Erasmus Rotterdam

Erasmus, was born in Rotterdam on October 27 in either 1466 or 1469. Although associated closely with Rotterdam, he lived there for only four years, never to return and a few years later he was persuaded to enter the monastery of Steyn, near Gouda, a house of Augustinian canons. The life there was uncongenial to him; for though he had leisure to read as much as he liked, his temperament was not suited to the precision and regularity of religious observance. An opportunity for escape presented itself, when the Bishop of Cambray, a powerful ecclesiastic, was inquiring for a Latin secretary....


Erasmus hardly knew the town of Rotterdam....