theology capable of producing a reply couched in a strain similar to
that of the /Epistolae/. Gratius himself did undertake the task in his
/Lamentationes obscurorum virorum/, but without success, and
undoubtedly in the eyes of the general public the victory rested with
the Humanists. The whole controversy was extremely unfortunate,
because it helped to blind many to the real issues at stake when the
Lutheran movement began. By it the Theologians and Humanists were
divided into two hostile camps, with the result that the latter were
inclined to support Luther against their own former opponents and in
vindication of the liberal policy which they had advocated; while the
Theologian, having been discredited as narrow-minded obscurantists in
the eyes of a large body of university men, were handicapped seriously
in a struggle with Luther even though their struggle was for
fundamental religious principles.[14]

The most remarkable of the men, who, though not Germans, were closely
identified with German Humanists, was Desiderius Erasmus (1466-
1535).[15] He was born at Rotterdam, was sent to school with the
Brothers of the Common Life at Deventer, entered a monastery of the
Canons Regular attracted by its library rather than by its rule, and
left it after two years to become secretary to the Bishop of Cambrai.
He studied classics at the University of Paris, and after his
ordination as priest by the Bishop of Utrecht he became a tutor to an
English nobleman. Later on he paid a visit to England, where he
received a warm welcome from scholars like Fisher, Bishop of
Rochester, Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, and Sir Thomas More, and where
he was honoured by an appointment as Professor of Greek in Oxford. But
the fever of travel was upon him. He returned to Paris, made a brief
stay at Louvain, and started out to visit the leading literary centres
of Italy, notably Bologna, Venice, and Rome, in the latter of which he