WHATEVER may be the final assessment between Scholas-
ticism and Humanism respectively as influences in
Rabelais's work and thought, it is hardly open to doubt
that Rabelais himself wished to demonstrate to the full his proud
title to the name of Humanist, and consequently to play down as
much as possible: the Scholastic training for which he professed
so much contempt. In fact, hardly any Scholastic authorities are
quoted by name except for purposes of ridicule; Nicholas of Cusa
and Nicholas of Lyra are mentioned in passing, Duns Scotus,
Ockham and Pierre d'Ailly are openly mocked. One must clearly
distinguish between what Rabelais considered his authorities, the
texts of antiquity, and what at best he might have admitted as
distant influences, that is the works of the Schoolmen.

The sixteenth-century attitude towards authority and originality
alike is so strikingly different from our own that it is only too easy
to misinterpret the use made of classical writers by such men as
Rabelais. What seems dishonesty, or at least laziness, today was
universal practise then; plagiarism was no vice in an age when a
man's erudition was measured by the quantity, not the quality, of
his references. The importance of the innumerable compilations
of Antiquae Lectiones, especially Erasmus Adages and Apothegmata,
cannot easily be overrated, but it must at the same time be re-
membered that all men of letters were equally aware of the short
cuts available to those who wished to use them. Serious deception
was not a possible, let alone a plausible, motive for having recourse
to second-hand knowledge.

All this is of obvious and major importance in trying to decide
what impression of himself Rabelais wished to convey, a question
hardly less vital than that of his real learning. There are in effect
three problems to be resolved, each of which may have a bearing
on the others; first, what authors are actually named in quotations;
second, what references or quotations are made without naming
the author, either because they were so familiar as to need no
explanation, or because of a deliberately esoteric appeal to the

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