In 1523, he supported his friend Francis von Sickingen, in the attempt to assert by force of arms the rights of the patriotic and evangelic order of knights.

When this was defeated, Hutten, suffering from a terrible disease, wandered to Switzerland, where he died, a lonely and broken exile.

His epitaph shall be his own lofty poem: I have fought my fight with courage, Nor have I aught to rue, For, though I lost the battle, The world knows, I was true! [Sidenote: Erasmus, 1466-1536] The most cosmopolitan, as well as the greatest, of all the Christian humanists, was Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.

Though an illegitimate child, he was well educated and thoroughly grounded in the classics at the famous school of Deventer.

At the age of twenty he was persuaded, somewhat against his will, to enter the order of Augustinian Canons at Steyn.