Desiderius Erasmus (1466) It was on this date, October 27, 1466, that the Dutch author, and the greatest humanist scholar of the northern Renaissance, Desiderius Erasmus was born Gerrit Gerritszoon in Rotterdam, in what is now the Netherlands. He was the product of a liaison between a housekeeper-niece and a Dutch priest. Ordained a priest […]

Henry VIII (1521): Defender of the Faith It was on this date, October 11, 1521,* that Pope Leo X conferred the title Fidei Defensor, which is Latin for "Defender of the Faith," on England's King Henry VIII. That Medici pope, whose profligate spending and perverse pleasures were the outrage of Rome, was a staunch opponent […]

Bernard Becomes a Saint (1153): What Sainthood Means It was on this date, August 21, 1153, that Bernard of Clairvaux, canonized a Catholic "saint" in 1170 by Pope Alexander III, died in the Cistercian monastery of Clairvaux, in France. Bernard was born in 1090, at Fontaines, near Dijon, France, and at age 25 was entrusted […]

Had Becket but served his king with half the zeal that he served his God, he would not have been left naked to his enemies.