SOURCE: McConica, James Kelsey. “The English Reception of Erasmus.” In Erasmianism: Idea and Reality, edited by M. E. H. N. Mout, H. Smolinsky, and J. Trapman, pp. 37-46. Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1997.

In this lecture read at a 1996 colloquium, McConica discusses the early influence of Erasmus on English humanism, particularly in the schools. McConica also notes the importance of the church and state in facilitating the acceptance of Erasmian humanism.

I propose to address the topic of this colloquium, ‘Erasmianism: Idea and Reality’ not from the aspect of text, or of authorial intention, but from evidence less dramatic but easier to verify—the channels through which his writings came to be circulated and his ideas taken in. If we can so identify the ‘audience’ for what Erasmus had to say, we can identify something of the ‘reality’ of ‘Erasmianism’, at least amongst those who...