The complicated sixteenth century: Difference between revisions
→Enchiridion militis Christiani
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Technologies, trade, and, especially, state formation changed the nature of war to its more modern impersonal forms of destruction justified by "reasons of state," or, more precisely, war justifying itself. By the time of Erasmus, war and chivalry yet persisted on horseback, but gunpowder behind fortifications was already beginning to defeat personal armor and horse-driven mobilty.<ref>Czech national hero and military genius, Jan Žižka, a Hussite leader (anti-Catholic revolutionaries), in the Hussite Wars (or Crusades) of the 1402s, used ''píšťala'', or handguns, to great effect against mounted, armored knights. Žižka taught common farmers to use the pistols, which required little training, hiding them behind attached farm carts to stop calvary charges. See [[wikipedia:Jan_Žižka#Gunpowder_weapons|Jan Žižka - Wikipedia]]</ref> | Technologies, trade, and, especially, state formation changed the nature of war to its more modern impersonal forms of destruction justified by "reasons of state," or, more precisely, war justifying itself. By the time of Erasmus, war and chivalry yet persisted on horseback, but gunpowder behind fortifications was already beginning to defeat personal armor and horse-driven mobilty.<ref>Czech national hero and military genius, Jan Žižka, a Hussite leader (anti-Catholic revolutionaries), in the Hussite Wars (or Crusades) of the 1402s, used ''píšťala'', or handguns, to great effect against mounted, armored knights. Žižka taught common farmers to use the pistols, which required little training, hiding them behind attached farm carts to stop calvary charges. See [[wikipedia:Jan_Žižka#Gunpowder_weapons|Jan Žižka - Wikipedia]]</ref> | ||
War was back on as a full-time business, and for its own justification, prompting Erasmus to observe, | War was back on as a full-time business, and for its own justification, prompting Erasmus to observe in his 1517 essay, "The Complaint of Peace," | ||
“It seems to be cause enough to commence a just and necessary war that a neighboring land is in a more prosperous, flourishing and free condition than your own.”<ref>Erasmus, [https://archive.org/details/complaintofpeace00eras/page/66/mode/2up?q=prosperous "The Complaint of Peace" (Internet Archive)], p. 66. </ref> | “It seems to be cause enough to commence a just and necessary war that a neighboring land is in a more prosperous, flourishing and free condition than your own.”<ref>Erasmus, [https://archive.org/details/complaintofpeace00eras/page/66/mode/2up?q=prosperous "The Complaint of Peace" (Internet Archive)], p. 66. </ref> | ||
Erasmus continues, | Erasmus continues, | ||
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By then, chilvary, had become a lifestyle or status measure more than a military strategy, with armies coming to be run by professional strategists using trained soldiers in wars between states. Chivalry had not devolved into the ridiculousness that Cervantes portrayed in ''Don Quixote'' a hundred years after Erasmus penned "Handbook," as knights on horses were formidable, especially against the unarmed, who, with or without Church rules offered plentful opportunity for mischief, such as that carried on by the husband of the woman who pleaded for help to Erasmus' friend. | By then, chilvary, had become a lifestyle or status measure more than a military strategy, with armies coming to be run by professional strategists using trained soldiers in wars between states. Chivalry had not devolved into the ridiculousness that Cervantes portrayed in ''Don Quixote'' a hundred years after Erasmus penned "Handbook," as knights on horses were formidable, especially against the unarmed, who, with or without Church rules offered plentful opportunity for mischief, such as that carried on by the husband of the woman who pleaded for help to Erasmus' friend. | ||
=== Handbook of the Christian Soldier === | === Handbook of the Christian Soldier === | ||
'' | While varied in interests and critiques, the consistencies in Erasmus' point of view converge from his core beliefs in Christian virtue, the Church, the Liturgy, the Virgin Mary, and the Word of God. He wanted the Bible to be available in secular languages, but he wanted young Christian men to be educated in Latin and Greek. He sympathized with the reformers' outrage at clerical abuse, but he refused to draw drastic lines between the Church and reform. He wanted peace, concord, learning and faith truly lived. | ||
Unlike protestant reformers, when confronted with Church or other hypocrisy, Erasmus' impulse was to attack the hypocrisy, not its source. Of excessive veneration of relics of Saints, rather than attacking the form of worship, Erasmus made fun of the excesses while warning against iconoclasm and, what historian Eamon Duffy would later call "stripping of alters," or complete protestant removal of saintly relics, images, and veneration. Of abuses of the indulgence, which Luther is so famous for critizing (the "95 Theses" was actually titled, "Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences"), Erasmus retorts, | |||
"I have never approved of (the Roman See's) tyranny, rapacity, and other vices about which of old common complaints were heard from good men. Neither do I sweepingly condemn ‘Indulgences,’ though I have always disliked any barefaced traffic in them.<ref>From ''Spongia adversus aspergines Hutteni'', 1523</ref> | |||
So, when Erasmus took on the problem of unchilvaric behavior, he did not go after chivalry itself, he looked to channel it towards higher purpose and faith. | |||
We can see each of these threads in ''Handbook'', as we will call it, which is part of why it was enormously popular and translated into variuos languages. | |||
[https://archive.org/details/bookcalledinlati00erasuoft/bookcalledinlati00erasuoft/ A book called in Latin Enchiridion militis Christiani, and in English The manual of the Christian knight : Erasmus, Desiderius, d. 1536 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive] | |||
=== Erasmus' influence upon Loyolla === | === Erasmus' influence upon Loyolla === | ||
>> to do | >> to do | ||
which gave him, according to scholar Terence O'Reilly, "enormously popularity in Spain durng the 1520 not, primarily, as a satirsist, nor as a scholar, but as the author of ''Enchiridion militis christiani."''<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/23961674 ERASMUS, IGNATIUS LOYOLA, AND ORTHODOXY], Terence O'Reilly, The Journal of Theological Studies, NEW SERIES, Vol. 30, No. 1 (APRIL 1979), pp. 115-127 (13 pages) Published By: Oxford University Press; </ref> | which gave him, according to scholar Terence O'Reilly, "enormously popularity in Spain durng the 1520 not, primarily, as a satirsist, nor as a scholar, but as the author of ''Enchiridion militis christiani."''<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/23961674 ERASMUS, IGNATIUS LOYOLA, AND ORTHODOXY], Terence O'Reilly, The Journal of Theological Studies, NEW SERIES, Vol. 30, No. 1 (APRIL 1979), pp. 115-127 (13 pages) Published By: Oxford University Press; </ref> | ||
* | |||
* [https://www.jstor.org/stable/23961674 ERASMUS, IGNATIUS LOYOLA, AND ORTHODOXY on JSTOR] | * [https://www.jstor.org/stable/23961674 ERASMUS, IGNATIUS LOYOLA, AND ORTHODOXY on JSTOR] | ||
* [https://www.britannica.com/topic/Handbook-of-a-Christian-Knight Handbook of a Christian Knight | work by Erasmus | Britannica] | * [https://www.britannica.com/topic/Handbook-of-a-Christian-Knight Handbook of a Christian Knight | work by Erasmus | Britannica] | ||
----References | ----References | ||
[[Category:Church History]] | [[Category:Church History]] | ||