I have already said a few words about Erasmianism, but for my comparative approach it is vital to contextualize Orangism as well. While generally understood as the support of the House of Orange, the precise preferences of the Orangists and the exact implementation of the support has changed throughout its long history, ranging from seventeenth-century support for the stadtholder to the twentieth-century appeal of a re-united Greater Netherlands. The continuity and discontinuity of popular support of the Oranges has been studied by Henk te Velde and Donald Haks in 2014.¹⁸ They traced Orangism back to the Dutch Republic, when Orangists supported the Princes of Orange as stadtholder and opposed the far-reaching power of the regents. More specifically, in her contribution to the volume, Judith Pollmann argued that the first political sentiment worthy of the name Orangism emerged in 1617-1618, when William and Maurice of Orange were seen as exemplary rulers because of their commitment to both internal and foreign politics.¹⁹ In the early nineteenth century, however, this political ideal pertaining specifically to William and Maurice made way for a more general nostalgic and anti-French conviction among Orangists.²⁰

The nostalgia and anti-French sentiment evident in the Orangism that emerged towards the end of the eighteenth century should be seen in the context of a looming civil war in the Dutch Republic. A group of Dutch reformist citizens, known as ‘Patriots’, wished to reduce the power of Stadtholder William v through major political reforms. In the 1780s the Patriots indeed managed to reform the political system in several Dutch cities and obtain majorities in local and national governmental bodies.²¹ William v and his wife Wilhelmina of Prussia took refuge in Nijmegen and sought help from Wilhelmina’s brother, King Frederick William ii of Prussia, who organised a military intervention in the autumn of 1787 that quelled the Patriot revolt and restored William’s power. Many Dutch Patriots took refuge in France, where they experienced the French Revolution of 1789.²²

Inspired by the French Revolution, around 1795 a group of Dutch Patriots envisioned a Dutch Revolution supported by French troops. During this so-called Batavian Revolution, the Patriots overthrew the Orange stadtholderate and proclaimed the Batavian Republic, officially a French sister republic but in practice more of a puppet state under French military control. Conflicting views about the implementation and representation of power among Republicans, Moderates, and independent members of parliament obstructed the establishment of a steady political system, which led to a chaotic period that extended beyond the establishment of the first National Assembly in 1796.²³ To reclaim control, Napoleon installed a Grand Pensionary in the person of Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, who would soon be replaced by Napoleon’s brother Louis Napoleon, who in 1806 took the title King of Holland. When Napoleon lost faith in the loyalty of his brother, however, he incorporated the Kingdom of Holland into the First French Empire in 1810. After three years, the Napoleonic regime collapsed, paving the way for the foundation of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815 with William i of the Netherlands, son of Stadholder William v, as king.

Historians have shown that the Dutch frequently expressed their disagreement with the policies implemented by the Napoleonic regime. These protests occurred in Holland throughout the French period but especially after the draft of 1811.²⁴ Around 1811 and 1812, criticism of the French regime was increasingly expressed through the use of the colour orange. While this colour had previously been reserved for supporters of the Orange stadtholderate, it gradually became a national symbol for the fatherland.²⁵ As we shall see, the renewed independence and reinstallation of the House of Orange that followed the retreat of the French military forces in 1813 was celebrated with displays of orange clothing, decorations, flags, and other accessories throughout the country. In Rotterdam, the focal point was the statue of Erasmus.

A few events in which Rotterdam Orangists associated themselves with Erasmus were retrospectively described in 1817 by Jacobus Scheltema, a Frisian author who is usually labelled a Patriot, but who wrote distinctively anti-French and pro-Orangist publications after the collapse of the Napoleonic regime.²⁶ In his Geschied- en letterkundig mengelwerk, Scheltema included not only a lengthy biography of Erasmus but also an account of the history of the Erasmus statue, such as its design by Hendrick de Keyser, its erection in April 1622, and the controversy surrounding it. While the statue was intended to celebrate the famous Rotterdammer, the high costs of creating and maintaining the statue had led to criticism, not to mention the religious controversies around Erasmus that were now revitalized. Indeed, a mere month after the statue’s erection in 1622, the Rotterdam minister Jacobus Levius criticized it in a sermon. He argued that Erasmus had been a libertine, a free spirit who had mocked all religions, and that the money for the creation of the statue would have been better spent to increase ministers’ wages.²⁷

Scheltema also recounted that the Erasmus statue was ‘adorned with the signs of the times’ in 1747, 1748, 1787, and 1795.²⁸ While it is not entirely clear what these signs of the times refer to, a satirical newspaper article of 1786 provides some context. In that article, an anonymous Patriot claimed that the Rotterdam Orangists wished to unite, hold a meeting on the market square, and elect the Erasmus statue as their president.²⁹ Scheltema more elaborately described two occasions during the 1810s in which Orangist inhabitants of Rotterdam associated themselves with the bronze Erasmus statue.³⁰ In both instances, the statue was adorned with messages that testify to an anti-Napoleonic or pro-Orangist motivation.

These acts make the Erasmus statue a Dutch example of a pasquil in the original meaning of this word.³¹ While the term ‘pasquil’ has been used for any form of satire or mockery, it originates from the sixteenth-century Roman praxis of attaching satirical texts or images to the so-called talking statues of Rome. One of these is an ancient statue called Pasquino, after the critical shopkeeper in whose estate the statue was found. Even if the practice was soon forbidden, the talking statues served as mouthpiece, allowing the Roman citizens to express their criticisms anonymously. While written satires were fairly common during the Dutch Napoleonic times, I have not come across any talking statues in the Netherlands except for the Erasmus statue, even though the Roman tradition was known in the Netherlands.³²

The first Erasmus pasquil Scheltema described occurred in 1810, when the Kingdom of Holland was dismantled and the provinces, or départements, were incorporated into the French Empire. To replenish provisions for their battles abroad, the French troops in the Netherlands supposedly intended to melt the bronze Erasmus statue into cannon. According to the tale, the municipality paid a large sum of money to redeem the statue. Soon afterwards, an unknown critic tied an anti-Napoleonic message to the fence around the statue:

Writing in 1869, Jacob van Lennep and Johannes ter Gouw questioned whether this event ever occurred, and if it did, whether it happened in 1810, because the repetitive use of the past perfect tense (‘had […] melted me to cannon’, ‘had threatened’, ‘have […] blown him of his throne’) suggests the rhyme was constructed after the mood had tempered. Moreover, Van Lennep and Ter Gouw argued, tying an anti-Napoleonic message to the fence would not only be a dangerous act but could also antagonize the French soldiers.³⁴ However, we know that during the Napoleonic period the Dutch openly criticized French policies. In this light, the 1810 pasquil might have been related to the riots taking place in Rotterdam between 23 and 25 May 1810, when in response to the arrival of the French military rioters frequently assembled on the market square, also known as the Erasmus market, because this was where the statue stood at that point in time.³⁵ For the purpose of the present article, the veracity of Scheltema’s account is of limited importance. What matters is that a pasquil tradition would afterwards inspire the notion that Erasmus and William of Orange were somehow associated.

After Napoleon’s defeat at Leipzig, the emperor abdicated. Allied forces expelled the French soldiers from most parts of the Netherlands in late 1813. According to Scheltema, it was against this background that another pasquil was attached to the Erasmus statue on 16 November: ‘If no-one dares to wear orange yet, I dare to wager my old head.’³⁶ This rhyme seems to reflect a restraint in celebrating the defeat of the French army, as people were apparently hesitant to wear orange when the French were still around. However, in his reconstruction of the situation in Rotterdam after the shift of power in 1813, the Rotterdam archivist Eppe Wiersum noted that the inhabitants had already started to roam the streets dressed in orange a few days earlier. Similarly, on 13 November the actor Frits Adriaan Rosenveldt took to the stage with orange ribbons while shouting ‘orange on top!’ While Wiersum provided a specific account of almost every day in November, he noted that 16 November, the day the Orangist verse was attached to the statue, passed without any notable events.³⁷ The police reports issued on that day either concerned the protests of the previous days or minor violations.³⁸ None of these reports concerned the Erasmus statue, but the activist who attached the pasquil to the statue may of course have remained under the radar. According to Gerrit Ernst, who re-enacted the event of 1813 in 1913, his grandfather Gerrit van Stolk had originally adorned the statue in 1813 on his way home from the tavern; no mention was made of an arrest.³⁹

The two verses of 1810 and 1813 imagined Erasmus as a contemporary. This imagined Erasmus is vigorous and fiery, the first to respond to events. Without there having been many recent publications about Erasmus at the time, it is difficult to assess the dominant view of Erasmus, while in his overview of references to Erasmus, Mansfield only listed foreign examples.⁴⁰ One recent reference to Erasmus that might give us any insight appeared in an 1809 play by Carel Alexander van Ray, which includes a story about Erasmus’s encounter with his rival Joseph Scaliger. Van Ray indirectly criticized ‘these dark days’ in the assignment letter to the mayor and aldermen of Rotterdam and throughout the play berated the foreign involvement in the Netherlands, by means of extensive use of war metaphors in which the foreigner is personified by Scaliger and the Dutchman by Erasmus. Erasmus is thus only presented in very general terms as a celebrated Dutch scholar.⁴¹ Perhaps the lack of reflections on Erasmus in the Netherlands is somehow telling. For example, the 1808 competition for a eulogy on Erasmus received no noteworthy submissions and had to be re-issued in 1810, when the organizers did receive at least one submission and Rudolf Willem Jacob Pabst tot Bingerden was declared the winner. In his essay, Pabst tot Bingerden characterised Erasmus as ‘the light of scholarship, in a dark age; and, as the great theologian, who was at once a thoughtful reformer in the affairs of religion’. He also wondered whether the lack of worthy submissions to the initial competition had been due to the difficult times or to a fear of not doing justice to the Dutchman (‘vaderlander’).⁴² No clues point to a specifically critical Erasmus, as the ones Mansfield recognized abroad after 1815, but both Van Ray and Pabst tot Bingerden presented Erasmus as a national figure – a noteworthy characterisation in the light of the anti-French and Orangist actions. Of course, the Erasmus statue could simply have been a famous attraction in a central square in the city, as it was the only statue in Rotterdam at the time. Whatever the initial motivations, it is clear that around 1810 the image and thought of Erasmus were being associated with the House of Orange and with a national sentiment, associations that should not be neglected when interpreting further nineteenth-century exploits of the Erasmus statue.

The pasquils of 1810 and 1813, or at least their legends, were recalled and emulated throughout the nineteenth century, mainly on the occasion of Orangist celebrations. Despite their diverging contexts, with the first instance reflective of an anti-Napoleonic attitude and the second distinctively Orangist, the two verses were nevertheless often mentioned together or even merged into one. It is through these mentions that the association between Orangism and Erasmus was gradually strengthened. In what follows, I shall discuss several events, together representing a development that would ultimately culminate in both the political and scholarly traditions of associating William of Orange with Erasmianism.

A first instance that strongly reminds of the events in the 1810s was the forty-sixth birthday celebration of King William iii on 19 February 1863. Walraven Francken wrote a new rhyme that was hung in an alley near the Erasmus statue:

While this poem does not refer to the verses that had been attached to the statue in the 1810s, it is certainly Orangist, even presenting the Erasmus statue as a supporter of the monarch. Walraven Francken had been a Reformed minister in Rotterdam since 1850 but was also the author of political and religious works. For instance, he had published on the correspondence between Vives and Erasmus and the religious conflict between Erasmus and Luther.⁴⁴ Francken was explicitly critical of Erasmus’s restraint, especially in the latter publication, as well as of his focus on language over theology, and his preference of rationality over passion. All these critiques were commonly found in nineteenth-century orthodox Protestant opinions about Erasmus, especially in the Netherlands, where the role of Erasmus in the Reformation was vigorously debated.⁴⁵ Despite these criticisms, however, Fracken understood Erasmus’s role in the Reformation as a necessary phase and suggested that Erasmus would have been preferred over Luther had he lived in the nineteenth century.⁴⁶ The question remains as to why Francken referred to Erasmus in celebrating the king’s birthday. In the Rotterdam context, the image of a statue stepping off its pedestal could also be applied to the statues of King William ii or Hendrick Tollens, who were both more closely – though perhaps too closely – related to William iii (the statue of Van Hogendorp was only erected in 1867). The centrality and visibility of the Erasmus statue might play a part here, but an implicit reference to Erasmus’s political ideals should not be ruled out altogether. While Francken had criticized Erasmus’s morals and opinions on the Reformation, he implicitly and indirectly agreed with his ideas about state and government. Francken defended Vives’s thoughts about governance and peace, all of which are very much in accordance with Erasmus’s Institutio principis Christiani.⁴⁷ Francken regretted that the rules and lessons offered by Vives, even if they were common practice now, had not been applied sooner.⁴⁸ Considering Vives’s close indebtedness to Erasmus, it can be argued that Francken understood William iii’s rule as an implementation of the Institutio.

A few decades later, in 1887, a newspaper contribution seemed to judge the Orangist acts as misappropriations, arguing that Erasmus disagreed with (contemporary) Orangists.⁴⁹ The anonymous author, using the pen-name Verax, pretended to wonder why the overwhelmingly Orangist anti-socialist movement had not yet dressed the statue in Orange.⁵⁰ Orangism had become topical again as the Orangists protested against socialist movements, most famously in the so-called Oranjefurie of 1887, which was most prolific in Amsterdam but also struck Rotterdam.⁵¹ Verax continued by recalling a dream of the Erasmus statue coming to life and making a phone call to Mercurius, the Roman god of commerce. Responding to the contemporary socialist and anti-socialist quarrels, Verax’s Erasmus argues that a secular society necessarily leads to a failed type of socialism or communism in which freedoms irrevocably lead to inequality. Without fear of God, a minority will always lay claim to material property, leading to inequality. Following a Marxist line of thought, Mercurius and Erasmus argue that this inequality inspires the working class to demand civil rights. However, Erasmus foresees that the wealthy, backed by the police, will reject these demands; indeed, the Orangist anti-socialists will try to quell the socialist protests. Erasmus is thus presented as a socialist, but only in a secular society because he ultimately preferred confessional feudalism. In the end, Mercurius warns Erasmus to lower his voice, ‘otherwise they will think we are socialists’.⁵²

In spite of Verax’s efforts to dissuade (anti-socialist) Orangists from engaging with Erasmus, the statue would be dressed in orange once again on the occasion of Queen Wilhelmina’s eighteenth birthday on 31 August 1898. The 1813 verse was once again attached to the statue, this time in combination with an additional verse: ‘Who does not dress in orange yet, will have my book thrown at his head.’⁵³ The combination of the old and new verse seems to imply that while it was an act of bravery to dress in orange in 1813, the tables had turned in 1898. Even if this was one of the last instances of an Orangist pasquil usage of the Erasmus statue, memories of these events would continue to be recalled in later decades.

In 1906, the events of 1813 were expanded upon in a feuilleton, or short tale, in the journal Het Vaderland. The feuilleton tells the story of the compliment to Erasmus and the fooled mayor.⁵⁴ According to its anonymous author, this humorous tale had been passed down to him by his grandparents. Although the author’s grandparents might have experienced the French occupation themselves, the story of the events in 1813 was likely a fantasy or at least exaggerated. As we have seen, in that same year the French were evicted from the Netherlands and Scheltema reminisced about how the Erasmus statue was dressed in orange. In the 1906 feuilleton, the mayor of an island nearby Rotterdam owed most of his prestige to the French and bemoaned the nearing departure of his patrons – as the feuilleton’s author put it, the mayor was a ‘fiery patriot’.⁵⁵ The island’s night guard, on the other hand, was labelled as Orangist. The author described that while rumour had it that the French were being chased out of Rotterdam and the Erasmus statue was dressed in orange and adorned with a verse, this sentiment was not shared on the island. The Orangist night guard wished to see with his own eyes whether Erasmus was truly dressed in orange but had to get approval from his patriotic mayor. With a false excuse, the guard got his way. When the mayor understood the guard’s true intentions, he did not withdraw permission but asked the guard to give his compliments (in the sense of an ironic greeting) to Erasmus. When the man returned from Rotterdam, he told the mayor: ‘I came to return the compliment of Jan Rassemus [Erasmus], and how he glows with health!’⁵⁶ Apparently, the Orangist Erasmus pasquil was still known in the first decade of the twentieth century.

1913 marked the centennial of Dutch independence from France. That year, multiple commemorations were organized and commemorative illustrations published. One of these illustrations depicts William i arriving at the shore of Scheveningen in November 1813 (fig. 1). The king is welcomed by a crowd. In the background, an orange and the Dutch red-white-blue flag decorate the church of the harbour village. The central plane is flanked by six portraits surrounded with orange branches. On the top left stands King William i. Below is the Rotterdam statue of Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp, a prominent Orangist who shaped the provisional government after 1813. On the lower left is Princess Emma, the queen’s mother. Queen Wilhelmina is depicted on the upper right, together with her daughter Princess Juliana. Wilhelmina’s husband, Duke Henry of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, is portrayed on the lower right. Seemingly out of place among these Oranges and Orangists is the Erasmus statue in the middle right. The statues are not the only connections with Rotterdam. The Laurence Church is depicted on the top of the illustration and at the bottom are the arms and flag of Rotterdam.

This commemorative illustration was commissioned by the committee for the centenary of Dutch independence and was intended for distribution among schoolchildren in Rotterdam. The committee explicitly requested the depiction of the arrival of William i, the Laurence church with an orange flag, the Erasmus statue, and the statue of Van Hogendorp.⁵⁷ Unfortunately, the committee did not explain why it wished Erasmus to be included on the plate. A possible reason might have been to enhance the Rotterdam connection, which was also presumably behind the depiction of the Laurence church and the Rotterdam coat of arms. However, visually equating Erasmus to Van Hogendorp and members of the House of Orange suggests an understanding of Erasmus, or of his statue, as part of the Orangist party. Such a meaning is especially probable because, as we have seen, the narratives of Orangist acts surrounding the Erasmus statue had been recalled throughout the nineteenth century and were still alluded to in the first decades of the twentieth century, although mainly locally in Rotterdam.

We have not yet seen a comparison being made between Erasmus’s thought and William of Orange as is suggested in Van Stipriaan’s biography. Instead, Erasmus – or, more correctly, his statue – features only sporadically in Orangist media such as the poems and the commemorative plate. This situation changes as we move further into the twentieth century. Importantly, in historiography William of Orange had evolved into the head of the Orange family, and nineteenth- and twentieth-century Orangism was by this time imposed on the Father of the Fatherland. This is evident from two book publications on the occasion of William of Orange’s four hundredth birthday in 1933. The editor of one of these books, Pieter Geyl, tapped into the framing of an Orangist William of Orange to uphold the ideal of a Greater Netherlands ruled by the House of Orange.⁵⁸ He organised a celebration in opposition to the national celebrations, which, according to Geyl, claimed William of Orange for the Protestant cause.⁵⁹ In one of the book’s essays, the Reformed professor Laurentius Knappert more broadly characterised William of Orange’s plea for freedom of conscience as ‘idealistic Orangist’. He even linked the Prince of Orange to eighteenth-century ideas on tolerance and drew a parallel to his own day, in which Orange does not refer to a colour or political group but to national unity, as we have seen above.⁶⁰ The concurrent associations of both William of Orange and the Erasmus statue with Orangism paved the way for a comparison between the ideas of these two historical figures. Yet this comparison was not made in the volume, even if one of the organizers of the commemoration, M.G. Schenk, later argued that ‘William of Orange stood much closer to Erasmus than to Calvin’.⁶¹

In another publication on the same occasion, Knappert not only associated William of Orange with Orangism, but also with Erasmianism. In his biography of the prince, he typified William’s religious conduct as distinctly humanist and Erasmian. While Knappert did not elaborate on his use of this latter term, it seems to refer to a tolerant approach to religious diversity and an ideal of a unified Christianity. Johan Huizinga had made the same association before, in his 1924 biography of Erasmus. He disagreed with fellow historians who claimed that Erasmus’s political ideas had been applied in the Dutch opposition against Spain, but he maintained that ‘there is much that is Erasmian in the spirit of […] William of Orange’ when it comes to his religious conduct.⁶² Knappert, however, argued that when the Prince of Orange ultimately had to choose sides between the various religious schools, he sided with the southern Reformed Church, which was distinctively Calvinist as opposed to the northern Reformed Church, which was originally ‘independent of Luther, as of Calvin, under the influence of Erasmus’. Yet, even if William of Orange eventually did not side with Erasmus, Knappert argued this was only for political reasons, because the Reformed in the south had already started the revolt.⁶³

Laurentius Knappert described William of Orange’s religious conduct as ‘Erasmian’, a term that requires some further elaboration. The terms Erasmian and Erasmianism, even if they had already been used for centuries, only gained real currency in the twentieth century.⁶⁴ According to Nicolette Mout, they were often used by Dutch politicians and scholars as substitutes for the notions of tolerance and toleration, especially in order to indicate a distinctive feature of Dutch national identity. The terms, accordingly, do not necessarily refer to a connection with Erasmus. Instead, Erasmianism ‘provides both a key-note and a (quasi-)historically founded explanation for religious, political and social tolerance for which the Dutch deem themselves still famous’.⁶⁵ However, especially outside the Dutch context, as Cornelis Augustijn has noted, the term Erasmianism is ‘rather a mishmash than a clearly defined area’.⁶⁶ When speaking of Erasmus’s own lifetime, Erasmianism might refer to a learned method, a political system, or a stance within the Reformation. Only the latter, Augustijn argued, may be used for the period after the death of Erasmus, even though Augustijn himself preferred the phrase ‘influence of Erasmus’, which leaves room for other influences as well.⁶⁷ Jan van Dorsten has gone further, questioning whether it is even possible to speak of Erasmus’s influence. After critically assessing several usages of the term ‘Erasmian’, Van Dorsten refused to speak of Erasmus’s influence and instead attributed the term to the widespread fame of Erasmus.⁶⁸ As we will see, in the twentieth century Erasmianism would be equated with Dutch identity, and more specifically with William of Orange.

A couple of newspaper contributions by historian Paul van Overzee in 1964 demonstrate the discussion between Erasmus’s direct influence and indirect Erasmianism. In two short articles, Van Overzee explicitly discussed both Erasmus’s and William of Orange’s take on religious tolerance. He argued that the Brussels court was home to the ‘humanist spirit of Erasmus’, which the Prince ‘drank in’. Van Overzee claimed that even if William of Orange showed greed and converted to Calvinism, he remained an Erasmian Christian humanist until his death.⁶⁹ In response to the criticism his article provoked, Van Overzee clarified that Orange’s Erasmianism did not come about through any direct reading of the humanist, but through what professor Lindeboom has called ‘biblical humanism’.⁷⁰ In other words, a direct relation between Erasmus and William of Orange was not what Van Overzee had envisaged. Instead, William of Orange was attributed a rather vaguely defined Erasmianism that was deemed to have been present throughout the sixteenth-century Netherlands.

Just a year later, this idea of Erasmianism being prevalent in Dutch society was alluded to in a political context. The 1965 draft foundational statement of the liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (vvd) attributed the Netherlands with an Erasmianism that had also been evident in the politics of William of Orange.⁷¹ Ultimately, the document connects this Erasmian spirit to the idea that freedom and responsibility are inseparable – a very liberal stance. This Erasmian mind, moreover, is said to have been inherent to followers of different convictions and worldviews. The latter statement should be understood in the context of the deconfessionalization of Dutch society. The pillarization of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Dutch society along religious lines, which had clearly shaped the 1933 celebrations, was rapidly dismantled in the 1960s and 1970s. Now that the pillars no longer strictly divided society on the basis of religious conviction, Erasmus could become a national symbol. After numerous consultations and meetings, the draft statement of the vvd was eventually entirely revised. Because the Erasmianism of William of Orange could not be substantiated and was deemed ahistorical, the reference to Erasmus was ultimately omitted.⁷²

Remarkably, the liberal appropriation of Erasmus had a precursor in a party at the other end of the political spectrum. The Dutch Communist Party (cpn) had incorporated Erasmus in its foundational statements. In its 1946 programme, the party referred to Erasmus merely because of his humanism, which was seen to be at the basis of the party’s own political outlook. In the revised programme of 1952, the reference to Erasmus became more nuanced: the cpn presented itself as heir to Erasmus’s striving for freedom from royal and ecclesiastical tyranny. In both cases, Erasmus stands alongside Spinoza and Hugo Grotius; in neither case is there any mention of William of Orange.⁷³ Apparently, the Erasmian idea of tolerance and the Erasmian worldview were popular characteristics for political parties to associate themselves with. The Catholic historian L.J. Rogier deemed the kneading of a historical figure such as William of Orange into a political similitude a natural law. He considered the Calvinist political identification with the Dutch prince a falsification of history and an insult to William of Orange, but he did uphold the connection to Erasmus: ‘Erasmus […] may be the patron of the house Orange, at least of the Prince of Orange par excellence.’ For Rogier, Erasmianism is ‘the most essential feature of his [Orange’s] historical stature’, evident from his refusal to take sides (religious liberalism and political compromise) and his Christian humanism.⁷⁴

Rogier wrote one of the many academic studies about William of Orange in the last decades of the twentieth century that made note of William’s Erasmianism.⁷⁵ This Erasmianism at the same time continues to be described as inherent to the time, while no direct influence of Erasmus’s publications is claimed. Hans Bots, for example, described William of Orange as the proponent of a spirit of freedom that was characteristic of the sixteenth-century Netherlands; a spirit that had its roots in the biblical humanism of Erasmus.⁷⁶ Bots thus described William of Orange as an Erasmian, but not as a direct or active follower of Erasmus on the basis of his writings. Similarly, Karel Bostoen and Karel Cools argued that the views of William of Orange were rooted in the Erasmian tradition, which was also one of the oldest and most essential components of Dutch culture in general.⁷⁷

In a similar fashion, Erasmus scholar E.H. Waterbolk characterized William of Orange’s sense of tolerance and pacifism as Erasmian in his 1970 article L’érasmianisme de Guillaume d’Orange.⁷⁸ While he equally did not trace any direct influence of Erasmus or his writings, Waterbolk argued that William grew up and lived in an Erasmian environment. The prince’s environment could be considered Erasmian because his father and uncle were taught by Erasmus himself and because Erasmianism was evident throughout the learned community in the Low Countries. While the main reason for the prince’s tolerance and pacifism was piety, Waterbolk argued that he had strong political, economic, and military motives as well. William of Orange’s thoughts and actions were based on his naivety and opportunism rather than on an Erasmian conviction. While the prince agreed with Erasmus in arguing for the freedom of conscience, he departed from Erasmus in his attempts to accept a pluralism of religions. Still, despite his deviation from Erasmianism in his political conduct, Waterbolk characterised William of Orange as an Erasmian at heart. Waterbolk deemed the Erasmian ideal in William of Orange’s politics unsuccessful. The Father of the Fatherland aimed to unite the Netherlands, but the provinces were disunited as a result of the act of abjuration in 1581. William of Orange also tried to secure religious tolerance in 1577 through the Second Union of Brussels, but this document was accepted by neither the Catholics nor the Protestants. Finally, he wished for peace but got involved in war. Waterbolk attributed some of these failures to William’s Erasmianism. Firstly, tolerance led to polarization and dogmatization of political ideology, and secondly, religious tolerance in Erasmus’s sense was obsolete and could not be applied within the new pluriform world of Christianity. Ultimately, Waterbolk argued that William of Orange’s Erasmianism was untimely: he was ahead of his time in appreciating tolerance, while he had an outdated and naive view of Christianity. In his study of the historiography of William of Orange, Anton van der Lem characterised Waterbolk’s study as a ‘short, but nice article’ and did not question the recognition of a sense of Erasmianism in William of Orange at all.⁷⁹

Having traced the reception histories of Erasmus, William of Orange, and the verses of the 1810s, it is clear that the present-day association between Erasmus and William of Orange is instead a concurrence of the receptions of these two men, which portrays them as advocates of freedom and religious tolerance. While the pasquils of 1810 and 1813 were unlikely to be based on such a motivation, they did initiate the connection between Erasmus and Orangism on the one hand, and between Erasmus and freedom on the other. In the many nineteenth- and twentieth-century commemorations of these events, Erasmus was primarily associated with criticism of foreign powers, independence from France, and the return of the royal house of Orange. After William of Orange had also been incorporated in the national Orangist narrative, a connection with Erasmus could be substantiated, especially when Erasmus was alluded to in a national context rather than merely as a Rotterdam hero. At this point in time, the connection was made because newly shared values were attributed to the two men and because of the new national sentiments associated with Erasmus and William of Orange.

Since an actual connection between William of Orange and Erasmus could not be substantiated, this association went hand in hand with the increased usage of the term Erasmianism. Historians did not argue that the prince had read Erasmus; instead, he was deemed to have an Erasmian mind or spirit. The suffix ‘-an’ is normally used to refer to scholars who study or adopt the philosophy of historical figures, such as Aristotelians, Cartesians, Kantians, Habermasians, or Wittgensteinians, and in this vein a scholar of Erasmus’s philosophy could be called an Erasmian. However, as scholars are prone to refer to people as being ‘Erasmians’, even in cases in which there is no proven affinity or historical relation with Erasmus, the term should be used with caution. Erasmianism may refer to a broad horizon of affinities with Erasmus, ranging from direct and comprehensive resemblance (such as pupils) to indirect and partial or even vague forms of similarity, as is the case with William of Orange.

I have already discussed Seidel Menchi’s criticism of the -ism in Erasmianism, and similar arguments have been made more generally for almost a century, notably by Arthur Lovejoy. Lovejoy recognized terminology such as isms as ‘complexes, not of simples’, arguing they refer to ‘several distinct and often conflicting doctrines’.⁸⁰ The political role of isms has recently been studied in a project at the University of Helsinki. The researchers argue that isms are often incompatible with long-term or global perspectives because of their multi-layered temporality.⁸¹ Whenever scholars critically assess isms, they often seem cautious and their proposed methodology mainly serves to avoid the fallacies of isms. Indeed, both Erasmianism and Orangism proved to be flexible terms and should be used with caution. We might wonder about the value of isms if they are distanced too far from their namesakes.

The danger of anachronism in the use of isms should not encourage the historian of ideas to entirely omit such terminology from their studies. According to Cesare Cuttica, a study of isms may serve to ‘recognize some cardinal points on our intellectual horizon and on that of the men and women studied’.⁸² A reception history of isms can provide insight in not only their changing meanings through time and space but also shed light on our understanding of the ism. For this purpose, it is vital to detach the ism from its namesake – in our case to detach Erasmianism from Erasmus – because the ism leads a life of its own and will develop its own values. As this article has shown, the broad scope of Erasmianism includes values such as tolerance and freedom, but may equally be associated with other isms such as nationalism and Orangism, each of which have their own long and changeable history.