65. REDIRE] to London.
67. APERIT … FABULAE SCENAM] Draws the curtain, i.e. discloses the facts.
70. SURDO] Cf. II. 53 n.
XVI
[When Erasmus became famous, a friend of his early days at Steyn, Servatius Rogerus, who had now risen to be Prior, wrote to him reproaching him for having abandoned the dress of his order and urging him to return to the monastery. The letter reached Erasmus in July 1514, when he was on his way to Basel and was staying a few days at Hammes Castle, an important military post in the English dominion near Calais, of which his old patron, Lord Mountjoy, was lieutenant. In reply Erasmus wrote an 'apologia pro vita sua', giving an account of himself and stating his reasons for the belief that he could make better use of his talents if he remained free. It is an important and confidential document; and Erasmus therefore never published it. But copies of it were being circulated in manuscript many years before his death.]
17. Cornelius, of Woerden, to the north of Gouda, was a school-friend of Erasmus. He had entered the monastery of Steyn and persuaded Erasmus to follow his example.
24. QUARUM ISTIC NULLUS USUS] This must not be taken to mean that good learning was unknown to the monastery; for Erasmus read a great deal in the classics at Steyn; but that a monastery was not a suitable home for a scholar.
40. ANNUM PROBATIONIS] The constitutions of the Augustinian Order provided that a novice could not make his profession as a Canon until he had completed his sixteenth year and had passed at least a year and a day in probation.
74. CALCULO] Stone in the bladder.
84. CONFRATRES] Brother belonging to the same order.