The Age of Erasmus

The biographical novel "The Age of Erasmus" gives the life of the 16th century Dutch philosopher, scholar and Catholic theologian, Erasmus of Rotterdam. Erasmus is famous for his theological writings on the abuses of the Catholic Church, and also for his theological contentions with his contemporary Martin Luther, particularly on the subject of human free will. The novel is based on the lectures by author P.S. Allen, delivered to Universities in Oxford and London. He explains, "The period of the Transalpine Renaissance corresponds roughly with the life of Erasmus (1466-1536); from the days when Northern scholars began to win fame for themselves in reborn Italy, until the width of the humanistic outlook was narrowed and the progress of the reawakened studies overwhelmed by the tornado of the Reformation. The aim of these lectures is not so much to draw the outlines of the Renaissance in the North as to present sketches of the world through which Erasmus passed, and to view it as it appeared to him and to some of his contemporaries, famous or obscure. And firstly of the generation that preceded him in the wide but undefined region known then as Germany."