BIBLIOGRAPHY #1: Erasmus & Renaissance Humanism

1. THE LATER MIDDLE AGES

Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium, Oxford (paperback, $12). An entertaining study of the wildest of the

fringe (and often heretical) groups that made headlines in the late Middle Ages and the early Reformation.
See especially the chapter on the bizarre Anabaptist experiment in Munster.

Steven Ozment, The Age of Reform, 1250-1550: An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and

Reformation Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980) paperback, $16. Ozment helps re-join
what is too often separated: medieval studies and reformation studies. He offers summaries on a broad
range of figures and questions. It is widely acclaimed, but I must confess that I find myself quibbling with
some of his judgments and interpretations.

Alister E. McGrath, The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1986)

paperback, $20.

Francis Oakley, The Western Church in the Later Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979)

paperback, $12.

Francis Oakley, The Political Thought of Pierre d’Ailly: The Voluntarist Tradition (New Haven: Yale University

Press, 1964).

Heiko A. Oberman & Charles Trinkhaus, ed., The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Reformation Religion

(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1974). A pathbreaking set of essays.

Heiko A. Oberman, Dawn of the Reformation: Essays in Late Medieval and Early Reformation Thought (Grand

Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1992) paperback, $30. See especially the valuable essay: “Fourteenth Century
Religious Thought: a Premature Profile,” pp. 1-17.

Heiko A. Oberman, The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism (Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press, 1963).

Heiko A. Oberman, The Impact of the Reformation (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1994) paperback, $19.
Heiko A. Oberman, The Reformation: Roots and Ramifications, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 199_)

paperback, $29. NEW.

Matthew Spinka, John Hus at the Council of Constance (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965).
David C. Steinmetz, Misericordia Dei: The Theology of Johannes von Staupitz in its Late Medieval Setting, (Leiden:

E.J. Brill, 1968).

Thomas N. Tentler, Sin and Confession on the Eve of the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977).

2. ERASMUS & HUMANISM: STUDIES

Albert Rabil, Jr., ed., Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms, and Legacy, 3 volumes, Pennsylvania (NEW in

paperback, $30 per volume). The most comprehensive, thorough, and up-to-date study of humanism.
Essays are by leading experts and trace developments in each region of Europe and in each aspect of
humanism. Anyone doing research on humanism must start here.

James McConica, Erasmus, Past Masters Series (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991) paperback, $6.

Erasmus was perhaps the most complex personality of the period. A first-rate scholar, a skilled popularist
with a talent for satire, Erasmus would in many respects set the agenda for the Reformation. Yet when push
came to shove, he would side with the Catholics and become Luther’s most penetrating critic. An excellent
brief survey of Erasmus’ life and thought.

Anthony Kenny, Thomas More, Past Masters Series (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), paperback, $6.

Catholics revere More as a martyr and saint, while some Protestants (including scholars) revile him as a
narrow-minded persecutor. Kenny tries to sort through all this and give a good brief portrait of a complex

Bibliography #1: Erasmus

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and thoughtful man. Especially good on More’s final days. By the way, be wary of the recent and unduly
negative portrait done by Richard Marius, Thomas More: a Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985).

Cornelius Augustijn, Erasmus: His Life, Works, and Influence, trans., G.C. Grayson (Toronto: University of Toronto

Press, 1991) NEW in paperback, $18. The best biography to date.

Raymond W. Chambers, Thomas More (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1958). The classic biography. It

shaped the image of More portrayed in Robert Bolt’s classic movie Man for All Seasons.

John D’Amico, Renaissance Humanism in Papal Rome: Humanists and Churchman on the Eve of the Reformation

(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1983).

J.R. Hale, A Concise Encyclopaedia of the Italian Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981).
Léon-E. Halkin, Erasmus: a Critical Biography (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1993) NEW in paperback, $16.
Johan Huizinga, Erasmus and the Age of the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 192_ ) paperback,

$12. Dated. Critical of Erasmus as a personality.

Lisa Jardine, Erasmus, Man of Letters (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 199_) NEW in paperback, $30
Paul Oskar Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and Its Sources, ed., Michael Mooney (New York: Columbia University

Press, 1979) paperback.

Paul Oskar Kristeller & Philip P. Wiener, ed., Renaissance Essays (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press,

1992; reprint of 1968 edition).

Jill Kraye, ed., Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)

paperback, $18. NEW.

Lewis W. Spitz, The Religious Renaissance of the German Humanists (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,

1963).

John O’Malley, Praise and Blame in Renaissance Rome: Rhetoric, Doctrine, and Reform in the Sacred Orators of the

Papal Court, 1450-1521 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1979).

John O’Malley, Rome and the Renaissance: Studies in Culture and Religion (London: Variorum Reprints, 1981).

Some valuable essays.

Louis L. Martz, Thomas More: The Search for the Inner Man (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), paperback

, $12.

Marjorie O’Rourke-Boyle, Rhetoric and Reform: Erasmus’ Civil Dispute with Luther (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press, 19__).

John C. Olin, ed., Six Essays on Erasmus (New York: Fordham University Press, 1979).
James Overfield, Humanism and Scholasticism in Late Medieval Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press,

1984).

Roy Porter & Mikulaus Teich, eds., The Renaissance in a National Context (New York: Cambridge University Press,

1992).

J.D. Tracy, "Ad Fontes: The Humanist Understanding of Scripture as Nourishment for the Soul," in Christian

Spirituality II: High Middle Ages and Reformation, ed. Jill Raitt (New York: Crossroad, 1987), paperback,
$20.

Charles Trinkhaus, The Scope of Renaissance Humanism (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1983).

3. ERASMUS & THE HUMANISTS: TEXTS

Erika Rummel, ed., The Erasmus Reader (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1990) paperback, $20. The University of

Toronto is currently translating the complete works of Erasmus (some 70 volumes). Rummel has drawn on
these high quality translations to create the best anthology of Erasmus.

John Dolan, ed., The Essential Erasmus, New American Library (paperback, $7).
John C. Olin, ed., Christian Humanism and the Reformation: Selected Writings of Erasmus (New York: Fordham

University Press, 1975) paperback.

Thomas More, The Complete Works of St. Thomas More (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963-1984).