Erasmus and the Transformation of Early Modern Political Authority in "The Education of a Christian Prince"

By Zachary S. Brown - Often called the “prince of the humanists” Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) was one of the most influential European philosophers and theologians of the early modern period. However, today he is often overshadowed by his more radical contemporaries, particularly Niccolò Machiavelli, and regarded as a quixotic moderate. This article seeks to challenge this traditional view of Erasmus by exploring the rhetoric and claims of one of his most famous works, The Education of a Christian Prince (1516), a political advice manual written to the future Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. An...