Edward Lee: Erasmus’ English Foe

In early 1520 a small pamphlet was printed in Paris by a little-known English student. At first sight the book looked innocuous. The text offered a set of technical notes on a recent edition of the New Testament, a subject of growing interest to scholars in the period. By the end of the year, however, its author Edward Lee was one of the most reviled men in Renaissance Europe. Poems, letters, and dialogues were published across the Continent depicting him as a ‘braggart’ and a ‘condemned dog’ and threatening him with physical violence. How had Lee achieved such notoriety?

An Englishman abroad

Edward Lee was born in Kent in 1482 and lived a rather unremarkable life as a priest until the age of 35. In 1517, however, he made the decision to visit the small university town of Louvain, a few miles east of Brussels.

Louvain (or ‘Leuven’ in Flemish) was a common destination for English students in the 16th century, despite their complaints about the fatty food and vulgar drinking habits of the locals. Lee already had degrees from Oxford and Cambridge, as well as connections at the court of Henry VIII, but a spell abroad was an opportunity to receive expert tuition and to demonstrate his suitability to serve the Tudor state. Lee may have wished to make a name for himself in Louvain. He was to get more than he bargained for in that respect.

What Lee found in Louvain was not a foreign idyll of learning but a snake pit of academic rivalries. The town’s university, like many others in Europe, was gripped by debates about what and how to teach its students. Broadly speaking, there were two rival camps – the ‘scholastics’ and ‘humanists’ – each with their own ethos. The scholastics supported the traditional curriculum with its emphasis on rigorous logic and philosophical reasoning, a system of thought on which large parts of European law and theology had been built. The humanists, meanwhile, idolised the languages and literatures of the ancient world. Students, they thought, should learn rhetoric rather than logic and master the resources of literary expression as opposed to the jargon of philosophers. Increasingly, the humanists also argued that it was better to understand the scriptures in their original language than to read them in translation.

The standard bearer for the humanists in Louvain was Desiderius Erasmus, a charismatic and well-travelled Dutch scholar with an arrogant streak. Erasmus was already Europe’s most famous intellectual when he made Louvain his home in 1517. The year before he had published a highly anticipated edition of the New Testament which provided the Greek text of the scriptures and a new Latin translation in parallel columns, as well as a set of explanatory ‘annotations’ that justified his editorial decisions. Erasmus believed comparing Greek and Latin texts would purge the scriptures of errors. Others were outraged at his presumption in correcting the Vulgate (the common Latin bible used in Europe).

It was not just scholarship that made Erasmus a provocative figure in Louvain. He was also the leading advocate of a new academic institution in the town. The ‘Trilingue’ or ‘Three-Tongued’ College (as the institution came to be known) was founded in 1517 by a generous bequest from Jerome Busleyden, a wealthy cleric and administrator in the Low Countries. Erasmus had advised Busleyden on its foundation, including its humanist curriculum and commitment to the three learned languages of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. The new college, however, threatened to rob existing teachers of students and fees, and efforts to formally integrate the Trilingue into Louvain’s university were resisted. Open conflict soon erupted. Students exchanged taunts in the streets. The Trilingue, its rivals claimed, taught only the ‘Latin of the fish market’ – a reference to the new college’s proximity to the town’s fishmongers. When one of the Trilingue’s teachers, Allard of Amsterdam, proposed to lecture on Erasmus’ works in 1519, the university theology faculty demanded that the course be stopped or made subject to their approval. A few months later the supporters of Wilhelm Nesen, another lecturer at the college, delivered a threatening letter to the university rector in the middle of the night. The stunt led to arrests and Erasmus was forced to use his influence to secure the release of the Trilingue’s staff.

It was against this backdrop that Edward Lee appeared in Louvain. His studies awkwardly spanned the warring factions. Though he was primarily a theology student, he was also keen to learn humanist Greek and Hebrew. He surely assumed that he could avoid the town’s quarrels. Events proved otherwise. Bad luck, ambition, and simple misunderstanding would make Lee not just a warrior in the humanist-scholastic debate, but a notorious figure across Europe.

Meeting Erasmus

Lee met Erasmus not long after he arrived in Louvain. At first the two were on friendly terms. In the summer of 1517 Erasmus called at Lee’s house to greet the new arrival and exchange news. Erasmus, Lee discovered, was busy revising his New Testament. The first edition had been somewhat rushed and Erasmus wanted to improve the text so that it would not garner further criticism from conservative clerics. While in Louvain, he canvassed friends for comments and suggestions on how to improve the book. He would then take the corrected manuscript to Basel to personally supervise its printing.

What happened in these early meetings between Lee and Erasmus was crucial to their dispute. Lee alleged that Erasmus repeatedly entreated him to comment on the New Testament. He started sending Erasmus short notes on the text. Erasmus, in contrast, insisted he was simply being courteous. He had not seriously intended for Lee – a mere student – to review his work. The misunderstanding soon bred resentment. Erasmus, annoyed at a flurry of notes from Lee, became dismissive. Lee, offended at this riposte, stopped sending comments. In a gesture of defiance, however, he pledged to continue reviewing Erasmus’ work, drawing ready support from the Dutchman’s enemies in the town.

A fractious game of cat and mouse ensued. Lee made it known in conversation that he had found hundreds of errors in Erasmus’ work. Yet he refused to share his findings with him, circulating the comments instead to a group of intimates. Erasmus, infuriated at Lee’s actions, used various means to hinder him. He asked his English friends to reason with their compatriot and even bribed a scribe in the hope of acquiring Lee’s notes. The dispute spilled out onto the streets of Louvain. One morning Lee discovered that several posters had been fixed to the doors of the town’s churches denouncing him as the ‘professor of the art of slandering’. Erasmus meanwhile was attacked from the pulpit. The Carmelite preacher Nicolaas Baechem alleged that Erasmus was in league with the heretical Martin Luther. Various efforts at mediation floundered, with neither Lee nor Erasmus trusting the other to keep the peace.

In 1519 Erasmus published his revised New Testament. Lee believed that several alterations were derived from his notes, though Erasmus had not acknowledged his help. He now vowed to publish his original annotations, as well as a set of new comments on the latest Erasmian edition. Having his book printed, however, proved difficult. Twice, Lee claimed, he had come to agreements with printers in Antwerp, only for Erasmus to sabotage the deal behind the scenes. Lee eventually published the work in Paris in early 1520, though only after he had spread the rumour that he was printing it in Germany.

Lee’s Annotations on the New Testament of Desiderius Erasmus covers a range of issues, reflecting the author’s journey from friend to foe of Erasmus. Some notes question Erasmus’ grammar or point to errors in the printing of the first edition. Others raise more serious charges. For instance, while Erasmus had censured medieval Latin scribes for introducing many errors into the Bible, Lee felt he had failed to apply the same scepticism to his Greek manuscripts, instead treating them as faultless ‘oracles’. Worse still, Erasmus had removed crucial passages supporting Christian doctrines such as the Trinity. ‘If an impious crowd of heretics will appear who entirely deny Christ’s divinity’, Lee noted, ‘how greatly would they applaud the testimony of [Erasmus’] exemplars.’ The result could only be that ‘there will be a formidable schism in the church’ like those of the early Christian era.

Erasmus could not take such accusations lying down. In 1520 alone he issued two responses to Lee: an Apology to the Two Invectives of Edward Lee and a more detailed Response to the Annotations of Edward Lee. For the Englishman, however, the publication of his book marked the end of the affair. He was worn out. ‘There has been no subject of conversation in Louvain’, he remarked, ‘and hardly any among my native English, except Lee.’ ‘Nothing more unpleasant has ever happened to me than this dispute’, he concluded.

The ‘hedgehog Lee’

Although Lee’s notes shed much light on the practice of biblical criticism in the 16th century, it is the conduct rather than the content of the debate which excites modern interest. Rather than play down the dispute, Erasmus took every opportunity to publicise it and to encourage his supporters to attack Lee. He recognised that print offered novel opportunities for mustering support and defaming rivals. A personal spat in a fractious university town thus quickly spiralled into a ‘pile-on’, with pamphlets and letters appearing across Europe denouncing Lee.

The campaign against Lee began well before the publication of his notes. In 1519 a ‘witty dialogue’ was published in Paris that depicted Erasmus’ critics in Louvain. The dialogue – which many modern scholars believe Erasmus to have co-authored – described a fantastical funeral procession for Caliope, the muse of poetry and an embodiment of humanist learning. The procession is led by various monsters, each representing a critic of humanism. At one stage the characters observe a ‘pale, thin and downcast’ figure entirely covered in spikes. It is ‘the hedgehog Lee’, a prickly beast who whispers in people’s ears. The speakers conclude that he is the son of Phthonus, the god of envy, though they consider him more dangerous than his father on account of his venomous tail. Contemporary readers appear to have enjoyed this mockery, guessing in the margins of the book as to who the depiction represented.

A 1520 pamphlet by the poet and renegade knight Ulrich von Hutten similarly transformed Lee into a talking dog. The dialogue begins with Jacob von Hoogstraten, an infamous inquisitor and opponent of humanism, complaining of a lack of sleep. Lee the dog has kept him awake all night ‘with mad and furious barking’. Much to Hoogstraten’s surprise, Lee then explains himself. He had once been a student in Louvain where he had gathered a group of monks to compile notes on Erasmus’ New Testament. Their assistance forced him to experience the emotion of gratitude, which promptly killed him. The god Mercury, responsible for transporting souls to the underworld, decided first to transform this enemy of humanism into a pig, before remaking him as a dog.

The printed literature on Lee had a meme-like quality where common features were elaborated and altered by each successive writer for humorous effect. Many attacks built on the notion that English people had tails, a common stereotype in the Middle Ages. Lee was frequently likened to the arsonist Herostratus who burnt down the Temple of Artemis in ancient Ephesus in a bid to win notoriety. Other contributions were less erudite. Wilhelm Nesen, for example, published an epigram celebrating a ‘certain man’ who was alleged to have ‘smeared the books of the busybody Edward Lee with shit’.

The attacks nevertheless had a darker side. Lee spoke of letters ‘full of threats’ being sent to him and others in Louvain. Erasmus had sent one, he alleged, which promised ‘sharper weapons than a pen’. A pamphlet from Basel promised to mark Lee ‘with a branding iron, or with sticks and rods … if you should fall into our hands’. Others heavily implied that it would be better for Lee to hang himself. Several of the most threatening letters were issued by young men in Germany who would soon take up the cause of Martin Luther. It was Lee’s misfortune to cross not only Erasmus, but an increasingly active group of agitators ready to pounce on any defectors from the humanist camp.

The effects of this campaign on Lee’s mental state are clear. His studies in Louvain, he wrote, were repeatedly interrupted by ‘the yapping of so many Erasmian curs’. He spent a good deal of his time refuting insults and rumours. Erasmus, he noted in the preface to his Annotations, had never stopped trying to ‘dazzle everyone’ with his side of the story. But the Dutchman’s behaviour bore little relation to the opinion of many of the ‘supreme Erasmus’. ‘Slanders, slanders, slanders’, Lee noted ruefully of his rival, ‘it is your favourite word.’

In an effort to give his side of the story, Lee published an apology with his annotations, as well as a letter to Erasmus which rebutted the Dutchman’s claim to have acted honestly in the dispute. ‘For some time’, Lee noted, ‘it has been said that Lee has written against Erasmus. From which there was some uproar.’ ‘But few’, he added, ‘still sufficiently understand by whom this rumour was first started.’ It was Erasmus, not Lee, who had turned the affair into a ‘tragedy’ by making it impossible for Lee not to respond.

Although Lee promised to avoid insinuation, he began to see Erasmus’ hand everywhere. Erasmus’ helpers, he alleged, had followed him to Antwerp and had sabotaged his negotiations with printers. Lee’s servants even claimed to have seen Erasmus snooping around Lee’s coach on a journey through the Low Countries, no doubt hoping to lay his hands on the Englishman’s notes. Whatever the truth, these charges testify to the intense pressure Lee had come under in Louvain. ‘I certainly believe that posterity will regard the name of Erasmus as a plague and a pestilence in time to come’, Lee remarked. ‘Nevertheless’, he wrote, ‘I will hope for better things.’

Return to Europe

Somewhat surprisingly, Lee’s reputation in Europe had little effect on his career in England. Henry VIII made Lee a royal chaplain on his return from Louvain in 1520 and promoted him to archbishop of York in 1531. Erasmus, ever vigilant of his enemies, complained bitterly to his friends in England but to no avail.

Yet if Lee had hoped to avoid his foreign enemies, Henry had other ideas. In 1523 he appointed Lee to an embassy to Nuremberg in the Holy Roman Empire. The mission seemed harmless. Lee and his fellow ambassadors were to confer the Order of the Garter – England’s highest chivalric honour – on Archduke Ferdinand, the brother of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. The embassy was an act of diplomatic flattery, designed to secure the Anglo-Imperial alliance against France.

The English king, however, was no longer simply a European monarch, but the pope’s ‘Defender of the Faith’, having written a defence of the sacraments in response to Martin Luther. He thus commanded that the Garter ceremony be given a more Catholic significance. Lee was to give a speech to Ferdinand urging him to do more against ‘the detestable and damnable heresies of Friar Martin Luther’. ‘The said heresies’, Lee’s instructions continued, ‘have polluted, grown and infected a great part of Almayne’ such that they were now ‘dangerous to the whole Catholic faith’. Henry had written against Luther and burnt the reformer’s books in England. He now called on Ferdinand to ‘see for the correction, suppression and reformation’ of Germany.

Of all the cities in the Holy Roman Empire, Nuremberg was one of the worst for Lee to deliver such a message. Several of its civic leaders had expressed support for Luther. Lutherans were allowed to preach in the city and to offer both bread and wine to their congregations. The arrival of the Catholic archduke in the city would quiet this faction. But Ferdinand himself was not keen on provoking religious tensions, preferring instead to emphasise the common threat posed to Germany by the Ottoman Empire to the east. Worse still, Erasmus had several friends in the city eager to give Lee an unfriendly welcome.

News soon spread of Lee’s return to Europe. Erasmus wrote to his friend Willibald Pirckheimer asking for a full report ‘of what our friend Lee has been up to’ in Nuremberg. Pirckheimer’s replies do not survive, though he certainly kept Erasmus in the know. Luther predicted that Lee would stir up the Catholics and ‘the wrath of Satan’ against him. Various representatives in Nuremberg likewise wondered if Lee was sent to provoke ‘quarrels and discord … concerning Luther’.

The English delegation grew alarmed at the religious situation. On reaching Cologne, Lee’s fellow ambassador Henry Parker wrote to inform the king that ‘Luther’s books go abroad in every place’. Arriving in Nuremberg, the party observed that many of the religious houses were likely to ‘stand desolate’ without new recruits. Rumours also reached the English party of the destruction of religious images and the marriages of monks and nuns in other parts of the Empire.

It wasn’t long before Lee stirred up trouble. He criticised the work of the city’s leading artist Albrecht Dürer, though it is not clear whether he took exception to the artist’s style, subject matter, or religious views. Lee may have made his comments while Parker sat for a portrait with Dürer, of which only a sketch now survives. Erasmus’ friends soon circulated the story as another instance of Lee’s critical spirit.

The city’s Lutherans were also working to trap Lee in their own scheme. Johann von Schwarzenberg, a leading member of the city and Imperial administration, drew up a set of religious articles and had them delivered to Lee for comment. Schwarzenberg hoped to provoke a rash comment from the English representative which might serve as a pretext for a public dispute with one of the town’s Lutheran clerics. But Lee had learnt his lesson. He returned the articles unanswered, remarking only that he was not empowered to discuss religious matters.

Finally, at the end of 1523, Ferdinand arrived in Nuremberg. He was inducted into the Order of the Garter on 8 December 1523. A small picture survives today in the College of Arms depicting the English delegation dining with the archduke, perhaps in the chapel of the Imperial castle in Nuremberg – a suitably private location for this Catholic ceremonial. Soon thereafter, the group bade farewell to Nuremberg, no doubt grateful to leave the city’s squabbles behind.

Quarrels ad infinitum

The Renaissance is often heralded as a remarkable period of European learning and collaboration. Scholars from across the Continent developed new methods of enquiry and promoted them through international friendship and the printing press. The Renaissance, nevertheless, was a human movement like any other. Personal feuds and egos provoked frequent breaches of supposed scholarly ideals. In Lee’s quarrel with Erasmus fame and early modern media turned disagreements into a form of public entertainment. We may even sympathise with Lee, a man forced to live and work in the shadow of a single personal dispute.

Yet Lee was no martyr to free speech. He survived Louvain and Nuremberg to become a leading diplomat and cleric. In those roles he actively pursued heretics at home and abroad. Passing through France in 1526 he counselled the English government to suppress William Tyndale’s English translation of the New Testament on the grounds that it promoted heresy. He likewise continued his quarrel with Erasmus, browsing the bookshops of Cologne in 1523 for the latest attacks on his rival and planning a second edition of the Annotations on a subsequent visit to Spain, though this was never completed. Later critics of Erasmus often cited Lee as an inspiration and the Dutchman became convinced that his English opponent had authored or inspired further assaults on his work. In 1525 a group working under the pseudonym ‘Taxander’ dedicated a pamphlet criticising Erasmus to ‘the famously erudite and uncommon theologian’ Lee. Perhaps the image of the ‘hedgehog’ Lee is not all that far-fetched, for he was far from defenceless in the face of attacks.

Tim Wade is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance at the University of Warwick.