Moriae Encomium was hugely popular, to Erasmus' astonishment and sometimes his dismay. Even Erasmus' close friends had been initially skeptical and warned him of possible dangers to himself from thus attacking the established religion. Even Pope Leo X and Cardinal Cisneros are said to have found it amusing.[7] Before Erasmus' death it had already passed into numerous editions and had been translated into Czech, French, and German. An English edition soon followed. It influenced the teaching of rhetoric during the later sixteenth century, and the art of adoxography or praise of worthless subjects became a popular exercise in Elizabethan grammar schools.[8] A copy of the Basel edition of 1515/16 was illustrated with pen and ink drawings by Hans Holbein the Younger.[9] These are the most famous illustrations of In Praise of Folly.
Its role in the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation[4] stems from its criticism of the practices of the Church and its political allies.[10]
Erasmus subsequently wrote that he almost regretted writing it, such had been the trouble it had caused him. But this trouble did not come from the satirized princes, popes, bishops, abbots, cardinals, famous scholars, courtiers, magistrates or wives, but from certain theologians.[11]
It has been called "a notoriously difficult text" to analyse.[12]
