Erasmus of Rotterdam

Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536), known as Erasmus of Rotterdam, was the Dutch humanist who became the most influential scholar of the Northern Renaissance. Orphaned by plague about 1483, he entered an Augustinian canonry and took his vows in 1488. A pupil brought him to England in 1499, where Thomas More became his lifelong friend.

He compiled the Adagia. His Praise of Folly, written in More's house, appeared in 1511 and became a best-seller. In 1516 he published his scholarly Greek and Latin New Testament, which ended the Vulgate's untouchable status and fed the Reformation.

He neither broke with Rome nor joined Luther, and in 1524 attacked Luther on free will, leaving both camps resentful. Paris theologians censured his works in 1531. He returned to Basel in 1535 and died there on 12 July 1536; the Protestant city allowed a Catholic requiem at his funeral.