The Merits of Being Obscure: Erasmus and Budé Debate the Style

198
Momma VoL46, 177-178
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11\1· AB· ALBERTO' DVRERO·AD
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Joseph Wallace
Joseph Wallace
Momma Vo1.46177-178
199
The Merits of Being Obscure: Erasmus
and Bude Debate the Style, Shape, and
Audience of Humanist Scholarship
Joseph Wallace
THN' KPEJ'fT.Q. ·TA· zYTrpA... .\.
MATA' m:SEI
·j./I.DXX.VI·
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The author examines the epistolary exchange between Desiderius Erasmus
and Guillaume Bude from 1516 to 1519 in the context of Bude's De Asse et
partibus eius and Erasmus's Adagia. The two humanists argued about the
proper style of intellectual exchange and the proper audience for their
works.
Bude believed that men like himself and Erasmus should
concentrate only on subjects that are too difficult for average scholars,
while Erasmus wanted his works to be accessible to the entire learned
world. The difference of opinion reveals two radically different views of the
style, content, purpose, and audience of humanist scholarship in the early
sixteenth century.
Key words: scholarship, epistolary exchange, style, obscurity,
digression
L'auteur examine l'echange episcolaire entre Didier Erasme ct Guillaume Bude de 1516 a
1519 dans Ie cadre du De Asse et partibus eius de Bude et l'Adagia d'EI"asme. Les
deux humanisces s'opposaient quant au style propre al'echange intellectud et au lectorat
propre aleurs a:uvres. Bude pensait que des hommes comme lui-mi!me et Erasme devaient
se concentrer uniquement sur des sujets trop difficiles pour le commun des erudits, tandis
qu 'Erasme souhaitait que ses a:uvres soient accessibles au monde erudit. ewe divergence
d'opinions revele deux notions radicalement differences du style, du contenu, du but, et du
lectorat humaniste au debut du XVI cme sieck.
Mots~cles: erudition, echange epistolaire, style, obscurite, digression
El autor examina el intercambio epistolar entre Desiderio Erasmo y
Guillaume Bude desde 1516 hasta 1519 en el contexto de la De Asse et partibus
tius de Bude y del Adagia de Erasmo. Ambos humanistas discutieron sobre el
estilo apropiado de intercambio intellectual as! como sobre el publico
apropiado de sus obras. Bude pensaba que los hombres como el y Erasmo
200
Moreal1a Vol.46, 177-178 Joseph Wallace
deben concentrarse s610 en aquellos temas que resu1tan demasiado dificiles
para el estudioso medio, mientras que Erasmo esperaba que sus obras
fueran accesib1es para ca1quier erudito. La diferencia de opini6n revel a dos
puntos de vista radica1mente diferentes en el estilo, contenido y prop6sito
de 1a erudici6n humanist a, as! como de sus lectores a principios del sig10
XVI.
Palabras clave: erudici6n, intercambio epistolar, estilo, oscuridad,
digresi6n
. . .
In March of 1515 the French humanist Guillaume Bude (1467­
1540) published the first edition of De Asse, his treatise on Roman
coinage that would go through four different editions in his lifetime,
and two after his death.! On par with the Adages of Erasmus (1466­
1536) in range of classical reference, it was immediately well
2
received. Around the time of the publication of the second edition
of De Asse in 1516, Bude began exchanging letters with Erasmus. This
exchange, "one of the great humanist correspondences of the early
sixteenth century,,,3 began with the two sharing conjectures on
See Louis Delaruelle, Etudes sur L'Humanisme Fran~ais: Guillaume Bude, /es
origins, /es debuts, /es idees maftresses, Paris, Librairie Honore Champion, 1907,
p. xxiii-xxiv; and Barbara Bowen, "Rabelais's Unreadable Books" in
Renaissance Quarterly 48.4, Winter 1995, p. 742-758. John Edwin Sandys gives
a more generaus number, writing that "in twenty years [it] passed through ten
editions" (A History oj Classical Scholarship, vol. 2, Cambridge UP, 1908, p.
171). R. R. Bolgar agrees with Sandys (The Classical Heritage and Its
Beneficiaries, Cambridge UP, 1954, p. 376-377).
David McNeil notes that the success of De Asse may have had to do with the fact
that "[i]n 1515 compendia of classical sayings, phrases, and information were still
scarce; classical texts were only beginning to be widely known" (Guillaume Bude
and Humanism in the Reign oj Francis 1, Geneva, Libnuie Draz, 1975, p. 26).
3 Seth Lerer, Error and the Academic Self: The Scholarly Imagination, Medieval to
Modern, New York, Columbia UP, 2002, p. 36.
I
Joseph Wallace MoreanaVo1.46177-178
201
biblical Greek and quickly shifted to the proper subjects for
humanistic inquiry as well as the style in which those inquiries
should be written. The exchange became a debate after Bude
requested that Erasmus respond to passages in De Asse, which
Erasmus found overly difficult and digressive. Following the terms
of the exchange between the two great humanists, modern scholars
of De Asse have based much of their investigation on Erasmus's
original critiques of what he saw as its difficult style and excessive
digression. Their work has produced justifications and explanations
of De Asse's obscurity and digressions, and yet none of these critics
has read the epistolary debate stimulated by De Asse on its own
terms, as a debate about the proper audience for humanistic texts
and the shape of the scholarly community they should create. This
essay aligns the debate between Bude and Erasmus with their
respective visions of humanistic community as contained in both De
Asse and some of Erasmus's longer commentaries in his Chiliades.
While some modern scholars of Bude have addressed De Asse's
obscurity and difficulty, they most often attempt to explain the
internal logiC of Bude's work without noticing how it presented
itself to the wider community of humanist readers. 4 Louis Delaruelle
argues for a division of the work into scientific portions and
digressions on political and social issues. 5 Marie-Madeleine de La
Garanderie has offered a comprehensive explanation that argues that
De Asse's obscurity is the key to both its organizational principle and
4
5
Barbara Bowen's 1995 at1icle summarizes critics' attempts to deal with Bude's
obscurity but does not offer her own interpretation of De Asse's style. Jean
Plattard (Guillaume Bude [1488-1540] et Les Origines de L'Humanisme
Francais, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1966) and McNeil both comment upon Bude's
obscurity without attempting to explain it.
See Delaruelle, p. 130-198.
202
MorcanaVo1.46 , 177-178 Joseph Wallace
its mystical significance, what she calls its "harmonie secrete.,,6 As
La Garanderie indicates, Bude's obscurity and digressions were a
part of his larger Christian project that would lead the scholar to the
secrets of divine mystery through a philology whose primary goal
was to understand history's moral and ethical value.? As she has
argued elsewhere, "It is impossible to understand Bude without
reference to Christian mysticism."s Where La Garanderie sees a
transcendent unity emerging from Bude's digressions, Jean-Claude
Margolin sees evidence of Bude's struggles with the contingency and
disorder of history. He has argued that Bude's digressions should be
viewed as commentaries on his scientific and historical research,
linking his research on the past to his own society.9 According to
Margolin, the ultimate value of De Asse is that it offered a way to read
the documents of the past in a way that could help the modern
world, though the aid it offered was based on contingency and
historical difference. Bude's goal was
a critical study of ancient civilization, which, beyond the
literary, iconographic, or material sources, would be able to
reveal a set of issues that might bring about a political,
ethical, intellectual, and spiritual awakening of modern
civilization and culture, and yet whose permanent value
would no longer appear linked to a fixed or etemallength of
6 See
7
8
9
Marie-Madeleine de La Garandelie, "L'Harmonie secrete du De Asse de
Guillaume Sude," in Bulletin de [,Association Guillaume Bude, 4e serie, no. 4,
Dec. 1968 , p. 473-486.
Ibid., p. 481-482.
Marie-Madeleine de La Garanderie, "Guillaume Sude, A Philosopher of Culture"
in Sixteenth Century 10urnaI19.3 , 1988, p. 381.
See Jean-Claude Margolin , "De la digression au commentaire: pour une lecture
humaniste du De Asse de Guillaume Sude" in Neo-Latin and the Vernacular in
Renaissance France, ed. Grahame Castor and Terence Cave, Oxford, Clarendon
Press, 1984, p. 1-25.
Joseph Wallace Morcana Vo1.46177-178
203
time, but rather would be threatened by the contingenc?; of
history or the reconsideration of a dislocated time period. I
Bude's digressions in De Asse mirror his view of history as contingent
and messy, but they also use the contingency of history to comment
on the present. Both La Garanderie and Margolin offer ways to read
the digressions of De Asse in terms of Bude's views on philosophy,
history, and society, and both use these perspectives to answer
Erasmus's original criticism of the work.
Yet, while these critical perspectives are valuable and
persuasive assessments of Bude's goals in De Asse, they do not fully
address the terms and content of the epistolary debate between
Erasmus and Bude. While the two certainly did argue about De
Asse's relative unity or disunity, those arguments more frequently
turned into arguments over the proper style in which humanist texts
should be WTitten and the ways in which they define and reach out
to their audiences. What is lacking is a study of the value Bude and
Erasmus placed on obscurity and digression, or the lack thereof, for
the practice of philology conceived as a tool for exchanging
knowledge within an intellectual community. As scholars such as
Lisa Jardine have reminded us, letters were often thought of in terms
of the conscious construction of reputation in a social world of
fellow scholars.ll Erasmus was perhaps the only humanist of
Ibid., p. 22: "une etude critique ... de la civilisation antique, qui puisse faire
emerger, par-dela les documents lilteraires, iconographiques ou materiels, une
serie de problematiques utiles 11 une prise de conscience politi que, ethique,
intellectuelle et spirituelle de la civilisation et de la culture modernes, dont les
valeurs permanentes n ' apparaissant plus comme liees 11 une duree immobile ou
etemisee, mais menacees par la contingence de I'histoire ou les remises en cause
d'un temps disloque."
11 See Lisa Jardine, Erasmus, Man of Letters: The Construction of Charisma in
Print, Princeton UP, 1993, especially p. 151-155 . See also See Marie-Madeleine
de La Garanderie's edition of the epistolary exchange, La Correspondance
10
204
Mareana Vol. 46, 177-178 Joseph Wallace
sufficient stature to criticize De Asse, and his fellow humanists took
an interest in his debate with Bude. Erasmus's 1517 collection of
letters, "Aliquot Epistolae sane quam elegantes" (A number of highly
elegant letters), is prefaced by a letter from Peter Wilhelm (Petrus
Aegidus) to Antony Clava. Wilhelm writes:
I know that not only to you , most learned of men, but also to
all other learned men, it will be an exceedingly joyous
spectacle to behold these two lords of letters, one from
France, and one from our parts, meeting together on the field
of eloquence, and v..rith such powers on each side, and so
utterly different, that you will doubt which one to set before
the other, but yet will marvel that both together come out on
top. 12
In 1517 Cuthbert Tunstall wrote to Bude and mentioned his friendly
epistolary exchange with Erasmus. Tunstall portrays himself as
unworthy to enter into discussion with the two greatest scholars of
the day: "I thought modesty demanded imperatively that I should
withdraw at the earliest moment from the arena in which two
heavyweights of our generation in the literary way were competing
[inter se certarent] in an interchange of most friendly letters, each
passing scholarly criticisms on the other.,,13 Contemporaries of
d'Erasme et de Guillaume Bude, Paris, Librairie Philosophique 1. Vrin, 1967, p.
11-12, for the editions of letters published by Bude and Erasmus.
2
1 "Scio quum aliis eruditis omnibus, tum tibi eruditissimo vehementer fore
iucundum spectaculum videre duos lilterarum proceres, alterum a Gallis, alterum
a nostratibus, veluti in quodam eloquentiae campo commissos, sic suis utrunque
virtutibus, eisque diversis maximum, ut dubites utrum utri anteponas, sed tamen
unumquenque sic mireris ut summum" (Opus Epistoiarum Des. Erasmi, ed. P. S.
Allen, vol. 2, Oxford UP, 1992, p. 602). Quotations from Allen's edition of
Erasmus's correspondence are cited by volume and page number.
13 Collected Works of Erasmus (CWE), vol. 4., Toronto, University of Toronto Press,
1969-, p. 326; Allen 2, 538. I quote the Collected Works of Erasmus for
translations of all of Erasmus's and Bude's letters as well as Erasmus's Adages,
and will cite this work in the text by volume and page number. Occasionally, as
Joseph Wallace Mareana Vol.46177-178
205
Erasmus and Bude thought of theirs as a conflict between the two
greatest humanists of the age; more was at stake in their debate than
simply the judgment of a single work of scholarship. Rather, the
debate represented their differences over methods of intellectual
exchange, played out, often expliCitly, in the presence of an attentive
community of readers.
Appropriately enough, the epistolary exchange began with the
two scholars exchanging learned opinions with each other. Erasmus
had included an encomium of Bude in his notes on St. Luke in his
translation of the New Testament, and Bude had been encouraged by
Francois Deloynes to correspond with Erasmus.!4 The first extant
letter of the exchange came from Bude, who, after discussing
Erasmus's translation of the New Testament, chided him for
spending so much of his time on MITTOAO'YTtPU-rU (trivialities) (Allen
2, 232; eWE 3, 279). This charge may seem patently wrongheaded, or
at best merely designed to provoke retaliation, as Louis Delaruelle
argues: "It is readily apparent that he meant no harm; he was only
trying, in raising this objection, to provoke a reply from Erasmus and
to lead him into the kind of epistolary conflict that would hold the
attention of the scholarly world.,,!5 Yet the conflict was a real one, as
La Garanderie explains: "[Erasmus] was above all solicitous of
pedagogical efficacy, and in this regard thought that works which
were teachable, simple, with a modest, or even attractive title, were
here, I supplement the CWE with the original Latin and Greek from Allen's
edition and will cite that edition in the text by volume and page number as well.
l4 La Correspondance, ed. La Garanderie, p. 53.
lS Louis Delaruelle, "Une amitie des humanistes: Etude sur les relations de Bude et
d'Erasme d'apres leur correspondance (1516-1531)," in Le Musee beige, tome IX,
1905, p. 321-351: "Pourtant, il est bien visible qu'il n'y entendait pas malice; il
ne cherchait, en emettant ce jugement, qu'a provoquer une replique d'Erasme, et a
l'amener a une sorte de duel epistolaire qui retiendrait sur eux I'attention du
monde erudit" (p. 325).
206
Moreana Vo1.46, 177-178 Joseph Wallace
the best. Bude preferred scholarly books which were massive,
serious, and even uninviting.,,16 The conflict between Bude and
Erasmus evolved into a difference of opinion regarding how
knowledge should be exchanged between scholars and friends. In
their letters, literary style was discussed in tandem with its effect on
intellectual exchange and humanistic scholarship.
The dispute is underpinned from their first letter by concern
for reputation and a place in the scholarly world. Bude charges
Erasmus with not fulfilling his proper scholarly role:
I could wish that were yoursel£ as well satisfied as I am with
these grand and noble subjects; for now I want to speak to
you seriously. To be perfectly frank, I often exclaim with
astonishment when I see you misusing such eloquence and
such intellectual gifts on the trivialities in which you
sometimes give your mind a rest, as if the right course were
not to leave ordinary and unimportant topics to men with
minds of similar caliber. But you devote the same attention
to subjects of the first rank and third, and even lower, and
could justly be criticized on two counts: first, that you step in
and deprive lesser men of moderate attainments of their
chance to shine, and second, that you waste your own divine
fire on things unworthy of it; besides which you reduce the
value men set on distinction of both language and thought ­
something like what the ancients used to call "lese-majeste."
(eWE 3, 279-280)17
It is not simply that Bude thinks Erasmus should focus on more
noble topics, but that he thinks that Erasmus is neglecting his
responsibility to the intellectual world. Erasmus was
16 La
17
Correspondance, ed. La Garandelie, p. 57n31: "Mais il est avant tout soueieux
d'effteaeite pectagogique, et pense qu'a eet egard les ouvrages maniables, simples,
au titre modeste, voire attrayant, sont les meilleurs. Bude prerere Ie livre
seientifique un peu massif, serieux, voire rebarbatif."
This paragraph is almost entirely in Greek in the original letter.
Joseph Wallace Moreana Vo1.46177-178
207
understandably confused as to just what constituted "trivialities"
and requested clarification, stating that everything of his is trifling
but that he finds it somehow more attractive to "mix serious topics
with my trifles than to show myself a trifler on great topics" (CWE 3,
307). Bude had in mind principally Erasmus's De Copia, "which in my
opinion and that of many good judges and supporters of yours does
not live up to such a sounding title. By title I mean not only the
word Copia but the name Erasmus" (CWE 3, 331). As for Erasmus's
Parabolae, "since you have drawn from common sources, you might
be thought to have snatched them from the grasp of lesser men"
(ibid.). With Erasmus's response the debate expanded to include the
proper audience for humanistic studies and the appropriate style to
address it, and eventually each scholar produced what are almost
short treatises on their respective views.
Erasmus defends his De Copia by appealing to its usefulness, a
concept on which the rest of the debate turns. As he states, "Finally,
the man whose sole object is not to advertise himself but to help
other people, asks not so much Is it grand, my chosen field? as Is it
useful? ... I write these things not for your Persius or your Laelius but
for children and dullards" (CWE 4, 104-105). For Erasmus, De Copia
was primarily an educational work, designed to provide an
introduction to the concept of copia both for scholars and students.
Bude had a much different idea of what was educational and who
was to be educated; this idea was based on his own ornate literary
style. In his first letter, Bude wrote that "You wrote to me in the old
Laconic style [Laconice], and I have replied in the Asianic [Asiatice],
or anything there may be more verbose" (CWE 3, 280; Allen 2, 233).
Though Bude was clearly joking about the respective lengths of their
letters (Erasmus's first letter has been lost), this distinction between
the plain, Spartan style of Erasmus and the ornate, Asiatic style of
208
Morcana Vol.46, 177-178 Joseph Wallace
Bude would make its way back into the debate when Erasmus had a
chance to comment on this aspect of Bude's De Asse, after Bude asked
for Erasmus's thoughts on it. IS Erasmus's comments share a common
thread with his defense of De Copia, contrasting a useful focus on
teaching with Bude's flood of words and references.
Erasmus argues that Bude's obscurity needlessly occludes his
sense and merely causes unnecessary conflict. He notes that "you
give the impression of trying to please Apollo rather than Midas, yet
on that point you deliberately put in a touch of Lycophron's
obscurity [AUK0<PPWV8tOv n], 19 and made us think of Loxias or some
other riddling oracle" (CWE 4,109; Allen 2, 368). Later he says that
"you are sometimes almost overwhelmed and weighed down by the
wealth [copia] of important materials .., and you are not allowed to
know when to stop" (CWE 4, 110; Allen 2, 369)20 Erasmus ends his
letter with his judgment on De Asse that would provoke the most
substantive discussions yet between the two:
18 Juan Luis Vives glosses the difference between the Asiatic and Spartan styles in
his 1532 De Ratione Dicendi. For him, both styles departed from the Attic ideal,
and this is perhaps Bude's point. The Asiatic style was traditionally the style of
youthful exuberance; as Vives writes, "Ita quod eorum patres Athenis nati uno
verbo essent elocuti, ipsi per ambages expressere" (thus, what their fathers born in
Athens would have said in one word they express in a roundabout way). As for
the Spartan style, "Brevissimi omnium et praecisi erant Lacones, qui velut punctis
quibusdam utebantur potius quam sermone" (Briefest and most precise of all were
the Spartans, who would rather use something like a series of dots than speech).
This work may be consulted in the dual Spanish and Latin edition, Del Arte de
Habiar, Granada, Universidad de Granada, 2000, p. 57.
19The eWE' s translation inserts the word "obscurity," which is not present in
Erasmus's original Greek and Latin. However, the word is appropriate because
Erasmus was probably thinking of characterizations of Lycophron that
emphasized his "darkness," such as that by Statius in his Silvae: "carmina ...
Lycophronis atri" (V.iii.157).
2G.y-his last phrase, neque sinaris manum de tabula tollere, comes from an adage
(Liii.9).
Joseph Wallace Morcana Vo1.46 177-178
209
Yet in what is produced by art, men's taste differ, whereas
what comes by nature has some secret power of touching and
attracting everyone, and gives much more delight as it makes
its quiet way into men's hearts, as though it were akin to
them. As for the great love of your own country which you
show everywhere, many will give you credit for it, nobody
but will readily overlook it; although in my opinion it is more
worthy of a philosopher to deal with men and ideas in such a
way that we feel this world to be the common homeland of us
all, even though I admit France to be the most beautiful
region of the Christian world. Besides this, while you often
expand into digressions [rrapcKpuocU;] both very scholarly
and very entertaining, and spend perhaps rather a long time
on them, there is some danger that a reader difficult to please
may say to himself: This is all very good and splendid, but (as
they used to say What has this to do with Dionysus?) what
has it to do with the "as"? (eWE 4, 110; Allen 2, 369)21
For Erasmus, Bude's overly nationalistic attitudes were linked to his
method of scholarship; Bude viewed philology as akin to a battle,
setting authors against each other as in war, though for Erasmus, at
least in this letter, scholarship should seek to minimize conflict,
both among nations and friends. 22
The discussion ends with two long letters in which each
scholar sets out his theory of literary style. Bude subtly implies that
Erasmus's concern with being understood by all people is in conflict
with his apparent disregard for his reputation:
I know we both go after reputation of no common ordinary
kind, and not by the first route that offers; and you indeed
run after it, you never rest. In fact, it is the wish to imitate
21 Again, Erasmus refers to an adage (ILiv.57): Nihil ad Bacchum.
22 James Tracy, The Politics of Erasmus: A Pacifist Intellectual and His Political
Milieu, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1978, comments on this exchange,
noting that "In patriotism [Erasmus] apparently saw only a divisive force" (p. 46).
For a similar reading of this exchange, see Hans Bots and Fran<;:oise Waquet, La
Repub/ique des Lettres, Paris, De Boeck, 1997, p. 32.
210
Moreana VoL46, 177-178
Joseph Wallace
men of the highest renown for scholarship that makes this
battle worth fighting both for us and for all those with a
desire for excellence; for all that you, my Socratic enthusiast,
began some time ago ingeniously enough to degrade yourself,
with a view to playing the part of a theologian or winning
approval for your industry from the theologians in your part
of the world [is tis theologis J. You do the same, believe it or
not, when in your letter to me you tell me to be content with
my own performance. (eWE 4, 145; Allen 2,397)
Bude accuses Erasmus of the same partiality for renown that
Erasmus lamented in Bude. In another attempt at turnabout, Bude
goes on to suggest that Erasmus's Adage on the Silenus compares
dissimilar things (most specifically St. Paul and the Silenus) just as
Bude does in his digressions: "What has all this to with Silenus, or
Dionysus himself for that matter)" The digressions in De Asse fit
together, "much as light and shade go together in a picture, if only I
have been able to achieve a fit and proper balance, as they call it"
(eWE 4, 145). The digressions do often obscure the sense, Bude
argues, but they are valuable because they serve as ornaments to the
more straightforward and dry sections of De Asse. Yet towards the
end of his letter Bude again returns to the matter of reputation.
Erasmus's reputation is so great that Bude concludes by writing, "I
perceive therefore that your reputation infringes the ancient lights
not only of myself but, I had almost said, of all our contemporaries;
to such a degree are you loved and respected by everyone, that no
one here dares even to voice any criticism, however much he may
wish to, nor even to praise you in an uncommittal manner, without
being generally suspected of collusion with the other side" (eWE 4,
151). The overall aim of Bude's letter is to suggest that his own
literary style is the most fitting for a humanistic culture of exchange
Joseph Wallace
Moreana VoL46177-178
211
and cntlcIsm, and that Erasmus focuses too much on avoiding
conflict and misunderstanding by not engaging in battle at all.
Erasmus responds to Bude's letter with a defense that begins
with a famous example of an unequal exchange. He writes, "You
have repaid my ill-educated letter with one of such exquisite
learning, giving me like Glaucus in Homer more than gold for what
was hardly bronze, and have rewarded my mediocre performance
with something so flowery and so long, it was not a letter, it was a
volume, or rather a thesaurus, in itself" (eWE 4,223). The reference
to Adage Lii.l, "The Exchange between Diomedes and Glaucus
[Diomedis &; Glauci permutatio]," introduces Erasmus's theme of
the decorum of intellectual exchange, also implying that though
Bude's style is golden, he does not know how to use it properly.
Erasmus goes on to defend his views on literary style by appealing to
the pedagogical value of clarity: "But if you suppose grandeur of style
to lie in the actual forms of expression, my own conviction is this: I
think that style of writing most exalted which is most effective in
recommending its chosen subject" (eWE 4,230). And this style also
extends to the ethical realm, as Erasmus writes, "Your great
philosopher is not the one with the finest grasp of Stoic or
Peripatetic doctrines, but he who exemplifies the principles of
philosophy in his life and character, which is philosophy's true aim.
In the same way, the task of the consummate orator is fulfilled by the
man who has carried conviction" (Ibid.). Erasmus also specifies the
proper subjects for ornate writing and for educational writing. After
designating panegyric as the only genre proper to an ornate style, he
writes that,
Nothing, I suppose, could be further from this than a style
wholly employed in teaching, and what is more, not in
teaching any subject you may choose (for the causes of
212
Moreana Vo1.46, 177-178 Joseph Wallace
thunderbolts or earthquakes might furnish forth a splendid
paragraph), but things intrinsically small and ordinary, and
moreover so difficult and involved that, no matter how
distinct and lucid and simple and appropriate your
exposition may be, even an attentive reader will scarcely
grasp them. (eWE 4, 231)
Erasmus is here commenting both on his own Adages and Bude's De
Asse, which respectively examine things "small and ordinary" and
"difficult and involved." Erasmus thinks that the principal aim of
scholarship should be to teach and that it should address a wide
range of readers. In response to Budes claim that Erasmus's readers,
though they read his works greedily the first time, "do not dip into
you again maybe for a long time, nor pursue your meaning by
frequent re/reading" (eWE 4, 148), Erasmus writes that "I suspect ...
that it is safer to help one's reader on his way with an easy style than
to frighten him away with a difficult one [difficultate], and a more
tolerable fate never to be read a second time than not to be read at
all .... After all, whose style moves more easily than Cicero's, and who
has more enthusiastic readers?" (eWE 4, 234).23 In the letters
Erasmus frequently discusses his attempts to moderate his style to
23 Erasmus
and Bude both argue that their styles please their readers, and both would
seem to have the support of Augustine, as Kathy Eden has noted. As she argues,
Augustine himself was divided on the value of obscurity, at once accepting that
"prompta vilescunt" ([readers] despise easy things) and that too much obscurity is
ultimately detrimental to interpretation. See Eden, "The Rhetorical Tradition and
Augustinian Hermeneutics in De Doctrina Christiana," Rhetorica 8.1, Winter
1990, p. 55. It should be noted that Erasmus would later move closer to Bude's
position on difficulty in his Ecclesiastes of 1535, advocating "the arousing of
appetite through difficulty," which "initiates a heuristic movement form obscurity
towards the light of perfect knowledge" (Terence Cave, The Cornucopian Text:
Problems of Writing in the French Renaissance, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1979,
p. 108). And yet the contexts of the two models of interpretations are very
different: Erasmus pre felTed clarity in scholarship, difficulty in "prophetic
discourse" (ibid.).
Joseph Wallace Morcana Vo146177-178
213
please a wide range of readers; in his complaints against Budes
difficult style Erasmus is trying to promote a specific kind of
scholarly conversation and exchange, which is a project he began in
his Adages.
In many of the longer adages, Erasmus maintains that his goal
is to be useful to his readers, and consequently he is critical of those
scholars whose works are overly packed with references. The adage
'The Labors of Hercules [Herculei labores]," III.i.l, deals with
Erasmus's method of collecting and writing the Adages, and he uses it
to respond to certain criticisms of the Adages themselves.24 On the
charge that he may have left some things out of his explanations, he
writes, "Then think what tedious pedantry it would have been to
collect from every quarter all that could in any way have been
adapted to the enrichment of a proverb J" (eWE 34, 176). In fact,
Erasmus would criticize Bude for this very fault about ten years
For Erasmus, setting limits on his source hunting
later. 25
contribu ted to the usefulness of his book. Yet, he also makes it clear
that his book is an open work: "Last but not least, since the work
knows no limits and aims at being generally useful, is there any
reason why we should not share the labour and by our joint efforts
finish it? I have completed my task, I am tired and hand on the torch;
let me have a successor who is ready to take his turn" (eWE 34,180).
In the adage "A dung/beetle hunting an eagle [Scarabeus aquilam
quaerit]," III.viU, Erasmus goes to great lengths to conunent on
every aspect of the adage, but at the end of his explanation says that
this enrichment was done to rebuff those critics who might think
that the Adages were not expansive enough: "I wanted to show these
24
25
The expanded essay appeared in the 1508 Aldine edition of the Chiliades.
See CWE 4, 233 .
214
Moreal1a Vo1.46, 177-178 Joseph Wallace
people certainly that I have chosen to be brief in the rest of the book;
otherwise I would not have been short of matter to enrich it if I had
thought more of showing off my eloquence than of giving pleasure to
the reader" (CWE 35, 213-214). If Erasmus wanted to impress his
readers with his erudition, he could have expanded his adages;
rather, he wanted to produce a text that invites communal effort. As
Kathy Eden writes, "What holds for the writer seeking glory for
himself ... does not hold for the one who aims at being useful to the
community.,, 26 These passages from the Adages foreshadow the
position Erasmus would take with Bude on the subject of
digressions and obscurity in general.
As becomes clear in the Adages, the main difference between
Bude and Erasmus is their views on what constitutes difficult
subjects and how they should be treated. In the adage "The Sileni of
Alcibiades [Sileni Alcibiadis] ," II Liii.l, Erasmus writes that "So true
is it in things of every sort that w hat is excellent is least
conspicuous" (CWE 34, 266). For Erasmus, this was not only a fact
of nature but also a moral injunction applicable to scholarly
exchange. As he would later write to Bude in defense of simplicity,
"For it does not immediately follow that what is most difficult is also
at the same time most exalted; on the contrary, we usually find that
the most difficult things are those which are most minute. This class
of subjects, all the same, has its virtues; but in my opinion they
include brilliance and grandeur least of all" (CWE 4, 232). As with
the Silenus, the smallest and most mundane things are the things
Joseph Wallace Friends Hold All Things in Commoll: Tradition, Intellectual Property, and
the "Adages " of Erasmus , New Haven , Yale University Press, 2001, p. 161.
Eden sees in these adages evidence of Erasmus's adherence to Hora ti an
"oeconomia, which entails both selecting the most appropriate details and
arranging them fo r the maximum artistic effect" (p. 160).
215
that contain the greatest truths, yet their exteriors are often knotty,
difficult, or obscure, and so should be explicated with the simplest
language. The interior truths which are unlocked are inherently
simple and elegant, quite the opposite of their intricate containers.
To illustrate this point Erasmus uses the metaphor of a tree and its
seed : "Look at the trees: their flowers and leaves appeal to every eye,
and their great bulk is inescapable, whereas the seed which contains
the vital force of the whole - what a tiny thing it is, how well
concealed, how far from appealing to the eye, how little given to self­
advertizement" (CWE 34,266). The very system of the Adages seems
to accord with this statement. In 'The Labours of Hercules"
Erasmus writes that the Adages have no order becau se they are in
essence open for all to approach, as he would later write to Bude that
"The system of my Chiliades is such that, whenever you have finished
an adage, you can imagine that you have come to the end of the
volume," while Bude's De Asse "all holds together like a chain, so that
there is not the same scope for longer digressions" (CWE 4, 232).
Indeed, Budes views on difficulty and obscurity are almost the exact
opposite of Erasmus's, though they were no less developed, as a
reading of De Asse in context of the Adages and the letters
demonstrates.
The digressions in De Asse have been characterized as
concerned with "political economy, cultural nationalism, and
ecclesiastical policy,,, 27 and have been the main subject of modern
27 McNeil ,
26 Eden,
Moreana Vo1.46177-178
p. 29. McNeil summarizes the positions of Louis Delaruelle and Marie­
Madeleine de La Garanderie. The position of Delaruelle has been discussed
above (see note 4). Marie-Madeleine de La Garanderie devoted a significant
portion of her 1976 thesis to the final digression, or epilogue, in De Asse (See
Christianisme et Lettres Profanes (J 51 5-1 535): Essai sur les Mentalites des
Milieux Intellectuels Parisiens et sur la Pellsee de Guillaume Bud!, Paris,
Librairie Honore Champion , 1976, p. 121-160).
216
Moreana Vo1.46, 177-178 Joseph Wallace
scholarship on the book; yet their import as digressions concerned
with pedagogy and intellectual exchange has not been explored. In
the context of the well-publicized epistolary exchange, De Asse
appears as a work as much about Budes investigative method as
about the results of his investigations. De Asse promotes its own
system of intellectual commerce, which is all the more well-defined
by its divergence from that of Erasmus in his Adages. But just like the
Adages, De Asse is itself a handbook on how to read it: a running
commentary on its own methods and their instructional value.
In the preface of De Asse Bude appears to want to control how
others read his book, as he sets out the principal themes of the work,
discusses his methods, and defends his use of obscurity. From the
beginning Bude emphasizes the monumental, yet solitary, task of
philological work. The purpose of the book is the restoration of
ancient knowledge, "In truth, so that posterity may again put to
their original uses those newfound things originally discovered in
antiquity, and which the ancients used, but that are now stiff with
age, neglected by the inattention of the centuries, and given over to
the flux of history.,,28 Yet Bude emphasizes that he is alone among
his contemporaries in this quest because the scholarly world has not
investigated the ancient world properly: "Truly, the account and
reckoning of this matter is really in no sense a popular one, so that
the things of which I judge, I can only judge rightly if I am able to do
Joseph Wallace Bude, De Asse et partibus eius, vol. 2 of his Opera Omnia, Basel, 1557; reprint,
Farnsborough, Hants., Gregg Press Ltd., 1966, p. 1: " Verumenimvero res multae
praeciarae ab antiquis vel inventae, vel usurpatae, & in eorum usu positae, ita vel
aevi situ squalidae, vel incuria temporum neglectae, vel rerum inclinationibus diu
desitae fuerunt , ut iterum inveniendas in usum suum easdem posteritas habuerit."
All translations from De Asse are my own. I have silently modernized Greek and
Latin spelling and expanded all abbreviations.
217
so alone.,, 29 The materials that Bude works with are jumbled and
mangled; his method takes into account the twisted state of
scholarship on the ancient world: "For I found these things not by
luck, as sometimes results from wide reading, but these things were
found out by following the traces, one part withered with age, and
another tangled up in knots.,,3o Philology is not only a solitary,
perplexing task in itself, but is also made more difficult because of
the dilapidated state of the texts themselves.
Bude certainly agrees with Erasmus that philology is hard
work, but for Bude it is a solitary effort, and at the end of his preface
he sets out his own ideas about how his book should be approached,
which differ from those Erasmus delineated in 'The Labors of
Hercules." In fact, Bude directly addresses how critics should judge
his style. First,
Since we are necessarily judged by our faculty with language,
when I myself have put my books into the public sphere, I
want to warn those critics not to form their critical opinion
from my sometimes youthful style, reveling with the
excitement of a novice, but from my more austere style,
which even now has already warmed to the task and settled
down. Not otherwise than when those who are to form a
judgment on wine take a drink from a jar or cask, rather than
a lake. 31
29 Ibid:
28
Moreana Vo1.46 177-178
"At vero huius ea ratio est & conditio, minime quidem ipsa popularis, ut
quas res in iudicium affero, iis de rebus censuisse recte non nisi solus & unus
possim."
30 Bude, p. 1-2: " Nam cum res attuli non f0l1e fortuna repertas, ut legendo fit
interdum, sed omnibus vestigiis indagatas, iisque partim exo1etis, partim perplexe
involutis."
31 Bude, p. 2: "Et quando ita necesse est, ut ex oratione nosra aestimatio nostri fiat,
quum libris in publicum editis calculum ipse iudicibus iam porrexerim, monitos
eos velim, ut specimen iudicii non a musteo adhuc stylo nostro, tyrociniique
fervore exultanti, sed ab austeriore sumant, aut qui iam intepuisse & consedisse
218
Moreana Vo1.46, 177-178 Joseph Wallace
Bude is aware of the possible negative judgment of his style and yet,
in the next sentence, defends his obscurity as an instrument for
furthering scholarly exchange:
If anywhere we were more obscure than any reader could
easily or plainly understand (as certainly sometimes we were
on purpose, since we have judged it appropriate to write in
that manner) , then that is partly the place where my readers
should pour out their opinions for an entire day, and consult
with others more learned than they are; and partly where
they should not be ashamed to vigorously inquire, indeed
they should rather dwell on those places where I used
figurative language instead of pronouncing their judgment on
me too hastily and iniquitously. Farewell best of readers,
apply your mind to the same cause with me, for the first
time. 32
Bude does not represent the scholarly community as equal partners
in the production of scholarship, as Erasmus did. Rather, Bude
wants his readers to come together to interpret out his book, to
consult more learned scholars and to struggle with his ideas.
Part of the reason for Bude's insistence on the necessity of a
highly engaged and specialized scholarly community is his view that
the scholarly world is in bad shape. He writes, "I am assured that I
will make it plain that no one in eighty years, or perhaps longer, has
videatur. Non aliter atque se de vino iudicium faciendum habeant, de amphora
potius aut certe de dolio quam de lacu sumi par sit."
32 Ibid: "Sicubi obscuriores fuimus, quam ut abs quolibet lectore plane aut facile
intelligamur (ut certe interdum de industria fuimus, quoniam ita referre aut nostra
aut decori arbitrabamur) ibi ut diem ipsi partim iudicii sui diffundant, quoad alios
acriores consuluerint; partim quasi sibi haec inquirere non vacet, aut pigeat, de
figuratis locis non liquere fateantur potius, quam ut praepropere aut inique
quicquam de nobis pronuncient. Vale optime lector, & eandem in causam mecum
primo quoque tempore incumbe."
Joseph Wallace Moreana Vo1.46 177-178
219
correctly understood these terms.,,33 Furthermore, Bude doubts his
abilities because he has no one to rely on; the scholarly world has
neglected his topic: 'Truly I would like to put aside this doubt, if I
could only rely on some singular height of ingenuity, or if I could
take up this topiC with the aid of profound knowledge, but no one of
the most learned men has handled this topic with full approval
without some harm done: this will soon be apparent.,, 34 And yet
Bude's philological method does not aim at recovering an
uncomplicated past; rather, philology always has to deal with the
tangled transmission of texts and ideas.
Accordingly, Bude deploys the digression, addition, and other
stylistic devices of circumlocution in order to convey the complexity
of philological research that must take into account the errors of the
ancients themselves. In his praise of Pliny near the beginning of the
first book, he writes that Pliny is his antistcs, or his superior, and yet
he is also capable of error, as is antiquity in general: "I think that the
ancients themselves were men like us, and like us wrote some things
of which they knew very little.,,35 Bude's job is made harder by
multiple sources of error on the way to philological accuracy. The
manuscripts could be flawed, or the author himself could have been
mistaken in his information. 36 Early in the third book Bude devotes
a page-long digression to these difficulties, comparing them to
trapping Proteus. For, "under the name of Proteus I will expound
33
34
35
36
Sude, p. 19: "Planum enim facturum me confido, neminem intra octingentos
annos, ac longe plures fortasse, recte haec vocabula intellexisse."
Sude, p. 20 : "Verumenimvero earn a me suspicionem longe amoliri velim, quasi
aut ingenii singulari quodam acumine fretus, aut reconditae doctrinae fiducia earn
rem totam susceperim, quam viii tot doctissimi ne primoribus quidem digitis sine
noxa tractaverunt: id quod mox apparebit."
Sude, p. 9: "Ego vero antiquos quoque illos, homines ut nos fuisse puto, & a1iqua
etiam scripsisse quae parum intelligerent."
Ibid.
220
MorealJa Vo1.46 , 177-178 Joseph Wallace
Joseph Wallace Moreana Vo1.46 177-178
221
the ancient world as it has been represented by the ancients and
come down to the present time.,, 3? The investigation of this Protean
"adumbration" entails a digressive, meandering style. Bude describes
the process: "Accordingly, when I feel a renewed impulse to write, I
fall back in the same place, since by some fortunate (I hope)
accident, some perhaps unasked impulse of the mind yanks me from
the refuge [diverticulo] of the work that was in my hands, and places
me in this kind of unexpected addition [parergon] ... For this work
already fills up four times as much as its appropriate measure.,, 38
This is the form the work takes because of the variable nature of
working with ancient texts; truth seems to come and go at will, and
the author often feels himself lost in doubt. Bude was convinced,
however, that this method was the best way to write on the ancient
world, and was even backed by ancient authority: "When I was
occupied with this subject, I laid hold of this addition [parergon]
because my mind needed some recreation, as it were; it started out
intended for the form of a digression [diveniculi], but with a
continuing series of things forcing deep reflection by turns here and
there, I felt that I had progressed to the point that, out of this
addition, that is, a digression from the work in progress, the work
became complete, or as the Greeks say, 'so that the addition turned
into the work itself.",39
This view of digression as a mirror of subject matter was not a
standard or traditional rhetorical device, which is perhaps why
Erasmus took offense to it. Juan Luis Vives summarizes a more
traditional view of the role of digression and paraphrase, if only in
the art of speaking: "Digressions should be either non-existent or
very rare, and altogether brief; on that account 'paraphrasis' is so
called which does not depart from the 'phrasi' already set up, that is,
the speech itself.,,40 Additionally, "metaphors and all figures of
speech should be reduced to their proper and natural Simplicity, so
that they are 'aneschematismena' (without figures) , and with all
covering removed, so that the speech may become more plane and
lucid.,,41 There can be little doubt that Bude saw his own work as
resisting the simpliCity of the plain style of Erasmus and Vives,
aligning it with the figured style of philosophical texts that
conveyed divine mysteries. As he writes near the beginning of Dc
Assc in a digression on the word "eschematismenos," St. Jerome
called a book "figured" that did not conform to a simple or vulgar
sensibility, but used "a figured style, different from any COIllinon
usage and indeed shunning it: so that we ought not to marvel if just
anyone cannot seize on the sense of arcane and hidden
knowledge.,,42 If philology were truly going to bring to light the
hidden knowledge of the past, it should not rely on the formal
Bude, p. 105: "Protei autem nomine vestustatem esse a priscis adumbratam in
praesentia interpretabor."
38 Bude, p. 106: Proinde renovato impetu rursus eodem incumbendum, qu andoqui­
dem forte (ut spero) fortuna ex altelius operis divelticulo quod in manibus erat, in
parergon huiuscemodi transvers um me rapuit impetus animi forta sse inconsultus
... Excrevit enim opus quadruple iam amplius quam pro destinatis modulis.
39 Bude, p. 20: " In qua ipsa cum occupatus essem, animi causa (ut sit) avocamentum
quaerentis, parergon hoc arripui, initio quidem modulis diverticuli destinatum:
rerum autem serie perpetua aliam atque aliam deinceps commentationem
ingerente, eousque progressum me esse sensi, ut ex parergo, id est operis insititui
diverticulo, plenum opus factum sit, ut Graeci dicunt, W(HE Kat.O 1tUPEPYOV epyov
yeyovE."
40 Vives, p. 166: " Digre ssiones aut nullae erunt prorsum aut perquam rarae, et eae
breves admodum ; idcirco enim paraphrasis nominatur, quod a proposita phrasi,
hoc est oratione, non discedat. "
41 Ibid.: " Metaphorae ac figurae et conformationes orones ad propriam ac naturalem
simplicitatem reducentur, ut sint uvEcrXTJl-!ancrl-!cva [sic], denique tectoria detracto
oroni , ut planior ac diludicior reddatur oratio."
42 Bude, p. 8: "fi gurato stylo, atque a sensu communi alieno & abhorrente: ut mirari
non debeamus si arcanae abditaeque doctrinae sensum quilibet non capiat. "
37
222
Moreana Vo1.46, 177-178
Joseph Wallace
constraints of traditional rhetorical organization; rather, it must use
a method more appropriate to its subject matter.
This is the contention of Bude's spirited defense of his method
in the last section of De Asse, in which he comments on the practical
aspects of intellectual exchange as well as on the larger implications
of his digressive style. Bude at first discusses his method in the
context of Ermolao Barbaro (1454-1493) , the author of the
Castigationes Plinii (1493). Though Barbaro gave himself room for
"fuller commentary" (pleniore commentario) ,43 Bude criticizes him
for his sloppy method, rruxmg different things together
indiscriminately of subject matter or authority. Barbaro's result is a
"bundle of authorities treating the most vvidely diverging things.,,44
Bude's own method represented a significant advance, because he
believed a digressive style could best reflect the complex process of
tracing philological clues:
I have thus explored the tangled and obscure details of his
study, begun (unless I am mistaken) with an erroneous
method of investigation, but I have begun at the beginning of
the matter and entered there, and have made those tangled
and dark places visible and navigable with bright signposts,
little by little and from the inside, and thus thought it best to
have worked them into the meanderings of digressions (as
the matter demanded) , rather than in some labyrinth of
disputation.45
Bude, p. 269 . Ibid.: " farraginem auctoritatum diversissima tradentium." 45 Bude, p. 269-270: "Nos corruTlentationis ab eo promissae, sed erronea (ni fallor) indagine incohatae, caecas & perplexas ambages, a capite rem exorsi, ita
explorasse videmur, & a limine statim introrsus perspectas luculentis vestigiis
remeabiles feci sse, ut in meandros potius digressionum insinuasse (sic enim res
ferebat) quam in labyrinthum quendam disputationis , iudicari debeamus."
Joseph Wallace
Moreana Vo1.46177-178
223
Commenting on this passage, La Garanderie writes, "Guillaume
Bude did not want artificially to substitute an order of exposition for
the order of investigation, for exposition would have concealed the
effort of his mind and annihilated one of the most useful lessons of
the book: the practical and active initiation to philological
method.,, 46 This is a very important passage in De Assf, and while La
Garanderie uses it to emphasize the eventual Christian end of
philology, it also plays a role in the forming of Bude's ideal
intellectual community. For Bude, one must work through
complexity and obscurity on their own terms in order to derive any
use from philology, and a style such as Barbaro's does nothing to
unravel the knots because it is too uniform. Erasmus's style suffers
from the same problem in Bude's eyes: it does not acknowledge the
value of seeking out the answers to difficult questions through a
long process of investigation.
In the section of De Assf which bears the marginal note "How
Philosophers ought to set up their method of studies" (Quoniam
modo philosophi rationem studiorum instituere debeant), Bude
defends the value of seeking truth in the very complexity and
obscurity that conceals it:
For just as birds that are about to fly up to a steep place do
not fly up from the ground to this place immediately and in
straight lines, but with a swerving flight more easily and
advantageously reach it. Thus the human mind is better and
more intelligently able to ascend to the contemplation of
knowledge through the spiral [cochleam] of a righteous
discipline. than if straightaway it tries to take a short-cut
43
44
46
La Garanderie (1968), p. 482: "Et Guillaume Bude n'a pas voulu substituer
artificiellement it l'ordre de l'investigation un ordre d'exposition, qui eat
dissimule l'effort de I' esprit, et aneanti un des plus utiles enseignements du livre:
l'initiation pratique et active it la methode philologique."
224
Mon~ana
Vo1.46, 177-178 Joseph Wallace
from the lowest form of learning to the highest, jumping over
the ascending series of disciplines. 47
Bude links this cochlea with Solomon's encyclopedia in order to
defend the value of obscurity, just as he would later recommend the
wisdom of Solomon to Erasmus: "You remember that saying of
Solomon's 'It is the glory of God to conceal a matter')" (CWE 4,141) .48
Obscurity is not only a guard against profane eyes, it has a moral
value all its own as a pedagogical tool for the student of philology.
Bude's final statement in De Asse of the value of obscurity is
phrased in terms of a progreSSion from lesser to greater mysteries,
but remains grounded in the realities of research. He uses Odysseus'
journey in the Odyssey to indicate the gradual ascension of our
interpretative faculties from pagan literature and rhetoric, ornate
and polished, to divine knowledge, which contains literature and is
the fulfillment of its lessons. "On account of [such a progression]
those things were called by the Greeks propaedcumata, which
signified those lessons [documentaJ that we must learn before we
may arrive at the knowledge of more lofty and secret things.,,49 This,
for La Garanderie, is the secret harmony of De Asse in a nutshell: the
symbolic functioning of pagan literature and mythology to figure
greater Christian truths.50 Yet, one of Bude's greatest
Bude, p. 285-286: "Ut enim aves in locum arduum subvolaturae, non a solo
protinus eum locum rectis Iineis petunt, sed volatu verticoso eo commodius
evadunt & facilius: sic animus humanus ad contemplationem sapientiae melius
per cochleam iustae disciplinae scandere & intelligentius potest, quam si protinus
ab infimo genere doctrinae ad summum genus discendi compendio evaderet,
scansilem disciplinarurn seriem transiliens. "
48 Bude is referring to Proverbs 25, 2.
49 Bude, p. 291: "Et earn ob rem a Graecis propaedeumata dicta, id est ea documenta
quae praesciscere nos oportet priusquam accedamus ad rerum grandiorum
arcanarumque cognitionem."
50 La Garanderie (1968), p. 485: "Par exemple .. . Toute la mythologie se lit
allegoriquernent. "
47
Joseph Wallace Mon~ana
Vo1.46177-178
225
accomplishments in De Asse is to reinterpret the methodology of
scholarly work and show how the products of philological research
could both retain the complexity and obscurity inherent in its
process and find in that obscurity the best way to advance its
interests. Rude imagines obscurity to be what prompts scholars to
enter the field of philology and to compare, contrast, and criticize
many different authors, not something to be dispelled by clarity of
style, or something simply to be read allegorically.
As a method of intellectual exchange, Bude's philology, as
delineated in De Asse, was indeed highly contentious, and the proving
ground turned out to be his own relationship with Erasmus in the
letters they exchanged. In the letters Bude appears solicitous of
friendship with Erasmus, but friendship of a certain kind, as he
states in a letter from 1516:
Consequently I now propose to form a partnership with you,
if you concur, in all our friends, the more readily as you have
already acquired a title not only to my friends but to myself,
so that from now on there is a legal agreement between us for
friendship of no ordinary kind expressed in these words in all
good faith; and let us enter into this covenant on the
understanding that we shall hold all our possessions in
common [1U 1e rruV'w K'tl)o6}1e8a KotvU] and shall share our
friends [wu~ qJiAOD~ KOtYOD~ ESO}1ey]. (eWE 4, 151; Allen 2,
402)
A clear echo of the first adage of the Chiliades, Bude would later
expand on the importance of this sharing in a letter to Cuthbert
Tunstall in May 1517. Erasmus had sent Tunstall as a mediator, in
part to advertise the conflict between Bude and Erasmus to the
intellectual world. Bude writes,
Is there any agreement, any contract, any trading venture that
could make my situation easier and better equipped or my
domestic circumstances more prosperous (and my plan is to
226
Moreana Vo1.46, 177-178 Joseph Wallace
raise the house of Bude not by pompous foundation-works
but by solid achievements of intelligence and industry) than
this association with Erasmus and this sharing of our hiends
that we have agreed upon) - for it is on their favorable
judgment that I hope posterity will accept the design of what
I build. (eWE 4, 352)
The tone of the friendship Bude proposed was collaborative, and yet
the diverging views of the two humanists began to lead to
contention soon after their initial debate in the 151Os.
The principal conflict involved controversy which played out
between 1517 and 1519 between Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples and
Erasmus over their commentaries on the Letters of Paul, 51 though
eventually Bude and Erasmus would sever ties around the time of the
Ciceronianus conflict. 52 In late 1518 Erasmus sent Bude a long letter
reprimanding him, among other things, for his rudeness. In his
response, Bude made it clear that the two scholars differed on the
purpose of exchanging letters and ideas: "Do understand, I beg you,
that I take the opposite view from you about exchanges of this sort
in writing, between such men at least as have some experience of
life. You think they undennine a firm friendship or are afraid that
others will think so; in my own opinion they confirm and strengthen
it at all points" (CWE 6, 411). For Pierre Mesnard, this moment is one
of diverging paths in the hiStory of intellectual exchange in humanist
culture. After the Lefevre debacle, Erasmus became devoted to the
"classic" system of epistolary exchange that minimized conflict,
Joseph Wallace McNeil, p. 63-67, and La Correspolldance, ed. La Garanderie, p. 132, for the
principal dates and events.
52 See McNeil, p. 61-76, on the relationship between Erasmus and Bude and the
causes of tension in the Cicerollianus controversy. McNeil also notes that the
break, at least on Bude's part, was partly caused by the accusations leveled against
Erasmus regarding his orthodoxy. An increasingly courtly Bude could no longer
freely exchange letters (p. 117).
227
"which is to say all discussion of ideas and any kind of critique."
Bude's reproach was his attempt to reform not only his own
relationship with Erasmus, but intellectual culture in general, and
yet as Pierre Mesnard argues, it was too late:
In refusing to Bude the establishment of a new kind of
correspondence, more spontaneous and more profound, in
which the humanists could have been encouraged by the
critiques of their brothers to practice themselves those
doctrines that they were preaching to others, Erasmus surely
brought down an important blow to Christian hun:anism, in
depriving it of an important existential component.)3
Bude's fundamental vision of a contentious philology was the basis
of his epistolary style as well, as he always sought to provoke and
test his friends just as he tested the ancient authors in his scholarly
works.
Bude's vision eventually resulted in the College Royal, and
indeed his method is perhaps what we now identify as "scholarly,"
that is, based on the principle of building up consensus in a
community through attention to the problems raised by obscure
places, or "gaps," in existing scholarship. The differences between
Bude and Erasmus are encapsulated nicely in their views on
education. Marie-Rose Logan writes that "Unlike Erasmus or
Ascham, Bude did not write primers, but devoted himself to what
we would call today the cutting edge of research.... The thrust of
53
51 See
Monana VoL46177-178
Mesnard, "Le Commerce Epistolaire, Comme Expression Sociale de L'Indivi­
duaJisme Humaniste," in Individu et Societe a la Renaissance: Colloque
International, Avril 1965, Paris and Brussels, Presses Universitaires de Bruxelles
et Presses Universitaires de France, 1967, p. 31: "En refusant a Bude
l'etablissement d'un nouveau genre de correspondance, plus spontane et plus
profond, ou les humanistes auraient pu s'encourager, par la correction fratemelle a
pratiquer eux-memes ces doctrines qu' ils pr&haient aux tiers, Erasme a
certainement porte un coup tres important a I'humanisme chretien en Ie privant
d'un important apport existentieL"
228
Moreana Vo1.46, 177,178
Joseph Wallace
Budaeus' entire endeavor set the tone for cutting edge research."s4
Whereas Erasmus would have everyone approach his works in order
to complete them, Bude would have his students work simply to
understand them, and then to actively question and criticize them;
this method represents a challenge to Erasmus's quest to
accommodate scholarship to everyone's use. Erasmus disliked, in
Kathy Eden's words, the "hypercritical reader," and so for him "[t ]he
writer's Herculean battle ... is with the monstrous ingratitude of his
reading public,,;55 for Bude the battle involves building a community
of such hypercritical readers, which nonetheless supports itself by
mutual critique.
In this respect, Bude seems the more innovative of the two, as
at least a couple of contemporaries noted. Juan Luis Vives
recognized the merits of Bude's style even though they seem to
conflict with his own pronouncements on style: uEach has a varied
and distinct style, but each ex cells in his own manner. Erasmus is
natural and clear, as he is at all times, for that matter. Bude took
pleasure in a new and unusual type of language which it is easier to
admire than to imitate."s6 In 1519, Christophe de Longueil wrote
what remains a playful yet valuable assessment of the issues raised
by the epistolary debate in the humanistic world: "In Bude I think I
detect more muscle, more blood, more energy; in Erasmus rounded
flesh, smooth skin, fresh colouring ... Bude's weapons are industry,
Logan, "Gulielmus Budaeus' Philological Imagination ," in Modern Language
Notes 118.5, Dec. 2003, p. 1147-1148.
55 Eden (2001), p. 159.
56 Vives, De Conscribendis Epistolis, ed. and trans. Charles Fantazzi , Leiden, E. 1.
Brill, 1989, p. 138-139 (cited in Mesnard , p. 30nl): "varia et diversissimo dicendi
genere, sed uterque in suo praestans. Erasmus facilis et dilucidus, ut alias semper;
G. Budaeus novo quodam atque inusitato dicendi genere est delectatus, quod sit
admirari quod imitari promptius."
Moreana Vo1.46177, 178
Joseph Wallace
229
natural fertility, a serious impressive style; Erasmus fights his way to
victory by skill and subtlety, he is so smooth and so reada ble. You
can love Erasmus and wonder at Bude; you give Erasmus your
allegiance and do as Bude tells you" (eWE 6, 228).
Joseph Wallace
[email protected]
54
Guillaume Bude ' portrait par Jeal1 Clouet (1536).