Erasmus Becomes a German

Abstract

While the influence of Erasmus on his contemporaries has been studied in various ways, it has been little noticed that even at the height of his fame Erasmus could himself be influenced by those who looked to him for inspiration. He probably reached the summit of his prestige as the prince of European letters between 1514 and 1516, when many of his important works were printed for the first time or reissued: Enchiridion Militis Christiani, which P. S. Allen says first attracted wide notice in the edition of 1514; Moriae Encomium (1514 and 1515); Adagiorum Chiliades (1515); the Greek New Testament (1516) and the Epistulae of St. Jerome (1516). Except for the first, all these works were printed by the firm of Johann Froben in Basel. Erasmus came to Basel in the late summer of 1514 to publish his Adagia and, after a brief trip to England in the spring of 1515, returned to publish his New Testament. The men who gathered around him at Froben's press seem to have had more than a little to do with what went into his books.