reading and is entirely suitable for an essay; in a full-scale study, however, detach-
ment remains the historian's summum bonum. It is an elusive virtue, to be sure. Ac-
counts of the past are inevitably filtered through contemporary perceptions and sen-
sibilities. It has been my aim therefore to let the historical witnesses speak, and to
document rather than evaluate sixteenth-century opinions. For this purpose it seemed
more pertinent to examine, for example, whether writers in the sixteenth century
perceived a link between humanism and the Reformation than to establish whether
such a link existed; to note that Calvin thought men of letters likely candidates for
Nicodemism rather than to gauge their actual propensity for prevarication; to point
out that reformers were alternately called foes and champions of humanism rather
than to assess the merit of these designations. Such an approach leaves contradic-
tions unresolved. The witnesses cited are caught in the maelstrom of a fierce debate.
Being in the very process of shaping the religious and intellectual climate of their
time, they cannot serve as impartial observers or offer disinterested interpretations of
the events. Their testimony is characterized by a (usually identifiable) bias as well as
a certain fluidity. They sharply contradict each other and often change their own
minds as time progresses. The result of documenting perceptions rather than gaug-
ing their truth value is an account that is open-ended but (I hope) retains an au-
thentic historical flavor.

The book is arranged thematically, loosely following the sequence of events that
made each subject topical. Chapter 1 investigates the use of humanism for propa-
ganda purposes. For a decade after the posting of the Ninety-Five Theses confusion
reigned over the relationship between humanists and reformers. Both champions
and adversaries of the Reformation suggested that there existed a close link between
the two movements or that their aims and ideas were interchangeable. The confu-
sion is encapsulated in a proverbial expression current in the 1520s: "Either Erasmus
lutheranizes, or Luther erasmianizes." It was unclear, however, to what extent this
muddling of issues was a simple misunderstanding. Erasmus, for one, suggested that
Catholic apologists deliberately leveled the differences between the two movements
in an effort to ruin them both under the label of "heresy"; conversely, Hutten openly
advocated maintaining a common front for political purposes, even though he was
fully aware of the differences in aims and methods. Both parties were fond of fash-
ioning historical constructs and producing mental associations between the two
movements by drawing a timeline from Valla and Reuchlin to Erasmus and Luther.

While chapter 1 examines the perception that humanists and reformers were
comrades-in-arms, chapter 2, which focuses on educational ideals, deals with the
perception that reformers had replaced the old scholastic foe as the chief enemies
of studia humaniora. The contemporaneous rise of Lutheranism and decline of
Northern universities prompted the notion of a cause-and-effect relationship. This
perception was fiercely combated by mainstream reformers, who pointed out that
their reputation as foes of learning was due to the anti-intellectualism of a radical
fringe. They also blamed the decline of learning on the materialism of parents who
no longer considered education a good investment at a time when the Catholic sys-
tem of ecclesiastical preferment was in danger of collapse. As it turns out, the de-
cline was halted when both Catholics and Protestants recognized the importance of
schooling in the process of confessionalization. Protestant school orders, drawn up

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