Gay Erasmus

This article provides a new framework for understanding sexuality in Erasmus. It examines his correspondence with the monk Servaas Rogerszoon and with other familiars, making a critique of the use of letters for life writing before and after P. S. Allen’s edition. It discusses monastic contexts, especially within the Augustinian order, and humanist knowledge of same-sex values in Greek and Latin philology. Moving beyond biography, it recreates discourses of same-sex practice in the “Adagia.” In placing the letters and adages within a domain of queer studies, it demonstrates for the first time the existence in Erasmus of a private coterie language of sex.