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Excerpt from Erasmus Institutio Principis Christiani: Chapters III-XI Erasmus was born at Rotterdam in 1467, son of Roger Gerard and a certain Margaret, daughter of a physician at Sieben Bergen. At the age of nine he entered the school at Deventer, where he made the acquaintance of Adrian, destined to become successively tutor to Charles V., Cardinal-Regent of Spain, and Supreme Pontiff. At Deventer he gave some promise of future brilliance, showing a strong leaning to the classics and composing Latin verses. In 1478 his father and mother died, leaving him and his elder brother under guardians. The latter, according to a letter written late in life to Grunnius, Papal Secretary (Ep. App. CDXLII), either fraudulently made away with or negligently lost all the family property, and the brothers were prevailed upon by their relations to enter monasteries. Erasmus became an Augustinian Canon of St. Gregory's at Steyn. He was much too delicate for the alternate fasting and heavy feeding of the monks, and was most unhappy in this situation. His main consolation was the library at his disposal. After being ordained priest in 1492, he became, through the Prior of his house, Secretary to the Bishop of Cambrai. The Bishop provided him with an allowance and permitted him to go to Paris, where he entered the "domus pauperum" in the College of Montague. Here he began studying Greek and teaching it to the pupils whom he took in to supplement his resources. It was in this way that he won the friendship of Lord Mountjoy, and also became acquainted with the Lord of Vere, whose wife, Anna Bersala, was to become his patron. In 1497 he accompanied Mountjoy to England, where he met Thomas More, Colet, Grocyn, and Linacre, and spent some time at Oxford as the guest of Richard Charnock, Prior of St. Mary's College. At Oxford he found a warm welcome for his wit and learning. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.