But, despite his moderation, Erasmus couldn’t entirely escape the fight. Catholic bigots accused him of laying the eggs ‘which Luther and Zwingli hatched’ and The Praise of Folly was placed on the Index of Prohibited Books, while Erasmus himself was condemned by the Council of Trent as ‘an impious heretic’. In other words, he was welcome in neither camp. This was perhaps inevitable but it was no less tragic for all that. Erasmus had lived, or tried to live, the ideal life of a humanist, as someone who believed in the life of the mind, that virtue could be based on humanity, that tolerance was
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