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PREFACE vii
of using the Latinized form when it seems to be established
by contemporary or modern usage. For the simpler Christian
names I use the English forms.
In dealing with the text it has been impossible to attempt
any uniformity of orthography. The sources for the cor¬
respondence are various, with very different degrees of
authority: original letters in the handwriting of Erasmus
and his friends; letters copied by his servant-pupils; letters
copied by contemporaries or by later hands; books printed
in his lifetime, where the orthography varies considerably
according to the practice of the printer; and books printed
under the direction of later scholars, whose critical standards
unhappily allowed them to adopt the orthography deemed
correct in their own day in preference to that of the originals.
To construct from these various sources some attempt at
a standard orthography for Erasmus himself might have
been possible, though laborious; for his multitudinous corre¬
spondents it was entirely out of the question. I have
contented myself with the endeavour to reproduce with
fidelity the earliest source available in each case, whether
manuscript or printed book, except where obvious deprava¬
tion of the text has rendered correction necessary; or where
on rare occasions too close adherence to the original, especially
in the use of the termination -e for -ae, would have caused
obscurity. Contractions and abbreviations 1 have not at¬
tempted to preserve; and in the forms of letters the long s
is discarded, for j (usually only in capitals or ij) i is printed,
and for u I have adopted the form v as initial, u as medial
or final, according to the practice of Erasmus himself and
most of his friends. In punctuation, whilst adhering as far
as possible to the earliest text, I have allowed myself a free
hand; and in the use of capital letters only modern require¬
ments have been considered. The practice of the Renaissance
in writing Greek differed so widely from our own that I have
made no attempt to reproduce it.
In the case of Erasmus’ letters published during his lifetime,
the text here printed has been constructed by collating the
London volume with the earliest authorized edition. The
former was printed from one of the final Basle editions, either
of 1538 or 1541, and as the successive Froben volumes were
printed from one another more or less closely, it has not been