Erasmus in Freiburg

In her book Erasmus, The Biography of a Free Thinker, Sandra Langereis writes little about Erasmus's stay in Freiburg. Let me fill in the missing information.

In April 1529, as the riots against followers of the Old Faith intensified in Basel, Erasmus fled to the Catholic city of Freiburg. The 62-year-old Erasmus, reverently known as the Prince of Scholars, initially stayed in the Haus zum Walfisch (House of the Whale), built by King Maximilian's treasurer Jakob Villinger. The building is now home to the Municipal Savings Bank.

Haus zum Walfisch on Franziskanerstraße

Shortly after he arrived in Freiburg at the beginning of May 1529, Erasmus wrote enthusiastically to his long-time pen pal Willibald Pirckheimer in Augsburg, "At last, I have changed the clod, the Rauraker* has become a Breisgauer ... The little journey went better than I had expected. The city council showed me all their kindness of their own accord, even before King Ferdinand recommended me by letter. I was given a princely house built for Emperor Maximilian but remained unfinished... and then a letter later: Ubi bene ubi patria, as the saying goes. So, I can enjoy the friendly climate here for a year if Mars doesn't drive me away." 

*Augusta Rauraca, the Roman, i.e.. the Latin name for Basel

However, he was mistaken in assuming that he would only stay in Freiburg for a year and that Emperor Maximilian once chose the Haus zum Walfisch as his retirement home.

Erasmus believed that the town would let him live in the Haus zum Walfisch free of charge. He was furious when the mayor sent him a bill of 30 guilders for the rent at the end of the year. 

The memorial plaque for Erasmus at the Haus zum Walfisch contains a correction.
He lived here from 1529 to 1531, not until 1535, as initially stated.

So it was not Mars, the god of war, who drove Erasmus out of his domicile on Franziskanerstraße but trouble with the city. In 1531, he bought the house Zum Kind Jesu (To the Child Jesus) on Schiffstraße 7 as his new residence for 600 Rhenish guilders, which he paid in cash with coins he had saved in Basel.

Haus zum Kind Jesu on Schiffstraße 7 before the bombing of Freiburg.
There is a picture of Erasmus on the façade (©Peter Kalchthaler)

The house purchase contradicted the city charter, according to which only Freiburg citizens were allowed to acquire property. Four years after arriving in Freiburg, Erasmus finally entered his name in the university register as a professor theologiae to legalize the purchase. From then on, he lived as an academic citizen in a privileged house exempted from taxes.

When Rector Paulus Getzonis joyfully announced to the members of the Senate in 1533 that Erasmus had been accepted onto the university's register, he had no idea that Erasmus would neither lecture at the Albertina nor attend the Senate meetings. From the outset, he accepted and possessed the dignities but rejected the burdens.

Yet the city and university continued to court the great humanist, who spread his wings and found, "Theology is pursued here more weakly than I would like, and the study of languages flourishes mediocrely. Although the university is well equipped, it is poorly attended and has more honorable students than numerous ones."

Instead of being seen at the university, Erasmus had been working since 1533 on his Liber de sarcienda ecclesiae concordia, deque sedandis opinionum dissidis, cum aliis nonnullis lectu dignis*, in which he describes Europe as a unified populus Christianus (Christian people) which also inhabits an eadem domus (shared house), in ecclesia (the Church). He considered the differences between Catholics and Lutherans to be bridgeable and, like many of his contemporaries, hoped for a general, unifying council that would create a concordia fidei in a concordia caritas. This would require reforms in the education of the clergy, reforms in morals, and reforms in the church.
*Book on the restoration of ecclesiastical harmony and the elimination of differences of opinion

As the schism progressed, Erasmus felt that the religious cohesion of Europe by the Roman Church was waning. Instead, he foresaw the emergence of pro-national structures, "One tribe is driven to battle with another tribe, city against city, faction against faction, ruler against ruler ... The Englishman is the enemy of the Frenchman for no other reason than that he is French. The Scot is the enemy of the Briton for no other reason than that he is a Scot. The German is the enemy of the Frenchman, and the Spaniard is the enemy of both. The various faiths wear themselves out in a narcissism of slight differences. They practice reinforcing their contrasts."

With all his efforts, Erasmus could not heal the disease of schism.

In Erasmus's new domicile on Schiffstraße, renovation work was pending, so he had to deal with blacksmiths, stonemasons, carpenters, plumbers, and glaziers. He wrote in a letter in 1531, "You know this sort of people; it is so disgusting that I would instead occupy myself for a full three years with scientific work, however unpleasant, than be plagued with this kind of worry for a single month." Craftsmen yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

He continued to grumble about Freiburg, "The city is pretty, but not populated enough, "and furthermore, "the town is small, and the inhabitants are superstitious."

He only found the 68-year-old Huldrichus Zasius worthy of praise, "I have never seen anything in Germany that I have admired as much as the character of Ulrich Zasius. He is sincerity itself, not just sincerity towards his friends. Physically, he is aging, but it is hard to believe how mentally he is still quite fresh; his sharpness of judgment and memory have not suffered in any way. I have never noticed such quick-witted, witty, apt, and well-extemporized speech, even from an Italian. The speech flows sweeter than honey over his lips. I expected to find a lawyer, an excellent one, to be sure, but only a lawyer. But what is there in the mysteries of theology that he has not examined and thought through? In what part of philosophy is he not fully versed? Is there any book of the Old and New Testament that he has not opened, perused, absorbed?"

Erasmus's high regard for Zasius can probably be traced back to the Freiburg Lenten controversy of 1523. You may read the story here.

Erasmus's rejection of Freiburg culminated in the remark, "I would rather live among the Turks."

Ultimately, he secretly left Freiburg for Basel in 1535, where he died a year later.
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