Abstract
Erasmus on tyranny in the Education of a Christian Prince. Writing advice for the future Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Erasmus begins by characterizing the prince who governs in accord with Christian principles, especially avoiding war. Tyrants are monsters who lose their humanity. Erasmus remarks that a boy who displays bullying behavior must be given special attention to bring him around to gentle social conduct, lest he grow up to be a tyrant.
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Notes
- 1.
The Education of a Christian Prince, trans. N. Cheshire and M. Heat (Toronto, 1974), vol. 27 of Erasmus, Collected Works, 199–288, reprinted by Cambridge University Press, 1997. I cite the latter edition because it is readily available as a paperback. There is also a very useful introduction by Lisa Jardine, but she does not situate the work in the context of Erasmus’s religious thought. The emphasis on Christian teachings enables Erasmus to propose what all Christians must believe and do is more so for the Christian prince. Apart from a rare mention of the clergy, there is no reference to the institutions of the Roman Catholic Church.
- 2.
For biography, C. Augustijn, Erasmus: His Life, Works and Influence, (Toronto, 1992); L. Jardine, Erasmus, Man of Letters (Princeton, 1993); J. D. Tracy, Erasmus, (Berkeley, 1996); J. D. Tracy, The Politics of Erasmus (Toronto, 1978); and J. D. Tracy, Emperor Charles V.
- 3.
P. Gay, The Bridge of Criticism (New York, 1970).
- 4.
Erasmus, Education, 9.
- 5.
Erasmus, Education, 10. Here Erasmus stresses what the good prince is and does, using considerable material from Seneca; but he does not refer to the good prince as being in fact divine, as if he were a Roman princeps. P. Stacey, Roman Monarchy and the Renaissance Prince (Cambridge UK, 2007), 196–204. The extra leap to divinity would be taken by late League writers in France, W.F. Church, Constitutional Thought in Sixteenth-Century France (Cambridge US, 1941), 308–320. For Europe in general, E. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies (Princeton, 1957), 42–86.
- 6.
Erasmus, Education, 11.
- 7.
Erasmus, Education, paraphrasing Plutarch.
- 8.
Erasmus, Education, 22; but he does not accept so-called “Orientalist” ideas of kingship.
- 9.
Erasmus, Education, 22.
- 10.
Another list of historical tyrants is given.
- 11.
Erasmus, Education, 27. M.-M. Huet, Monstrous Imagination (Cambridge MA, 1993).
- 12.
Erasmus, Education, 27. C.G. Dubois, L’Imaginaire de la Renaissance (Paris, 1985). This is Erasmus’s version of the Argus Panoptes, the monster with one hundred eyes. I owe this identification to J.G.A Pocock. See also A. Duc, “Persistance d’une figure; le monstre au XVIIe siècle,” XVIIe Siècle, 196 (1997), 549–65.
- 13.
Erasmus, Education, 27.
- 14.
This list is found in Erasmus, Education, 27–29.
- 15.
Erasmus, Education, 29.
- 16.
Erasmus, Education, 29. F. Rigolot, “Désamorcer la peur des monstres: de Rabelais à Montaigne,” Travaux de Littérature, ed. M. Bertaud (Geneva, 2004) 2:135–45.
- 17.
Erasmus, Education, 30. J. Céard, La Nature et les prodigies (Geneva, 1977); K. Thomas, Man and the Natural World (New York, 1983).
- 18.
Erasmus, Education, 30.
- 19.
Erasmus, Education, 31.
- 20.
Erasmus, Education, 32.
- 21.
Erasmus, Education, 34. For his analytical strategies, see J. Chomarat, Grammaire et rhétorique chez Erasme (Paris, 1981).
- 22.
Erasmus, Education, 35–36. Julius Pollux was a second-century Greek grammarian who lived in Egypt.
- 23.
Erasmus, Education, 36.
- 24.
Erasmus, Education, 36.
- 25.
Erasmus, Education, 36; see also Aristotle, Politics, 1315b.
- 26.
Erasmus, Education, 41.
- 27.
There are instances where nature can triumph over the tutor: “Nero’s nature was so corrupt that even the saintly teacher Seneca could not prevent him from becoming a most pestilential ruler,” Education, 46.
- 28.
Erasmus, Education, 41.
- 29.
Erasmus, Education, 43.
- 30.
Erasmus, Education, 89.
- 31.
Erasmus, Education, 101.
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Ranum, O. (2020). Erasmus on Tyranny in the Education of a Christian Prince. In: Tyranny from Ancient Greece to Renaissance France. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43185-3_14
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