The Age of Erasmus: Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London

These lectures, delivered at Oxford and London in the early twentieth century, trace the intellectual ferment that produced Desiderius Erasmus and defined the Northern Renaissance. P.S. Allen argues that biography is essential to understanding historical change, and he reconstructs the networks of humanist scholars, academies, and competing ideas that shaped Erasmus's formation. The book examines key figures who preceded and influenced him: the mystic John Wessel, the pioneer of northern humanism Rudolph Agricola, and the teachers of the Adwert Academy. Allen situates Erasmus not as an isolated genius but as the culmination of a movement that brought classical learning to Northern Europe while engaging with the spiritual questions that would soon erupt into Reformation. The work captures a moment when the revival of ancient wisdom intersected with emerging currents of religious reform, laying intellectual groundwork that would transform the Western world.