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Protest and Reform: The Waning of the Old Order ca. 1400–1600

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Figure 19.1 ALBRECHT DÜRER, Knight, Death, and the Devil, 1513. Engraving, 95⁄8 � 71⁄2 in. Dürer’s engraving is remarkable for its wealth of microscopic detail. Objects in the real world— the horse, the dog, and the lizard—are depicted as precisely as those imagined: the devil and the horned demon.

“Now what else is the whole life of mortals but a sort of comedy, in which the various actors, disguised by various costumes and masks, walk on and play each one his part, until the manager waves them off the stage?” Erasmus

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The Temper of Reform

Science and Technology

CHAPTER 19 Protest and Reform: The Waning of the Old Order 1

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1450, in the city of Mainz, the German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg (ca. 1400–ca. 1468) perfected a printing press that made it possible to fabricate books more cheaply, more rapidly, and in greater numbers than ever before (Figure 19.2). As information became a commodity for mass pro- duction, vast areas of knowledge—heretofore the exclusive domain of the monastery, the Church, and the universi- ty—became available to the public. The printing press facilitated the rise of popular education and encouraged individuals to form their own opinions by reading for themselves. It accelerated the growing interest in vernacu- lar literature, which in turn enhanced national and indi- vidual self-consciousness. Print technology proved to be the single most important factor in the success of the Protestant Reformation, as it brought the complaints of Church reformers to the attention of all literate folk.

By the sixteenth century, the old medieval order was crumbling.

Classical humanism and the influence of Italian Renaissance

artist–scientists were spreading throughout Northern Europe (Map

19.1). European exploration and expansion were promoting a

broader world-view and new markets for trade. The rise of a glob-

al economy with vast opportunities for material wealth was

inevitable. Europe’s population grew from 69 million in 1500 to 188

million in 1600. As European nation-states tried to strengthen their

international influence, political rivalry intensified. The “super-

powers”—Spain, under the Hapsburg ruler Philip II (1527–1598)

and England, under Elizabeth I (1533–1603)—contended for

advantage in Atlantic shipping and trade. In order to resist the

encroachment of Europe’s stronger nation-states, the weaker ones

formed balance-of-power alliances that often provoked war. The

new order took Europe on an irreversibly modern course.

While political and commercial factors worked to transform

the West, the event that most effectively destroyed the old

medieval order was the Protestant Reformation. In the wake of

Protestantism, the unity of European Christendom would disap-

pear forever. Beginning in the fifteenth century, the Northern

Renaissance, endorsed by middle-class patrons and Christian

humanists, assumed a religious direction that set it apart from

Italy’s Classical revival. Its literary giants, from Erasmus to

Shakespeare, and its visual artists, Flemish and German, shared

little of the idealism of their Italian Renaissance counterparts.

Their concern for the realities of human folly and for the fate

of the Christian soul launched a message of protest and a plea

for church reform expedited by way of the newly perfected

printing press.

The Impact of Technology In the transition from medieval to early modern times, technology played a crucial role. Gunpowder, the light cannon, and other military devices made warfare more impersonal and ultimately more deadly. At the same time, Western advances in navigation, shipbuilding, and mar- itime instrumentation propelled Europe into a dominant position in the world.

Just as the musket and the cannon transformed the his- tory of European warfare, so the technology of mechanical printing revolutionized learning and communication. Block printing originated in China in the ninth century and movable type in the eleventh, but print technology did not reach Western Europe until the fifteenth century. By

1320 paper adopted for use in Europe (having long been in use in China)

1450 the Dutch devise the first firearm small enough to be carried by a single person

1451 Nicolas of Cusa (German) uses concave lenses to amend nearsightedness

1454 Johannes Gutenberg (German) prints the Bible with movable metal type

Figure 19.2 An early sixteenth-century woodcut of a printer at work.

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Oxford Amsterdam

Antwerp Brussels

Bruges

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Dijon Basel Constance

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Christian Humanism and the Northern Renaissance The new print technology broadcast an old message of reli- gious protest and reform. For two centuries, critics had attacked the wealth, worldliness, and unchecked corrup- tion of the Church of Rome. During the early fifteenth century, the rekindled sparks of lay piety and anticlerical- ism spread throughout the Netherlands, where religious leaders launched the movement known as the devotio moderna (“modern devotion”). Lay Brothers and Sisters of the Common Life, as they were called, organized houses in which they studied and taught Scripture. Living in the manner of Christian monks and nuns, but taking no monastic vows, these lay Christians cultivated a devotion- al lifestyle that fulfilled the ideals of the apostles and the church fathers. They followed the mandate of Thomas a Kempis (1380–1471), himself a Brother of the Common Life and author of the Imitatio Christi (Imitation of Christ), to put the message of Jesus into daily practice. After the Bible, the Imitatio Christi was the most frequently published book in the Christian West well into modern times.

The devotio moderna spread quickly throughout Northern Europe, harnessing the dominant strains of anti- clericalism, lay piety, and mysticism, even as it coincided with the revival of Classical studies in the newly estab- lished universities of Germany. Although Northern humanists, like their Italian Renaissance counterparts, encouraged learning in Greek and Latin, they were more concerned with the study and translation of Early Christian manuscripts than with the Classical and largely

secular texts that pre- occupied the Italian humanists. This criti- cal reappraisal of reli- gious texts is known as Christian humanism. Christian humanists

studied the Bible and the writings of the church fathers with the same intellectual fervor that the Italian humanists had brought to their examination of Plato and Cicero. The efforts of these Northern scholars gave rise to a rebirth (or renaissance) that focused on the late Classical world and, specifically, on the revival of church life and doctrine as gleaned from Early Christian literature. The Northern Renaissance put Christian humanism at the service of evangelical Christianity.

The leading Christian humanist of the sixteenth centu- ry—often called “the Prince of Humanists”—was Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536; Figure 19.3). Schooled among the Brothers of the Common Life and learned in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, Erasmus was a superb scholar and a prolific writer (see Reading 19.2). The first humanist to make extensive use of the printing press, he once dared a famous publisher to print his words as fast as he could write them. Erasmus was a fervent Neoclassicist— he held that almost everything worth knowing was set forth in Greek and Latin. He was also a devout Christian. Advocating a return to the basic teachings of Christ, he criticized the Church and all Christians whose faith had been jaded by slavish adherence to dogma and ritual. Using four different Greek manuscripts of the Gospels, he pro- duced a critical edition of the New Testament that correct- ed Jerome’s mistranslations of key passages. Erasmus’ New Testament became the source of most sixteenth-century German and English vernacular translations of this central text of Christian humanism.

Map 19.1 Renaissance Europe, ca. 1500.

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The Protestant Reformation

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priesthood. Inspired by the words of Saint Paul, “the just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17), Luther argued that sal- vation could be attained only by faith in the validity of Christ’s sacrifice: human beings were saved by the unearned gift of God’s grace, not by their good works on earth. The purchase of indulgences, the veneration of relics, making pilgrimages, and seeking the intercession of the saints were useless, because only the grace of God could save the Christian soul. Justified by faith alone, Christians should assume full responsibility for their own actions and intentions.

In 1517, in pointed criticism of Church abuses, Luther posted on the door of the collegiate church at Wittenberg a list of ninety-five issues he intended for dispute with the leaders of the Church of Rome. The Ninety-Five Theses, which took the confrontational tone of the sample below, were put to press and circulated throughout Europe:

27 They are wrong who say that the soul flies out of Purgatory as soon as the money thrown into the chest rattles. 32 Those who believe that, through letters of pardon [indulgences], they are made sure of their own salvation will be eternally damned along with their teachers. 37 Every true Christian, whether living or dead, has a share in all the benefits of Christ and of the Church, given by God, even without letters of pardon. 43 Christians should be taught that he who gives to a poor man, or lends to a needy man, does better than if he bought pardons. 44 Because by works of charity, charity increases,

During the sixteenth century, papal extravagance and immorality reached new heights, and Church reform became an urgent public issue. In the territories of Germany, loosely united under the leadership of the Holy Roman emperor Charles V (1500–1558), the voices of protest were more strident than anywhere else in Europe. Across Germany, the sale of indulgences (see chapter 15) for the benefit of the Church of Rome—specifically for the rebuilding of Saint Peter’s Cathedral—provoked harsh criticism, especially by those who saw the luxuries of the papacy as a betrayal of apostolic ideals. As with most movements of religious reform, it fell to one individual to galvanize popular sentiment. In 1505, Martin Luther (1483–1546), the son of a rural coal miner, abandoned his legal studies to become an Augustinian monk (Figure 19.4). Thereafter, as a doctor of theology at the University of Wittenberg, he spoke out against the Church. His inflammatory sermons and essays offered radical remedies to what he called “the misery and wretchedness of Christendom.”

Luther was convinced of the inherent sinfulness of humankind, but he took issue with the traditional medieval view—as promulgated, for instance, in Everyman —that salvation was earned through the performance of good works and grace mediated by the Church and its

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Figure 19.3 ALBRECHT DÜRER, Erasmus of Rotterdam, 1526. Engraving, 93⁄4 � 71⁄2 in. The Latin inscription at the top of the engraving reports that Dürer executed the portrait from life. The Greek inscription below reads, “The better image [is found] in his writings.” The artist wrote to his friend that he felt the portrait was not a striking likeness.

Figure 19.4 LUCAS CRANACH THE ELDER, Portrait of Martin Luther, 1533. Panel, 8 � 53⁄4 in.

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and the man becomes better; while by means of pardons, he does not become better, but only freer from punishment. 45 Christians should be taught that he who sees any one in need, and, passing him by, gives money for pardons, is not purchasing for himself the indulgences of the Pope but the anger of God. 49 Christians should be taught that the Pope’s pardons are useful if they do not put their trust in them, but most hurtful if through them they lose the fear of God. 50 Christians should be taught that if the Pope were acquainted with the exactions of the Preachers of pardons, he would prefer that the Basilica of St. Peter should be burnt to ashes rather than that it should be built up with the skin, flesh, and bones of his sheep. 54 Wrong is done to the Word of God when, in the same sermon, an equal or longer time is spent on pardons than on it. 62 The true treasure of the Church is the Holy Gospel of the glory and grace of God. 66 The treasures of indulgences are nets, wherewith they now fish for the riches of men. 67 Those indulgences which the preachers loudly proclaim to be the greatest graces, are seen to be truly such as regards the promotion of gain. 68 Yet they are in reality most insignificant when compared to the grace of God and the piety of the cross. 86 . . . why does not the Pope, whose riches are at this day more ample than those of the wealthiest of the wealthy, build the single Basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with that of poor believers? . . .

Luther did not set out to destroy Catholicism, but rather, to reform it. Gradually he extended his criticism of Church abuses to criticism of church doctrine. For instance, because he found justification in Scripture for only two Roman Catholic sacraments—baptism and Holy Communion—he rejected the other five. He attacked monasticism and clerical celibacy. (Luther himself married and fathered six children.) Luther’s boldest challenge to the old medieval order, however, was his unwillingness to accept the pope as the ultimate source of religious author- ity. Denying that the pope was the spiritual heir to Saint Peter, he claimed that the head of the Church, like any other human being, was subject to error and correction. Christians, argued Luther, were collectively a priesthood of believers; they were “consecrated as priests by baptism.” The ultimate source of authority in matters of faith and doctrine was Scripture, as interpreted by the individual Christian. To encourage the reading of the Bible among his followers, Luther translated the Old and New Testaments into German.

Luther’s assertions were revolutionary because they defied both church dogma and the authority of the Church

of Rome. In 1520, Pope Leo X issued an edict excommuni- cating the outspoken reformer. Luther promptly burned the edict in the presence of his students at the University of Wittenberg. The following year, he was summoned to the city of Worms in order to appear before the Diet—the German parliamentary council. Charged with heresy, Luther stubbornly refused to back down, concluding, “I cannot and will not recant anything, for to act against our conscience is neither safe for us, nor open to us. On this I take my stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.” Luther’s confrontational temperament and down-to-earth style are captured in this excerpt from his Address to the German Nobility, a call for religious reform written shortly before the Diet of Worms and circulated widely in a print- ed edition.

From Luther’s Address to the German Nobility (1520)

It has been devised that the Pope, bishops, priests, and 1 monks are called the spiritual estate; princes, lords, artificers, and peasants are the temporal estate. This is an artful lie and hypocritical device, but let no one be made afraid by it, and that for this reason: that all Christians are truly of the spiritual estate, and there is no difference among them, save of office alone. As St. Paul says (1 Cor.: 12), we are all one body, though each member does its own work, to serve the others. This is because we have one baptism, one Gospel, one faith, and 10 are all Christians alike; for baptism, Gospel, and faith, these alone make spiritual and Christian people.

As for the unction by a pope or a bishop, tonsure, ordination, consecration, and clothes differing from those of laymen—all this may make a hypocrite or an anointed puppet, but never a Christian or a spiritual man. Thus we are all consecrated as priests by baptism. . . .

And to put the matter even more plainly, if a little company of pious Christian laymen were taken prisoners and carried away to a desert, and had not among them a 20 priest consecrated by a bishop, and were there to agree to elect one of them, born in wedlock or not, and were to order him to baptise, to celebrate the mass, to absolve, and to preach, this man would as truly be a priest, as if all the bishops and all the popes had consecrated him. That is why in cases of necessity every man can baptise and absolve, which would not be possible if we were not all priests. . . .

[Members of the Church of Rome] alone pretend to be considered masters of the Scriptures; although they learn 30 nothing of them all their life. They assume authority, and juggle before us with impudent words, saying that the Pope cannot err in matters of faith, whether he be evil or good, albeit they cannot prove it by a single letter. That is why the canon law contains so many heretical and unchristian, nay unnatural, laws. . . .

And though they say that this authority was given to St. Peter when the keys were given to him, it is plain enough that the keys were not given to St. Peter alone,

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Q Which of Luther’s assertions would the Church of Rome have found heretical? Why?

Q Which aspects of this selection might be called anti-authoritarian? Which might be called democratic?

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landholding aristocracy. The result was full-scale war, the so-called “Peasant Revolts,” that resulted in the bloody defeat of thousands of peasants. Although Luther con- demned the violence and brutality of the Peasant Revolts, social unrest and ideological warfare had only just begun. His denunciation of the lower-class rebels brought many of the German princes to his side; and some used their new religious allegiance as an excuse to seize and usurp church properties and revenues within their own domains. As the floodgates of dissent opened wide, civil wars broke out between German princes who were faithful to Rome and those who called themselves Lutheran. The wars lasted for some twenty-five years, until, under the terms of the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, it was agreed that each German prince should have the right to choose the religion to be practiced within his own domain. Nevertheless, religious wars resumed in the late sixteenth century and devastated German lands for almost a century.

Calvin All of Europe was affected by Luther’s break with the Church. The Lutheran insistence that enlightened Christians could arrive at truth by way of Scripture led reformers everywhere to interpret the Bible for themselves. The result was the birth of many new Protestant sects, each based on its own interpretation of Scripture. In the inde- pendent city of Geneva, Switzerland, the French theolo- gian John Calvin (1509–1564) set up a government in which elected officials, using the Bible as the supreme law, ruled the community. Calvin held that Christians were predestined from birth for either salvation or damnation, a circumstance that made good works irrelevant. The “Doctrine of Predestination” encouraged Calvinists to glorify God by living an upright life, one that required abstention from dancing, gambling, swearing, drunken- ness, and from all forms of public display. For, although one’s status was known only by God, Christians might manifest that they were among the “elect” by a show of moral rectitude. Finally, since Calvin taught that wealth was a sign of God’s favor, Calvinists extolled the “work ethic” as consistent with the divine will.

The Anabaptists In nearby Zürich, a radical wing of Protestantism emerged: the Anabaptists (given this name by those who opposed their practice of “rebaptizing” adult Christians) rejected all seven of the sacraments (including infant baptism) as sources of God’s grace. Placing total emphasis on Christian conscience and the voluntary acceptance of Christ, the Anabaptists called for the abolition of the Mass and the complete separation of Church and state: holding individ- ual responsibility and personal liberty as fundamental ideals, they were among the first Westerners to offer reli- gious sanction for political disobedience. Many Anabaptist reformers met death at the hands of local governments— the men were burned at the stake and the women were usually drowned. English offshoots of the Anabaptists— the Baptists and the Quakers—would come to follow

but to the whole community. Besides, the keys were not 40 ordained for doctrine or authority, but for sin, to bind or loose; and what they claim besides this from the keys is mere invention. . . .

Only consider the matter. They must needs acknowledge that there are pious Christians among us that have the true faith, spirit, understanding, word, and mind of Christ: why then should we reject their word and understanding, and follow a pope who has neither understanding nor spirit? Surely this were to deny our whole faith and the Christian Church. . . . 50

Therefore when need requires, and the Pope is a cause of offence to Christendom, in these cases whoever can best do so, as a faithful member of the whole body, must do what he can to procure a true free council. This no one can do so well as the temporal authorities, especially since they are fellow-Christians, fellow-priests, sharing one spirit and one power in all things, . . . Would it not be most unnatural, if a fire were to break out in a city, and every one were to keep still and let it burn on and on, whatever might be burnt, simply because they had not the mayor’s 60 authority, or because the fire perchance broke out at the mayor’s house? Is not every citizen bound in this case to rouse and call in the rest? How much more should this be done in the spiritual city of Christ, if a fire of offence breaks out, either at the Pope’s government or wherever it may! The like happens if an enemy attacks a town. The first to rouse up the rest earns glory and thanks. Why then should not he earn glory that decries the coming of our enemies from hell and rouses and summons all Christians?

But as for their boasts of their authority, that no one 70 must oppose it, this is idle talk. No one in Christendom has any authority to do harm, or to forbid others to prevent harm being done. There is no authority in the Church but for reformation. Therefore if the Pope wished to use his power to prevent the calling of a free council, so as to prevent the reformation of the Church, we must not respect him or his power; and if he should begin to excommunicate and fulminate, we must despise this as the doings of a madman, and, trusting in God, excommunicate and repel him as best we may. 80

The Spread of Protestantism Luther’s criticism constituted an open revolt against the institution that for centuries had governed the lives of Western Christians. With the aid of the printing press, his “protestant” sermons and letters circulated throughout Europe. His defense of Christian conscience worked to jus- tify protest against all forms of dominion. In 1524, under the banner of Christian liberty, German commoners insti- gated a series of violent uprisings against the oppressive

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Anabaptist precepts, including the rejection of religious ritual (and imagery) and a fundamentalist approach to Scripture.

The Anglican Church In England, the Tudor monarch Henry VIII (1491–1547) broke with the Roman Catholic Church and established a church under his own leadership. Political expediency col- ored the king’s motives: Henry was determined to leave England with a male heir, but when eighteen years of mar- riage to Catherine of Aragon produced only one heir (a daughter), he attempted to annul the marriage and take a new wife. The pope refused, prompting the king—former- ly a staunch supporter of the Catholic Church—to break with Rome. In 1526, Henry VIII declared himself head of the Church in England. In 1536, with the support of Parliament, he closed all Christian monasteries and sold church lands, accumulating vast revenues for the royal treasury. His actions led to years of dispute and hostility between Roman Catholics and Anglicans (members of the new English Church). By the mid-sixteenth century, the consequences of Luther’s protests were evident: the reli- gious unity of Western Christendom was shattered forever. Social and political upheaval had become the order of the day.

Music and the Reformation Since the Reformation clearly dominated the religious and social history of the sixteenth century, it also touched, directly or indirectly, all forms of artistic endeavor, includ- ing music. Luther himself was a student of music, an active performer, and an admirer of Josquin des Prez (see chapter 17). Emphasizing music as a source of religious instruction, he encouraged the writing of hymnals and reorganized the German Mass to include both congregational and profes- sional singing. Luther held that all religious texts should be sung in German, so that the faithful might understand their message. The text, according to Luther, should be both comprehensible and appealing.

Luther’s favorite music was the chorale, a congregation- al hymn that served to enhance the spirit of Protestant worship. Chorales, written in German, drew on Latin hymns and German folk tunes. They were characterized by monophonic clarity and simplicity, features that encour- aged performance by untrained congregations. The most famous Lutheran chorale (the melody of which may not have originated with Luther) is “Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott” (“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”)—a hymn that has been called “the anthem of the Reformation.” Luther’s chorales had a major influence on religious music for cen- turies. And although in the hands of later composers the chorale became a complex polyphonic vehicle for voices and instruments, at its inception it was performed with all voices singing the same words at the same time. It was thus an ideal medium for the communal expression of Protestant piety.

Other Protestant sects, such as the Anabaptists and the Calvinists, regarded music as a potentially dangerous

distraction to the faithful. In many sixteenth-century churches, the organ was dismantled and sung portions of the service edited or deleted. Calvin, however, who encouraged devotional recitation of psalms in the home, revised church services to include the congregational singing of psalms in the vernacular.

Jan van Eyck Prior to the Reformation, in the cities of Northern Europe, a growing middle class joined princely rulers and the Church to encourage the arts. In addition to traditional religious subjects, middle-class patrons commissioned por- traits that—like those painted by Italian Renaissance artists (see chapter 17)—recorded their physical appear- ance and brought attention to their earthly achievements. Fifteenth-century Northern artists, unlike their Italian counterparts, were relatively unfamiliar with Greco- Roman culture; many of them moved in the direction of detailed Realism, already evident in the manuscript illumi- nations of the Limbourg brothers (see Figure 15.13).

The pioneer of Northern Realism was the Flemish artist Jan van Ecyk (ca. 1380–1441). Jan, whom we met in chapter 17, was reputed to have perfected the art of oil painting (see Figure 17.12). His application of thin glazes of colored pigments bound with linseed oil achieved the impression of dense, atmospheric space, and simulated the naturalistic effects of light reflecting off the surfaces of objects. Such effects were almost impossible to achieve in fresco or tempera. While Jan lacked any knowledge of the system of linear perspective popularized in Florence, he achieved an extraordinary level of realism both in the miniatures he executed for religious manuscripts and in his panel paintings.

Jan’s full-length double portrait of 1434 was the first painting in Western art that portrayed a secular couple in a domestic interior (Figure 19.5). The painting has long been the subject of debate among scholars who have ques- tioned its original purpose, as well as the identity of the sit- ters. Most likely, however, it is a visual document recording the marriage of Giovanni Nicolas Arnolfini (an Italian merchant who represented the Medici bank in Bruges), and his Flemish bride, Jeanne Cenami. Clearly, the couple are in the process of making a vow, witness the raised right hand of the richly dressed Arnolfini; their hands are joined, a gesture traditionally associated with engagement or marriage. Behind the couple, an inscription on the back wall of the chamber reads “Johannes de Eyck fuit hic” (“Jan van Eyck was here”); this testimonial is reiterated by the presence of two figures, probably the artist himself and a second observer, whose painted reflections are seen in the convex mirror below the inscription.

This Lutheran chorale inspired Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata No. 80, an excerpt from which may be heard on CD Two, as Music Listening Selection 4.

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Jan’s consummate mastery of minute, realistic details— from the ruffles on the young woman’s headcovering to the whiskers of the monkey-faced dog—demonstrate the artist’s determination to capture the immediacy of the physical world. This love of physical detail, typical of Northern painting, sets it apart from that of most Italian Renaissance art. Also typical of the Northern sensibility is the way in which these details “speak” to the greater mean- ing of the painting: the burning candle (traditionally car- ried to the marriage ceremony by the bride) suggests the all-seeing presence of Christ; the ripening fruit lying on and near the window sill both symbolizes fecundity and alludes to the union of the First Couple in the Garden of Eden; the small dog represents fidelity; the carved image on the chairback near the bed represents Saint Margaret, the patron saint of childbirth. The physical objects in this domestic interior, recreated in loving detail, suggest a world of material comfort and pleasure; but they also make symbolic reference to a higher, spiritual order. In this effort to reconcile the world of the spirit with that of the flesh, Jan anticipated the unique character of Northern Renaissance art.

Bosch The generation of Flemish artists that followed Jan van Eyck produced one of the most enigmatic figures of the Northern Renaissance: Hieronymus Bosch (1460–1516). Little is known about Bosch’s life, and the exact meaning of some of his works is much dis- puted. His career spanned the decades of the High Renaissance in Italy, but comparison of his paintings with those of Raphael or Michelangelo underscores the enormous difference between Italian Renaissance art and that of the European North: whereas Raphael and Michelangelo elevated the natural nobility of the individual, Bosch detailed the fallibility of humankind, its moral struggle, and its apocalyptic destiny. Bosch’s Death and the Miser (Figure 19.6), for instance, belongs to the tradition of the memento mori (discussed in chapter 12), which works to warn the beholder of the inevitability of death. The painting also shows the influence of popular fifteenth-century handbooks on the art of dying (the ars moriendi), designed to remind Christians that they must choose between sin- ful pleasures and the way of Christ. As Death looms on the threshold, the miser, unable to resist worldly temptations even in his last min- utes of life, reaches for the bag of gold

offered to him by a demon. In the foreground, Bosch depicts the miser storing gold in his money chest while clutching his rosary. Symbols of worldly power—a helmet, sword, and shield—allude to earthly follies. The depiction of such still-life objects to symbolize vanity, transience, or decay would become a genre in itself among seventeenth-century Flemish artists.

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Figure 19.5 JAN VAN EYCK, Marriage of Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride, 1434. Tempera and oil on panel, 321⁄4 � 231⁄2 in.

Figure 19.6 HIERONYMUS BOSCH, Death and the Miser, ca. 1485–1490. Oil on oak, 3 ft. 5⁄8in. � 121⁄8 in.

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Bosch’s most famous work, The Garden of Earthly Delights (Figure 19.7) was executed around 1510, the very time that Raphael was painting The School of Athens. In the central panel of the triptych, Bosch depicts a cos- mic landscape in which youthful nudes cavort in a vari- ety of erotic and playful pastimes. The terrain, filled with oversized flora, real and imagined animals and birds, and strangely shaped vessels, is similar to that of the panel on

the left, where God is shown creating Adam and Eve. In the right wing of the triptych, Hell is pic- tured as a dark and sulfurous inferno where the damned are tormented by an assortment of terri- fying creatures who inflict on sinners punish- ments appropriate to their sins—the greedy hoarder of gold (on the lower right) excretes coins into a pothole, while the nude nearby, fon-

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dled by demons, is punished for the sin of lust. When the wings of the altarpiece are closed, one sees an image of God hover- ing above a huge transparent globe: the planet Earth in the process of creation.

The Garden of Earthly Delights has been described by some as an exposition on the decadent behavior of the descendants of Adam and Eve, but its distance from conventional religious iconography has made it the subject of endless scholarly interpretation. Bosch,

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Figure 19.7 HIERONYMUS BOSCH, The Creation of Eve: The Garden of Earthly Delights: Hell (triptych), ca. 1510–1515. Oil on wood, 7 ft. 25⁄8 in. � 6 ft. 43⁄4 in. Bosch probably painted this moralizing work for lay patrons. Many of its individual images would have been recognized as references to the Seven Deadly Sins, for instance: the bagpipe (a symbol of Lust) that sits on a disk crowning the Tree-Man (upper center) and the man who is forced to disgorge his food (symbolic of Gluttony) depicted beneath the enthroned frog (lower right).

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a Roman Catholic, clearly drew his imagery from a variety of medieval and contemporary sources, including the Bible, popular proverbs, marginal grotesques in illuminated manu- scripts, pilgrimage badges, and the popular pseudosciences of his time: astrology, the study of the influence of heavenly bodies on human affairs (the precursor of astronomy); and alchemy, the art of transmuting base metals into gold (the precursor of chemistry). The egg-shaped vessels, beakers, and transparent tubes that appear in all parts of the triptych were commonly used in alchemical transmutation. The process may have been familiar to Bosch as symbolic of creation and destruction, and, more specifically, as a metaphor for the bib- lical Creation and Fall.

Regardless of whether one interprets Bosch’s “Garden” as a theater of perversity or a stage for innocent procre- ation, it is clear that the artist transformed standard Christian iconography to suit his imagination. Commissioned not by the Church, but by a private patron, he may have felt free to do so. The result is a moralizing commentary on the varieties of human folly afflicting crea- tures hopeful of Christian salvation.

Printmaking The Protestant Reformation cast its long shadow upon the religious art of the North. Protestants rejected the tradi- tional imagery of medieval piety, along with church relics

The age of Christian humanism witnessed the rise of religious fanaticism, the most dramatic evidence of which is the witch hunts that infested Renaissance Europe and Reformation Germany. While belief in witches dates back to humankind’s earliest societies, the practice of persecuting witches did not begin until the late fourteenth century. Based in the medieval practice of finding evidence of the supernatural in natural phenomena, and fueled by the popular Christian belief that the devil is actively engaged in human affairs, the first massive persecutions occurred at the end of the fifteenth century, reaching their peak approximately 100 years later. Among Northern European artists, witches and witchcraft became favorite subjects (Figure 19.8).

In 1484, two German theologians published the Malleus Maleficarum (The Witches’ Hammer), an encyclopedia that described the nature of witches, their collusion with the devil, and the ways in which they might be recognized and punished. Its authors reiterated the traditional claim that women—by nature more feeble than men—were dangerously susceptible to the devil’s temptation. As a result, they became the primary victims of the mass hysteria that prevailed during the so-called “age of humanism.” Women—particularly those who were single, old, or eccentric—constituted four-fifths of the roughly 70,000 witches put to death between the years 1400 and 1700. Females who served as midwives might be accused of causing infant deaths or deformities; others were condemned as witches at the onset of local drought or disease. One recent study suggests that witches were blamed for the sharp drops in temperature that devastated sixteenth-century crops and left many Europeans starving.

The persecution of witches may be seen as an instrument of post-Reformation religious oppression, or as the intensification of antifemale sentiment in an age when women had become more visible politically and commercially. Nevertheless, the witchcraft hysteria of the early Modern Era dramatizes the troubling gap between humanism and religious fanaticism.

Figure 19.8 HANS BALDUNG (“Grien”), Witches, 1510. Chiaroscuro woodcut, 157⁄8 � 101⁄4 in. Three witches, sitting under the branches of a dead tree, perform a black Mass. One lifts the chalice, while another mocks the Host by elevating the body of a dead toad. An airborne witch rides backward on a goat, a symbol of the devil.

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and sacred images, which they associated with superstition and idolatry. Protestant iconoclasts stripped the stained glass from cathedral windows, shattered religious sculpture, whitewashed church frescoes, and destroyed altarpieces. At the same time, however, the voices of reform encouraged the proliferation of private devotional art, particularly that which illustrated biblical themes. In the production of portable, devotional images, the technology of printmak- ing played a major role. Just as movable type had facilitat- ed the dissemination of the printed word, so the technology of the print made devotional subjects available more cheaply and in greater numbers than ever before.

The two new printmaking processes of the fifteenth century were woodcut, the technique of cutting away all parts of a design on a wood surface except those that will be inked and transferred to paper (Figure 19.9), and engraving (Figure 19.10), the process by which lines are incised on a metal (usually copper) plate that is inked and run through a printing press. Books with printed illustra- tions became cheap alternatives to the hand-illuminated manuscripts that were prohibitively expensive to all but wealthy patrons.

Dürer The unassailed leader in Northern Renaissance print- making and one of the finest graphic artists of all time was Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg (1471–1528). Dürer earned international fame for his woodcuts and metal engravings. His mastery of the laws of linear perspective and human anatomy and his investigations into Classical principles of proportions (enhanced by two trips to Italy) equaled those of the best Italian Renaissance artist– scientists. In the genre of portraiture, Dürer was the match of Raphael but, unlike Raphael, he recorded the features of his sitters with little idealization. His portrait engraving of Erasmus (see Figure 19.3) captures the concentrated intel- ligence of the Prince of Humanists.

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Figure 19.11 ALBRECHT DÜRER, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, ca. 1496. Woodcut, 151⁄2 � 11 in.

Figure 19.9 Woodcut. A relief printing process created by lines cut into the plank surface of wood. The raised portions of the block are inked and transferred by pressure to the paper by hand or with a printing press.

Figure 19.10 Engraving. An intaglio method of printing. The cutting tool, a burin or graver, is used to cut lines in the surface of metal plates. (a) A cross section of an engraved plate showing burrs (ridges) produced by scratching a burin into the surface of a metal plate; (b) the burrs are removed and ink is wiped over the surface and forced into the scratches. The plate is then wiped clean, leaving ink deposits in the scratches; the ink is forced from the plate onto paper under pressure in a special press.

Dürer brought to the art of his day a desire to convey the spiritual message of Scripture. His series of woodcuts illustrating the last book of the New Testament, The Revelation According to Saint John (also called the “Apocalypse”), reveals the extent to which he achieved his purpose. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—one of fifteen woodcuts in the series—brings to life the terrifying events described in Revelation 6.1–8 (Figure 19.11). Amidst billowing clouds, Death (in the foreground), Famine (carrying a pair of scales), War (brandishing a sword), and Pestilence (drawing his bow) sweep down upon humankind; their victims fall beneath the horses’ hooves, or, as with the bishop in the lower left, are devoured by infernal monsters. Dürer’s image seems a grim prophecy of the coming age, in which five million people would die in religious wars.

Dürer was a humanist in his own right and a great admirer of both the moderate Erasmus and the zealous Luther. In one of his most memorable engravings, Knight, Death, and the Devil, he depicted the Christian soul in the allegorical guise of a medieval knight (see Figure 19.1), a figure made famous in a treatise by Erasmus entitled Handbook for the Militant Christian (1504). The knight, the

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medieval symbol of fortitude and courage, advances against a dark and brooding landscape. Accompanied by his loyal dog, he marches forward, ignoring his fearsome compan- ions: Death, who rides a pale horse and carries an hour- glass, and the devil, a shaggy, cross-eyed, and horned demon. Here is the visual counterpart for Erasmus’ message that the Christian must hold to the path of virtue, and in spite of “all of those spooks and phantoms” that come upon him, he must “look not behind.” The knight’s dignified bearing (probably inspired by heroic equestrian statues Dürer had seen in Italy) contrasts sharply with the bestial and cankerous features of his forbidding escorts. In the tra- dition of Jan van Eyck, but with a precision facilitated by the new medium of metal engraving, Dürer records every leaf and pebble, hair and wrinkle; and yet the final effect is not a mere piling up of minutiae but, like nature itself, an astonishing amalgam of organically related elements.

In addition to his numerous woodcuts and engravings, Dürer produced hundreds of paintings: portraits and large- scale religious subjects. His interest in the natural world inspired the first landscapes in Western art (Figure 19.12). These detailed panoramic views of the countryside, execut- ed in watercolor during his frequent travels to Italy and elsewhere, were independent works, not mere studies for larger, more formal subjects. To such landscapes, as well as

to his meticulously detailed renderings of plants, animals, and birds, Dürer brought the eye of a scientific naturalist and a spirit of curiosity not unlike that of his Italian con- temporary, Leonardo da Vinci.

Grünewald Dürer’s German contemporary Matthias Gothardt Neithardt, better known as “Grünewald” (1460–1428) did not share his Classically inspired aesthetic ideals, nor his quest for realistic representation. The few paintings and drawings left by Grünewald (as compared with the hun- dreds of works left by Dürer) do not tell us whether the artist was Catholic or Protestant. In their spiritual intensi- ty and emotional subjectivity, however, they are among the most striking devotional works of the Northern Renaissance.

Grünewald’s landmark work, the Isenheim Altarpiece, was designed to provide solace to the victims of disease and especially plague at the Hospital of Saint Anthony in Isenheim, near Colmar, France (Figure 19.13). Like the Imitatio Christi, which taught Christians to seek identifica- tion with Jesus, this multipaneled altarpiece reminded its beholders of their kinship with the suffering Jesus, depict- ed in the central panel. Following the tradition of the devotional German Pietà (see Figure 15.10), Grünewald

Figure 19.12 ALBRECHT DÜRER, Wire Drawing Mill, undated. Watercolor, 111⁄4 � 163⁄4 in.

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made use of expressive exaggeration and painfully precise detail: the agonized body of Jesus is lengthened to empha- size its weight as it hangs from the bowed cross, the flesh putrefies with clotted blood and angry thorns, the fingers convulse and curl, while the feet—broken and bruised— contort in a spasm of pain. Grünewald reinforces the mood of lamentation by placing the scene in a darkened landscape. He exaggerates the gestures of the attending figures, including that of John the Baptist, whose oversized finger points to the prophetic Latin inscription that explains his mystical presence: “He must increase and I must decrease” (John 3:30).

Cranach and Holbein The German cities of the sixteenth century produced some of the finest draftsmen in the history of Western art. Dürer’s contemporary, Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553), was a highly acclaimed court painter at Wittenberg and, like Dürer, a convert to the Protestant reform. In 1522 he produced the woodcuts for the first German edition of the New Testament. Although he also worked for Catholic patrons, he painted and engraved

numerous portraits of Protestant leaders, the most notable of whom was his friend Martin Luther, whose likeness he recreated several times. In the portrait illustrated in Figure 19.4, Cranach exercised his skills as a master draftsman, capturing both the authoritative silhouette and the confi- dent demeanor of the famous reformer.

Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543), celebrated as the greatest of the German portraitists, was born in Augsburg, but spent much of his life in Switzerland, France, and England. His woodcut series of the Dance of Death (see Figure 15.5) brought him renown as a drafts- man and printmaker. With a letter of introduction from his friend Erasmus, Holbein traveled to England to paint the family of Sir Thomas More (see Figure 19.16)—Western Europe’s first domestic group portrait (it survives only in drawings and copies). On a later trip to England, Holbein became the favorite of King Henry VIII, whose likeness he captured along with portraits of Henry’s current and prospective wives. In common with Dürer and Cranach, Holbein was a master of line. All three artists manifested the integration of brilliant draftsmanship and precise, real- istic detail that characterizes the art of the Northern

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Figure 19.13 MATTHIAS GRÜNEWALD, Isenheim Altarpiece, ca. 1510–1515. Oil on panel, central panel 8 ft. � 10 ft. 1 in. The opened wings of the altarpiece show Saint Sebastian (left) and Saint Anthony (right), both protectors against disease and plague. Those afflicted with disease (including leprosy, syphilis, and poisoning caused by ergot, a cereal fungus), were able to contemplate the altarpiece daily in the hospital chapel.

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Renaissance. Holbein, however, was unique in his minimal use of line to evoke a penetrating sense of the sitter’s per- sonality. So lifelike are some of Holbein’s portraits that modern scholars have suggested he made use of technical aids, such as the camera lucida, in their preparation (see chapter 17, Exploring Issues).

Brueghel The career of the last great sixteenth-century Flemish painter, Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1525–1569), followed the careers of most other Northern Renaissance masters by a generation. Like Dürer, Brueghel had traveled to Italy and absorbed its Classical culture; his style, however, would remain relatively independent of Italian influence. Closer in temperament to Bosch, he was deeply concerned with human folly, especially as it was manifested in the everyday life of his Flemish neighbors. Among his early works were crowded panoramas depicting themes of human pride and religious strife. Brueghel’s Triumph of Death may be read as an indictment of the brutal wars that plagued sixteenth- century Europe (Figure 19.14). In a cosmic landscape that resembles the setting of a Last Judgment or a Boschlike underworld, Brueghel depicts throngs of skeletons relent- lessly slaughtering all ranks of men and women. The armies of the dead are without mercy. In the left foreground, a car- dinal collapses in the arms of a skeleton; in the left corner,

an emperor relinquishes his hoards of gold; on the right, death interrupts the pleasure of gamblers and lovers. Some of the living are crushed beneath the wheels of a death cart, others are hanged from scaffolds or subjected to tor- ture. Brueghel’s apocalyptic vision transforms the late medieval Dance of Death into a universal holocaust.

Many of Brueghel’s best-known works were inspired by biblical parables or local proverbs, popular expressions of universal truths concerning human behavior. In his draw- ings, engravings, and paintings, Brueghel rendered these as visual narratives set in the Flemish countryside. His treatment of the details of rustic life, which earned him the title “Peasant Brueghel,” and his landscapes illustrat- ing the labors appropriate to each season, were the culmi- nation of a tradition begun in the innovative miniatures of the Limbourg brothers (see Figure 15.13). However, Brueghel’s genre paintings (representations of the every- day life of ordinary folk) were not small-scale illustrations, but monumental (and sometimes allegorical) transcrip- tions of rural activities. The Wedding Dance (Figure 19.15) depicts peasant revelry in a country setting whose earthi- ness is reinforced by rich tones of russet, tan, and muddy green. At the very top of the panel the bride and groom sit before an improvised dais, while the villagers cavort to the music of the bagpipe (right foreground). Although Brueghel’s figures are clumsy and often ill-proportioned,

Figure 19.14 PIETER BRUEGHEL THE ELDER, Triumph of Death, ca. 1562–1564. Oil on panel, 3 ft. 10 in. � 5 ft. 33⁄4 in.

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they share an ennobling vitality. In Brueghel’s art, as in that of other Northern Renaissance painters, we discover an unvarnished perception of human beings in mundane and unheroic circumstances—a sharp contrast to the idealized conception of humankind found in the art of Renaissance Italy.

Erasmus: The Praise of Folly European literature of the sixteenth century was marked by heightened individualism and a progressive inclination to clear away the last remnants of medieval orthodoxy. It was, in many ways, a literature of protest and reform, and one whose dominant themes reflect the tension between medieval and modern ideas. European writers were espe- cially concerned with the discrepancies between the noble ideals of Classical humanism and the ignoble realities of human behavior. Religious rivalries and the horrors of war, witch hunts, and religious persecution all seemed to contradict the optimistic view that the Renaissance had inaugurated a more enlightened phase of human self- consciousness. Satire, a literary genre that conveys the contradictions between real and ideal situations, was

especially popular during the sixteenth century. By means of satiric irony, Northern Renaissance writers held up prevailing abuses to ridicule, thus implying the need for reform.

The learned treatises and letters of Erasmus won him the respect of scholars throughout Europe; but his single most popular work was The Praise of Folly, a satiric oration attacking a wide variety of human foibles, including greed, intellectual pomposity, and pride. The Praise of Folly went through more than two dozen editions in Erasmus’ lifetime, and influenced other humanists, including his lifelong

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1540 the Swiss physician Paracelsus (Philippus van Hohenheim) pioneers the use of chemistry for medical purposes

1543 Copernicus (Polish) publishes On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres, announc- ing his heliocentric theory

1553 Michael Servetus (Spanish) describes the pulmonary circulation of the blood

Figure 19.15 PIETER BRUEGHEL THE ELDER, The Wedding Dance, 1566. Oil on panel, 3 ft. 11 in. � 5 ft. 2 in.

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friend and colleague Thomas More, to whom it was dedi- cated (in Latin, moria means “folly”).

A short excerpt from The Praise of Folly offers some idea of Erasmus’ keen wit as applied to a typical Northern Renaissance theme: the vast gulf between human fallibili- ty and human perfectibility. The reading opens with the image of the world as a stage, a favorite metaphor of six- teenth-century painters and poets—not the least of whom was William Shakespeare. Dame Folly, the allegorical fig- ure who is the speaker in the piece, compares life to a com- edy in which the players assume various roles: in the course of the drama (she observes), one may come to play the parts of both servant and king. She then describes each of a number of roles (or disciplines), such as medicine, law, and so on, in terms of its affinity with folly. Erasmus’ most searing words were reserved for theologians and church dignitaries, but his insights expose more generally (and timelessly) the frailties of all human beings.

From Erasmus’ The Praise of Folly (1511)

Now what else is the whole life of mortals but a sort of 1 comedy, in which the various actors, disguised by various costumes and masks, walk on and play each one his part, until the manager waves them off the stage? Moreover, this manager frequently bids the same actor go back in a different costume, so that he who has but lately played the king in scarlet now acts the flunkey in patched clothes. Thus all things are presented by shadows; yet this play is put on in no other way. . . .

[The disciplines] that approach nearest to common 10 sense, that is, to folly, are held in highest esteem. Theologians are starved, naturalists find cold comfort, astrologers are mocked, and logicians are slighted. . . . Within the profession of medicine, furthermore, so far as any member is eminently unlearned, impudent, or careless, he is valued the more, even in the chambers of belted earls. For medicine, especially as now practiced by many, is but a subdivision of the art of flattery, no less truly than is rhetoric. Lawyers have the next place after doctors, and I do not know but that they should 20 have first place; with great unanimity the philosophers— not that I would say such a thing myself—are wont to ridicule the law as an ass. Yet great matters and little matters alike are settled by the arbitrament of these asses. They gather goodly freeholds with broad acres, while the theologian, after poring over chestfuls of the great corpus of divinity, gnaws on bitter beans, at the same time manfully waging war against lice and fleas. As those arts are more successful which have the greatest affinity with folly, so those people are by far the happiest 30 who enjoy the privilege of avoiding all contact with the learned disciplines, and who follow nature as their only guide, since she is in no respect wanting, except as a mortal wishes to transgress the limits set for his status. Nature hates counterfeits; and that which is innocent of art gets along far the more prosperously.

What need we say about practitioners in the arts? Self- love is the hallmark of them all. You will find that they would sooner give up their paternal acres than any piece of their poor talents. Take particularly actors, singers, 40 orators, and poets; the more unskilled one of them is, the more insolent he will be in his self-satisfaction, the more he will blow himself up. . . . Thus the worst art pleases the most people, for the simple reason that the larger part of mankind, as I said before, is subject to folly. If, therefore, the less skilled man is more pleasing both in his own eyes and in the wondering gaze of the many, what reason is there that he should prefer sound discipline and true skill? In the first place, these will cost him a great outlay; in the second place, they will 50 make him more affected and meticulous; and finally, they will please far fewer of his audience. . . .

And now I see that it is not only in individual men that nature has implanted self-love. She implants a kind of it as a common possession in the various races, and even cities. By this token the English claim, besides a few other things, good looks, music, and the best eating as their special properties. The Scots flatter themselves on the score of high birth and royal blood, not to mention their dialectical skill. Frenchmen have taken all politeness for 60 their province; though the Parisians, brushing all others aside, also award themselves the prize for knowledge of theology. The Italians usurp belles lettres and eloquence; and they all flatter themselves upon the fact that they alone, of all mortal men, are not barbarians. In this particular point of happiness the Romans stand highest, still dreaming pleasantly of ancient Rome. The Venetians are blessed with a belief in their own nobility. The Greeks, as well as being the founders of the learned disciplines, vaunt themselves upon their titles to the famous heroes of 70 old. The Turks, and that whole rabble of the truly barbarous, claim praise for their religion, laughing at Christians as superstitious. . . .

[Next come] the scientists, reverenced for their beards and the fur on their gowns, who teach that they alone are wise while the rest of mortal men flit about as shadows. How pleasantly they dote, indeed, while they construct their numberless worlds, and measure the sun, moon, stars, and spheres as with thumb and line. They assign causes for lightning, winds, eclipses, and other 80 inexplicable things, never hesitating a whit, as if they were privy to the secrets of nature, artificer of things, or as if they visited us fresh from the council of the gods. Yet all the while nature is laughing grandly at them and their conjectures. For to prove that they have good intelligence of nothing, this is a sufficient argument: they can never explain why they disagree with each other on every subject. Thus knowing nothing in general, they profess to know all things in particular; though they are ignorant even of themselves, and on occasion do not see the ditch or the 90 stone lying across their path, because many of them are blear-eyed or absent-minded; yet they proclaim that they perceive ideas, universals, forms without matter. . . .

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Q What disciplines does Dame Folly single out as having “the greatest affinity with folly”?

Q How does Erasmus attack the religious community of his day?

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Perhaps it were better to pass over the theologians in silence, [for] they may attack me with six hundred arguments, in squadrons, and drive me to make a recantation; which if I refuse, they will straightway proclaim me an heretic. By this thunderbolt they are wont to terrify any toward whom they are ill-disposed.

They are happy in their self-love, and as if they already 100 inhabited the third heaven they look down from a height on all other mortal men as on creatures that crawl on the ground, and they come near to pitying them. They are protected by a wall of scholastic definitions, arguments, corollaries, implicit and explicit propositions; . . . they explain as pleases them the most arcane matters, such as by what method the world was founded and set in order, through what conduits original sin has been passed down along the generations, by what means, in what measure, and how long the perfect Christ was in the Virgin’s womb, 110 and how accidents subsist in the Eucharist without their subject.

But those are hackneyed. Here are questions worthy of the great and (as some call them) illuminated theologians, questions to make them prick up their ears—if ever they chance upon them. Whether divine generation took place at a particular time? Whether there are several sonships in Christ? Whether this is a possible proposition: God the Father hates the Son? Whether God could have taken upon Himself the likeness of a woman? Or of a devil? Of an 120 ass? Of a gourd? Of a piece of flint? Then how would that gourd have preached, performed miracles, or been crucified?. . . .

Coming nearest to these in felicity are the men who generally call themselves ”the religious“ and ”monks“— utterly false names both, since most of them keep as far away as they can from religion and no people are more in evidence in every sort of place. . . . For one thing, they reckon it the highest degree of piety to have no contact with literature, and hence they see to it that they do not 130 know how to read. For another, when with asinine voices they bray out in church those psalms they have learned, by rote rather than by heart, they are convinced that they are anointing God’s ears with the blandest of oil. Some of them make a good profit from their dirtiness and mendicancy, collecting their food from door to door with importunate bellowing; nay, there is not an inn, public conveyance, or ship where they do not intrude, to the great disadvantage of the other common beggars. Yet according to their account, by their very dirtiness, 140 ignorance, these delightful fellows are representing to us the lives of the apostles.

More’s Utopia In England Erasmus’ friend, the scholar and statesman Sir Thomas More (1478–1535), served as chancellor to King Henry VIII at the time of Henry’s break with the Catholic Church (Figure 19.16). Like Erasmus, More was a Christian humanist and a man of conscience. He denounced the evils of acquisitive capitalism and religious fanaticism and championed religious tolerance and Christian charity. Unwilling to compromise his conviction as a Roman Catholic, he opposed the actions of the king and was executed for treason in 1535.

In 1516, More completed his classic political satire on European statecraft and society, a work entitled Utopia (the Greek word meaning both “no place” and “a good place”). More’s Utopia, the first literary description of an ideal state since Plato’s Republic, was inspired, in part, by accounts of wondrous lands reported by sailors returning from the “New World” across the Atlantic (see chapter 18). More’s fiction- al island (“discovered” by a fictional explorer–narrator) is a socialistic state in which goods and property are shared, war and personal vanities are held in contempt, learning is available to all citizens (except slaves), and freedom of

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Figure 19.16 HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER, Sir Thomas More, ca. 1530. Oil on panel, 291⁄2 � 231⁄4 in. In his attention to minute detail and textural contrast—fur collar, velvet sleeves, gold chain, and Tudor rose pendant—Holbein refined the tradition of realistic portraiture initiated by Jan van Eyck (compare Jan’s self-portrait, Figure 17.12).

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religion is absolute. Work, while essential to moral and communal well-being, is limited to six hours a day. In this ideal commonwealth, natural reason, benevolence, and scorn for material wealth ensure social harmony.

More’s society differs from Plato’s in that More gives to each individual, rather than to society’s guardians, full responsibility for the establishment of social justice. Written as both a social critique and a satire, More draws the implicit contrast between his own corrupt Christian society and that of his ideal community. Although his Utopians are not Christians, they are guided by Christian principles of morality and charity. They have little use, for instance, for precious metals, jewels, and the “trifles” that drive men to war.

From More’s Utopia (1516)

[As] to their manner of living in society, the oldest man 1 of every family . . . is its governor. Wives serve their husbands, and children their parents, and always the younger serves the elder. Every city is divided into four equal parts, and in the middle of each there is a marketplace: what is brought thither, and manufactured by the several families, is carried from thence to houses appointed for that purpose, in which all things of a sort are laid by themselves; and there every father goes and takes whatsoever he or his family stand in need of, 10 without either paying for it or leaving anything in exchange. There is no reason for giving a denial to any person, since there is such plenty of everything among them; and there is no danger of a man’s asking for more than he needs; they have no inducements to do this, since they are sure that they shall always be supplied. It is the fear of want that makes any of the whole race of animals either greedy or ravenous; but besides fear, there is in man a pride that makes him fancy it a particular glory to excel others in pomp and excess. But by the 20 laws of the Utopians, there is no room for this. . . .

[Since the Utopians] have no use for money among themselves, but keep it as a provision against events which seldom happen, and between which there are generally long intervening intervals, they value it no farther than it deserves, that is, in proportion to its use. So that it is plain they must prefer iron either to gold or silver; for men can no more live without iron than without fire or water, but nature has marked out no use for the other metals so essential and not easily to be 30 dispensed with. The folly of men has enhanced the value of gold and silver, because of their scarcity. Whereas, on the contrary, it is their opinion that nature, as an indulgent parent, has freely given us all the best things in great abundance, such as water and earth, but has laid up and hid from us the things that are vain and useless. . . .

. . . They eat and drink out of vessels of earth, or glass, which make an agreeable appearance though formed of brittle materials: while they make their chamber-pots 40

and close-stools1 of gold and silver, and that not only in their public halls, but in their private houses: of the same metals they likewise make chains and fetters for their slaves; to some [slaves], as a badge of infamy, they hang an ear-ring of gold, and [they] make others wear a chain or coronet of the same metal; and thus they take care, by all possible means, to render gold and silver of no esteem. And from hence it is that while other nations part with their gold and silver as unwillingly as if one tore out their bowels, those of Utopia would look on 50 their giving in all they possess of those [metals] but as the parting with a trifle, or as we would esteem the loss of a penny. They find pearls on their coast, and diamonds and carbuncles on their rocks; they do not look after them, but, if they find them by chance, they polish them, and with them they adorn their children, who are delighted with them, and glory in them during their childhood; but when they grow to years, and see that none but children use such baubles, they of their own accord, without being bid by their parents, lay 60 them aside; and would be as much ashamed to use them afterward as children among us, when they come to years, are of their puppets and other toys. . . .

They detest war as a very brutal thing; and which, to the reproach of human nature, is more practiced by men than by any sort of beasts. They, in opposition to the sentiments of almost all other nations, think that there is nothing more inglorious than that glory that is gained by war. And therefore though they accustom themselves daily to military exercises and the discipline of war—in which not 70 only their men but their women likewise are trained up, that in cases of necessity they may not be quite useless— yet they do not rashly engage in war, unless it be either to defend themselves, or their friends, from any unjust aggressors; or out of good-nature or in compassion assist an oppressed nation in shaking off the yoke of tyranny. They indeed help their friends, not only in defensive, but also in offensive wars; but they never do that unless they had been consulted before the breach was made, and being satisfied with the grounds on which 80 they went, they had found that all demands of reparation were rejected, so that a war was unavoidable. . . .

If they agree to a truce, they observe it so religiously that no provocations will make them break it. They never lay their enemies’ country waste nor burn their corn, and even in their marches they take all possible care that neither horse nor foot may tread it down, for they do not know but that they may have for it themselves. They hurt no man whom they find disarmed, unless he is a spy. When a town is surrendered to them, they take it into their protection; 90 and when they carry a place by storm, they never plunder it, but put those only to the sword that opposed the rendering of it up, and make the rest of the garrison slaves, but for the other inhabitants, they do them no hurt; and if