Background
The northern humanists dove into the classical works. The goal of all humanists was to revive antiquity and bring the classics back. Northern humanists focused on early church writings, and early Christian writings. What they found was a religion much simpler than their current one, which had been obscured by heresy and so many theological ideas and questions. The northern humanists believed that a study of the classics, and specifically Christian classics would allow them to open up their mind and to reason so that they could achieve a better spiritual state. The Christian humanists therefore started schools to educate people on the classics. These humanists also thought that the way they could change society was by changing the people that dwelt within it.
Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus was born in 1466 in Holland. He was considered the most influential of all Christian humanists. He was taught in one of many of the schools of the Brothers of the Common Life. He then went around western Europe speaking in Latin to everyone. He wrote the Handbook of the Christian Knight, which talked about religion and his belief about the study of it. He believed that Christianity should be like a map for everyday life, not just a rule-based religion. He wanted people to become pious on their own, by studying the Word and spending time learning, not by following rules that the church had laid out. Erasmus also thought that the Latin Vulgate had many errors, so he decided to get the New Testament in Greek and translate it himself into Latin. Erasmus believed that the best way for the church to reform was to spread Jesus’ word and for people to educate themselves on theology so that they could think and believe what they saw as true. He wrote The Praise of Folly, which criticized many of the church’s abuses of not only power, but of doctrine. Though Erasmus wanted reforms very badly, he did not succeed in changing much. Erasmus was seen as the spark that helped Martin Luther later on, however Erasmus did not want separation between people and the church, but rather reforms that began within the church.
Thomas More
Thomas More was born to a London lawyer in 1478. He was taught the classics, and especially loved studying Latin and Greek. More decided to become a public worker, and that wound him up as the eventual chancellor of England. He was a good friend of Erasmus, and translated many works from Greek to Latin. He spent much of his day studying and praying and then studying some more. More wrote Utopia, which basically outlined a society in which leadership was handled with reason and cooperation, instead of glory, fame, and power. This meant that instead of things owned individually, they were shared mutually by a community of people. His society set up within this story was virtually perfect. The people worked the same amount, and each received the same amount of money. The king, however, addressed More’s accusations of abuse in his current life. More defended himself, however, and did not see the harm in his writing, though he did see that idealism could not be achieved and that he had to settle with the realism which was his world. More was even more religiously devoted than he was loyal to the king. When England broke ties with the Roman Catholic Church, he opposed it wholeheartedly.