he had accepted on purely rational grounds. 
 His teaching is Biblical theology, not philosophy, and is 
 intended to be an exposition of the deliverances of the 
 infallible Word of God. It is interesting, therefore, to ob- 
 serve the grounds on which he accepted this fundamental 
 authority. His position with regard to Scripture is in 
 some respects less modern than that of Luther, who was 
 
 1 A.M. Fairbairn, Christ in Modern Theology, p. 149. 
 
 197 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 prepared to question the full inspiration of some books in 
 the canon. Calvin has no such doubts. He takes the 
 books of the Bible as contained in the Vulgate, with the 
 exception of the so-called Apocrypha, without question. 
 There is, however, a note of a much more modern kind in 
 Calvin’s attitude toward Scripture. It is a remarkable fact 
 that he appears to have felt little need to defend its authority 
 or inspiration. His theological position, of course, pre- 
 cluded him from deriving the authority of the Bible from 
 that of the Church. He relies almost entirely on the testi- 
 mony of the Holy Spirit to the individual. ‘Though he 
 dwells upon the antiquity of the books which compose 
 the Old Testament he really bases everything upon inter- 
 nal evidence. The Bible commends itself to us by its 
 very nature as the Word of God; it is adtémictos, self- 
 evidencing : when we read it with a pious mind we cannot 
 doubt that it is true and comes from God. It is suffi- 
 ciently evident that this doctrine, carried to its logical con- 
 clusion, would issue in a thorough individualism, since the» 
 evidence of revelation would consist in the reaction of every 
 person, taken one by one, to the Bible. Very far from 
 Calvin’s intention, however, was any such conclusion, and 
 he had certainly no notion of tolerating those who, having 
 read the Bible with as pious a mind as they could command, 
 failed to find in it the Word of God. Nor, again, does he 
 wish that every man should interpret for himself the divine 
 oracles. No one was more conscious than he of the natural 
 imbecility of the human intelligence or of the confusions 
 and mistakes which must arise from unguided liberty of 
 exegesis. ‘The Jnstitutes of the Christian Religion is put for- 
 ward by him as a clue to the meaning of Scripture, a key 
 to the essential teaching of revelation. Thus in the preface 
 to the second edition he says: “ Having thus as it were 
 prepared the way, I shall not feel it necessary in any com- 
 198 
 
JOHN CALVIN 
 
 mentaries on Scripture which I may afterward publish to 
 enter into long discussions of doctrine. In this way the 
 pious reader will be saved much trouble and weariness, pro- 
 vided he comes furnished with a knowledge of the present 
 work as an essential prerequisite.” 
 
 From the theological point of view the Reformation 
 may be regarded as a revival of the religious conceptions 
 of St Paul and St Augustine: Against the doctrine of 
 merit was set up again the master-thought of the omni- 
 potent and infinite God apart from whose grace man could 
 do no good and in whose presence man could make no 
 clam. The Apostle of the Gentiles had connected with 
 this conception a view of history which he derived from 
 Judaism and ultimately from the Hebrew prophets. In 
 his vision the course of the world was no chance current 
 of events, but a providential order in which every turn was 
 foreknown and foreordained by God, so that even the re- 
 jection of Israel was a part of the divine plan for the human 
 race. ‘This conception of the infinite and sovereign God 
 is the foundation-stone of Calvin’s religion as it had 
 been for St Paul and Augustine. His teaching is in the 
 full sense a theology—a doctrine of God. ‘The world is 
 created by God, and His Will is the ultimate cause of 
 every event within it. Not only so, but the end or purpose 
 of creation is nothing else but God. It exists for His glory 
 and for no other reason at all. The damned no less than 
 the saved contribute to this end, for if the latter display 
 His mercy the former exemplify His justice. ‘‘'The strength 
 of Calvinism lay in the place and pre-eminence it gave to 
 God : it magnified Him ; humbled man before His awful 
 majesty, yet lifted him in the very degree that it humbled 
 him. Catholicism is essentially a doctrine of the Church. 
 Calvinism is essentially a doctrine of God.” 4 
 
 1 A.M. Fairbairn, op. cit. 
 
 199 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 The doctrine of predestination, which is often said to be 
 the distinguishing feature of Calvin’s teaching, is in reality 
 a consequence of this conception of God. It is clear that 
 a thoroughgoing theory of divine sovereignty and provi- 
 dence cannot remain content with looking on the general 
 tendency of history as the expression of the divine will. 
 History is, after all, made by the lives and wills of indi- 
 viduals, and these too must be brought under the same 
 principle. ‘There can be little doubt that St Paul uses 
 language which, if pressed to its logical conclusion, would 
 seem to deny any real freedom to the individual in the 
 ordinary sense of the words, and which seems to imply the 
 predestination of a part of the human race to salvation. 
 There are, however, other passages in the Pauline writings 
 which convey a different idea, and it is manifestly an error 
 to treat the Epistles as a system of theology. ‘This was, 
 however, the error which was made by all the Reformers, 
 and by no one more thoroughly than by Calvin. The pre- 
 destination element in St Paul’s thought was taken without 
 qualification by the theologians of the Reformation as an 
 essential part of the Christian faith. Calvin is not alone 
 here. Luther in his De Servo Arbitrio had seized the same 
 ‘““ hammer ”’ to smash the belief in the possibility of human 
 merit. ‘There is no real difference between the two great 
 Reformers on this point, except that Calvin works out the 
 conception with greater clearness and more lawyer-like 
 persistence. It may, indeed, even be argued that Calvin 
 was less extreme in his predestination doctrine than Luther ; 
 for the latter, following Duns Scotus, appears to hold that 
 even moral distinctions depend upon the arbitrary Will of 
 God, upon a mere fiat without law or reason. Calvin, it 
 is true, speaks sometimes in a manner which might be 
 thought to have the same implication. ‘“‘ What temerity 
 it is even to inquire the causes of God’s Will, seeing that 
 200 
 
JOHN CALVIN 
 
 this is, and of good right ought to be, the cause of all the 
 things that are. . . . The Will of God is in such a manner 
 the supreme rule and ruler of justice that it is necessary to 
 hold everything just because He wills it. ‘Therefore when 
 it is asked, Why has God done this ? it must be replied, 
 Because He has willed it. If we go farther and ask why 
 He has willed it, that is to ask for something higher and 
 greater than the Will of God, which cannot be found.” 
 But these passages do not fully express Calvin’s view on 
 the subject.. He does not mean to separate the Will of 
 God from the nature of God or think of a bare will. ‘‘ We 
 do not imagine a God who has no law, seeing that He is a 
 law to Himself.” “‘It is certain that the goodness of God 
 is so united with His divinity that it is not less necessary 
 for Him to be Will than to be God.”’! Calvin’s real view 
 seems to be that the Will of God is the expression of the 
 divine nature which itself embraces both the law of justice 
 and the norm of goodness. 
 
 The doctrine of predestination is then a logical deduc- 
 tion from the Calvinistic conception of God. It was, 
 moreover, no new thing in Christian theology. In all 
 its essential features it is to be found in Augustine. At- 
 tempts have been made to draw a clear distinction between 
 Augustine’s teaching on this matter and that of Calvin, 
 but to little effect. Important divergencies between the 
 two thinkers arise from their diverse conceptions of the 
 Church and sacramental system, but fundamentally there 
 is agreement. The words of Dr J. B. Mozley sum up 
 the doctrine and the coincidence of Calvin and Augustine 
 with a clearness and precision which cannot be surpassed : 
 ““ I see no substantial difference between the Augustinian 
 and Thomist and the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. 
 
 1 For these and other passages referred to see E. Doumergue, Jean Calvin, 
 vol, ii, pp. 120-125. 
 
 201 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 St Augustine and Calvin alike hold an eternal divine 
 decree, which, antecedently to all action, separates one 
 portion of mankind from another, and ordains one to ever- 
 lasting life and the other to everlasting punishment. ‘That 
 is the fundamental statement of both; and it is evident 
 that while this fundamental statement is the same there 
 can be no substantial difference in the two doctrines.’’ 1 
 It would, however, be an error to suppose that this view 
 of the condition of the human race is equivalent to a doctrine 
 of fatalism. Possibly the position of Calvin ought logically 
 to have led to such a conclusion, but it is certainly one which 
 he did not draw. To make a coherent theory out of his 
 statements about the human will and freedom is probably 
 impossible, but we can at least assert that he repudiated 
 the charge of making God the author of sin as a calumny 
 on his theology. Man is really responsible for the evil that 
 he does. The opposite of freedom, Calvin holds, is not 
 necessity, but constraint. ‘The will of man is not con- 
 strained, because it is not moved by forces acting from 
 outside. It is moved from within. But, though not con- 
 strained, it is necessitated. The actions of a man may 
 truly be attributed to his will, and he must be considered, 
 therefore, as their author and responsible. Nevertheless, 
 in the man who is not among the elect and whose will 
 is not sanctified by irresistible grace there is no possi- 
 bility of choosing good. His will, though not constrained, 
 is necessitated, being the will of a fallen being, to the choice 
 of evil. ‘“‘ Weagree that man has a will, such that when he 
 does evil he ought to impute it to himself and to the choice 
 of his will. . . . We deny that this will is free, because, 
 on account of the natural perversity in man, he tends 
 necessarily to evil and can only desire evil.”’ ? 
 
 1 Predestination, pp. 393 ff., where the chief passages are collected. 
 2 E. Doumergue, fean Calvin, vol. iv, p. 169. 
 
 202 
 
JOHN CALVIN 
 
 The reader may well be complaining that he has heard 
 so far nothing about Calvin’s political and social ideas, and 
 seems to be presented instead with a theological discussion. 
 If, however, he is a wise reader he will understand that 
 Calvin’s theology is really the chief part of what he has to 
 say about social life, and that to expound any aspect of 
 his teaching apart from its theological root is the certain 
 way to misinterpretation. The few pages given to Calvin 
 in the text-books of the histories of political ideas which are 
 now appearing in large numbers are melancholy evidence 
 of this truth. It is to be feared that the students who read 
 these text-books for the purpose of examination gain from 
 them simply the impression that he was a theologian who 
 held some commonplace and rather incoherent opinions 
 about society and exercised a quite incomprehensible in- 
 fluence on history. ‘They would know more about Calvin’s 
 position even as a political thinker if they had some know- 
 ledge of his theology and knew nothing of his compara- 
 tively meagre remarks upon social and political theory. 
 For Calvin’s whole thought is determined by his views 
 about God and man’s estate. It is, indeed, a misnomer 
 to call them ‘views.’ In his mind they were the assured 
 and indubitable truth. As Mark Pattison has said, ‘‘ His 
 theory was not a part of his mental furniture as other men’s 
 theories are to them. ‘It was the whole of his intellect. 
 No question had to him two sides. There was but one 
 right reason. All other modes of thought were depravity, 
 not reason at all, but moral perversity.”1 Calvin’s con- 
 ception of life and its conditions is in many respects remote 
 from the modern mind, yet not in all its aspects. ‘The 
 power of a determinist creed has recently been shown again 
 in the Russian revolution, where the triumph remained not 
 with the reformers who talked of freedom, but with the 
 
 1 “ Calvin at Geneva.” 
 203 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 army which marched under the banner of the materialistic 
 conception of history. Karl Marx is a kind of economic 
 Calvin. But the difference is, of course, profound. There 
 is a dramatic colouring and an other-worldliness in Calvinism 
 which cannot be found in theories which have a merely 
 social aim. We cannot help feeling something of its 
 sombre grandeur. ‘This little life of ours is an episode in 
 the eternal drama. ‘The characters were cast long before 
 the present scene began, and the dénouement lies beyond. 
 Meanwhile the actors are playing their parts, which are 
 determined, though to them unknown. ‘The meaning of 
 the present order is to be found entirely outside it, in the 
 hidden divine decrees which are prior to creation and in 
 the final separation hereafter between the elect and the 
 reprobate. Calvinism as held by Calvin is the most extreme 
 ‘ other-world’ religion. 
 
 When we make real to ourselves in imagination the kind 
 of universe in which Calvin lived and thought we can see 
 at once that the questions which have agitated political 
 and social reformers must have for him at the most a sub- 
 ordinate interest. Liberty and the pursuit of happiness 
 in this world could have little consequence for one whose 
 eyes were fixed upon the eternal destinies. Freedom to 
 worship God in accordance with His Will is desirable, but 
 Calvin would have felt nothing but contempt for a man 
 who could find in progress toward some earthly Utopia 
 sufficient food for the life of the spirit. Nevertheless, the 
 social interests cannot be ignored entirely even by the 
 most fervent believer in an ‘other-worldly’ creed, and 
 Calvin’s life in Geneva brought him face to face with 
 most of the problems of government. As we might ex- 
 pect, however, the organisation of the Church and its dis- 
 cipline occupy a far greater place in his mind than the 
 civil State, and the question with him is not, as it might 
 204 
 
JOHN CALVIN 
 
 be with a modern thinker, what should be the position of 
 the ecclesiastical body within the State, but rather what 
 functions does the true conception of the Church allow to 
 or impose upon the State. The duties and privileges of 
 secular magistrates are discussed at the end of the Justi- 
 tutes, and the whole treatment is almost perfunctory com- 
 pared with the elaborate argument of the rest of that 
 work. Calvin is as definitely an ecclesiastical statesman as 
 any Pope, and we shall do well therefore to approach his 
 ideas concerning society through his doctrine of the Church. 
 Like the Protestant theology the Protestant conception 
 of the Church owes much to Augustine. That Father had 
 drawn a distinction between the actual organised Christian 
 community and the Communio Sanctorum which alone can 
 claim to be the true Church. Those who are genuinely 
 members of the Church of Christ are they only who belong 
 to the company of the elect and are saved by grace and 
 predestined to eternal life; and they are by no means 
 identical with those who are outwardly adherents of the 
 ecclesiastical polity. ‘This distinction has introduced a 
 good deal of confusion into Augustine’s teaching, for it is 
 by no means always clear whether he means the actual 
 or the ideal Church to be regarded as the Civitas Dei. 
 This distinction, which was only partially explicit in the 
 thought of Augustine, becomes quite definite in the theory 
 of the reformers. The opinion of Wycliffe, guod nullum 
 est membrum Sancte Matris Ecclesie nisi persona predest- 
 nata, was that of Luther and Calvin alike, but as the 
 latter worked out the consequences of predestination more 
 logically so he seized more firmly upon the implied doctrine 
 of the Church. In Calvin the distinction becomes that 
 between the Church visible and the Church invisible. The 
 invisible Church consists of those, known only to God, who 
 by His inscrutable decree have been preordained to become 
 205 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 His children by grace. But this true invisible Church re- 
 quires a concrete organ and is partially manifested in a 
 visible society. Calvin tells us clearly enough what he 
 means by the visible Church. It is “the whole multi- _ 
 tude dispersed throughout the world who profess to worship 
 one God and Jesus Christ, who are initiated into His faith 
 by baptism, who testify their unity in true doctrine and 
 charity by a participation in the Holy Supper, who consent 
 to the Word of the Lord, and preserve the ministry which 
 Christ has instituted for the purpose of preaching it.” 4 
 It is most important to notice that nothing could be farther 
 from Calvin’s intention than to weaken the claim of the 
 visible Church on the allegiance of men; nothing would 
 have been more distasteful to him than the argument that, 
 since the true Christians are known only to God, a man 
 may safely separate himself from the fellowship of the 
 Christian society. On the contrary, there is only one 
 Church, and it is the duty of all men to remain in com- 
 munion with her. ‘“* We may learn from her title of mother 
 how useful and even necessary it is for us to know her; 
 since there is no other way of entrance into life, unless we 
 are conceived by her, born of her, nourished at her breasts, 
 and continually preserved under her care and government 
 till we are divested of this mortal flesh and become like the 
 angels. For our infirmity will not admit of our dismission 
 from her school; we must continue under her instruction 
 and discipline to the end of our lives. Out of her bosom 
 there can be no remission of sins. . . . It is always dan- 
 gerous to be separated from the Church.”? The most 
 rigid Catholic could scarcely desire to strengthen this 
 language, and we may learn from it that the quarrel be- 
 tween Calvin and Rome had nothing to do with any attempt 
 to lighten the pressure of ecclesiastical discipline. Like 
 
 1 Inst., IV, i, 7. 2 Ibid., IV, i, 4. 
 206 
 
JOHN CALVIN 
 
 his opponents, he believed that there was only one true 
 universal Church. He was far enough from wishing to 
 set free the human spirit from moral and religious tutelage, 
 and the Genevan theocrat would have had all men in an 
 ecclesiastical school far more strict and efficient than that 
 over which the Pope nominally presided. Only Calvin 
 was sure that the papal Church was not the true Church, 
 and its discipline not a discipline in godliness. So far had 
 it departed from the Scriptural norm that it represented 
 Antichrist. ‘‘ The Papists practice a grosser idolatry [than 
 that of Jeroboam]. . . . We can scarcely assemble with 
 them on a single occasion without polluting ourselves with 
 open idolatry. The principal bond of their communion is 
 certainly the Mass, which we abominate as the greatest 
 sacrilege.”1 The ‘note’ of the true Church for Calvin 
 is that it is Scriptural, and in the application of this 
 principle he goes farther than either Luther or Zwingli. 
 For him custom and tradition have no authority; nothing | 
 must be admitted into the worship and order of the Church 
 which cannot be found in the Bible, wherein alone authority 
 resides. 
 
 The ecclesiastical polity which followed from these 
 principles was necessarily marked by two salient features: 
 it was-an attempt to reproduce the primitive Christian 
 community as described in the New Testament, and it 
 was not hierarchical. There can be no essential dis- 
 tinction between those who are elect : in the sight of God 
 they are equal. Nevertheless, some are qualified by special 
 gifts for the service of the Church in pastoral offices. 
 Calvin recognises a threefold ministry as warranted by 
 Scripture. ‘The highest category is that of pastor, to which 
 the names bishop and presbyter may also be given. To 
 them is assigned the duty of preaching the Word in the 
 
 2 Inst., IV, ii, 9% 
 207 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 congregation and the administration of the sacraments and 
 discipline. With them are associated elders or lay pres- 
 byters, who share in the government of the Church. The 
 third class is that of the deacons, whose office is to care for 
 the poor and sick. This principle of lay representation in 
 the government of the Church is fundamental and is im- 
 portant in its bearing on the political influence of Calvin- 
 ism. In Geneva, where Calvin’s influence was sometimes 
 supreme, he never succeeded in making himself and never 
 wished to become a dictator. The affairs of the Church 
 were carried on by discussion in which laymen took part. 
 But perhaps another feature of Calvin’s ecclesiastical 
 organisation was even more important in its political re- 
 sults. He revived the democratic idea of the necessity of 
 popular consent in the appointment of pastors. ‘There 
 is, he holds, ‘‘a common right and liberty’ in the Church 
 to a voice in the electionof ministers. ‘‘It isa good remark 
 of Cyprian when he contends ‘ that it proceeds from divine 
 authority that a priest should be elected publicly in the 
 presence of all the people, and that he should be approved 
 as a worthy and fit person by the public judgment and 
 testimony.’ . . . It is a legitimate ministry according to 
 the Word of God, when those who appear suitable persons 
 are appointed with the consent and approbation of the 
 people.” 4 
 
 If Calvinism has been one of the nursing mothers of civil 
 liberty it has performed this function by reason of its 
 theology, its moral discipline, and its ecclesiastical organi- 
 sation, and not because of any conscious effort on the part 
 of its founder to realise a free state. The doctrine of 
 election was a potent tonic to steel the nerves of humble 
 men against the terrors of princes. One who is assured 
 that he is numbered among that eternal aristocracy of 
 
 1 Inst., IV, iv, 15- 
 
 208 
 
JOHN CALVIN 
 heaven whose names were determined before the founda- 
 tion of the world may well feel contempt for the pomp of 
 kings, who are often only too plainly numbered among the 
 reprobate; and even though his creed may not encourage 
 or even countenance rebellion, at the last the fire will kindle, 
 and he will speak with his tongue—and do more than speak. 
 The austere discipline of the Calvinist régime is the very 
 antithesis of what the modern world means by liberty, but 
 it was a preparation for freedom. ‘‘ The rough education 
 of Calvin, imposing on his disciples the law of labour and 
 of moral obligation, revealed the dignity of man and pre- 
 pared him to deserve freedom.” 1! ‘The self-determining 
 religious communities of the reformed faith were seed-plots 
 for the democratic state. 
 
 Compared with these forces which Calvin released, al- 
 most unconsciously, to ferment in the social life of Europe, 
 his actual opinions and pronouncements on political theory 
 are unimportant. The fundamental question which has to 
 be considered is that of the relation between the Church 
 and the State, and in order to obtain anything approaching 
 a coherent view from Calvin’s writings on this matter it 
 is useful to distinguish between his conception of an ideal 
 condition of things and the duties of the Church in circum- 
 stances far removed from the ideal. It is commonly asserted 
 that Calvin was an advocate of a theocratic theory of govern- 
 ment and that his theocracy meant the complete subordination 
 of the civil Government tothe ecclesiastical. ‘‘ Calvin and his 
 followers taught,”’ says Dr G. P. Gooch, “‘ that the Church 
 should dominate the State and control the life of its mem- 
 bers.” ? This is possibly the logical outcome of Calvin’s 
 position, and his activity at Geneva may not inaccurately 
 be described as tending toward this goal. But, on the 
 
 1 F. de Crue, L’action politique de Calvin (Geneva, 1909), p. 6. 
 2 Political Thought in England, p. 201. 
 
 O 209 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 other hand, his formal doctrine appears to be that Church 
 and State are co-ordinate institutions, each of divine authority 
 and each possessing rights in its own sphere. There is 
 in him at least the germ of the thought of a “ free Church 
 and a free State.”’ He is utterly opposed to “those in- 
 fatuated and barbarous men ”’ who wish to overthrow that 
 ordinance of civil rule which has been established by God. 
 Not less does he condemn those “ flatterers of princes” 
 who encourage them to extend their power beyond its 
 appointed limits. For these limits may be defined, and 
 the spheres of the ecclesiastical and the civil. power re- 
 spectively marked off from one another. ‘They may be 
 described as the external and the internal. The Church 
 is concerned with the spiritual and eternal interests of man, 
 while the State has the office of caring for his bodily and 
 temporal needs. ‘“*‘ He who knows how to distinguish be- 
 tween the body and the soul, between the present and transi- 
 tory life and the future eternal one, will find no difficulty 
 in understanding that the spiritual kingdom of Christ and 
 civil government are things very different and remote from 
 one another.” ! 
 
 Nevertheless, this separation of Church and State is not 
 consistently carried out even in Calvin’s theory, and, indeed, 
 we can see very well that any radical distinction between » 
 them was not compatible with his most fundamental con- 
 victions. There cannot be two final ends, one for the 
 Church and the other for the State. ‘The supreme end and 
 purpose of every institution can be nothing but the glory 
 of God. Hence both civil and ecclesiastical authority 
 should be tending to promote the same end, and there can 
 be no inherent distinction in their purposes. We must 
 also never forget that for Calvin the Will of God was to be 
 found revealed in the Bible with clear finality, and that his 
 
 1 Inst., IV, xx, I. 
 210 
 
JOHN CALVIN 
 
 own interpretation of the Bible was to him the only rational 
 one. Thus the ideal state will be in practice though not 
 in theory a theocracy, based upon a revealed divine law 
 interpreted by ecclesiastics. ‘The city of Geneva, though 
 it never in Calvin’s own opinion approximated to his ideal, 
 was regarded by his foreign disciples as the model of what 
 a state might be ; and there we find a nominal distinction 
 between the civil and ecclesiastical polity, combined with a 
 real subservience of the civil power. Indeed, the civil 
 Government appears at times to have been more fanatical 
 than the ministers, for in the case of Servetus the magis- 
 trates insisted on burning, in opposition to Calvin, who 
 desired a more merciful form of execution. 
 
 In Calvin’s theory of the state the magistrates are under 
 obligations of a religious kind. ‘The “ maintenance of 
 true religion and virtue,” to use the language of the Prayer 
 Book, is their highest duty. ‘They are foolish, says Calvin, 
 who “‘ would wish the magistrates to neglect all thoughts 
 of God, and to confine themselves entirely to the adminis- 
 tration of justice among men; as though God appointed 
 governors in His name to decide secular controversies and 
 disregarded what is of far greater importance, the pure 
 worship of Himself according to the rule of His law.’’} 
 Calvin is a firm adherent of that belief which has probably 
 caused more human misery than any other—that it is the 
 duty of governors to enforce religious conformity. Nothing 
 certainly could be farther from his mind than the concep- 
 tion of religious tolerance. ‘“‘ When the Papists are so 
 harsh and so violent in defence of their superstitions that 
 they rage cruelly to shed innocent blood, are not Christian 
 magistrates ashamed to show themselves less ardent in 
 defence of the sure truth?”’? The episode of Servetus 
 
 Bo insts IN, XX, 0. 
 2 Correspondence, September 9, 1553, quoted by de Crue, op. cit. 
 
 211 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 reminds us that we are not reading a pious opinion remote 
 from actuality, but that what Calvin wrote he was prepared 
 to act upon to the death. 
 
 We must turn now to the subject of Governments which 
 are not ideal, and ask what duties have Christian men with 
 respect to them. Calvin’s reply to this question, which, 
 we must remember, was one of pressing urgency to many 
 of his disciples, may be summed up in a phrase—passive 
 obedience, with one reservation. He thought that he found 
 in St Paul clear directions on this matter, and he sought 
 no farther. ‘Tyrants no less than governors who perform 
 in a godly manner the duties of their office are raised up 
 by God, the former to be the agents of His wrath as the 
 latter are of His mercy. A man of the worst character 
 who holds sovereign power “‘ ought to be regarded with 
 the same reverence and esteem which they would show to 
 the best of kings.’’1 Moreover, it is not our province to 
 attempt to remedy these evils, which must be accepted 
 as divine chastisements for sin. We may only pray that 
 the heart of the tyrant may be changed, or that God may 
 overrule the wickedness of rebellious men so that, though 
 they add to their own damnation by rebellion, their sin 
 may turn out to the advantage of the oppressed children 
 of God? ‘‘ Though the correction of tyrannical dominion 
 is the vengeance of God, we are not therefore to conclude 
 that it is committed to us, who have received no other 
 command than to obey and suffer.” “If we have this 
 constantly present to our eyes and impressed upon our 
 hearts, that the most iniquitous kings are placed upon the 
 throne by the same decree by which the authority of all 
 kings is established, those seditious thoughts will never 
 enter our minds, that a king is to be treated according to 
 his merits, and that it is not reasonable for us to be subject 
 
 1 Inst., IV, xx, 26. 2 Ibid., IV, xx, 30. 
 212 
 
JOHN CALVIN 
 
 to a king who does not on his part perform towards us 
 those duties which his office requires.”1 
 
 The connexion of this political doctrine with the pre- 
 destination theology is sufficiently obvious. We must 
 observe that the Government is to be obeyed not because 
 it is legitimate according to some test which can be applied 
 by the human reason, but simply because it exists. Its 
 legitimacy is implied in its existence, because it could not 
 exist without the Will of God. A distinction therefore 
 appears between the passive obedience enjoined by Calvin 
 and that which became, under the Stuarts, a favourite tenet 
 of Anglican divines. Filmer and his brethren claimed only 
 that we owe obedience to sovereigns who are legitimate 
 according to the patriarchal theory; Calvin invests every 
 de facto Government with divine authority, and, save in 
 one particular, would not have been more favourable to 
 resistance than Hobbes. We must observe, however, 
 that Calvin’s view is really in fundamental disagreement 
 with that of Hobbes, since he definitely excludes anything 
 in the nature of a social contract. ‘There is, indeed, one 
 minor reservation, of which too much has frequently been 
 made by writers on the history of political ideas. Ina few 
 unemphatic sentences Calvin asserts that it is the duty of 
 magistrates who occupy positions in constitutional states 
 to defend the traditional rights of their offices and to fulfil 
 faithfully the charge of protecting the people. But this 
 is no real exception to the general principle, for such magis- 
 trates have the same kind of authority as kings. They 
 have come to be where and what they are by the divine 
 ordination: they must fulfil the purpose which has placed 
 them there. The real interest lies not in what Calvin says 
 about the rights of magistrates, but in what he fails to say 
 about the rights of the people. We shall search his writings 
 
 Li Inst., 1V, xX, 27: 
 213 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 in vain for any recognition of the principle of democracy or 
 any but contemptuous references to the mass of citizens. 
 
 The one serious reservation which Calvin makes in this 
 sweeping doctrine of government is concerned with re- 
 ligion and not with politics. ‘The civil power has no 
 authority in things pertaining to God. Hobbes’ view that 
 the subject ought to adopt the religion of the governor 
 would be to him the most horrible blasphemy. If the 
 governor orders us to join in superstitious worship we 
 must disobey. ‘“* We ought to obey God rather than men.” 
 Even in that case we must not rebel or do anything against 
 the persecuting power. We must suffer anything rather 
 than submit to the impious edicts of modern Jeroboams. 
 “Tf they command anything against God it ought not to 
 have the least attention, nor in this case ought we to pay 
 any regard to the dignity attached to magistrates.” } 
 
 It is perhaps one of the minor ironies of history that 
 one whose explicit teaching was almost wholly on the 
 side of established authority should have given a powerful 
 impulse to movements toward freedom and democracy. 
 Calvinism in Scotland, Holland, and England was in effect 
 though not in intention a liberating political influence. 
 The causes of this we have already partly seen, and they 
 are in fact not difficult to discover. ‘To some extent they 
 are historical and in a measure inhere in the doctrine itself. 
 The Calvinist congregations found themselves everywhere 
 in opposition. They represented the shock troops of the 
 reforming movement ; and it is not easy even for a Calvinist 
 to pray against the wickedness of those in high places while 
 refraining from all overt attempts to bring about the answer 
 to the prayer. It was at least a psychological feat which 
 Calvinism did not succeed in performing. The Churches 
 thus scattered in hostile environments were, moreover, 
 
 A TASER LV SX, 32 
 214 
 
JOHN CALVIN 
 
 of necessity self-governed. They had to provide for their 
 inner welfare without the assistance or interference of 
 authority from outside. In this way that democratic ele- 
 ment in the government of the Church, and particularly 
 in the appointment of pastors, which Calvin never fully 
 carried through in Geneva, became a leading character- 
 istic of Calvinism elsewhere; and the habit of democracy 
 formed in ecclesiastical life could not be restrained in the 
 long run from affecting political action. But there is a 
 deeper cause in the doctrine itself. It is possible to deduce 
 two opposite conclusions from a belief in predestination. 
 It may lead, as it did in Calvin’s own mind, to a slavish 
 theory of the duty of submission. But another and more 
 inspiring deduction is possible. If in the eternal purpose 
 of God the human race is divided into the elect and the 
 reprobate, the saints and the lost, it may seem that it is also 
 His purpose that the saints should rule the earth and that 
 it is their destiny to overthrow the ungodly rulers. The 
 reservation which Calvin made to his doctrine of obedience, 
 that we must obey God rather than men, cannot easily be 
 confined, as he confined it, to the question of worship. 
 It may be that God has commands other than those concern- 
 ing cult and Church, and that in the State itself the maxim 
 applies. If we had to sum up Calvin’s influence in a 
 phrase we could not find a better one than this: he taught 
 his disciples that we must obey God rather than men. His 
 weaknesses arise from the fact that he was too positive that 
 he knew always what God commanded, but his impressive- 
 ness comes from this profound conviction, an impressive- 
 ness which remains although his theology is antiquated and 
 diluted even in the Churches which call themselves by his 
 name. We must obey God rather than men—a message not 
 perhaps without value even in the politics of to-day. 
 
 W. R. Matruews 
 215 
 
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 A. Primary SourRcEs. 
 
 Carvin, Joun: [2 Novum Testamentum Commentarii, edited by A. Tholuck. 
 Berlin, 1833-4. 
 Institutes of the Christian Religion, translated by H. Beveridge. Edin- 
 burgh, 1879. 
 Opera in Corpus Reformatorum, vols. xxix—lxxxvil. Brunswick, 1869-97. 
 
 B. SECONDARY SOURCES. 
 
 Banke, Hermann: Die Probleme der Theologie Calvins. Leipzig, 1922. 
 Cruz, F. pe: L’action politique de Calvin. Geneva, 1909. 
 Dovumercuz, E.: Fean Calvin. § vols. Lausanne, 1899-1910. 
 Hunter, A. Mitcuert: The Teaching of Calvin. Glasgow, 1920. 
 Menzizs, Aran: 4 Study of Calvin. London, 1918. 
 
 Reyzurn, Hucu Y.: Fon Calvin. London, 1904. 
 
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