119. UTRIUSQUE SCHOLAE] 'of each party, or class.'
122. VIRTUTES] The Vulgate word, which in the English Bible is regularly translated 'mighty works'.
143. SODALI] As a safeguard against scandal the Franciscan rule prescribed that no brother should go outside the monastery without another brother as companion.
152. HILARI DATORE] Cf. 2 Cor. 9. 7.
154. Antony of Bergen, Abbot of St. Bertin's at St. Omer, was brother of the Bishop of Cambray, Henry of Bergen, to whom Erasmus had been secretary on leaving Steyn. This incident occurred in 1502, the only year in which Erasmus was at St. Bertin's in Lent.
157. QUADRAGESIMAE] Lent, the first day of which was roughly the fortieth before Easter. Cf. Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima Sundays; where the calculation is again only approximate.
163. OMITTERES] Si must be understood from nisi faceres.
165. IUBILAEO] The faithful were encouraged to make pilgrimage to Rome in years of Jubilee, those that did so receiving the Jubilee Indulgence. The offerings made in return for these became so fruitful a source of revenue that successive Popes were tempted to reduce the interval at which Jubilees recurred from a hundred years to fifty, then to thirty-three, and finally Paul II (1464-1471) to twenty-five. Erasmus' statement may be an incorrect attribution to Alexander VI (1493-1503) of the action of Paul II in halving the period of fifty years; or it may be an allusion to the custom of celebrating the Jubilee outside Rome in the second year. In any case the Jubilee of 1500 is referred to here. The practice also grew up of selling the Jubilee Indulgence away from Rome; and bishops used to purchase the rights in their own dioceses for a fixed sum, afterwards reimbursing themselves by collecting what they could through their own agents.
169. SORTEM] principal; the sum given by the bishop for the right to sell indulgences.
182. SIMONIACI] Cf. Acts 8. 18 seq. The sin of selling spiritual privileges was called simony.