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Brabantia Decoding The Main Characters O-1 PDF
Brabantia Decoding The Main Characters O-1 PDF
Suivant les principes d’une « interprétation humaniste », nous proposons dans cette étude
une nouvelle compréhension d’un aspect fondamental du sens d’Utopia. On trouve dans
l’œuvre de Thomas More des références essentielles à la genèse particulière et au but
recherché dans Utopia. Erasme suscita une rencontre entre Thomas More et Pierre
1
I dedicate this paper to Aloïs Gerlo and Germain Marc’hadour.
152 Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 Maarten M.K. VERMEIR
* * *
2
Desiderius Erasmus, Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 27, Toronto, Buffalo &
London, U of Toronto P, 1974-1988, (henceforth cited as CWE) p.44; Desiderius
Erasmus, Opera Omnia Des. Erasmi Roterodami, Tomus IV-1, O. Herding and F.
Schalk, ed., Amsterdam, North-Holland Publishing Company, 1974, (henceforth
cited as Opera Omnia), p.64.
154 Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 Maarten M.K. VERMEIR
3
J. Tracy, The Politics of Erasmus: a Pacifist Intellectual and His Political Milieu,
Toronto, Buffalo & London, U of Toronto P, 1978, p.17.
4
Ibid., p.13-14.
Maarten M.K. VERMEIR Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 155
5
Ibid., p.17-22; J. Tracy, Erasmus: the Growth of a Mind, Genève: Droz, 1972,
p.88-89.
6
J. Tracy, The Politics of Erasmus, op. cit., p.19; Desiderius Erasmus, Opera
Omnia, IV-1, O. Herding and F. Schalk, ed., Amsterdam: North-Holland
Publishing Co., 1974, p.64, l.199-1.205
7
J. Tracy, The Politics of Erasmus, op. cit., p.17.
8
CWE 2, 87; Opus Epist., 1906-1958, to John Colet vol I, nr. 181 p.405, l.54-56.
9
W. Ribhegge, Erasmus von Rotterdam, Darmstadt: Primus Verlag, 2010, p.53.
156 Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 Maarten M.K. VERMEIR
12
J. Tracy, The Politics of Erasmus: a Pacifist Intellectual and His Political Milieu,
U. of Toronto P., 1978, p. 17-22; Opera Omnia IV-1, p.132; Alastair Duke has
stated that Erasmus wanted to rename the Low Countries Brabantia, after the
Duchy of Brabant: ‘the chief province of the Low Countries’ and praised for its
Joyous Entry, ‘by far the most celebrated privilege of any province’. A. Duke,
Dissident Identities in the Early Modern Low Countries, Farnham: Ashgate, 2009,
p.35.
13
CWE 27, p.206; Desiderius Erasmus, Opera Omnia IV-1, p.136.
158 Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 Maarten M.K. VERMEIR
the lady and lord of Brabant: the lawful heir to the throne. Delegates
of the abbots, noblemen and cities of Brabant agreed, at a meeting in
Kortenberg with Aleidis, the widow of Henry III, to let a younger
brother, John I, succeed his feeble-minded brother, Henry IV.
Without the support of his subjects, who gained not only juridical
and fiscal rights from these encounters, John I would never have
succeeded. Also his son, John II, anticipating an explosive collusion
of ducal debts, social unrest and personal sickness, wanted in 1312 to
secure the succession of his minor son: John III. With the Charter of
Kortenberg, John II affirmed on September 27, 1312 the rights and
privileges granted by his predecessors to the cities and the people of
Brabant, and instituted a new council assembling 14 members with
four knights, three representatives from Brussels, three from Louvain
and one from Antwerp, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Tienen and Zoutleeuw.
They would assemble every three weeks at Kortenberg, a smaller
place between Brussels and Louvain, to look after the ‘common
interest’ of the country and to enforce the rights of the Brabantine
people.
The decisions of the council were binding, even for the Duke
of Brabant, and in case of infringement of these decisions or
privileges, his subjects were relieved – for the duration of this
infringement – of their duties to their sovereign. John II died just a
month after the composition of this charter, but he could still
appoint the regents entitled to reign in place of his son. They
already violated the freshly formulated ‘common interest’. However,
the charter was not a dead letter. The cities of Brabant organized
their protest, resulting again in two confirming charters: the Flemish
Charter and the Walloon Charter of 1314. They deposed the regents
and ruled the country with a council of their own representatives
and two noblemen; till the majority of John III. Almost as a
Shakespearian tragedy, John III left only three daughters at his
death. With the tempting promise of financial support and defence
160 Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 Maarten M.K. VERMEIR
14
R. van Uytven, ‘Een dualistisch, maar machtig vorstendom (1261-1356)’ in
R. van Uytven (e. a.), Geschiedenis van Brabant: van het hertogdom tot heden,
Louvain, Davidsfonds, 2004, p.103-106; R. Stein, ‘De Brabantse Leeuw sluimert
(1356-1430), vreemde vorsten op de troon’ in R. van Uytven (e. a.), Geschiedenis
van Brabant: van het hertogdom tot heden, op. cit., p.157-169; idem in R. Van
Uytven (e. a.), Histoire du Brabant: du Duché à nos jours (rédaction finale de la
traduction française: Claude de Moreau de Gerbehaye), Zwolle: Waanders, 2004,
720 pp.
Maarten M.K. VERMEIR Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 161
The ‘New Regiment’ of 1422 formed the legal basis for later
‘Joyous Entries’ in more than a century. 15 As Wim Blockmans
recognized:
After two attempts to get control in Brussels, which failed
mainly because of popular uprisings against John IV and his
patrician partisans, the duke had to submit entirely to the
conditions of the States on the 4th of May 1421. He had to
subscribe to the principle that the States could lawfully
refuse any service to the duke and choose a regent in his place
in the case that, and as long as, the duke infringed any rights
or privileges of the three States or any of their separate
members. 16
Exactly, the craft guilds were responsible for the revolt in
Brussels of 1421, determining the victory of the Estates of Brabant
over John IV - who had reacted on the appointment of his brother as
‘ruwaard’ of Brabant with a military invasion into Brabant and
occupation of Brussels - and gaining political participation in the
government of this Brabantine city and so in the government of the
Duchy itself through the decisive role of Brussels as one of the four
major cities represented in the Estates of Brabant. As leading
historians pointed at the great influence of apprentices in these
Brabantine craft guilds, the form of participation and representation
was exceptionally democratic for those days. 17 The Estates of
Brabant had gained the constitutional rights to – actively – disobey
an infringing prince and to follow for that time of wrongdoing a
15
R. Stein, ‘De Brabantse Leeuw sluimert (1356-1430), vreemde vorsten op de
troon’ in R. van Uytven (e. a.), Geschiedenis van Brabant, op. cit., p.166.
16
W. Blockmans, ‘Alternatives to Monarchical Centralisation: The Great Tradition
of Revolt in Flanders and Brabant’ in H. Koenigsberger, Republiken und
Republikanismus im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit, München, Oldenbourg Verlag,
1988, p.151.
17
C. Lis, H. Soly and L. Mitzman, ‘“An Irresistible Phalanx”: Journeymen Associa-
tions in Western Europe, 1300–1800’, International Review of Social History,
1994, 39, p.11-52.
162 Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 Maarten M.K. VERMEIR
18
J. Keane, The Life and Death of Democracy, London, Simon & Schuster, 2009,
p.242-244.
Maarten M.K. VERMEIR Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 163
wrote the seminal work on the political thought of the Revolt in the
Low Countries or ‘Dutch’ Revolt, links the political culture of this
Revolt clearly to the constitutional texts of the Low Countries: the
Joyous Entry of Brabant and the Great Privilege of 1477. 19 We want
to emphasize the historical fact that the Great Privilege of 1477 had
already lost any juridical validity in 1494 when Philip the Fair
recalled the Great Privilege of 1477 and an even further reaching
Joyous Entry. In his opinion, they were both 'extorted' from his
mother, Mary of Burgundy, under the imminent threat of a military
invasion by French troops into the Burgundian Netherlands,
following the sudden death of Mary's father, Charles The Bold, in
battle at the gates of Nancy. The Great Privilege of 1477 generalized
most significant clauses of the Joyous Entry of Brabant like the
article of resistance, to all other countries and civilians of the
Burgundian Netherlands. Leading scholars assume that this 1477
Privilege was, not without consequence, drafted by Brabantine
juridical experts. So in 1494, the Great Privilege lost any juridical
validity on the ground of vitiated consent. Constitutional rights
inspired by the tradition of Joyous Entries, preserved only their legal
force in the Duchy of Brabant where Philip the Fair had to recognize
in his personal Joyous Entry of 1494, the constitutional texts of the
Joyous Entries of Philip the Good and Charles the Bold. The same
legal texts served also for the Joyous Entries of prince Charles and
his later son Philip II as Dukes of Brabant, with still an ‘article of
resistance’ between the constitutional lines. 20
19
M. van Gelderen, The Political Thought of the Dutch Revolt 1555-1590,
Cambridge UP, 1992, p.287.
20
W. Blockmans, ‘Breuk of continuïteit? De Vlaamse Privilegiën van 1477 in het
licht van het staatvormingsproces’ in W. Blockmans (ed.), Het Algemene en de
Gewestelijke Privilegiën van Maria van Bourgondië voor de Nederlanden: 1477,
UGA, Heule, 1985, p.117; R. Van Uytven, ‘1477 in Brabant’ in W. Blockmans
(ed.), Het Algemene en de Gewestelijke Privilegiën van Maria van Bourgondië
voor de Nederlanden: 1477, UGA, Heule, 1985, p.278.
164 Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 Maarten M.K. VERMEIR
21
H. de la Fontaine Verwey, Humanisten, Dwepers en rebellen in de Zestiende
Eeuw, Amsterdam, Nico Israel, 1975, p.121-122.
22
O. Mörke, Wilhelm von Oranien (1533-1584), Fürst und ‘Vater’ der Republik,
Stuttgart, W. Kohlhammer Verlag, 2005, 316 pp.
23
W. Blockmans, ‘Alternatives to Monarchical Centralisation: The Great Tradition
of Revolt in Flanders and Brabant’ in H. Koenigsberger, Republiken und
Republikanismus im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit, München, Oldenbourg Verlag,
1988, p.153.
Maarten M.K. VERMEIR Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 165
24
M. De Schepper, ‘Pieter Gillis (1486-1533), Antwerpse humanist en vriend van
Erasmus,’ in Miscellanea J.-P. van den Branden, Erasmus ab Anderlaco, Brussel,
Archief- en Bibliotheekwezen in België, 1995, p.284-285.
25
This we say with high probability because Erasmus must have encouraged the
young Pieter Gillis to complete his legal studies commenced in 1501 and gain an
academic degree. M. Nauwelaerts, ‘Un ami Anversois de More et d'Erasme :
Petrus Aegidius’, Moreana, vol. 4, n°15-16, 1967, p.85-86.
26
‘Throughout his life Erasmus remained his close friend and adviser’, according to
Allen. Desiderius Erasmus, Opus Epist. to John Colet vol I, p.413; M. De
Schepper, ‘Pieter Gillis (1486-1533), Antwerpse humanist en vriend van
Erasmus,’ in Miscellanea J.-P. van den Branden, Erasmus ab Anderlaco, Brussel,
Archief- en Bibliotheekwezen in België, 1995, p.284-285.
27
In 1510 even as first Secretary of the City of Antwerp. M. De Schepper, ‘Pieter
Gillis (1486-1533), Antwerpse humanist en vriend van Erasmus,’ in Miscellanea
J.-P. van den Branden, Erasmus ab Anderlaco, Archief-en Bibliotheekwezen in
België, Brussel, 1995, p.285; Antwerp was one of the four major cities of Brabant,
celebrated in a poem by Gillis and represented in the Estates of
Brabant. I. Bejczy, ‘Un poème inconnu de Pieter Gillis sur les villes de Brabant
(1531/33)’, Humanistica Lovaniensia, 47, 1998, p.67-74.
166 Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 Maarten M.K. VERMEIR
28
M. De Schepper, ‘Pieter Gillis (1486-1533), Antwerpse humanist en vriend van
Erasmus,’ in Miscellanea J.-P. van den Branden, Erasmus ab Anderlaco, Archief-
en Bibliotheekwezen in België, Brussel, 1995, p. 290.
29
For the most accurate publications on the life and thought of Sir Thomas More,
see the articles edited by Moreana.
30
M. De Schepper, ‘Pieter Gillis (1486-1533), Antwerpse humanist en vriend van
Erasmus,’ in Miscellanea J.-P. van den Branden, Erasmus ab Anderlaco, Archief-
en Bibliotheekwezen in België, Brussel, 1995, p. 287-288.
31
G. Degueldre, ‘Een dubbele identiteit: Pieter Gielis, griffier en humanist, heer van
“De Biecorf”, en Pieter Gielis, meersenier, heer van “De Spiegel”’, Bulletin van
de Antwerpse Vereniging voor Bodem- en Grotonderzoek, 1, 1988, p.1-22; Opus
Epist. II 1514-1517, Oxonii in Typographeo Clarendoniano, MCMX Allen, II, e.
332, p.68, l.15-19.
Maarten M.K. VERMEIR Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 167
32
W. Ribhegge, Erasmus von Rotterdam, Darmstadt, Primus Verlag, 2010, p. 87-88.
33
A. Gerlo, Erasmus van Rotterdam: Zeven studies, Brussel UP, 1988, p.54-56.
168 Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 Maarten M.K. VERMEIR
34
The relationship between More, Gillis, Erasmus and Chancellor Jean le Sauvage
will be subject of a following treatise of the present author.
35
CWE 4, p.447; Opus Epis. collegii mertonensis socium, Tom. II 1514-1517,
Oxonii in Typographeo Clarendoniano, MCMX, e. 481, p.372, l.62-80.
Maarten M.K. VERMEIR Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 169
36
W. Blockmans, ‘Erasmus’ politieke theorie en de praxis van zijn tijd’ in G.
Jensma (et al.), Erasmus: de actualteit van zijn denken, Walburg, Zutphen, 1996,
p.57-72.
37
Ibid., p.65.
170 Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 Maarten M.K. VERMEIR
38
F. Oakley, ‘Christian obedience and authority, 1520-1550’ in J. Burns, The
Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450-1700, Cambridge UP, p.159-182.
39
J. Hankins, Renaissance Civic Humanism, Cambridge UP, 2000, p.12.
Maarten M.K. VERMEIR Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 171
40
CW 4, 226-227.
41
CW 4, 32-35.
42
CW 4, 20-21.
172 Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 Maarten M.K. VERMEIR
43
CW 4, 106/30-108/19.
Maarten M.K. VERMEIR Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 173
44
G. Logan, The meaning of More’s Utopia, Princeton UP, 1983, p.8-9.
45
Opus Epist. collegii mertonensis socium, Tom. II 1514-1517, Oxonii in
Typographeo Clarendoniano, MCMX, e. 481, p.372, l.80.
46
E. Surtz, ‘Utopia as a work of literary art’, CW 4, clxxx-clxxxi.
Maarten M.K. VERMEIR Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 175
47
With the ancient Greek etymologically understanding of ‘hythlos’ as ‘nonsense’,
without any doubt; and ‘daios’ as ‘hostile’ or ‘destructive’. H. G. Liddell and R.
Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford UP, 1968, p.366; N. G. Wilson, ‘The
name Hythlodaeus’, Moreana, Vol. 29, n°110, June 1992, p.33.
48
Opus Epis. collegii mertonensis socium, Tom. II 1514-1517, Oxonii in
Typographeo Clarendoniano, MCMX, e. 484, p.375 r 1-15.
49
CW 4, 2-3. In a letter of 17 October, 1516, Erasmus asked Gillis to write a
prefatory letter - scholars assume for Utopia: Erasmus had just said in the
sentence before that he was ‘furnishing’ (adornare) ‘Nusquam(a)‘ (so literally, it
could be read as the simple remark that he was ‘furnishing nowhere’) - with even
the explicit demand to direct this letter not to him, but rather to someone else: to
Busleyden for example. Opus Epis. collegii mertonensis socium, Tom. II 1514-
1517, Oxonii in Typographeo Clarendoniano, MCMX, e. 477, p.359 r 5-7.
176 Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 Maarten M.K. VERMEIR
50
CW 4, 52-55.
Maarten M.K. VERMEIR Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 177
51
CW 4, 106-107.
178 Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 Maarten M.K. VERMEIR
52
J. Tracy, The Politics of Erasmus, op. cit., p. 14-22.
53
CW 4, 42-43.
54
Giulia Sissa, ‘Geniales germenes de ideas. La busqueda de la perfeccion politica
de Atenas a Utopia’, Revista Internacional de Filosofia Politica, 29, 2007, p.9-34.
Maarten M.K. VERMEIR Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 179
55
CW 4, 54-59.
56
Erasmus would frequently inform Thomas More about several printings of
Utopia. He informed More that he had sent Utopia to Basel. Opus Epis collegii
mertonensis socium, Tom. II 1514-1517, Oxonii in Typographeo Clarendoniano,
MCMX, e. 584, p.576 r 15-17. He informed him that the Paris edition was full of
mistakes; that the printing of the Basel edition was delayed by the ‘elegant preface
of Budé’, but now finally started; and that he had threatened Basel with his
vengeance if they wouldn’t handle the edition of Utopia with more care than they
normally edit his own works with. Opus Epis. collegii mertonensis socium, Tom.
III 1517-1519, Oxonii in Typographeo Clarendoniano, MCMXIII, e. 785, p.238 r
14-15; p.240 r 50-53.
180 Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 Maarten M.K. VERMEIR
57
CW 4, 42-43.
58
CW 4, 12-13.
59
CW 4, 28-29.
Maarten M.K. VERMEIR Moreana Vol. 49, 187-188 181
is yours, not mine’ 60 – and had even finished this book in the house
of his English friend. Erasmus did never explicitly admit such major
role in the creation and genesis of Utopia, written by his closest
friend. 61 Such alleged and elaborated cover would not have been
without good reasons. For the same reasons of safety, Erasmus was
proved to be the author of Julius exclusus e coelis himself, only in the
second half of the twentieth century. 62 Of course in the figure of
Raphael Hythlodaeus there still remains an important dose of
fiction: some uncharacteristic but unessential attributes and
accessories are logically needed to masquerade someone concealing
without changing his personal, essential identity. Under this cloak
and all superficial disguise, we still can hear the heart of a passionate
man beating, beautifully described by Pieter Gillis: “To my mind he
was a man superior even to Ulysses himself in his knowledge of
countries, men, and affairs. I think he has had no equal anywhere in
the last eight hundred years.” 63 Did they all pay tribute to a
‘Hythlodaeus’: enemy and destroyer of nonsense? Did they honor a
foxy man, like Ulysses a master of disguise?
60
CWE 27, p.83; Opera Omnia IV-3, O. Herding and F. Schalk, ed., Amsterdam,
North-Holland Publishing Company, 1974, p.68.
61
A. Gerlo, op.cit., p.54-56.
62
A. Gerlo, ‘De Iulius Exclusus e coelis in de briefwisseling van Erasmus’ in
Miscellanea J.-P. van den Branden, Erasmus ab Anderlaco, Brussel, Archief-en
Bibliotheekwezen in België, 1995, p.65-97.
63
CW 4, 20-21.