Erasmus by Durer 1526
There are challenges in using historical figures as characters in novels. Michael Sattler, Katharina Zell, Henry VIII, and Thomas More were all “real” people who have become characters in my novels. Personally, I believe it’s important to be true to the history of the person as it has come down to us. I would never taint a good man’s reputation or make him do something that seems out of character with what we know about him.
On the other hand, there are great gaps in our knowledge of these people, and what we think about them is often little more than an image carefully crafted by the person himself or subsequent historians. And in those wide spaces between the known facts, imagination can bring the character to vivid life.
Erasmus by Holbein
One thing I like to do is to introduce the character in a surprising way that contradicts our stereotype of him. Our first glimpse of Thomas More in Line of Ascent is when he charges around the corner of the house, dirty and with his sleeves rolled up, and tackles Erasmus in exuberant horseplay. This is completely out of keeping with the saint, the scholar, or the persecutor of heretics that we know More to have been. This makes More fresh to the reader’s eyes and interesting.
Studies of the Hands of Erasmus of Rotterdam-Hans Holbein the Younger
Erasmus presented a challenge. Recent scholarship–and indeed Erasmus’ own careful “branding” of himself as explored in Lisa Jardine’s great book, Erasmus, Man of Letters: The Construction of Charisma in Print–presents Erasmus as the iconic bookish scholar, pale and sickly. He had been a monk and had an early, intense friendship with another man. All the portraits of him emphasize his delicate hands, skin, and manners.
After a great deal of thought and several false starts, I decided to make Erasmus stronger, more courageous, and attractive. There is no doubt that he was charismatic, witty, and charming. Yet his health was fragile, with recurring fevers and excruciating bouts of kidney stones. I decided to make him strong against the pain, determined and stoic.
But was he sexy? I showed his picture to a friend who took one look and made an immediate suggestion. I saw it, too, and loved it!
They are both northern Europeans, and I believe there’s a resemblance in the dimpled chins and chiseled cheekbones, though Erasmus’ nose is thin and sharp.
So, I wrote my novel with an Aragorn Erasmus, but with no scholarly support that I could find.
Then I found a volume of lectures on Erasmus by P.S. Allen. Allen was an Erasmian expert of the early 20th century. He is quoted constantly by later scholars and his system of numbering Erasmus’s voluminous correspondence is still in use. And there, in the first few pages, Allen makes this astonishing statement about Erasmus’s first years in England:
An English pupil bore him off to England in 1499; where, for all his hood and tonsure, he shone in the hunting-field and made conquests among the ladies.
Woo-hoo! Made conquests with the ladies? Now I’m happy to imagine that the ladies were taken with Erasmus but that he was in no way culpable. Just irresistibly charming.
Unfortunately, Allen did not give a reference to support his statement, and I hope to discuss this with current Erasmian scholars some day. But in the meantime, I think that, considering his intelligence, charm and wit it could plausibly be said that Erasmus was indeed sexy.
