Week 1 Blog Post

Erasmus and the Age of Reformation

This week I read through chapters one to three, which all examined Erasmus's early life. He actually lived through a pretty horrible childhood, mainly due to a lack of parental figures. His mother died at a rather early age, and his father was basically not in the picture for the most part. He supposedly tried his hardest to hide his family life for the most part, which seemed strange looking at it from modern day's standards. Although people are generally looked down upon based on what their parental figures are like, they are normally given a chance to rise up out of their situation and live how they want to. One question that seemed to be evident throughout his life was what actually happened to his father, because it appeared Erasmus did not know what had happened himself. His guardians seemed to not care much for him and his brother, although they did want them to go to a university and study. One of their guardians did actually care a lot for the two, although for the most part, they weren't in the picture as well. Although the book did go over monastery life for him, most of it was straight forward, and pretty normal for most people who lived in that time period. The only major question that floated through the chapter while I read it, was if he actually wanted to join the monastery, or if he was forced into it.

Erasmus's university life seemed to be the more interesting part of his early life. He seemed to dislike the scholarship lifestyle, but he did get an education out of it, so he most likely just dealt with it. The book talked continuously about how the scholar life was by no means lavish, and was actually quite expensive. One issue that seemed to be common in that time period was that even though scholars had the intelligence to make money off of their texts, people couldn't afford to have them published or even read them. Just because the lifestyle seems extravagant from an outside perspective does not mean that people are living that way.