be presented to him, it was more urgent than ever
that the impediments in the way of a free ecclesiastical career should
be permanently obviated. He was provided with a dispensation of Pope
Julius II, authorizing him to accept English prebends, and another
exempting him from the obligation of wearing the habit of his order. But
both were of limited scope, and insufficient. The fervent impatience
with which he conducted this matter of his definite discharge from the
order makes it probable that, as Dr. Allen presumes, the threat of his
recall to Steyn had, since his refusal to Servatius in 1514, hung over
his head. There was nothing he feared and detested so much.

With his friend Ammonius he drew up, in London, a very elaborate paper,
addressed to the apostolic chancery, in which he recounts the story of
his own life as that of one Florentius: his half-enforced entrance to
the monastery, the troubles which monastic life had brought him, the
circumstances which had induced him to lay his monk's dress aside. It is
a passionate apology, pathetic and ornate. The letter, as we know it,
does not contain a direct request. In an appendix at the end, written in
cipher, of which he sent the key in sympathetic ink in another letter,
the chancery was requested to obviate the impediments which Erasmus's
illegitimate birth placed in the way of his promotion. The addressee,
Lambertus Grunnius, apostolic secretary, was most probably an imaginary
personage.[14] So much mystery did Erasmus use when his vital interests
were at stake.

The Bishop of Worcester, Silvestro Gigli, who was setting out to the
Lateran Council, as the envoy of England, took upon himself to deliver
the letter and to plead Erasmus's cause. Erasmus, having meanwhile at
the end of August returned to the Netherlands, awaited the upshot of his
kind offices in the greatest suspense. The matter was finally settled in
January 1517. In two letters bearing the signature of Sadolet, Leo X
condoned Erasmus's transgressions of ecclesiastical law, relieved him of
the obligation to wear the dress of his order, allowed him to live in
the world and authorized him to hold church benefices in spite of any
disqualifications arising from illegitimacy of birth.

So much his great fame had now achieved. The Pope had moreover accepted
the dedication of the edition of the New Testament, and had, through
Sadolet, expressed himself in very gracious terms about Erasmus's work
in general. R