_ of his work found only a few
passages in the _Enchiridion_ to expunge. Moreover, Erasmus had inserted
in the volume some writings of unsuspected Catholic tenor. For a long
time it was in great repute, especially with theologians and monks. A
famous preacher at Antwerp used to say that a sermon might be found in
every page of the _Enchiridion_. But the book only obtained its great
influence in wide cultured circles when, upheld by Erasmus's world-wide
reputation, it was available in a number of translations, English,
Czech, German, Dutch, Spanish, and French. But then it began to fall
under suspicion, for that was the time when Luther had unchained the
great struggle. 'Now they have begun to nibble at the _Enchiridion_
also, that used to be so popular with divines,' Erasmus writes in 1526.
For the rest it was only two passages to which the orthodox critics
objected.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] That this man should have been John of Trazegnies as Allen thinks
possible and Renaudet accepts, is still all too uncertain; A. 164 t. I.
p. 373; Renaudet, Prereforme 428.

[6] In 1500 (A. 123.21) Erasmus speaks of the _Enchiridion_ of the
Father Augustine, cf. 135, 138; in 1501, A. 152.33, he calls the
_Officia_ of Cicero a 'pugiunculus'--a dagger. So the appellation had
been in his mind for some time.

[7] _Miles_ with Erasmus has no longer the meaning of 'knight' which it
had in medieval Latin.

CHAPTER VII

YEARS OF TROUBLE--LOUVAIN, PARIS, ENGLAND

1502-6

Death of Batt: 1502--First stay at Louvain: 1502-4--Translations
from the Greek--At Paris again--Valla's _Annotationes_ on the
New Testament--Second stay in England: 1505-6--More patrons and
friends--Departure for Italy: 1506--_Carmen Alpestre_

Circumstances continued to remain unfavourable for Erasmus. 'This year
fortune has truly been raging violently against me,' he writes in the
autumn of 1502. In the spring his good friend Batt had died. It is a
pity that no letters written by Erasmus directly after his bereavement
have come down to us. We should be glad to have for that faithful helper
a monument in addition to that which Erasmus erected to his memory in
the _Antibarbari_. Anna of Veere had remarried and, as a patroness,
might henceforth be left out of account. In October 1502, Henry of
Bergen passed away. 'I have commemorated the Bishop of Cambray in three
Latin epitaphs and a Greek one; they sent me but six guilders, that also
in death he