This book explores the intellectual legacy of the Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus (c.1467-1536) in early modern England. Through a series of reader case studies, it shows how Erasmus’ reputation was reshaped by mass textual production, scholarly networks and religious change in the first half of the sixteenth century. Erasmus, it proposes, became a divisive figure among English humanists and a key agent of confessional thinking, despite his great popularity.
Readers of Erasmus offers a new account of intellectual culture in the Renaissance and Reformation and mounts a powerful argument for the importance of book history to modern scholars.