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588 APPENDIX V
hat. His departure can be dated after 25 Apr. 14921, on which day he
was ordained priest by David of Burgundy’, Bishop of Utrecht? ;
if Beatus Rhenanus + is correct in saying that he was already ordained
when he joined the Bishop. The first few months were full of
happiness, in expectation of a visit to Italy, still the goal of classical
students, and his relations with the Bishop were most cordial®. He
accompanied him to Bergen-op-Zoom, where the Bishop’s family
had a hereditary residence, and there made the acquaintance of
James Batt, who was secretary to the council of the town, and who
was destined to be a true and valuable friend to him for the next
nine years of his life.
Erasmus corresponded frequently with Steyn, and his letters made
William Herman desirous of Batt’s acquaintance’. He seems also
to have revisited the monastery, for Ep. 35, which is Herman’s first
letter to Batt and which was perhaps written for Erasmus to take
back to Bergen, says that Herman had heard Batt’s praises from
Erasmus’ lips.
After rejoining the Bishop Erasmus was driven into retreat by an
outbreak of the plague at Bergen or perhaps at Brussels. The
Bishop sent or took him to a country house at Halsteren’, near Bergen,
and there to amuse his leisure the Antibarbari*® was revised and cast
into the form of a dialogue, the opening scene of which is doubtless
drawn, according to Erasmus’ frequent custom, from life. In it
Herman comes on a visit to Erasmus and meets Batt for the first
time, an incident which is possibly substantiated by the conversation
with Batt which Herman records in Ep. 38. The scene is laid in
the spring, the Burgomaster and Town-physician come over from
Bergen to take part in the dialogue ; their names, William Conrad
and John®, are mentioned, and facts of Batt’s previous life are given
in a way which imparts an air of reality to the narrative.
Opmeer’s statement that the journey to Rome was still in contem¬
plation when the Antibarbari was being composed is not to be
pressed ; for there is evidence to show that the disappointment had
come earlier. Herman’s Ode 4 speaks of complaints from Erasmus”,
which may well imply that the journey had already been abandoned ;
since Batt’s company is urged in consolation, but there is no men¬
1 The earliest authority for this date
is a manuscript written by P. C.
Bockenberg (1548-1617), which is
quoted in I, W(alvis)’ Beschryv. d. Stad.
Gouda, i. p. 261. Val. Andreas has
produced from it the contradictory
date ‘v Kal. Maias, die S. Marco sacro,”
which is copied by Foppens.
2 In tho Ecclesiastes (LB. v. 808) Eras¬
mus tells an amusing tale of the
Bishop’s attempt to raise the standard
of his ordination examinations ; for
another anecdote of the Bishop see
Adag. 2838.
3 LB. x. 15734.
4 iv. 40.
5 Ep. 153. 22-7.
© Herman, Ode 4; see Ep. 38. 4 n.
1 Dum Episcopus profectionem ador¬
nat, in castello Haltereno agri Bergen¬
sis libros Antibarbarorum conscribit.
Opmeer, Opus Chronographicum, Antwerp,
1611, i. p. 488.
8 See p. 121.
9 Possibly Joannes a Mera, who is
described as a ‘primarius ciuis’ of
Bergen in Lond. xxvii. 5, LB. 1230.
10
Desine, Herasme, queri, iuste quid
enim tibi querele est? i
Vt semper, et nunc sors benigna
fauit. i
Nam quid dissimulem, aut qui 1am
pudeat tibi fateri?
Saepe inuidus te credidi beatum. _
Tempore non modico tibi fata viro frui
dedere ;
Nobis semel vel colloqui negatum.