Oriel College, Oxford
CHAPTER I
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH
1466-88
The Low Countries in the fifteenth century—The Burgundian power—Connections with the German Empire and with France—The northern Netherlands outskirts in every sense—Movement of Devotio moderna: brethren of the Common Life and Windesheim monasteries—Erasmus's birth: 1466—His relations and name—At school at Gouda, Deventer and Bois-le-Duc—He takes the vows: probably in 1488
When Erasmus was born Holland had for about twenty years formed part of the territory which the dukes of Burgundy had succeeded in uniting under their dominion—that complexity of lands, half French in population, like Burgundy, Artois, Hainault, Namur; half Dutch like Flanders, Brabant, Zealand, Holland. The appellation 'Holland' was, as yet, strictly limited to the county of that name (the present provinces of North and South Holland), with which Zealand, too, had long since been united. The remaining territories which, together with those last mentioned, make up the present kingdom of the Netherlands, had not yet been brought under Burgundian dominion, although the dukes had cast their eyes on them. In the bishopric of Utrecht, whose power extended to the regions on the far side of the river Ysel, Burgundian influence had already begun to make itself manifest. The projected conquest of Friesland was a political inheritance of the counts of Holland, who preceded the Burgundians. The duchy of Guelders, alone, still preserved its independence inviolate, being more closely connected with the neighbouring German territories, and consequently with the Empire itself.
All these lands—about this time they began to be regarded collectively under the name of 'Low Countries by the Sea'—had in most respects the character of outskirts. The authority of the German emperors had for some centuries been little more than imaginary. Holland and Zealand hardly shared the dawning sense of a national German union. They had too long looked to France in matters political. Since 1299 a French-speaking dynasty, that of Hainault, had ruled Holland. Even the house of Bavaria that succeeded it about the middle of the fourteenth century had not restored closer contact with the Empire, but had itself, on the contrary, early become Gallicized, attracted as it was by Paris and soon twined about by the tentacles of Burgundy to which it became linked by means of a double marriage.