Edmond Richer and the Renewal of Conciliarism in the 17th century [1 ed.] 9783666564727, 9783525564721

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Philippe Denis

Edmond Richer and the Renewal of Conciliarism in the 17th century Academic Studies

62

Refo500 Academic Studies Edited by Herman J. Selderhuis In co-operation with Christopher B. Brown (Boston), Günter Frank (Bretten), Bruce Gordon (New Haven), Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer (Bern), Tarald Rasmussen (Oslo), Violet Soen (Leuven), Zsombor Tóth (Budapest), Günther Wassilowsky (Frankfurt), Siegrid Westphal (Osnabrück)

Volume 62

Philippe Denis

Edmond Richer and the Renewal of Conciliarism in the 17th century Translated from the French by Carole Beckett

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek: The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: http://dnb.de. © 2019, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Theaterstraße 13, D-37073 Göttingen All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. Typesetting: 3w+p, Rimpar Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage | www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com ISSN 2197-0165 ISBN 978-3-666-56472-7

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Part One. The Life of Edmond Richer . . . .

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21 21 27 34

Chapter 2. On Gerson’s footsteps . . . . . . . . . The publication of Gerson’s works . . . . . . . . The affair of the Interdict of Venice . . . . . . . The Apologia pro Ecclesia et Concilii auctoritate

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41 41 48 56

Chapter 3. Richer, syndic of the Faculty of Theology The new syndic’s plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The assassination of Henry IV . . . . . . . . . . . The general chapter of the Dominicans . . . . . .

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61 61 64 71

Chapter 4. The De ecclesiastica et politica potestate and its diffusion in Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The first editions of the treatise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Richer at the service of James I’s religious policy . . . . . . . . . . . . The peripeties of a translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The reception of Richer’s work in the Netherlands . . . . . . . . . . .

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77 77 82 88 93

Chapter 5. Richer’s condemnation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The confrontation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The downfall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

99 99 106

Chapter 1. The early years . . . . . . . Childhood and studies . . . . . . . . Under the League . . . . . . . . . . . The reform of the University of Paris

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Contents

The theological counterattack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The refutations of Richer’s treatise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

110 115

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127 127 130 134 139 140 145 152

Chapter 7. The battle for Richer’s soul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Richer’s forced retraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Richer’s last will . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

155 155 159

Chapter 8. The myth of Richerism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The posthumous works of Richer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The reception of Richer’s work during the seventeenth century . . . Richerism as an argument of controversy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . From conciliarist constitutionalism to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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163 163 167 171

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189 192 201 206

Chapter 2. Richer’s ecclesiology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The whole and the parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The disputed legacy of Jacques Almain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A monarchical constitution conducted by an aristocratic government Essential head and ministerial head . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Richer, theologian of reception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The participation of priests in the government of the diocese . . . . .

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217 218 223 227 231 238 243

Chapter 3. Richer’s political thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The prince and the pontiff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

251 251

Chapter 6. Forced retirement . . . . . . . . The Oratory on the defensive . . . . . . . . The Article of the Third Estate . . . . . . . The De Dominis affair . . . . . . . . . . . Richer’s false retraction . . . . . . . . . . . The quarrel between seculars and regulars The last writings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joan of Arc’s life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Part Two. Edmond Richer’s Ecclesiological and Political Writings Chapter 1. The School of Paris . . . . . . . . . Pope and council . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The power of the popes in temporal matters The origin of political power . . . . . . . . .

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Contents

A government born of the people . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Richer and Bodin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

258 265

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

273

Sources and Bibliography . . 1. Manuscript sources . . . . 2. Printed sources . . . . . . Works by Edmond Richer Other printed sources . . . 3. Secondary literature . . . Index of Names and Places . Index of Subjects . . . . . .

281 281 281 281 285 291 303 311

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Introduction

The story that is told in this book starts in Venice. On 25 December 1605, Pope Paul V’s nuncio enjoined the Serenissima to transfer to the ecclesiastical tribunal, under threat of excommunication, two priests who had been found guilty of violation of the common law and to annul a law that restricted the sale of secular properties to the Church. Venice refused, finding the intervention of the Holy See in a matter that fell under civil jurisdiction to be improper. It also refused to accept that Rome, not so much as a spiritual power but rather as a landowner, deprive the city of economic resources which it needed for its subsistence. The pope refused to yield and, on 17 April 1606, excommunicated Venice. His argument was that, as the vicar of Christ, he held jurisdiction over Christian states regarding not only spiritual matters, but temporal matters as well. Two ecclesiologies clashed: one which was in favour of the absolute power of the pope, the other for a balance of powers within the Church and for the autonomy of the political realm. At the time of this controversy, the theologian of the Republic of Venice, Paolo Sarpi, a Servite priest who had performed important functions within his order, published a treatise on Jean Gerson, the most important preacher at the Council of Constance, which dealt with the abuse of the power of the keys. In reply, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine questioned the credibility of the chancellor of the University of Paris. At the same time, a theologian from the Sorbonne, Edmond Richer, was in the process of re-editing the works of Gerson for a publishing company. A former Leaguer, he had been involved in the reform of the University of Paris and, on that occasion, had established close links with Gallican circles. Shocked by Bellarmine’s attack on Gerson, he took up his pen in order to defend the ideas of the chancellor of Paris. He maintained, as had Gerson and the supporters of conciliarism, that the Council held greater power than did the pope. He stated his preference for a monarchy ‘tempered’ by the aristocracy, a regime which he judged to be more suitable for the Church than an ‘absolute monarchy’. He did not want a ‘republic of slaves’.

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Introduction

This first ecclesiological writing was not widely diffused. Meanwhile, Richer had been elected syndic of the Faculty of Theology in Paris and he set about reaffirming the authority, supposedly continuous, of the teachings of the Parisian doctors regarding the respective powers of the pope and the council. In 1611, whilst the confrontation between the advocates of the ‘liberties of the Gallican Church’ or the bons Français (good Frenchmen) and the catholiques zélés (zealous Catholics), also known as the Ultramontains (Ultramontanes) was at its most acrimonious in the heated atmosphere caused by the assassination of Henry IV, he published a summary of the doctrine of the School of Paris under the title of De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, which was to be republished several times and which was translated into French, English and Dutch. This work met with strong opposition from Cardinal du Perron, some doctors from the Sorbonne as well as from the court of Marie de’ Medici. In March 1612 the bishops of the archdiocese of Sens, under which Paris fell, condemned the treatise and it was put in the index in Rome. More seriously for Richer, the queen’s chaplain informed him that he was no longer to publish anything on disputed topics. Should he do so, he would have to face penal sanctions. In September, he was dismissed from his position of syndic. He continued to write in defense of his ideas, but his most important works were not published during his lifetime. They were only to see the light of day during the second half of the seventeenth century and in the eighteenth century. This book retraces Edmond Richer’s career and examines his ecclesiological and political thinking. Without taking all the syndic’s opinions at face value, it commits itself to taking seriously his declared intention which was to vindicate the teaching of the School of Paris and that of Gerson in particular. It places the heated, sometimes aggressive, debates between Richer and his adversaries in the context of a double progression: that of the doctrine of an absolute monarchy, a form of government which had been developing since the troubles of the League, and that of the Ultramontane ideas, often disputed but supported with growing vigour, in France and elsewhere, in the context of the reception of the Council of Trent. Although his name is often cited in historical manuals, Richer is not well known. What is said about him depends for the greater part on the interpretation of his works by his Ultramontane adversaries. Indeed, as he was forbidden to publish, Richer did not have the opportunity to explain what he meant in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate and when, several decades after his death the works which he had written during his retirement were finally published, it was too late to change the image which his opponents had created of him. It is possible to count on the fingers of one hand the writers who made the effort to read Richer’s entire works and not just the treatise which had resulted in him being condemned.

Introduction

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Of all Richer’s opponents, the best informed as well as the most influential was his colleague in the Faculty of Theology, André Duval.1 His opinion set a precedent. It was he who declared, after a somewhat tendentious study of the texts that, contrary to his claims, Richer betrayed the School of Paris. Convinced that the only form of government acceptable to the Church was an absolute monarchy, he suggested, without however openly stating it, that Richer was schismatic and that his doctrine had several points in common with that of the Protestants. The syndic, according to him, was an innovator. This opinion is shared, up to the current time, by almost all the biographers and commentators of Richer. It was also Duval who invented the term ‘Richerist’ in order to show that the syndic was speaking only for himself and not, as he would have one believe, for Gerson and the School of Paris. This term, which is more polemical than descriptive, became popular in the literature of controversy and, later, with historians. If, when they were published and republished, Richer’s works had an influence on Gallican and Jansenist writers during the seventeenth and eighteen centuries, very little trace of this is evident for his name was never quoted in their works. The master who was venerated and constantly remembered was Gerson. The former syndic was regularly mentioned, on the other hand, by the Ultramontanes, who made him the leader of the ‘Richerists’, people who were determined to undermine the power of the pope. Richer may have been harsh towards the sons of Saint Ignatius who were accused of compromising the integrity of the University of Paris, but they, for their part, did not treat him better. A succession of Jesuits and former Jesuits – Jacques Sirmond, René Rapin, Denis Pétau, Michel Le Tellier, Jacques La Fontaine, Pierre-François Lafitau, Giovanni Batista Faure, Aloysius Merz, Lorenz Veith, Augustin Barruel and François-Xavier de Feller – kept his dark legend alive up until the beginning of the nineteenth century. More than Richer’s theological work, it was the story of his life which had an impact on minds during the two centuries which preceded the French Revolution. The controversy which surrounded his enforced retraction as well as his last wishes resurfaced constantly. In 1692, a mere couple of years after the Declaration of the Assembly of the Clergy, the through-and-through Gallican Adrien Baillet wrote a Vie d’Edmond Richer which appeared in 17142 and which inspired several biographical texts, amongst which was that of Louis-Ellies Du Pin3 who had just republished Gerson. Baillet relied mainly on the Histoire du syndicat d’Edmond Richer, an autobiographical memoir which was only published several

1 André Duval, Libelli de Ecclesiastica et Politica potestate Elenchus, pro suprema romani Pontificis in Ecclesiam authoritate, Paris, [Jacquin], 1612. 2 Baillet, La Vie d’Edmond Richer, Liège, 1714. 3 Louis-Ellies Du Pin, Histoire ecclésiastique du dix-septième siècle, vol. 1, Paris, André Pralard, 1714, 377–452.

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decades later in 1753.4 By giving a voice to the former syndic, these two works conveyed within Gallican and Jansenist circles the impression of a Richer persecuted by his adversaries and fighting to his last breath for the success of his ideas. An important link is the work by Gabriel-Nicolas Maultrot which was published in 1790 and 1791.5 It brought to the fore the fact that Richer had always taught and embodied the doctrine of the School of Paris and did not in any way participate, as many claimed, in the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. On the Protestant side, we may note a thesis on the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, defended in the Faculty of Protestant Theology in Strasbourg in 1863,6 which presented Richer as a precursor of modernity. But these are nothing more than marginal opinions. Richerian historiography is dominated by the two-volume biography of Abbé Edmond Puyol,7 one of the few authors who consulted almost all Richer’s writings. Written in the aftermath of the First Vatican Council, it is a militant text: it undertakes to show the ‘sectarian’ nature – the word is repeated several times – of Richer’s Gallicanism, a theological and political ‘system’ which was henceforth banned by the Church. The doctrine of the ‘absolute monarchy of the Church’ was declared ultimate truth. Because of its erudition and because there was no other important work on this subject, this book, in spite of its obvious ideological bias, had a decisive influence on research, far beyond the Ultramontane circles for which it was originally intended. In his book Puyol defended three theses: on the historical importance of Richer, on his character and on the nature of his doctrine. The syndic was presented as the main instigator, if not the leader, of the Gallican movement in the seventeenth century. Richer and Richerism were declared to be responsible for the difficulties encountered in France by the Ultramontanes until such time as their doctrine was finally accepted in the nineteenth century. When the Politiques gained the upper hand after the aberrations of the League, Puyol wrote, Richer provided them with a doctrine which, until then, had been loosely defined and failed to coordinate its essential elements. ‘It can be said without exaggeration that he showed the way and facilitated the triumph of Gallicanism.’8 Without him, 4 Histoire du syndicat d’Edmond Richer par Edmond Richer lui-même, Avignon, Alexandre Girard, 1753. 5 [Gabriel-Nicolas Maultrot], Défense de Richer, chimere du Richérisme, ou Réfutation de la brochure intitulée: Découverte importante sur le vrai système de la constitution du Clergé, décrétée par l’Assemblée Nationale, 2 vols., Paris, Le Clere, 1797–1791. 6 E.J. Laromiguière-Lafon, Étude critique du traité De ecclesiastica et politica potestate d’Edmond Richer, thesis presented at the Faculty of Protestant Theology of Strasbourg and publically defended, Strasbourg, G. Silbermann, 1863. 7 Pierre-Edmond Puyol, Edmond Richer. Étude historique et critique sur la rénovation du gallicanisme au commencement du XVIIe siècle, 2 vols., Paris, Olmer, 1876. 8 Ibid., vol. 1, 37.

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this pernicious doctrine would doubtless have disappeared. ‘It is quite possible that the last representatives of a lost past would have vanished without trace if Richer had not appeared at the precise moment to resuscitate the traditions of the old Sorbonne. […] Richer did not retreat from the battle against the general convictions of the clergy but engaged in it with as much determination as skill.’9 Secondly, Puyol expressed a moral judgment about Richer the man. That a priest in the Catholic Church and a theologian at the Sorbonne could have close ties with the Gallican party and could become its leader could only be explained, according to him, by a flaw in his character. For this reason he supplied a litany of moral appreciations. Richer was a ‘violent, impassioned and vindictive’ man.10 ‘His austerity and his authoritative nature, his knowledge and his character had well equipped him to become the leader of the sect’.11 Against the Jesuits he showed a ‘truly fierce animosity’.12 ‘Solitary studies, success and authority made him an arrogant man. Consequently he truly believed that he was almost the only person to grasp the truth. […] He became more and more deeply rooted in the conviction that everybody else was mistaken and that he alone was right. He believed that he was enlightened by God’.13 ‘Richer was not only enamoured of himself, he was not only obstinate but he […] was imbued with a spirit of dissent.’14 Thirdly, Puyol characterised Richer’s doctrine. According to him, the main feature of his ecclesiology was episcopalism. ‘The central point of Richer’s system, and consequently the most defective of his hierarchical theories, was the exaggerated role he conferred on the episcopacy in ecclesiastical power’.15 Here, Puyol was referring to the claims of a national episcopacy as they had been stated, in 1682, in the Declaration of the Assembly of the Clergy. If he was aware of the fact that Richer took his inspiration from Gerson and other Parisian masters, he had not read these authors and paid little attention to the similarities between their works and those of Richer. Significantly, the doctrine of the Council of Constance was presented as being Gallican and not conciliarist. Richer was described as being the prime motivator of the Gallicans in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and not as successor of fifteenth century conciliarism, a movement, as shown by Brian Tierney, which was deeply rooted in a much more ancient canonical tradition.

9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Ibid., vol. 1, 130. Ibid., vol. 1, 42. Ibid., vol. 1, 100. Ibid., vol. 1, 141. Ibid., vol. 1, 362–363. Ibid., vol. 1, 365. Ibid., vol. 1, 467.

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Linked to Richer’s episcopalism was a doctrine which Puyol defined as presbyterianism. He took care to show that the author of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate could not be compared with Calvin’s disciples because he recognised the primacy of the pope. However, he found that he distanced himself from Catholic doctrine by assigning to priests powers in the government of the Church which were far too great. ‘Richer exaggerated the powers of the priests by establishing a form of similarity between the priesthood and the episcopacy regarding the origin of their authority’.16 As for Richer’s political Gallicanism, according to Puyol, it took the form of a ‘doctrine of the divine right of kings’, which implied that ‘the sovereigns who had been declared irresponsible and independent from the pope could protect the Church when they wished without being obliged to grant it everything to which it laid claim according to ancient principles’.17 Puyol described this ‘system’ as a ‘regalism’ or rather as a new combination, expressed in an erudite fashion, between episcopalism and regalism. ‘What guarantees him a place in the history of ideas is less his work of mitigation of Gersonism than the concept in which he united in a single system both episcopalism and regalism’.18 Fifty years later, the Catholic historian Edmond Préclin, professor at the University of Besançon, gave academic backing to Puyol’s work in an article which appeared in two parts in the Revue d’histoire moderne.19 Thanks to better access to archival resources and to a more systematic usage of Richer’s unpublished manuscripts in the Bibliothèque nationale, he clarified and consolidated Richer’s biography. In the main, he confirmed Puyol’s remarks on the proud and argumentative nature of the syndic as well as the definition of his doctrine as a new combination of episcopalism and regalism. Repeating the conclusion of an earlier work,20 he saw in the ‘Richerism’ of the end of the seventeenth century and of the eighteenth century a development of Richer’s presbyterianism, which he called ‘parochialism’. With the exception of the works of Francis Oakley, to which we will return, the few writings devoted to Richer during the last thirty years have not substantially changed the image which Puyol and Préclin gave of him: an ambitious man who

16 17 18 19

Ibid., vol. 1. 446. Ibid., vol. 2, 58–59. Ibid., vol. 2, 411. Edmond Préclin, ‘Edmond Richer, 1559–1631. Son œuvre. Le richérisme’, Revue d’histoire moderne, 5, 1930, 241–269, 321–336. 20 Edmond Préclin, Les Jansénistes du XVIIIe siècle et la Constitution civile du clergé. Le développement du richérisme. Sa propagation dans le Bas Clergé 1713–1791, Paris, Librairie Universitaire Gambier, 1928.

Introduction

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was prepared to do anything to see his ideas prevail (Claude Sutto),21 an apologist for the absolute monarchy who regarded the authority of the prince as sacred (Monique Cottret),22 the proponent of an extraordinarily virulent form of Catholic antiromanism (De Franceschi),23 the defender of a radical form of Gallicanism (Frédéric Gabriel).24 The same can be said of Yves Congar who reproduced, without criticising it, the negative image which the Ultramontane writers painted of Richer. If, particularly in his last works, the Dominican theologian recognized the contribution of Gerson and of conciliarism to the ecclesiology of communion he favoured, he continued to see in Richer the defender of a legalistic and reductionistic vision of the Church.25 He erroneously created the impression that Richer’s ideas had been censured by Pope Pius VI at the time of the condemnation of the Synod of Pistoia in 1786.26 But does this do justice to an author who ceaselessly maintained that all he wanted to do was to honour the doctrine of the School of Paris and whose main intention was to curb the excesses of absolute power, in the Church as much as in the state? If he were Gallican, he was above all else a conciliarist, admittedly of a later generation. The purpose of the present work is to take a new look at the life and work of Edmond Richer by distancing ourselves from the portrait painted by his Ultramontane adversaries and by the historians who took their inspiration, sometimes unwittingly, from them. I would like to acknowledge my debt towards the historians, particularly the Anglo-Saxon ones, who have, for the past half a century, renewed the study of Conciliarism. Far from considering this doctrinal current as an historical accident solely aimed at resolving the crisis of the Great Schism, they see it as a particularly consummate expression of an ecclesiology of the Church as a body whose roots were entrenched in a patristic and mediaeval theology which continued in a variety of guises up to the French Revolution, which fell into obscurity 21 Claude Sutto, ‘Une controverse ecclésiologique au début du XVIIe siècle: le Libellus de ecclesiastica et politica potestate d’Edmond Richer (1611)’, in Homo Religiosus. Autour de Jean Delumeau, Paris, Fayard, 1997, 426. 22 Monique Cottret, ‘Edmond Richer (1559–1631). Le politique et le sacré’ in Henri Méchoulan, ed, L’État baroque (1610–1631). Regards sur la pensée politique de la France du premier XVIIe siècle, Paris, Vrin, 1985, 167–168. 23 Sylvio Hermann De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique du premier âge baroque. Antiromanisme doctrinal, pouvoir pastoral et raison du prince: le Saint-Siège face au prisme français (1607–1627), Rome, École française de Rome, 2009, 320. 24 Frédéric Gabriel, art. ‘Richer, Edmond’ in Luc Foisneau (ed.), Dictionary of SeventeenthCentury French Philosophers, Bristol, New York and London, Thoemmes Press Continuum, 2008, 1093. 25 Yves Congar, L’Eglise de saint Augustin à l’époque moderne, Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 1970, 394–395. 26 See below, part 1, chapter 8.

16

Introduction

during the nineteenth century and which found a new relevance at the time of the Second Vatican Council. The work of Gerson, to which frequent reference will be made in this book, is now studied on its own merits and appreciated positively as a result.27 Another historiographical revival which has influenced me is that of Gallican studies. Recent works on this subject, in French as much as in English,28 examine, better than has been done before, the Gallican movement and its longterm effects. It is to be understood as a return to the origins – a past of the Church and of the French nation that is more or less idealised – which entails, in a context which has been transformed by the Wars of Religion, the excesses of the League and the growth of monarchical aspirations, a new vision of the relations between religion and politics. If there is an author to whom I am particularly indebted not only for having brought to the fore the conciliarist tradition in the early modern era but also for the suggestion of reading Richer in the light of Gerson’s works, it is the American historian Francis Oakley. Taking a clue from Thomas Mayer,29 he suggested, in an article which appeared in 1999,30 distinguishing between a classical age or a gold age (d’Ailly, Gerson, Cusa), a silver age (Almain, Major) and a bronze age (Richer, Vigor) of conciliarism. This typology convincingly illustrates the continuity of the conciliarist movement. Richer, editor and commentator of Gerson, is put in perspective. The pages which Oakley devotes to the author of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate in his article of 1999 invite the reader to transcend the rigid and reductionist image which Puyol and Préclin convey of the syndic’s work. 27 Brian Tierney, Foundations of Conciliar Theory: The Contribution of Medieval Canonists from Gratian to the Great Schism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1955; Olivier de la Brosse, Le pape et le concile. La comparaison de leurs pouvoirs à la veille de la Réforme, Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 1965; Louis Pascoe, Jean Gerson: Principles of Church Reform, Leiden, Brill, 1973; G. H. M. Posthumus Meyjes, Jean Gerson, Apostle of Unity: His Church, Politics and Ecclesiology, Leiden, Brill, 1999; Francis Oakley, The Conciliarist Tradition. Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church 1300–1870, New York, Oxford University Press, 2003; Brian Patrick McGuire (ed.), A Companion to Jean Gerson, Leiden, Brill, 2006. 28 William Bouwsma, ‘Gallicanism and the nature of Christendom’ in Essays in European Cultural History, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990, 311–312; Alain Tallon, Conscience nationale et sentiment religieux en France au XVI siècle. Essai sur la vision gallicane du monde, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2002; Jotham Parsons, The Church in the Republic: Gallicanism and Political Ideology in Renaissance France, Washington, University of America Press, 2004; ‘La culture gallicane: références et modèles (droit, ecclésiologie, histoire)’, special issue of Revue de l’histoire des religions, 226, nº 3, 2009. The pioneering work of Joseph Lecler (‘Qu’est-ce que les libertés de l’Église gallicane?’, Recherches de sciences religieuses, 23, 1933, 385–410; 24, 47–85) is of great importance. 29 Thomas Mayer, ‘Marco Mantova, a Bronze Age Conciliarist’, Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 16, 1984, 385–408 30 Francis Oakley, ‘Bronze-Age conciliarism: Edmond Richer’s Encounter with Cajetan and Bellarmine’, History of Political Thought, 20, 1999, 65–86. The main ideas in this article are reproduced in Oakley, The Conciliarist Tradition, 140–172.

Introduction

17

The majority of Richer’s works are easily accessible thanks to the digitisation of ancient texts undertaken by Google, the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, to mention only the main leaders in this project. A notable exception is the Apologia pro ecclesiae & concilii auctoritate, the first ecclesiological document written by Richer which was published without his permission in 1607 and of which, it would appear, only two copies remain: one in London and the other in Venice. As we have seen, a large portion of Richer’s works was published after his death. Only one work remains unpublished to date: the Historia academiae parisiensis, a history of the University of Paris in several volumes, which contains numerous personal recollections.31 A major source on Richer’s life is his autobiography, which was initially kept in manuscript form and later published under the title Histoire du syndicat d’Edmond Richer. Préclin, who found its ‘conclusions to be biased’, nevertheless judged it to be ‘interesting and accurate concerning the facts’.32 The only regret regarding sources is that none of Richer’s correspondence has been conserved. On several occasions during his life, Richer felt threatened and it is possible that, on one of these occasions, he destroyed his correspondence. This book consists of two parts. The first, which has eight chapters, traces Richer’s life from a chronological point of view. The last chapter examines the reaction towards the work of the Gallican theologian during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The second part proposes a reading of Richer’s work. It begins with an overview of the theological and political movements associated with the School of Paris. The two following chapters deal, respectively, with Richer’s ecclesiological and political thinking. From a methodological point of view, they differ considerably from works which other authors have devoted to the subject. The syndic’s best known treatise, the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, is used as a guideline. On each of the contentious points, the point of view of the Ultramontane theologian André Duval and Richer’s reply in his later works, the Demonstratio libelii de ecclesiastica et politica potestate (1622) in particular, are given. References by Richer and Duval to masters of the University of Paris are carefully examined so as to verify the pledge made by Richer to take his inspiration only from the doctrine of the School of Paris. The two authors who are most frequently quoted are Gerson and Almain. A word in conclusion concerning the vocabulary used. The categories of Ultramontanism, Gallicanism and conciliarism date, at the earliest, from the eighteenth century33 and should be used with care. Richer and his con31 Bibliothèque nationale de France (henceforth BnF), ms. lat. 9943–9948 (seven volumes). 32 Préclin, ‘Edmond Richer’, 328. 33 H. Raab, ‘Zur Gerschichte und Bedeutung des Schlagswortes Ultramontan im 18. und frühen 19 Jahrhundert’, Historisches Jahrbuch der Görresgesellschaft, 81, 1962, 152–173; Parsons, The Church in the Republic, 5; De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 23.

18

Introduction

temporaries did not use this vocabulary. On the other hand, the expression ‘liberties of the Gallican church’ is old. According to Joseph Lecler, it was in use as early as the fourteenth century.34 As for the term Ultramontains (Ultramontanes) it appears, with a capital letter, in Richer’s works to indicate the supporters of pontifical supremacy.35 The expressions catholiques zélés (zealous Catholics) and, later on, catholiques dévots (devout Catholics) were, however, more frequently used. For reasons of clarity, I will speak of Gallicans and Ultramontanes. This book owes much to conversations and letters written to and received from colleagues who have become friends: if I do not mention all of them, at least I would like to cite Nicole Lemaître, Thierry Amalou and Frédéric Gabriel. I also owe a debt of gratitude towards the University of Kwa-Zulu-Natal which allowed me three periods of sabbatical leave, spread over several years, to work on the book. Finally, I thank Carole Beckett, a South African colleague, for having put so much effort, in close collaboration with me, into the English translation of the book, which was originally published in French.36 Unless stated otherwise, all the translations from the French are ours. Apart from minor changes and references to work published in the meantime,37 the translation is conform to the original. My gratitude also goes to Herman Selderhuis who graciously welcomed this book into the Refo2000 series of Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Pietermaritzburg, April 2019.

34 Lecler, ‘Qu’est-ce que les libertés de l’Eglise gallicane?’, 401. 35 See, for example, Richer, Histoire du Syndicat, 24. 36 Philippe Denis, Edmond Richer et le renouveau du conciliarisme au XVIIe siècle, Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 2014. 37 The most important work is an article soon to be published under the title ‘Edmond Richer (1559–1631), Jean Bodin and the Transformation of the Gallican Political Tradition’ in History of Political Thought.

Part One. The Life of Edmond Richer

Chapter 1. The early years

Childhood and studies The date and place of Edmond Richer’s birth are open to debate. He made no mention of them in his autobiography, the Histoire du syndicat de Richer, a work he probably wrote himself although it is narrated in the third person.1 Adrien Baillet, who compiled a biography of Richer sixty years after his death, gave his date of birth as 30 September 1560.2 In a book which appeared a century and a half later, Pierre-Édouard Puyol spoke of 1559,3 a detail repeated by several biographers,4 but as he gave Baillet as his source, it is possible that he made a mistake.5 1 Histoire du syndicat d’Edmond Richer par Edmond Richer lui-même, Avignon, Alexandre Girard, 1753. The handwritten manuscript, reproduced more or less word for word in the printed work, is conserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (ms.fr. 10561) under the title ‘Histoire de ce qui s’est passé contre Edmond Richer, docteur en théologie de la Faculté de Paris, pour avoir défendu l’ancienne échole de Sorbonne, et mis en lumière un petit livre de la Puissance ecclésiastique et politique, incontinent après que le chapitre général des Jacobins, fut célébré à Paris l’an 1611’. Adrien Baillet used it in 1692 to compile La vie d’Edmond Richer, docteur de Sorbonne, a work which appeared after his death (Liège, s.n., 1714; Amsterdam, Etienne Roger, 1715 and 1717; s.l., 1734) See Léonard Wang ‘En marge de la controverse gallicane ultramontainiste en France au XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Une Biographie Oubliée: La Vie d’Edmond Richer, Docteur de Sorbonne, de Baillet’, Dix-septième siècle, 1974, 104, 80. According to Edmond Préclin, ‘Edmond Richer, 1559–1631. Son œuvre. Le richérisme’, Revue d’histoire moderne, vol. 5, 1930, 242, the printed work is a ’reproduction almost word for word’ of the autograph manuscript. 2 Baillet, La vie d’Edmond Richer, 2. The same information is found in Louis Ellies Du Pin, Table universelle des auteurs ecclésiastiques disposez par ordre chronologique et de leurs ouvrages véritables ou supposez, vol 2, Paris, André Pralard, 1704, col. 1756. 3 Pierre-Édouard Puyol, Edmond Richer. Étude historique et critique sur la rénovation du gallicanisme au commencement du XVIIe siècle, vol. 1, (1559–1612) Paris, Olmer, 1876, 52. 4 Préclin, ‘Edmond Richer’, 241; Jean Carreyre, art. ‘Richer, Edmond’ in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique’, vol. 13, Paris, Letouzay, 1936, col. 2698. 5 This is the conclusion reached by Pierre Féret (La Faculté de théologie de Paris et ses docteurs les plus célèbres. Époque moderne, vol. 4, Paris, Picard, 1910, 1) who noted that Richer died on 28 November 1631 at the age of seventy-one. This information appears in Baillet, Vie d’Edmond Richer, 406.

22

Chapter 1. The early years

The question of Richer’s place of birth is of some significance for it could indicate, on the part of the Gallican theologian, a desire to conceal his origins. According to a first version, mentioned in Richelieu’s mémoires6 and repeated by Baillet,7 the future theologian was born in Chaource, south of Troyes, of impoverished parents who were known for their integrity and piety. The eldest son was destined for an ecclesiastical career. Edmond, the second son, did not have this opportunity but, as he had a taste for studying, he left his paternal home at the age of eighteen and made his way to Paris. An anonymous text, inserted at the end of the autograph manuscript of Baillet’s Vie d’Edmond Richer,8 gives a different version of Richer’s early life. According to this document, the future theologian was born in Chesley, a village a few kilometers to the south of Chaource and not in Chaource itself. At a very young age, he lost his father and was taken in by a certain Hénault, a farrier by trade who lived in Chaource. The man was impressed by his intelligence and offered to raise him. The narrator introduced himself as the great-great grandson of the farrier. He claimed to have heard Richer’s story from his maternal great grandfather who had learnt it from his father. In 1568 – Richer was eight years old – Hénault sent him to join his four sons in a school run by two Jesuits, one of whom, Edmond Morange, was to die whilst caring for victims of the plague.9 The young orphan learnt to read and write and acquired the rudiments of Latin. Some years later, he bid farewell to his adopted father, who provided him with money for the journey and set off for Paris to continue his studies. When he completed his training, he took the three younger Hénault sons under his wing in recognition of the assistance he had received during his childhood.10 As Puyol, who reproduced this document, said, the second version is to be preferred to the first because of its precision and because it mentions the source of information.11 This raises the question of why neither Richelieu nor any of the other chroniclers or biographers mentioned the fact that Richer was an orphan. Very assertive about his disputes with academic, ecclesiastical or political authorities, the Gallican theologian maintained a silence about his origins, at least in his written works. At the very most, in his Testamentum, written in December

6 Mémoires du Cardinal de Richelieu, ed. Lavollée, vol. 10 (1629), Paris, Droz, 1931, 420. 7 Baillet, Vie d’Edmond Richer, 2–3. 8 Bibliothèque nationale of France (BnF), ms. fr. 2109, reproduced in Puyol, Edmond Richer, 53–55. 9 Edmond Richer, Historia Academiae Parisiensis, unpublished manuscript, BnF, ms. lat. 9944, vol. 2, quoted in Puyol, Edmond Richer, 55. See also Préclin ‘Edmond Richer’, 243. On Edmond Morange, see Henry Fouqueray, Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus en France des origines à la suppression, vol. 3, Paris, Bureau des Études, 1922, 122. 10 BnF, ms. fr. 2109. 11 Puyol, Edmond Richer, 53–55.

Childhood and studies

23

1629,12 he let it be known that he came from Chaource, a statement which does not necessarily contradict the anonymous story as Chaource and Chesley are close to one another.13 In a work which appeared in 1603 he stated that he had taken in his mother and sister who were old or ill at the Cardinal Lemoine College where he was the grand master. He became annoyed at the attacks levelled at him by Georges Critton, his adversary at the time, for an act of basic charity deceitfully presented as an ethical fault.14 In his autobiography he spoke of his brother Jean, advocate in Parliament, who backed him during his disputes with the episcopacy and the Faculty of Theology in Paris in 1612.15 In a later biographical document we learn that his brother was a parish priest at Bougival, to the west of Paris.16 The fact that Richer was discreet about his origins could be a sign of an attitude of reserve which may, in part, explain the character traits mentioned by his contemporaries: his severity, his intransigence, his determination to follow up his intentions come what may, his ironic and bitter exchanges with former friends with whom he had broken off contact. Merciless regarding himself, he showed no lenience towards his disciples or subordinates.17 His ‘proud and ruthless nature’ – these are the words of Cardinal Richelieu who met him twice18 – contributed to strengthening the hostility of his adversaries against his theological opinions. In Paris Richer enrolled for a humanities degree at the Cardinal Lemoine College.19 In order to meet his needs, he took on a domestic position ‘at the home of a doctor called Bouvard who lived at the College and who had a number of students boarding with him’. As Baillet nicely expressed it, ‘he put his life on mortage in order to avoid hunger’.20 The Responses aux obiections proposees contre les capacitez de Emon Richer, a short document of 1612 which tries to establish the suitability of the Gallican theologian for the collation of a vacant canonicate of Notre-Dame de Paris,21 stipulates that he received tonsure on 20 December 1578. At the time, he was eighteen years old and had just arrived in Paris. A sign that one had entered into a clerical order, tonsure brought material 12 Edmond Richer, Testamentum, Paris, 1630, 1. 13 I do not follow the view of Henri Préclin (‘Edmond Richer’, 243, note 2.) who considers that the mention of Chaource in the Testamentum suffices to discredit the anonymous story. 14 Richer, De optimo academiae statu libri duo, Paris [Heureux Blancvillain], 1603, 173. 15 Histoire du syndicat, 194. 16 BnF, ms. fr. 2109, in Puyol, vol. 2, Edmond Richer, 396, 397. 17 See the psychological portrait of Richer which Préclin painted in ‘Edmond Richer’, 249–251. 18 Mémoires du Cardinal de Richelieu, vol. 10 (1629), 422. 19 Ibid., 421 20 Baillet, La vie d’Edmond Richer, 3. 21 Responses aux obiections proposees contre les capacitez de Emond Richer, par MM. Sebastien Bouthullier, Iean Gouaut & Pierre de Bailly. Pour servir au iugement du procès dudict Richer, demandeur en complainte, pour raison du possessoire d’une Chanoinie de l’Eglise de Paris. Contre lesdits Bouthillier, Gouaut & Bailly, deffendeurs. s.l.n.d., 14. Regarding the matter of the canonicate, see Puyol, Edmond Richer, 412.

24

Chapter 1. The early years

and utilitarian benefits without the tonsured person necessarily being associated with a particular order or falling under its jurisdiction. It was for this reason that lay students could have their heads tonsured.22 However, this was not the case with Richer. From the moment of his arrival, or soon after, he had priesthood in mind. We do not know exactly when he was ordained.23 If we are to believe Richelieu, the young countryman did ‘rather well’ in humanities but in philosophy ‘he did not do as well, never being able to grasp the basics of this science’.24 According to Baillet, it took him less than three years to move into philosophy and a further two years to graduate as a Master of Arts.25 According to the Responses aux obiections, Richer studied theology ‘from 1579 until Saint Remy 1582’, that is a period of three years and nine months. He then went to Angers where ‘he taught as a regent from St Remy 1582 until St Remy 1585’, in other words, from 1 October 1582 until 1 October 1585. The fact that this town had a Faculty of Theology linked to that in Paris26 is worth mentioning. It was in Angers that, in the spring of 1585, Richer met René Benoist, – a doctor of the Sorbonne of fluctuating theological opinions who soon after this became an eminent preacher in Paris under the League, – when he took over the chair of chanoine théologal in the town and gave a few lectures.27 His sermons, which drew great crowds, may have contributed to the success of the League in Angers in February 1589.28 Richer graduated as a Master of Arts as soon as he returned to Paris in November 1585.29 There is no doubt that he interrupted his theological studies for 22 Marie-Madeleine Davy, ‘La situation juridique des étudiants de l’université de Paris au XIIIe siècle’, Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 17, 1931, 302–303. 23 In the Declaratio … super editione libelli sui de ecclesiastica & politica potestate, a notarised document of 30 June 1622, Richer presented himself as a priest of the diocese of Langres with a doctorate from the Sacred Faculty of Theology in Paris (Libellus de ecclesiastica et politica potestate …, new ed., Cologne, 1702, ii). See also Richer’s Testamentum, 1. As a doctor of the house and society of the Sorbonne, Richer was in all likelihood ordained as a priest without ecclesiastical title or office. See Roland Mousnier, Les institutions de la France sous la monarchie absolue 1598–1789, vol. 1, Paris, 1974, 225–226. 24 Mémoires du Cardinal de Richelieu, vol. 10 (1629), 421. 25 Edmond Richer, De optimo academiae statu libri duo, 1603, 94, quoted in Baillet, La vie d’Edmond Richer, 3. 26 Féret, La Faculté de théologie, vol. 2, 44–45. 27 Émile Pasquier, Un curé de Paris pendant les guerres de religion. René Benoist, le pape des Halles (1521–1608), Angers, 1913, reprint, Geneva, 1970, 194. On René Benoist, see also Thierry Amalou ‘Deux frères ennemis, deux sensibilités catholiques: les prédications de René Benoist et de Gilbert Genebrard à Paris pendant la Ligue (1591–1592)’, unpublished paper, 2006. Accessible online: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal–01774718. 28 Robert Harding, ‘Revolution and Reform in the Holy League: Angers, Rennes, Nantes’, Journal of Modern History, 53, 1981, 400. 29 Responses aux obiections, 4–5. According to Richelieu, it was after receiving his Masters in Arts degree that Richer went to Angers to teach for ‘several years’ (Mémoires du Cardinal de

Childhood and studies

25

three years in order to study arts: he admitted this during the proceedings of 1612, stressing that this practice was seen as acceptable before the reform of the University of Paris in 1600. But three years were not sufficient to obtain a Masters in Arts degree. It would appear that between 1579 and 1582 Richer sat in on lectures in theology whilst pursuing his studies of the humanities. This unusual path can doubtless be explained by the unstable climate which marked this period. In Paris, Richer taught philosophy at the College of Bourgogne and registered for theology at the Sorbonne.30 It was during this time, according to Baillet, that he was received by the curé of Saint-Gilles, a doctor in theology called Étienne Rose who can be identified as Guillaume Rose, the bishop of Senlis, a man who, like Richer, came from Champagne.31 His new protector treated him like a son. All his expenses were taken charge of. Passionate about studying, the young man spent in the library all the time that he did not devote to lectures.32 Richer graduated as doctor of theology on 15 May 1592,33 seven years after having received his Master of Arts degree. According to the Responses aux obiections, he devoted a total of ten years and four months to his theological studies.34 At the beginning of the sixteenth century, such studies took between thirteen and fifteen years to complete.35 This was probably also the case under Henri III, in theory at least. Richer, who began his studies before the revision of

30 31 32

33 34 35

Richelieu, vol. 10, 421). Baillet’s account says the same thing. The version given in the 1612 document is to be preferred because at the University of Paris a régendat (lectureship) of at least one and a half years was required in order to obtain a Masters degree in Arts. See James Farge, Orthodoxy and Reform in Early Reformation France. The Faculty of Theology of Paris, 1500–1543, Leiden, Brill, 1985, 12. Mémoires du Cardinal de Richelieu, vol. 10 (1629), 421–422. Teaching and studying theology could, in effect, take place at the same time (Farge, Orthodoxy and Reform, 12). I would like to thank my friend and colleague Thierry Amalou for this suggestion. Baillet, Vie d’Edmond Richer, 4. On this Dr Rose or Roze see also BnF, ms, fr, 2109, quoted in Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 397. The author of the anonymous story presents the story in a different light. According to him, when Richer arrived in Paris he took lodgings at the College of Boncourt and not at the Cardinal Lemoine College, as Richelieu wrote in his memoirs, and the doctor from the Sorbonne at whose home Richer worked as a domestic servant was the one who became his benefactor, having noticed ‘his excellent mind’. He subsequently made him sole legatee of his estate ‘which was quite considerable’ (Puyol, Edmond Richer, 55). Responses aux obiections, 5. See also Richer, Apologia pro Joanne Gersonia, Leiden, Paulus Moriaen, 1676, 38. Responses aux obiections, 5 Farge, Orthodoxy and Reform, 16.

26

Chapter 1. The early years

the statutes of the Faculty of Theology in 158736 and a fortiori that of the statutes of the University in 160037 cut corners by writing the required number of exams in a shorter time than usual. As was the custom, he pursued his studies in theology in three stages. At first, he was cursor with the responsibility of teaching the Bible to less advanced students and preparing a public lecture known as the tentativa. He then became baccalareus sententiarus, a stage during which he taught the Sentences of Pierre Lombard for a year. Next, he graduated to the stage of baccalareus formatus during which he prepared three public lectures, the major or grand ordinaire, the minor or petit ordinaire and the sorbonnique. If the result of these three examinations was judged to be satisfactory by the examiners, the student was awarded the Bachelor’s degree. Richer received this degree at the beginning of 1592. He came seventh out of thirty-four graduates.38 For being one of the top students, he had the right of receiving his doctorate as early as May and not a year later as was the case with the other graduates.39 On 1 October 1587, two years after having received his Bachelor’s degree, Richer attained the enviable position of sociétaire of the Sorbonne. He was admitted to the College of the Sorbonne on 1 October 1587 and was inaugurated as hôte on 31 October. He delivered his inaugural lecture along with Michel Mauclerc, a future advocate of Roman supremacy, on 10 February 1588.40 In October 1591, immediately after having defended his grand ordinaire thesis, a stage which preceded the Bachelor’s degree,41 he was appointed procurator of the College.42 As Paris was besieged at the time because of the civil war, he was obliged to impose privations on bursary holders and resident students in order to limit expenditure. His severity, which some found excessive, incurred him lasting enmities.43

36 Charles Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio iudiciorum de novis erroribus qui ab initio duodecimi seculi post incarnationem Verbi, usque ad annum 1623, in ecclesia proscripti sunt et notati, vol. 1, first pagination, Paris, André Calleau, 1738, 462–467. 37 Préclin, ‘Edmond Richer’, 243. On the restructuring of the Faculty of Theology at the beginning of the seventeenth century, see Charles Jourdain, Histoire de l’Université de Paris aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, Paris, Hachette, 1863, 23–25; André Tullier, Histoire de l’Université de Paris et de la Sorbonne, vol. 1, Paris, Nouvelle Librairie de France, 1994, 462–470. 38 BnF, ms. lat. 9946, Historia academiae parisiensis, vol. 4, f. 270r. See Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 1, 72. 39 I thank Thierry Amalou for this information. 40 BnF, ms. lat. 15411, Livre des prieurs de la Sorbonne, 359–361, 363. 41 The date of October 1591 is mentioned in the letter from Cardinal du Perron to Isaac Casaubon dated 18 April 1612 (infra, note 92). 42 Ibid., 363. 43 BnF, ms. lat. 9943, Historia academiae parisiensis, vol. 1, f. 512v and 513r. See Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 1, 73–74.

Under the League

27

Under the League A significant event in Richer’s biography is his backing of the Holy League when King Henry III announced his choice of Henry of Navarre, a Protestant prince, as inheritor of the throne by virtue of Salic law. The thought of the accession to power of a heretic – who, moreover, had been excommunicated by the pope in September 1585 – resulted in turbulence amongst the catholiques zélés. In Paris and in several provincial towns a movement of armed resistance with apocalyptic overtones was established under the leadership of Henry de Guise. The League’s programme was marked by a strong opposition to the king who was accused of moral depravation, as well as a corporative defense of urban freedoms, an ostentatious Catholic devotion and a desire for holiness.44 In May 1588, when Richer had just been inaugurated as member of the College of the Sorbonne, Henry de Guise stormed into Paris and his followers erected barricades whilst the king sought refuge in Chartres. In December, after the Estates General had refused to subsidise him, Henry III had the Duke of Guise and several of his lieutenants assassinated. Paris and several regions of the kingdom rose up in protest. Henry of Navarre besieged the capital. The Faculty of Theology decided to support the League. As Thierry Amalou has shown, this interference in political matters was without precedent in the history of the University and was, moreover, of short duration.45 On 7 January 1589, the Faculty of Theology released the people of France from their loyalty towards King Henry III and authorised them to arm themselves and to collect funds for the defense of the Catholic faith.46 Although traditionally associated with the defense of ‘Gallican liberties’ and, consequently, with the rejection of pontifical pretensions in temporal matters, the Faculty drew closer to Rome which, in the current situation, was seen as the guarantor of Christian unity. The situation worsened with the assassination of Henry III by Jacques Clément, a Dominican friar who was a member of the League, on 1 August 1589. At this point, the question of the legitimacy of the regicide raised its head. Without condoning this act, the Jesuit controversialist Robert Bellarmine gave it a theological basis by developing – in his treatise De summo pontifice, which was included in the first volume of Disputationes de controversis (1586) – the idea 44 Robert Descimon ‘La Ligue à Paris (1585–1594): une révision’, Annales ESC, 1982, 37, 88–91; id., Qui étaient les Seize? Mythes et réalités de la Ligue parisienne: 1585–1594, Paris, Klincksieck, 1983, 88–90 and 297–298; Robert Descimon and José Ruiz Ibáñez, Les Ligueurs de l’exil. Le refuge catholique français après 1594, Seyssel, Champ Vallon, 2005, 6–33. 45 Thierry Amalou, ‘Entre réforme du royaume et enjeux dynastiques. Le magistère intellectuel et moral de l’Université de Paris au sein de la Ligue (1576–1594)’, Cahiers de Recherches Médiévales, 18, 2009, 148–152. 46 Amalou, ‘Entre réforme du royaume et enjeux dynastiques’, 154.

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Chapter 1. The early years

that, even though, in normal times, the pope has no authority over temporal power, he may intervene when the salvation of souls is gravely threatened. If needs be, he may depose a prince and choose a successor.47 This was exactly the argument used by Jean Boucher, the curé ligueur, a former rector of the University of Paris and renowned preacher, to justify the assassination of Henry III in a work publish shortly after the event. From the pulpit he celebrated the ‘marvellous and terrible news’ of the king’s death.48 Throughout Paris, Jacques Clément was venerated as a hero and a martyr of the faith. There was talk of erecting statues in his honour, including one at Notre Dame.49 In Rome, at this time, Pope Sixtus V wanted to use his influence in order to safeguard the Catholic faith in the French kingdom and to bring about peace. He sent a legate, Cardinal Enrico Caetani, an influential member of the Curia, who arrived in Paris on 20 January 1590 after a three-month journey. Signicantly, Bellarmine accompanied this mission as theological advisor. During the eight months they spent in Paris, the pope’s representatives attempted to reunite the Catholic forces and to convert Henry of Navarre.50 On 7 May Bellarmine was present when the Faculty of Theology decided to exhort the French people to ‘prevent with all their might Henry of Bourbon from acceding to the government of the most Christian kingdom [of France] even if he were to enter the bosom of the Church, for then there would be a risk of duplicity and treachery’.51 At the beginning of August, he backed a resolution which allowed for dealing with a heretic prince where there was a threat of famine, thereby opening a door to the conversion to Catholicism of the Prince of Navarre.52 At that time, Paris was in a state of siege. The Leaguers attempted to stand fast at all costs, prepared even to resort to violence in order to impose themselves on the recalcitrant Parisians.

47 Robert Bellarmine, De summo pontifice, vol. 6, in Disputationum … de controversiis Christianae fidei adversus huius temporis haereticos tomus primus, Lyon, Jean Pillehotte, 1609, col. 795–796. See John Courtnay Murray, ‘St Robert Bellarmine on the indirect power’, Theological Studies, 9, 1948, 498. 48 Féret, La Faculté de théologie. Époque moderne, vol. 4, 212–213. After the death of the king, Boucher added a chapter to the second edition of his book De justa Henrici tertii abdication e Francorum regno libri quatuor (Paris. Nicolas Nivelle, 1589). 49 Monique Cottret, Tuer le tyran? Le tyrannicide dans l’Europe moderne, Paris, Fuyard, 2009, 119–124. 50 Anne-Cécile Tizon-Germe, ‘La représentation pontificale en France au début du règne d’Henri IV (1598–1594), cadres politiques, moyens humains et financiers’, Bibliothèque de l’École de Chartres, 151, 1993, 37–85. On the participation of Robert Bellarmine in the papal legation, see also Robert Follet, ‘Saint Robert Bellarmin en France comme conseiller du cardinal Gaëtani, légat de Sixte-Quint (1589–1590)’, Lettres de Fourvière, 4, 1931, 8–21. 51 Roland Mousnier, L’assassinat d’Henri IV, Paris, Gallimard, 1992, 96; Tizon-Germe, ‘La représentation pontificale’, 58–59; Amalou, ‘Entre réforme et enjeux dynastiques’, 165. 52 Tizon-Germe, ‘La représentation pontificale’, 59.

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But dissensions began to appear at the very heart of the movement. Those who were strongly opposed to the king were fewer and fewer. In May 1593 Henry IV renounced Protestantism. He was crowned king in February 1594 and, the following month, took Paris by surprise. From January 1595, without waiting for the pope to repeal the excommunication against the king, the curés of Paris and the doctors in the Faculty of Theology, gathered in assembly by Cardinal de Gondi, the bishop of Paris, declared their allegiance to Henry IV, condemned the recent attack against him and retrospectively reprimanded Jacques Clément for the murder of Henry III.53 It was in this tense yet elated atmosphere of the siege of Paris, at the beginning of the 1590s, that Richer was studying for his degree. He was part of a group of students the majority of whom but not all, the religious as well as the secular, shared the Leaguers’ aversion to King Henry III and feared seeing France topple into the Protestant camJust how much the arrival of the pontifical delegation in January 1590 influenced the orientation of the Faculty of Theology’s stance is open to question, but there is no doubt that the appearance of the prelate as well as that of Bellarmine, the renowned theologian, brought their minds closer to the Roman point of view. Out of a total of thirty-four grand ordinaire theses defended in 1591, six, that by Richer and five others, have been conserved. All demonstrate what Thierry Amalou has called ‘the intrusion of ideas favourable to the supremacy of papal power’ in the Faculty of Theology.54 One of the theses defended the necessary combat of the hierarchical and militant church against the Antichrist and the right of the pope to depose a king or emperor. Another affirmed the pope’s absolute power in spiritual or temporal matters. A third maintained that the war against Henry of Navarre was the equivalent of a holy war. Yet another praised the curse uttered by Pope Gregory XIV when he met Henry IV. As for Michel Mauclerc, a fellow student of Richer’s at the College of the Sorbonne, he also defended a thesis which was favourable to the supremacy of papal power. Like the theses of his fellow students, Richer’s thesis acknowledged in the ‘visible monarchy’ of the Church a power that was not only spiritual but also temporal and declared the assassination by Jacques Clément to be legitimate. In 1611, André Duval, a Sorbonne theologian four years younger than Richer, who was his friend before becoming his adversary,55 unearthed this compromising 53 Mousnier, L’assassinat de Henri IV, 98–99. 54 Thierry Amalou, ‘Les disputes académiques et l’espace public parisien au XVI siècle’ in Thierry Amalou and Boris Noguès (ed.), Les Universités dans la ville XVIe – XVIIIe siècles, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2013, 203. 55 On the French theologian André Duval (1564–1638), see Féret, La Faculté de Théologie de Paris. Époque moderne, vol. 4, 329–339; Louis Cognet, article ‘Duval. André’, Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastique, vol. 14, Paris, Letouzey, 1960, coll. 1214–1216.

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document during the debate caused by the publication of the Libellus de ecclesiastica et politica potestate. He gave a copy to Cardinal du Perron who used it in a letter to Casaubon in April 161256 and in his Harangue au Tiers in January 1615.57 By this time, Richer had forgotten this article written during his youth and he had to do the rounds of his friends to find a copy. He reproduced it in its entirety in the fifth volume of his Historia academiae parisiensis,58 a work which remained in manuscript form to this day. The affair was briefly mentioned in the Histoire du syndicat de Richer,59 the autobiographical document referred to above, and in Richer’s Apologia pro Ioanne Gersonio, the new version of a a book published without the author’s knowledge in 1607, revised by him in the decade preceding his death and published posthumously in this form.60 So, it was not Richer but Duval and later du Perron who took the initiative of reminding the public of the 1591 thesis. But when he was confronted with this episode of his past, the Gallican theologian was prepared to talk about it. He denied nothing. Whilst declaring that he bitterly regretted this youthful error, he put it in context. The arguments proposed in his thesis were ‘horrible’, he wrote in the Historiae academiae parisiensis, but circumstances had to be taken into account. Young and inexperienced, he was only repeating what the doctors in the Faculty had taught and what preachers said from the pulpit.61 Everyone at the time accepted Jean Boucher’s De justa Henrici III abdication, which was nevertheless ‘highly seditious’. Yes, it was true that he had ‘venerated’ Bellarmine’s treatise on the sovereign pontiff ‘like the fifth gospel’. The problem was that at the time of writing his thesis he had not yet read the Holy Scriptures, the Church Fathers, the, the canons of the councils and the historians, as he would do after his doctorate. Not having read Bernard of Clairvaux’s De consideratione, he was unaware of the necessity of guarding oneself against the absolute domination of the Roman Curia and the fact that it had transformed the spiritual ministry of the

56 Jacques Davy du Perron to Isaac Casaubon, 18 April 1612, in Les Ambassades et Negotiations de l’Illustrissime et Reverendissime Cardinal du Perron, archevesque de Sens, primat des Gaules et de Germanie & Grand Aumosnier de France, Paris, Antoine Estienne, 1623, 694, reproduced in Féret, La Faculté de théologie de Paris. Époque moderne, vol. 4, 2–3. 57 Harangue du cardinal Du Perron sur l’article du Serment pronouncé devant le Tiers aux EtatsGénéraux de 1614, new edition, Paris, Librairie Classique, 1826, 82. 58 BnF, ms. lat. 9948, Historia academiae Parisiensis, vol. 6, f. 134v–140v, reproduced in Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 137–143. 59 Histoire du syndicat de Richer, 33 60 Richer, Apologia pro Ioanne Gersonio pro suprema Ecclesiae et Conciliis Generalis Auctoritate, Leiden, Paulus Moriaen, 1676, 37–38. 61 BnF, ms. lat. 9948, Historia academiae parisiensis, vol. 6, quoted in Puyol Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 142.

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Church into temporal might.62 It was only after consideration of the ‘misfortunes and calamities’ caused by the League and the assassination of Henry III that he realised his mistake and changed his standpoint.63 The contentious point was Richer’s vindication of the regicide. In his Harangue au Tiers, Cardinal du Perron quoted, word for word – in French – the following passage of the 1591 thesis without, however, naming its author: How could they [have warned the reader] without condemning themselves, they who during the storms of the recent turmoil have been the flagmen and the flame bearers of [the pernicious doctrine of tyrannicide] and who have supported and published this doctrine against King Henry III in hotly contested and published theses? For here are their words: ‘It is incontestable and a divine right that the estates are above the kings’. And again: ‘It was lawful for the people of France to take up arms against the tyrant’, that is to say, against King Henry III. And a little further on: ‘Those who carefully consider the situation will conclude that the eternal enemies of religion and the fatherland must be pursued, not only with public arms, but more so with steel and ambush by individuals. And that the Dominican Jacques Clement was inspired by a single desire, the love of the laws of his country and the zeal for ecclesiastical discipline whereby this restorer of our freedom imposed grace on his own leader and hung round our necks the gold chain and the celestial necklaces of the Church.’64

In the 1591 thesis Abbé Puyol saw only a ‘summary, cleverly presented, of the Roman doctrines.’ Bellarmine, he added, ‘would not have expressed himself any differently’.65 Things were not quite as simple. It would be more correct to say that, in his thesis, the young theologian combined, not without a few contradictions, an ecclesiology of Gallican inspiration, a point of view on the origin of royal power in line with medieval tradition and an acceptance of papal power regarding temporal matters which certainly brought Bellarmine to mind but which could equally be found in the works of many scholastic theologians.66 Richer did indeed write that the visible church was a monarchy which was ‘selfsufficient’ and that Christ ‘directly’ gave it not only the power of the two-edged spiritual sword but also that of the material sword. However, unlike Bellarmine who recognised in the papacy a form of political power when it came to saving 62 Richer, Apologia, 38. The same admission is made in the Histoire du syndicat de Richer, 33: ‘As far as he was concerned, he took the five books of Bellarmine’s de Romano Pontifice to be a fifth gospel’. 63 Histoire du syndicat de Richer, 33. 64 Harangue du cardinal Du Perron, 92. The same extract from Richer’s thesis is quoted, also in French, by du Perron in the letter to Casaubon referred to above. 65 Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 143 66 Sophie Nicholls, who examined the treatment of Gallican ideas in late sixteenth century Catholic League treatises, found that they ‘negotiated a balance between arguments for Gallican independence and indirect papal power’. This applies to Richer’s position at the time. See Sophie Nicholls, ‘Gallican Liberties and the Catholic League’, History of European Ideas, 40, 2014, 940–964.

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endangered souls, Richer only envisaged cases where priests – and not the pope – could take up arms to defend ‘the country’s religion or their own lives’.67 Following the tradition of the School of Paris, he presented Saint Peter and his successors as ‘moderators’ of the theocracy. The pope convened the council but it was this body which had ‘an authority superior to that of the pope’.68 In his memoirs Richelieu presented Richer’s change of opinion as a betrayal. For opportunistic reasons – the arrival of Henry IV in Paris – the young doctor would have destroyed that which he had adored and even gone as far as associating with the Huguenots: They were all astounded, at the Sorbonne, when they heard talk that he was doing quite the opposite of what he had done before, not only blaming the League, its followers and its maxims but that he was beginning to associate with the Huguenots and, amongst them, with la Popelinière, a famous and nefarious historian who has written the history of the troubles with much passion and many lies; this moved his colleagues to tell him on several occasions that he should arm himself against wrong opinions against the head of the Church, opinions expressed by many of those whom he frequented; but without replying, he mistrusted what they said.69

Without denying the change of position regarding pontifical pre-eminence and tyrannicide, which Richer himself admitted, it would be proper to note the continuity between the ideas he held as a bachelor and as a syndic. On one point, which we will develop when we come to the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, Richer did not budge: as far as he was concerned no power, be it ecclesiastical or political, was absolute. The king was accountable to the people who had elected him and the pope to the bishops and cardinals who met in council. Both powers were limited. Richer remained Gallican, although he took a different stance. He was obviously not the only one in this situation. Despite the bitter opposition between the Politiques and the catholiques zélés at the time of the League, conciliarist ideas and, generally speaking, the rhetoric for the defense of Gallican liberties remained present. It even showed a tendency to become more elaborate. As an example, we could quote Jacques Faye d’Espesse’s speech on the limitation of the pope’s power and the illegitimacy of his intervention in the temporal jurisdiction of the Crown at the Blois Estates General in 158870 or the anonymous League-related pamphlet which appeared the following year, demanding ‘the preservation of the Gallican Church and its privileges, of the Pragmatic Sanction 67 68 69 70

Ibid., vol. 2, 139. Ibid., vol. 2, 140. Mémoires du Cardinal de Richelieu, vol. 10, 1629, 422–423. Jacques-Auguste de Thou, Histoire Universelle depuis 1543 jusqu’en 1607, vol. 10, London [i. e. Paris], 438, quoted in Jonathan Powis, ‘Gallican Liberties and the Politics of Later Sixteenth Century France’, Historical Journal, 26, 1983, 520. On Jacques Faye d’Espesse, see also Nicholls, ‘Gallican Liberties and the Catholic League’, 961.

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and the Council of Trent … because, where the spirit of heresy prevails, these achievements are endangered’.71 Boucher himself, Ultramontane as he was, used Gallican language in his Apologie pour Jean Chastel.72 Since the Leaguers presented themselves as defenders of French Catholicism, it is not surprising that they mentioned the liberties of the Gallican Church.73 The judgments of Richelieu and du Perron, taken up by Puyol and others, concerning Richer’s supposed betrayal must be put into perspective. For a start, du Perron had also changed his ideas but in the opposite direction. In 1589, this converted Calvinist was clearly on the side of the Politiques. Under cover of anonymity, he replied to Robert Bellarmine in a small treatise entitled Examen pacifique de la doctrine des Huguenots, prouvant contre les Catholiques rigoureux de notre temps … que nous qui sommes membres de l’Eglise Catholique, Apostolique, et Romaine ne devrions pas condamner les Huguenots pour heretiques jusques à ce qu’on ait faict preuve.74 Twenty years later, instead of minimising the differences between Huguenots and Catholics, he accused Richer of a lack of respect for pontifical authority. Being a socially and ideologically composite movement, the League was bedevilled with tensions and contradictions. Instead of speaking of the ‘inconsistencies’, ‘betrayals’ and ‘rallyings’ of the Leaguers, Robert Descimon pointed out, the historian should ‘assess the gravity of the contradictions which weighed down on these people, who were divided amongst themselves and who were faced with suffering and death, exile and ruin’.75 Their vacillations increased after the death of Henry III. From the beginning of the 1590s and especially after the proclamation of Henry IV’s conversion in 1593, the need for acceptance and moderation began to prevail amongst them. Within the Faculty of Theology, the front of refusal also began to disintegrate.76 Richer was not the only Leaguer, far from it, who rallied to the king.

71 Jotham Parsons, The Church in the Republic: Gallicanism & Political Ideology in Renaissance France, Washington, University of America Press, 2004, 123. 72 Dale van Kley, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution. From Calvin to the Civil Constitution, 1560–1791, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1996, 35. 73 Parsons, The Church in the Republic, 123. On the links between the League and Gallicanism, see also Powis, ‘Gallican liberties’, 526; J.H.M. Salmon, ‘Catholic Resistance Theory’, in J.H. Burns, The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450–1700, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991, 230; Descimon et Ibáñez, Les Ligueurs de l’exil, 32. 74 Paris, [London, John Wolfe], 1589, quoted in Francis Higman, ‘The Examen pacifique de la doctrine des Huguenots, Jacques Davy du Perron and Henri IV’, Australian Journal of French Studies, 31, 1994, pp, 333–339. 75 Robert Descimon, ‘La Ligue à Paris (1585–1594)’: une revision’, Annales ESC, 37, 1982, 62. 76 Amalou, ‘Entre réforme du royaume et enjeux dynastiques’, 162, 166.

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The reform of the University of Paris The exact moment when Richer began to support Henry IV is disputed. In the De optimo academiae statu libri duo, a work which appeared in 1602, Richer declared that in his theses – he does not say specifically which ones – he was opposed to the choice of the Infante of Spain as sovereign and that he supported the hereditary system of dynastic succession.77 From this Baillet concluded that Richer had joined the moderate camp at the time of his most recent theses, that is to say, before 1592. Out of caution, he had concealed his new standpoint: ‘The fear of being refused his doctorate prevented him, at the time, from going further but no sooner had he been capped than he openly supported Henry IV’.78 The interpretation which Richer gave of his rallying to the royal cause in his history of the University of Paris shows, however, that it was gradual. As he explained to Pierre Séguier, a magistrate close to the king, ‘it takes time for hatreds to dissipate’. On his own admission, it was only in 1600 that he finally renounced the errors of his youth. Reading the Bible, the ecclesiastical historians and the Church Fathers convinced him, once and for all, of the futility of the Ultramontane arguments. In 1594, when Henry IV entered Paris, he was still undecided. So, on 5 May when his fellow student André Duval, recently promoted to doctor, Pierre de Bérulle, the future founder of the Oratory, and Pierre Barny, the Jesuit procurator, came to see him in his cell at the College of the Sorbonne to ask him to present their petition for the maintaining of the Company of Jesus in the French kingdom to the assembly of the Faculty of Theology, he accepted.79 It was because his links with the Jesuits were not strong, Richer explained, that his colleagues thought of him in taking this step, because he would seem more impartial. In any event, nothing came out of this initiative for the date for the monthly assembly was already passed. Some of the doctors made a statement shortly afterwards but without the Faculty of Theology committing itself as such.

77 Richer, De optimo academiae statu libri duo, 178: ‘Omnes enim cognoscent, eo ipso tempore, quo de filia Regis Hispanorum ad Gallicum Imperium euchenda agegatur Parisiis, me permulta, quae ad bellorum civilium incendium extinguendum, aut valde sopiendum, conferrent, palam & publice consulto propugnasse: nempe, Reges longe melius sumi quam eligi: foeminas a Gallici Regni gubernaculis, Gallorum moribus arque institutis, omnino arceri, & similia.’ 78 Baillet, La vie d’Edmond Richer, 8. 79 Originally spared by Henry IV, who wished to pacify Paris, the Jesuits later became prey to attacks by Gallican parliamentarians and certain members of the University and they were expulsed from the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Paris after the attempted assassination of the king by Jean Castel, a former student of the College of Clermont, in December 1594. See Eric Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy. Catholic Reform and Political Authority in France (1590–1615), Aldershot, Ashgate, 2005, 11–56.

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In the Historia academiae parisiensis Richer did not deny his support for the Jesuit cause in 1594 any more than his support for the regicide arguments of Jean Boucher, voiced in his thesis of 1591. He invoked a generational phenomenon: in that year it was the younger doctors who showed themselves to be favourable towards the Jesuits, the older ones having already rallied to the king. It was through solidarity with his colleagues in the Faculty of Theology that Richer accepted their request to defend the Company.80 For all that, it is difficult to follow Puyol in his interpretation of the episode of Richer’s support of the Jesuits, all the more so that the document which he quoted in this regard cannot be found, if indeed it ever existed.81 The text in question emphasised, to excess, the bonds of friendship between Richer, Duval and the Jesuits and stated that Richer had compromised himself to such a degree in favour of the Company that he was in danger of being exiled. No mention was made of his subsequent contrition. Because of a lack of documentary support, Puyol’s suggestions concerning Richer’s allegiance to the Sovereign Pontiff in the year that the king entered Paris and on the intercession of the Gallican theologian before president Séguier in favour of the Jesuits are questionable.82 From August 1593 Richer was a lecturer in the Faculty of Theology.83 Health problems prevented him from preaching in a parish as he had done before receiving his doctorate.84 It was probably for this reason that he refused an appointment as syndic of the Faculty of Theology in 1594.85 But his reputation grew. In September 1597 he succeeded Guillaume Chesnard as grand master of the Cardinal Lemoine College, one of the most important of the fifty-eight colleges in the capital at the time. According to custom, he was nominated by the bishop, the dean and the chancellor of the church of Paris and was accountable to the king and the royal judges. He obtained this post, Richelieu wrote, ‘through the offices of some counsellors to the court who were of the opinion that he had been a good servant to the king.’86 His rallying to Henry IV had certainly made things easier but his experience as an administrator – as procurator at the College of the Sorbonne in 1591 and 1592 – indubitably played a role in his appointment. According to the statutes of the college, Richer was obliged to live in residence. He

80 BnF, ms. lat. 9946, Historia academiae parisiensis, vol. 4, 283r–284v. 81 In Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 158–162, Puyol presents as an extract from volume 4 of the Historia academiae parisisiensis dated 1594 a text which, though imperfectly, corresponds to the original. I found no trace of it in the rest of the book. 82 Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 1, 75. 83 BnF, ms lat. 15441, List of the priors at the Sorbonne, 403. 84 Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 1, 75. Puyol contradicts Baillet La vie d’Edmond Richer, 8–9 on this point. 85 Ibid., vol. 1, 75. 86 Mémoires du Cardinal de Richelieu, vol. 10 (1629), 423.

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had four rooms and an income from two bursaries. He was in charge of three sorts of students: bursary holders who were studying theology, bursary holders in arts and paying guests. In those troubled times, the position of grand master – to which, soon after, was added the post of principal – was no easy task. During the siege of Paris, the college had been invaded and extensively damaged by Spanish, Flemish and Italian troops under the Duke of Parma.87 In order to survive it had been necessary to sell sacred silverware and furniture. When Richer took over his position, there were only four bursary holders. As an experienced administrator, he gradually improved the situation. He signed advantageous leases, restored the college buildings and had the courtyard and surrounding areas cleaned.88 Feared by the students, he reorganised the curricula, modified the statutes89 and imposed strict disciplinary rules, clashing with students who abusively lengthened the duration of their scholarships. This gave rise to conflicts, some of which went to court. For example, he froze the bursary of a student in theology who had accepted the post of rector, in contravention of the statutes of the Cardinal Lemoine College. A first ruling in favour of the rector by the Conseil Privé, was subsequently referred to Parliament, which however refused to take a decision.90 Richer devoted much of his energy at the Cardinal Lemoine College to teaching.91 Faced with students who were poorly prepared for university studies, he endeavoured to give them groundings in grammar and rhetoric.92 Following the example of the Jesuits whose colleges attracted many students, he attempted to combine the centuries-old scholastic methodology with the humanist ap-

87 Richer, De optima academiae statu, Paris, Octave Gréard, 1603, 195, quoted in Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 1, 82. 88 On Richer and the Cardinal Lemoine College, see especially Préclin, ‘Edmond Richer’, 144– 147. Baillet mistakenly dated the appointment of Richer as grand master at the Cardinal Lemoine College of 1595 (La vie d’Edmond Richer, 13). The same error is repeated in Féret, La Faculté de théologie de Paris, vol. 4, 4. 89 Statuta Collegii cardinalitii, cum aliquot senatus-consultis, pro eorumdem statutorum interpretation factis, quaequidem magister Emundus Richer, … typis edenda curavit, s.l., 1627, 68 pp. 90 Charles Jourdain, ‘Le collège du Cardinal Lemoine’, Mémoires de la Société d’histoire de Paris et de l’île de France, 3. 1876, 60. 91 On Richer the teacher, see Préclin , ‘Edmond Richer’, 321–323; Anne Magnaudet-Barthe, ‘Edmond Richer et la réforme de l’université de Paris (1594–1610)’, École nationale des chartes. Positions des thèses soutenues par les élèves de la promotion de 1983 pour obtenir le diplôme d’archiviste paléographe, Paris, 1983, 148–149. 92 Baltazar Gibert, Jugements des Savants sur les auteurs qui ont traité de la rhétorique avec un précis de leur doctrine, Paris, Jacques Estienne, 1713, 378, quoted in Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 1, 84.

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proach, that of Erasmus in particular. He showed concern for the development of the human person while promoting a certain degree of control by public authorities over academic institutions to ensure the standardisation of teaching. In order to meet the needs of the students, he wrote, between 1597 and 1607, a series of manuals on grammar, eloquence and rhetoric. In the De Analogia, causis eloquentiae et linguae patriae locupletandae methodo93 he gave the rules for declinations, conjugations, transpositions of diphthongs and substitutions of consonants. In the De Arte figurarum et causis eloquentiae94 and the Grammatica obstetricia95 he illustrated, with accompanying examples, in the scholastic way, grammar rules and figures of style. In the Obstetrix animorum, hoc est brevis et expedita ratio docendi, studendi, conversandi, imitandi, iudicandi, componendi ad juventutem Galliae, optimatum artium studiis deditam,96 doubtless his best work in the field and one which was re-edited many times in France and Germany, he set out his pedagogical method, praising the French spirit of curiosity and suggesting that the teacher adapted his method of teaching to the personality of the youth who had been placed in his care. According to him, one had to encourage the child’s gifts whilst, at the same time, instilling a respect for the teacher. As was the case with Erasmus, Quintilian and Plutarch were the authors whom he most frequently quoted. Richer also published the Notae ad Tertulliani librum De Pallio, a reflection on Tertullian’s apology of the ‘cloak’ (pallium) of philosophy which many wise men felt obliged to abandon when they became Christians.97

93 Paris, Claude Morel, 1601. Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 420, quoted an edition of 1597 of this work which is not listed in the Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC) and of which I did not find any copy nor have I found any copy of the De arte Rhetorica ac method, eam ad usum vitae civilis revocandae, which was published in 1599 according to Puyol. On the other hand, it is known that a re-edition of this same work appeared thirty years later under the title De Arte et causis rhetoricae, ac methodo eam ad usum vitae civilis revocandae liber unus (Paris, Mathurin Du Puis, 1629). 94 Paris, Pierre Pautonnier, 1605. New emission: Paris, Adrien Beys, 1605. Contrary to what Puyol stated (Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 420), this work differs from the De Analogia which has less than half the number of pages. 95 Paris, Pierre-Louis Febvrier, 1607. For a description of the contents of this book, see Préclin, ‘Edmond Richer’, 322. 96 Paris, Ambroise Drouart, 1600, in–12. New edition: Amberg, Johannes Schönfeld, 1608; Frankfurt, Johannes Bringerus, 1617; Leipzig, Johann Georg Lipper, 1693. On this book, see Préclin, ‘Edmond Richer’, 323; Robert Koppe, ‘Edmund Richer als Pädagog. Eine Darstellung seines Werkes Obstetrix animorum’, Jahrbuch der philosophischen Fakultät in Würzburg, 19, 1920–21, 84–86. 97 Edmond Richer, Quinti Septimii Florentis Tertulliani Liber de Pallio, notis latinis et interpretatione gallica interpretatus…, Paris, Ambroise Drouart, 1600. Richer’s treatise is reproduced under the pseudonym of Joannes Mercerius in a composite book published by the Compagnie du Grand’ Navire in 1616 under the title Q. Septimii Florentis Tertuliani … Opera

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Richer’s administrative talents and his interest in pedagogical matters soon found a new outlet. When the Jesuits left in 1594, Henry IV effectively ordered a reformation of the university, a task which had been undertaken many times before, with, notably, the support of the philosopher Ramus. This led to the drafting of new statutes, which were registered by Parliament in 1598 and promulgated in 1600. One of the main promoters of the reform was the advocate general Louis Servin, a staunch Gallican with whom Richer would have close ties ten years later when his theses on ecclesiastical and political power would be questioned. Another supporter was the magistrate Jacques-Auguste de Thou, président à mortier, author of a Histoire universelle illustrating the designs of the royal power and correspondent of the Italian Servite Paolo Sarpi, an adversary of the temporal pretentions of the Holy See. The reform of the University of Paris expressed, in its intentions, the aspirations of the Gallican party. In order to improve the quality of university teaching, the new statutes recommended the study of the best Latin and Greek authors, they restored the discipline and they set the duration of studies and the conditions for the conferment of degrees. A new form of remuneration for the lecturers was determined, as until then they had been reduced to living on allowances paid by their students. The students, traditionally undisciplined, were required to swear obedience to the king and the magistrates.98 In his memoirs Richelieu credited Richer with having drawned up the constitution and the regulations of all the arts and all the faculties and with having them approved by the court and published within the university.99 For his part, Charles Jourdain, the author of a history of the University of Paris, declared that Richer and four other counsellors helped the royal commissioners ‘by tacit delegation’ to prepare the reform.100 Edmond Préclin has shown that these two statements are not borne out by the sources.101 On the other hand, there is no question that, in September 1601, four doctors from the university, one for each faculty, amongst whom was Richer representing the Faculty of Theology, were named as censors by Parliament, with full powers, for a period of two years. Their task was to have the new statutes implemented, a move which immediately

98

99 100 101

quae hactenus reperii potuerunt omnia. The De Pallio of Tertullian was the subject of a critical edition with a French translation and commentary by Marie Turcan in the collection ‘Sources chrétiennes’ (Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 2007). On the reformation of the University of Paris, see Jourdain, Histoire de l’Université de Paris, 1–33; Préclin, ‘Edmond Richer’, 247–249; Magnaudet-Barthe, ‘Edmond Richer et la réforme de de l’Université de Paris’, 145–146; Tuilier, Histoire de l’Université de Paris et de la Sorbonne, vol. 2, 435–473. Mémoires de Richelieu, vol. 10 (1629), 423. Jourdain, Histoire de l’Université de Paris, 5. Préclin, ‘Edmond Richer’, 248

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provoked a considerable amount of resistance both on the part of the students and on the part of the lecturers and principals.102 It is likely that Richer owed his appointment to his successful reorganisation of the Cardinal Lemoine College. As soon as they were appointed, the censors abolished the farcical Monday festivities, the block payment of students’ fees and the banquets and drinking sessions that necessarily followed. Richer, who stood out because of his desire to eradicate abuses, was called the Cato of the University. But his enthusiasm and that of his colleagues did not antagonise only the students. They caused a veritable rebellion amongst the lecturers and principals who were led by Georges Critton, professor of Greek at the Royal College. As the new statutes forbade the practice of entrusting the class of rhetoric to two lecturers, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon, according to a usage introduced by the Jesuits, Critton, who supported papal authority and was close to the Jesuits, defied the censors’ authority by proposing himself as the second lecturer at the College of Lisieux, which was amongst those most opposed to the reform. Richer reacted by appealing to Parliament, an appeal which he won. This matter revealed in Richer a spirit of controversy which he was to retain until his death. It was the first time that he had intervened in the quarrel between the Politiques who, at the time, were known as bons Français, and the catholiques dévots. The Jesuits, accused of threatening public order, were his main target. He forged links, which were later to prove invaluable, with parliamentarians and drew closer to the Gallican ideals. It was Critton who opened fire by publishing under the title of Scholae Lexoveae Paranomôn reae a verbis senatus-consulti ad mentum senatorum provocatio,103 a violent attack against the reform of the University, which he compared to that of Calvin and Luther. He openly criticised the integrity of the censors. Richer replied with an Apologia pro senatus-consulto adversis Lexoveae Paranomum,104 in which he praised Parliament. Critton, who received from Parliament on 22 November 1602 the injunction to cease teaching at the College of Lisieux as second lecturer, refused to comply and wrote further defamatory articles. Richer dug in his heels and published a long work, the De optimo Academiae statu libri duo,105 in which he criticised Critton without naming him and accused the Jesuits of causing the ruin of the University. Meanwhile, the reform of the University had come to a standstill and, in September 1603, when the man102 Arrêt de la Cour pour l’exécution de la Réforme de l’Université de Paris, Paris, 1601, 8, quoted in Préclin ‘Edmond Richer’, 248. The decree of appointment of Richer and of the three other censors, Collège de Sorbonne, 15 September 1601, is reproduced in Jourdain, Histoire de l’Université de Paris, Pièces justificatives, 18–19. 103 [Paris], 1602. 104 [Paris], 1602. 105 [Paris], 1603.

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date of the censors came to an end, the king decided to recall the Jesuits in order to counterbalance the influence of the Gallican lawyers and to placate the pope.106 The Company’s colleges where the Jesuits, until further notice, did not have the right to teach, were in open competition with the University.107

106 On the recall of the Jesuits, see Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy, 57–96. 107 On this matter, see particularly, Jourdain, Histoire de l’Université de Paris, 28–29. See also Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 1, 92–95; Préclin, ‘Edmond Richer’, 149; Magnaudet-Barthe, ‘Edmond Richer et la réforme de l’Université de Paris’, 146.

Chapter 2. On Gerson’s footsteps

The publication of Gerson’s works In 1605, the Compagnie de la Grand’Navire, a society of Parisian printers, entrusted Edmond Richer with the editorship of a new edition of the works of Jean Gerson. Chancellor of the University of Paris, spiritual writer, church reformer and spokesperson for the conciliarist movement at the Council of Constance, Gerson had a lasting influence on Richer’s theology. Under his direction and that of Pierre d’Ailly the University of Paris had rejected the doctrine of pontifical theocracy, discredited after forty years of schism, in favour of a more communal conception of the Church. Richer became one of the most outstanding representatives of what Francis Oakley has called the bronze age of conciliarism,1 along with Paolo Sarpi, the theologian of Venice at the time of the Interdict. It is not clear when Richer began to read Gerson. He had certainly heard of him during his studies of theology, along with John of Paris, the precursor of the conciliarist movement in the fourteenth century, Pierre d’Ailly, Gerson’s teacher, ands Jacques Almain, the promoter of a renewal of conciliarism at the beginning of the sixteenth century. These men founded the theological movement later described as School of Paris from which the doctors of the Sorbonne, until the eighteenth century, proudly claimed to be the followers. At the end of the sixteenth century Gerson was frequently quoted by authors in reference to his ecclesiological work but this does not necessarily mean that they had read his writings. The last complete edition of Gerson’s works, the tenth in less than thirty years, dated from 1521.2 By then the chancellor of the University 1 Francis Oakley, ‘Bronze-Age Conciliarism: Edmond Richer’s Encounter with Cajetan and Bellarmine’, History of Political Thought, 20, 1999, 65–86. The golden age of conciliarism was that of the councils of Constance and Basel and the silver age that of the conciliabule of Pisa at the beginning of the sixteenth century. 2 Patrick McGuire, Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation, University Park, Pennsylvania University Press, 2005, 325. The final edition of the complete works of Gerson in the sixteenth century was procured by the Alsatian humanist Jacques Wimpfeling.

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of Paris was known and appreciated in intellectual circles, particularly amongst the humanists. Round about 1510, Almain, Major and their disciples from the Faculty of Theology in Paris had discussed, revised and adapted the teachings of Gerson concerning the pope and the council. But what happened afterwards? Specialists tend to ‘jump’ from Almain to Richer when it comes to dealing with Gerson’s ecclesiological heritage as if he had vanished from the minds during three quarters of a century.3 Their argument is that too great a proximity with the doctrine of the Reformation discredited the movement in Catholic circles. It is true that during the sixteenth century it was especially Gerson’s catechetical and spiritual writings that were re-edited and translated.4 But if conciliarist theology tended to freeze in a defensive posture as has been shown by Alain Tallon, the conciliarist movement continued.5 The historical works published before and after the Council of Trent put in evidence the pastoral value of the councils celebrated at the initiative of the princes. It is this background which explains the success of Gerson’s Harangue faite par l’université de Paris devant le roy Charles sixième, a work advocating royal intervention in church affairs which was published four times in 1560 and 1561 and republished twice in 1588.6 The appeals to the council formed part of the French politico-religious tradition, as is shown in the instructions of King Henry III to the French ambassadors to the Council of

3 Hans Schneider, Der Konziliarismus als Problem der neueren Katholischen Theologie. Die Geschichte der Auslegung der Konstanzer Dekrete von Febronius biz zur Gegenwart, Berlin, Walter De Gruyter, 1976, 56–58; Hermann Josef Sieben, Die katholische Konzilsidee von der Reformation bis zur Aufklärung, Paderborn, Ferdinand Schöningh, 1988; Francis Oakley, ‘Bronze-Age Conciliarism’, 66–69. One of the few to show interest in the Gerson’s reception in the sixteenth century was Joseph Lecler but he did not go beyond the Council of Trent (Le pape ou le concile? Une interrogation de l’Église médievale, Paris, Chalet, 1973, 164–171). Yelena Mazour-Matusevish devoted a paragraph to the Gallican interpretations of Gerson in the sixteenth century in her study of Gerson’s reception (‘Gerson’s Legacy’ in Brian Patrick McGuire (ed.), A Companion to Jean Gerson, Leiden, Brill, 2006, 392). On the ‘forgetting’ of Gallicanism in the historiography of the sixteenth century, see Alain Tallon, Conscience nationale et sentiment religieux en France au XVIe siècle. Essai sur la vision gallicane du monde, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2002, 17: ‘Between 1516 and 1563 Gallicanism had, if not completely disappeared, undergone a radical transformation as much because of the challenge of the Protestant Reformation as because of the royal take-over of the French Church.’ 4 The spiritual and catechetical writings make up the greater part of the works of Gerson published between 1522 and 1600, according to the Universal Short Title Catalogue of St Andrew’s University (www.ustc.ac.uk). The editions of the Imitation of Christ, attributed at the time to Gerson, are not included in this compilation 5 Alain Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente (1518–1563), Rome, École française de Rome, 1997, 439. 6 Ibid., 444.

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Trent.7 When, in 1584, André Thévet rose up against the Protestants’ use of Gerson, he indirectly highlighted the position the latter occupied on the intellectual horizon of his time.8 There was a renewal of interest in Gerson and conciliarist ideas at the end of the sixteenth century but, as Jotham Parsons noted, the standpoint had changed. It was more political, less moral than during the sixteenth century. It was less a question of reforming, from the inside, a church threatened by corruption than consolidating civil power by protecting it from interference from the Holy See.9 Under the League, fervent Catholics, as we have seen, remained sensitive to Gallican ideals even though they saw the pope as the guarantor of religious unity. But it was especially the Politiques who believed in the powers of the council, the best means, according to them, of re-establishing peace in the kingdom. It was for this reason that, in 1589, Philippe de Canaye invited Henry III to call a ‘legitimate council’ to put an end to the troubles because ‘the council authorises the truth [and] truth authorises the council’.10 References to the council multiplied after the death of Henry IV. In 1591 the Nivernais lawyer Guy Coquille réponded to the excommunication of Henri IV and of the French Catholics français who supported him by a Discours des droits ecclésiastiques et des libertés de l’Eglise gallicane which recalled the doctrine of the councils of Constance and Basel, asserted the rights of the kings of France in matters of ecclesiastical jurisdiction and appealed to a general council.11 This treatise and a few others which rapidly started to circulate in manuscript form provided the Gallican party with an arsenal of patristic, historical and canonical references in support of the con-

7 J.H.M. Salmon, ‘Gallicanism and Anglicanism in the age of the Counter-Reformation’ in Renaissance and Revolt. Essays in the Intellectual and social history of early modern France, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987, 160. 8 André Thévet, Vrais pourtraictz et vies des hommes illustres, vol. 1, book III, chap. 75, f. 153v– 154r, quoted in Sylvio Hermann De Franceschi, Raison d’État et raison d’Église. La France et l’Interdit vénitien (1606–1607): aspects diplomatiques et doctrinaux, Paris, Champion, 2009, 511. 9 Parsons, The Church in the Republic, 112–116. 10 Philippe de Canaye, Preface to Henry III in Organe, c’est-à-dire l’instrument du discours, divisé en deux parties, sçavoir est, l’analytique, pour discourir veritablement, et la dialectique, pour discourir probablement, Lyon, Iean de Tournes, 1589, quoted in Gaetano Cozzi, Paolo Sarpi tra Venezia, Turin, Einaudi, 1976, 6–7. 11 Guy Coquille, Œuvres … contenant plusieurs Traitez touchant les Libertez de l’Eglise gallicane, l’Histoire de France et le Droit François, vol. 1, Bordeaux, Claude Labottiere, 1703, 173– 191. Long remained in a manuscript form, this book was first published in 1650. On Guy Coquille’s Gallicanism, see Nicolas Warembourg, ‘Recherche sur le gallicanisme de Guy Coquille. Le pape et le concile’, Annales de l’école doctorale, Lille II, Faculté des sciences juridiques, politiques, économiques et sociales, 5, 1997, 49–104.

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ciliarist positions.12 The jurist Pierre Pithou, author of the influential treatise Les Libertez de l’Eglise gallicane, which appeared in 1594, may have been inspired by him. Although Pithou does not quote Gerson, not any more than Coquille actually, he was directly inspired by him when he wrote that the pope ‘is not considered to be above the universal council but is as subject to the decrees and decisions of this body as he is to the commandments of the Church, bride of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is mainly represented in this assembly.’13 In the same year Gerson, d’Ailly and Almain were quoted by Antoine Hotman, a former Leaguer, in support of the idea that ‘it is right to maintain a honest liberty but dangerous to over-diminish the dignity of the pope’.14 In 1595, Jacques de La Guesle, procurator general of the Parliament of Paris, used John of Paris and Gerson to prove that kingdoms depended on God alone and that kings were the vicars of God in the temporal world just as the pope and the bishops were in the spiritual world.15 Cardinal du Perron noted this fact in his Harangue au Tiers in 1615.16 In 1596, the Gallican historian Étienne Pasquier praised Gerson and conciliarism in the third volume of his Recherches de la France in an attempt to show the danger for the kingdom if it were it to submit to Roman power.17 These references to Gerson do not prove that he was actually read. An emblematic figure of the School of Paris, he was the symbol of a Gallican Church which recognised the authority of the pope whilst imposing spiritual and temporal limits to his power. For all that, his ecclesiological doctrine was not nec12 On the reception of Guy Coquille’s ideas under Henry IV’s reign, see Jacques-Antoine de Thou, Histoire universelle, vol. 14, Londres, 1734, 167: ‘Il avoit de plus fait un recueil d’observations très-exactes sur les droits de l’Eglise Gallicane, qui sont attaqués aujourd’hui par une infinité de gens; mais cet ouvrage lui a été enlevé par quelque plagiaire.’ 13 Pierre Pithou, Les Libertez de l’Eglise gallicane, Paris, Mamert Patisson, 1594, 41. 14 Salmon, ‘Gallicanism and Anglicanism’ 171; id., ‘Catholic Resistance Theory’, in J. H. Burns (ed.), The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450–1700, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991, 233. 15 Jacques de La Guesle, Les Remonstrances … dediees à la Royne Regente, Paris, Pierre Chevalier, 1611, 422. On the context of the proclamation of this harangue and the circumstances surrounding its publication, see Amalou, ‘Disputes académiques’, 211–221. 16 Harangue du Cardinal Du Perron, 37. Richer harked back to this affair in a treatise published posthumously, De potestate ecclesiae in rebus temporalibus, Cologne, Bernard Hestingh, 1691, 45. 17 Estienne Pasquier, Les recherches de la France, Paris, Laurent Sonnius, 1611, book 3, chapter 19, 298; critical edition by Marie-Madeleine Fragonard and François Roudaut, Paris, Champion, 1996, vol. 1, 251. On Estienne Pasquier and the conciliarist movement, see Donald R, Kelley, Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship: Language, Law and History in the French Renaissance, New York-London, Columbia University Press, 1970, 298; Claude Sutto, ‘Étienne Pasquier et les libertés de l’Église gallicane’, Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française, 23, 1969, 248, 267; Parsons, The Church in the Republic, 115; Jean-Pierre Souriac, ‘Pouvoir pontifical et pouvoir monarchique dans les écrits historiques d’Étienne Pasquier’, in Sylvio De Francheschi, ed. Histoires antiromaines, Chrétiens et sociétés, Documents et Mémoires, 15, Lyon, RESEA, 2010, 34.

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essarily examined. The only author who seems to have had a good knowledge of the work of the chancellor of Paris at the beginning of Henry IV’s reign was Pierre Grégoire, a jurist from Toulouse who taught at the Law Faculty founded by the duke of Lorraine, Charles III, at Pont-à-Mousson in 1572. Several passages from Gerson’s De ecclesiastica potestate are quoted in his De Republica, a review of civil law of Bodinian inspiration where the question of power in the Church is addressed.18 That Grégoire was considered to be close to the conciliarists at this time is shown by a passage in Cardinal du Perron’s Harangue au Tiers in which claims that the theologians in the king of England’s entourage cited the Toulouse jurist in the same breath as Almain and Major in order to prove that heretics and renegades formed part of the Christian religion.19 Outside of France, another dedicated reader of Gerson was Paolo Sarpi, the theologian of the Republic of Venice, who wrote to the French jurist Jacques Gillot in 1606 that he had been interested in Gallicanism for twenty years.20 This was what led him to discover the work of Gerson, which he used for controversy purposes in the affair of the Interdict. Of all the countries outside of France, England was without doubt that where the conciliarist tradition was the best conserved. Francis Oakley noted the impressive number of treatises and pamphlets that referred to Gerson and the School of Paris during the time of the Reformation.21 In the 1530s, reacting to the king’s appeal to the general council, several anonymous tracts invoked Gerson’s authority and that of the Council of Constance in order to proclaim the superiority of the council over the pope. In works which appeared at the same time and particularly the dialogue Doctor and Student, the jurist Christopher St. Germain showed an intimate familiarity with the works of Pierre d’Ailly and 18 Pierre Grégoire, De republica libri sex et viginti, Pont-à-Mousson, Nicolas Claudet, 1596, new ed., Frankfurt, Nicolas Hoffmann, 1609, 165, 201, 237–238. On Pierre Grégoire, see Claude Collot, L’École doctrinale de droit public de Pont-à-Mousson (Pierre Grégoire de Toulouse et Guillaume Barclay) à la fin du XVI siècle), Paris Librairie générale de droit et de jurisprudence, 1965. 19 Harangue du cardinal Du Perron, 48. 20 Paolo Sarpi, Lettere ai Gallicani, ed. Boris Ulianiich, Weisbaden, Franz Steiner, 1961, 127, quoted in Francis Oakley, ‘Complexities of context: Gerson, Bellarmine, Sarpi, Richer and the Venetian Interdict of 1606–1607’, Catholic Historical Review, 82, 1966, 381. Jacques Gillot was a staunch Gallican, as demonstrated by the collection of documents he published under the title Actes du Concile de Trente in 1607 in order to prove that the French Church should not receive the decrees of the Council of Trent. See Tom Hamilton, ‘The impact of Jacques Gillot’s Actes du Concile de Trente (1607) in the Debate Concerning the Council of Trent in France’, in Wim Francois and Violet Soen (ed.), The Council of Trent: Reform and controversy in Europe and Beyond (1545–1700), vol. 2, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018, 345–365. 21 Francis Oakley, ‘Constance, Basel and the two Pisas: The Conciliarist Legacy in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England’, Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 26, 1994, 90–102. See also W.B. Patterson, King James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, 66.

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Gerson. Another lawyer who supported the conciliarist ideas was Thomas Starkey who, shortly before his death in 1538, cited as authorities ‘the councils, Gerson and the School of Paris to which I have always adhered’ in a debate with the Catholic controversialist Albert Pighius.22 Thomas More himself declared from the Tower where he was imprisoned, that he had never considered the pope to be above the council.23 The exiles of the reign of Mary Tudor, future leaders in the Elizabethan Church, inherited this legacy. In the 1563 edition of his famous martyrology, John Foxe devoted more than one hundred pages to the councils of Constance and Basel, introducing generations of readers to conciliarist thought. Gerson is quoted by name in the True Difference between Christian Subjection and Unchristian Rebellion of Thomas Sutcliffe in 1585 and in several works of the Anglican controversialist Thomas Sutcliffe a decade later.24 The authority of the chancellor of the University of Paris is also broached in Of the laws of Ecclesiastical Policy, an influential ecclesiological treatise supporting conciliarist ideas by Richard Hooker whose early books appeared in 1593.25 It is doubtful whether Richer had read these authors given the language barrier, but he may have heard of them during the debate caused by King James I’s Oath of Allegiance, a subject to which we will return. As much if not more than England, Scotland, homeland of John Major who taught there after returning from Paris, was a fertile terrain for conciliarism. One of the disciples of the Parisian doctor was George Buchanan who became the tutor of the young James VI at the beginning of the 1570s and who taught him that kings have the right to call councils in order to ensure peace and harmony. References to the conciliarist movement are to be found in the Confession of Faith of the Scottish Kirk which was adopted in 1560.26 When, in 1605, the Societé des libraires de Paris, also known as the Compagnie de la Grand’Navire, asked Richer to ‘revise’ Gerson’s works and to ‘oversee their publication’,27 the chancellor of Paris had acquired sufficient notoriety in the circles of theologians and jurists for the project to seem viable. It was a large-scale editorial project: when the work came off the press in 1606, it consisted of no less than four volumes in-folio with each comprising more than four hundred pages. It was precisely because a large capital outlay was necessary for this sort of work

22 Thomas Mayer, ‘Thomas Starkey, an Unknown Conciliarist at the Court of Henry VII’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 49, 1988, 219. 23 Oakley, ‘Constance, Basel and the two Pisas’, 98. 24 Ibid., 100–101. 25 Patterson, King James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom, 63–65. 26 Ibid., 58–60. 27 Baillet, La vie d’Edmond Richer, 55. The date of 1605 is confirmed in the preface of Richer’s Apologia pro Joanne Gersonio (Leiden, Paulus Moriaen, 1676).

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that a group of Parisian editors – Jacques Du Puy, Sébastien Nivelle, Michel Sonnius and Baptiste Du Puy – founded a joint publishing house in 1582, initially for the publicaton of the Church Fathers.28 When they called upon Richer, he was in a position to accept. His mandate as censor having come to an end, he was spending all the time not taken up by the administration of the Cardinal Lemoine College29 on studies. His recent problems with the catholiques zélés and his preoccupation with excluding the Jesuits from the University, coupled with the bond which he had forged with the Gallican parliamentarians in the battle for the reform of the University, had strengthened his determination to promote Gerson, the main figure in the School of Paris. It is most likely that in 1605 he had already begun to write his history of the University of Paris, a six-volume manuscript on which he was still working in 1626,30 and that, by then, he had developed a good knowledge of Gerson’s writings. We know that Richer had in his hands not only the 1521 edition but five others, the oldest dating from 1483.31 A comparison between the editions of 152132 and 160633 of the complete works of Gerson shows that, in spite of what Richer stated in the title of his work – an edition which was ‘considerably augmented and improved’ (multo quam antehac auctiora & castigiora) – he followed the same plan as Jakob Wimpfeling, the Alsatian humanist responsible for the 1521 edition and that he published the same texts. It was not him but Wimpfeling who decided to put the Gerson’s De potestate ecclesiastica and a few other ecclesiological treatises into the first volume, following after the Monotessaron which opened the book. Richer definitely improved the presentation of the documents, doubtless with the intention of making them more accessible. Not without a 28 On the Compagnie de la Grand’Navire, see Philippe Renouard, Répertoire des imprimeurs parisiens, libraires, fondeurs de caractères d’imprimerie, depuis l’imprimerie à Paris (1470) jusqu’à la fin de XVI siècle, Paris, M.J. Milliard, 1965, 91; Jean-Dominique Mellot and Élisabeth Queval, Répertoires d’imprimeurs/libraires, vers 1500-vers 1810, Paris, new ed., Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2004, notice 1265. 29 Baillet, La vie d’Edmond Richer, 54. 30 BnF, ms. lat. 9943–9948: Historia academiae parisiensis, 6 volumes. Préclin, ‘Edmond Richer’, 324, dated 1626 the last document reproduced by Richer in his history of the University of Paris (BnF, ms. lat. 9948, f 475–481). 31 Richer, Traité des appellations comme d’abus, vol. 1, s.l, 1763, 68: ‘Pour mon regard j’en ai vu de six diverses impressions faites en France & en Allemagne en moins de quarante ans, sçavoir depuis l’an 1483 jusqu’à l’an 1521.’ 32 Prima pars Joannis Gersonis, … que est de iis potissimum que fidem et ecclesie conditionem moderantur. Item epistole quedam de miraculis auctoris et de vitae jus epitome. Secunda pars Joannis Gersonis de iis ferme rebus que ad mores conducunt. Tertia pars operum Joannis Gersonis, que meditandi rationem et mysticum theologiam in se complectitur. Quarta et nuper conquisita pars operum Joannis de Gerson, 4 parts in 2 volumes, Paris, Jean Petit and François Regnault, 1521. 33 Ioannis Gersonii doctoris et cancellarii Parisiensis opera, multo quam antehac auctiora & castigatiora, Paris, Compagnie de la Grand’Navire, 1606, 4 parts in 2 volumes.

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certain degree of irony, one could level the same charges against the Gallican writer Louis Ellies Du Pin who asserted that his publication of Gerson’s works, which appeared in 1706, was based on the original manuscripts. In effect Du Pin – or rather Paul-Antoine d’Hérouval, the librarian of St Victor’s Abbey in Paris, from whom Du Pin borrowed the work without making many changes – was happy to reproduce Richer’s edition as it was,34 adding, it is true, about one hundred documents. To the 306 documents published by Wimpfeling and Richer, he added 106. But, as Palémon Glorieux, the twentieth century editor of a new edition of Gerson’s works, remarked, neither Richer nor Du Pin corrected Wimpfeling’s editorial mistakes. Both incorrectly attributed 79 texts to Gerson and published 82 texts in Latin that had originally been written in French.35

The affair of the Interdict of Venice Although overseen by Richer, the 1606 edition did not bear his name. His role in the project would probably have passed unnoticed if two politico-religious events which occurred in the meanwhile, both outside of the borders of the kingdom of France, had not suddenly bestowed upon the re-edition of the works of the chancellor of the University of Paris an intense topicality. The first had no immediate effect in France but it created a climate of controversy which, indirectly, influenced Richer’s career. On the night of 4 November, an English Catholic named Guy Fawkes was found in the proximity of barrels of explosives which were to be used to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London the following day. He was executed shortly afterwards together with several fellow believers who had been implicated in the plot. King James I, who had constantly appealed to moderate Catholics since his accession to the throne two years earlier in the hope of restoring religious peace, reacted in a rather restrained manner. Like Elizabeth I ten years earlier, his aim was to separate the secular priests known as appelants, whose standpoint was close to that of the Gallicans, from the Jesuits, and from Robert Parsons in particular, who declared themselves to be in favour of the temporal power of the pope. On 27 May 1606, Parliament forced the English Catholics to take an oath of allegiance to the king, obliging them to reject as ungodly and heretic the doctrine whereby those princes who had been excommunicated or dethroned by the pope could be deposed by

34 André Combes, Jean Gerson, commentateur dyonisien. Pour l’histoire des courants doctrinaux à l’université de Paris à la fin du XIVe siècle, Paris, Vrin, 1973, 19–21. 35 Jean Gerson, Œuvres complètes, Introduction and notes by Monseigneur [Palémon] Glorieux, vol. 1, Paris, Desclée, 1960, 70.

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their subjects. Paul V reacted on 22 September 1606 by means of a brief which forbade the signing of the oath of allegiance and participation in services of the Anglican Church.36 The second event brought the figure of Gerson onto the stage. On 25 December 1605, the papal nuncio ordered the Grand College of the Republic of Venice, known as the Serenissima, to hand over to the ecclesiastical tribunal, under pain of interdict, two priests found guilty of offenses against common law and to repeal a law limiting the sales of secular properties to the Church. Faced with the decline of its commercial empire, Venice had been trying for several years to increase its agricultural revenues on the terra firma but it clashed, in this venture, with the ambitions of ecclesiastical foundations, those of new religious orders in particular. On Bellarmine’s own admission, the Church owned a quarter of Venetian territory.37 It was in order to protect its material interests and not for ideological reasons that Venice imposed limits on the economic and judicial privileges of the Church. But the pope did not see it this way. On 17 April 1606, he imposed an interdict on the entire territory of the Republic and excommunicated the doge and all the members of the Senate. He hoped to bring the Venetian Catholics, deprived of the sacraments, to their knees. However, he had not counted on the loyalty of the Venetian priests towards the government of their Republic. On the whole, the interdict was barely respected. It was repealed on 21 April 1607 after a year of bitter controversy.38 In January 1606, shortly after the promulgation of the Interdict, Paolo Sarpi, a Servite priest who had filled many important posts in his order, was appointed as the official theologian of the Serenissima.39 The authorities realised that the battle was being fought in the field of ideas and they counted on Sarpi to use all the resources of positive theology,

36 Salmon, ‘Catholic resistance theory’ 247–150, ‘Constance, Basel and the two Pisas’, 103; Anthony Milton, Catholic and Reformed; The Roman and Protestant Churches in English Protestant Thought, 1600–1640, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002, 255–263; Bernard Bourdin, The Theological-Political Origins of the Modern State: the controversy between James I of England and Cardinal Bellarmine, Washington DC, 2011, 113–114 37 Robert Bellarmine, Riposta alle opposition de Fra Paolo Sarpi contra la scrittura del Cardinale Bellarmino, Rome, Guglielmo Facciotto, 1606, 92 quoted in William J. Bouwsma, Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty. Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter Reformation, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1968, 344. 38 The best study of the Interdict of Venice is that of Bouwsma, Venice and the Defence of Republican Liberty, 339–416. 39 The literature on Paolo Sarpi is vast. Although old, the work by Gaetano Cozzi, Paolo Sarpi tra Venezia e l’Europa, Turin, Einaudi, 1979, is useful. See also David Wootton, Paolo Sarpi. Between Renaissance and Enlightenment, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983.

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canon law and ecclesiastical history. Endowed with great knowledge as well as being a skilful dialectician, he immediately showed himself to be a formidable propagandist.40 It was in this context, according to the testimony of his disciple and secretary Fulgenzio Micanzo, that Sarpi ‘remembered’ Gerson’s treatise on excommunication, showed it to a few senators and had it published in Italian.41 The preface of the work is dated ‘from Paris’ 1 April 1606. It was therefore not Richer, as has been written,42 who suggested to Sarpi the use of Gerson’s work in the controversy. Besides, there is no trace of any correspondence between the two men.43 The appeal which the work of the chancellor of the University of Paris held for Sarpi dated back much further. As he indicated to Jacques Gillot, he had begun to take an interest in Gallicanism twenty years earlier.44 For some time he had been corresponding with Jacques-Antoine de Thou, the president of the Parliament of Paris, and had been in contact with Isaac Casaubon, a philocatholic Protestant who had arrived in Paris in 1600 at the request of Henry IV and who was appointed royal librarian four years later.45 Even before the Interdict affair, Sarpi belonged to a Franco-Italian network which was in favour of the affirmation of civil power and which criticised the pope’s interventions in temporal matters. Under the title Tratatto e resoluzione sopra la validità delle scommuniche, Sarpi published two texts composed by Gerson in the spring of 1418: the Resolutio circa materiam excommunicationum et irregularitatum and the De sententia pastoris semper tenenda.46 He also published Bernard of Clairvaux’s De 40 Filippo de Vivo, ‘Paolo Sarpi and the Uses of Information in Seventeenth Century Venice’, Media History, 1–12, 2005, 37–51. 41 Fulgenzio Micanzio, Vita del Padre Paolo dell’ordine de’Servi e theologo della Serenissima Republica di Venetia, Leiden, [Elzevier], 1646; [Venice?], 1658, 83–84. Also in Paolo Sarpi, Istoria del Concilio Tridentino, Turin, Einaudi, 2011, 1499. 42 Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 1, 98; F.-T. Perrens, L’Église et l’État en France sous le règne de Henri IV et la régence de Marie de Médicis, Paris, Durand, 1892, vol. 1, 294; Parsons, The Church in the Republic, 201. On this point, see Oakley, ‘Bronze-Age Conciliarism’, 76. 43 In spite of what Micanzio states (Vita, ed. Einaudi, 1543). See Boris Ulianich, ‘Saggio introduttivo’ in Sarpi, Lettere ai Gallicani, xxii. 44 Paolo Sarpi, Lettere ai Gallicani, ed. Boris Ulianich, 127, quoted in Oakley, ‘Complexities of Context’, 381. 45 The first letter from Sarpi to Casaubon dates from 1604. See Mark Pattison, Isaac Casaubon 1559–1614, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1892, 253. On the relations between Sarpi and Casaubon, see Cozzi, Paolo Sarpi, 114–115; Marcel Simon, ‘Isaac Casaubon, Fra Paolo Sarpi et l’Église d’Angleterre’ in Aspects de l’anglicanisme. Colloque de Strasbourg (14–16 juin 1972), Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1974, 53–54. 46 Paolo Sarpi, Tratatto e resoluzione sopra la validità delle scommuniche di Giovanni Gersono Teologo e Cancellario Parisino, congnominato il dottore Christianissimo, tradotto dalla lingua latina nella volgare con ogni fedeltà, In opusculi due, [Venice, 1606], in Paolo Sarpi, Istoria dell’Interdetto e altri scritti editi et inediti, ed. Giovanni Gambarin, vol. 2, Bari, 1940, 171–184.

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consideratione, a treatise in which the Cistercian monk argued in favour of a reform of the Church. The choice of these texts was significant: Sarpi’s aim was not the promotion of conciliarist doctrines. Had this have been the case, he would have published more explicit texts such as Gerson’s An liceat in causis fidei a papa appellare or his De potestate ecclesiastica. The question of the appeal to the council against the pope was only mentioned in passing in a short passage from the Resolutio.47 But, by using an authority as respected as the chancellor of the University of Paris, he hit home. He gave a supranational dimension to the battle of the Republic of Venice against Roman arbitrariness and showed that it was rooted in a long history of clerical abuse. The affair would have ended there had Robert Bellarmine, the theologian accredited to the pope, not drawn attention to Gerson by clumsily attempting to refute him.48 The evocation of the chancellor of the University of Paris in the context of a discussion concerning the prerogatives of the pope filled him with concern. Not without a certain degree of naivety, he believed that the conciliarist ideas had been forgotten.49 In a Riposta in the vernacular published at the beginning of summer, he accused Sarpi for having chosen a writer who was no longer relevant, despite being a holy man. One could not compare the tumultuous times of the Great Schism with the present era.50 Sarpi was not deterred. It was less a question of Gerson, he replied in an Apologia which appeared several weeks later,51 than the need to protect civil sovereignty from the attacks of the Holy See. The real problem lay in the deflection of the notion of Christianity towards political ends. This message was repeated in the Considerationi sopre le censure della santita di papa Paulo 5 contro le Sereniss. Republica de Venetia, which appeared in the autumn.52

47 48 49

50 51

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For a modern edition of the two treatises, see Gerson, Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 6, Paris, Desclée, 1965, 291–296. The contents of the Tratatto are described in Sylvio Hermann De Franceschi, Raison d’État et raison d’Église. La France et l’Interdit vénitien (1606–1607): aspects diplomatiques et doctrinaux, Paris, Honoré Champion, 2009, 517–520. Resolutio VIII. Text in Oakley, ‘Bronze-Age Conciliarism’, 75, note 38. Oakley, ‘Complexities’, 382–83. See the remark made by Joseph Lecler in ‘Qu’est-ce que les libertés de l’Eglise gallicane?’, Recherches de sciences religieuses, 2, 1933, 554, note 109: ‘Bellarmin paraît croire que depuis la suppression de la Pragmatique Sanction par le Concordat, on ne parlait plus guère des libertés de l’Église gallicane en France. Quelle erreur!’ Robert Bellarmine, Riposta alle opposition di Fra Paolo Sarpi contra la scrittura del Cardinale Bellarmino, Rome, Guglielmo Facciotto, 1606. See Oakley, ‘Complexities of Context’, 383– 386; De Franceschi, Raison d’État et raison d’Église, 520–521. Paolo Sarpi, Apologia per le oppositioni fatte dall’illustrissimo, & reuerendiss.mo signor cardinal Bellarminio alli trattati, et risolutioni de Gio. Gersone sopra la validità delle scommuniche, Venice, Roberto Mietti, 1606. See Oakley, ‘Complexities of Context’, 386; De Franceschi, Raison d’État et raison d’Église, 510–523. Venice, Roberto Meietti, 1606.

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In Venice, Philippe de Canaye, the French ambassador to the Serenissima, became concerned when Bellarmine entered the fray. On Henry IV’s instructions, he did his best to reconcile the Roman and Venetian points of view. But the controversy gathered momentum. In a few months, Bellarmine published six anti-Venetian documents, one of which appeared under the pseudonym of Matteo Torti.53 The church historian Baronius, another cardinal, also took up the pen. ‘We would have hoped’, the ambassador confided to Cardinal du Perron, ‘that the honorable cardinals who wrote [against Sarpi] believed in the prudent advice given on the subject that they not become involved in the matter. They will be responsible for the fact that this dispute which was known to only a few curious people will henceforth become the subject of conversation of barbers and washer women.’54 But the debate was not confined to Italy. The Venetian authorities deliberately sought to internationalise it in the hope of creating a European front against Rome. Bellarmine did the same. He translated his reply to Sarpi into Latin so as to increase its readership,55 whilst a French edition, augmented by a reply to Giovanni Marsilio, another defender of Venice, appeared in 1607.56 In Paris, the nuncio Maffeo Barberini, the future pope Urbain VIII, actively worked at diffusing Bellarmine’s and Baronius’ writings.57 He asked André Duval, Richer’s colleague at the Sorbonne, who was known to be close to the Jesuits, to write a treatise on the power of the pope. The project did not materialise but, on Duval’s recommendation, the nuncio enjoined the chancellor Nicolas Brûlart de Sillery to have the Societé des libraires de Paris delay the publication of Gerson’s works.58 It was during this war of pamphlets that Richer, whose ideas were only known to a small number of his contemporaries, presented himself for the first time as champion for the cause of conciliarism. The Venetian controversy provided him with the opportunity to give Gerson’s ideas, with which he was very familiar as he 53 See the list in Bouwsma, Venice and the Defence of Republican Liberty, 380, note 183. 54 Philippe de Canaye to Cardinal du Perron, 12 August 1606, quoted in De Franceschi, Raison d’État et raison d’Église, 352. 55 Robert Bellarmine, Responsio cardinalis Bellarmini ad duos libros, unum cujus inscription est: ‘Responsio cujusdam doctoris theology ad epistolam … sui amici de brevi et censuris a … Paulo V Papa adversus … Venetos publicatos’, et alternum, cujus titilus est: ‘Tractatus et resolutio Joannis Gersonis, … de excommunicationis valore’, Mayence, B. Lippius and N. Steinius, 1606. 56 Robert Bellarmine, Response du cardinal Bellarmin au traicté des sept théologiens de Venise, sur l’interdict de N.S. Père le Pape Paul V et aux oppositions de F. Paul Servite contre la premiere escriture du mesme cardinal, avec la response du mesme autheur à la défense des huicts propositions de Jean Marsile, s.l., 1607. 57 Ulianich, ‘Saggio introduttivo’, xxvi. 58 Edmond Richer, ‘Admonitio ad lectorum’ in Apologia pro Joanne Gersonio, Leiden, Paul Moriaen, 1676, *1r. This information is reproduced by Baillet in his Vie d’Edmond Richer, 57– 58.

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had edited them, a new relevance. It was for a reason that he began his autobiography, the Histoire du syndicat d’Edmond Richer, with an evocation of the Interdict affair: As I intend to portray the story of what transpired against Edmond Richer during and after his syndicate, I will return to the discourse above: in other words, the dispute which occurred between the Holy Father Paul Vand the Republic of Venice in 1606. For Master Paul of Venice, a monk who belonged to the Order of Servites and a learned theologian, had just brought to light two small pamphlets written by Jean Gerson which he used powerfully to defend the Lordship of Venice against the condemnations of the pope; Cardinal Bellarmine insultingly criticised these two pamphlets, showing great scorn and hostility, as much against Gerson, the chancellor of the university as against the entire School of Paris.59

Outside of Italy, the main arena for the controversy was, without any doubt, France.60 Sarpi, who knew this better than anyone, allegedly published in Paris the Italian translation of two pamphlets of Gerson. The main artisan of the Venetian propaganda – today we would say its chief lobbyist – was Pietro Priuli, the Serenissima’s ambassador to Paris. In the months following the Interdict, he multiplied the media coverage. He was worried, he wrote in a dispatch dated 18 July 1606, that Venice’s enemies claimed that the Sorbonne’s theologians supported the pope’s standpoint. To reduce the impact of their declarations, he decided to ‘have people write in favour of justice’. With this end in mind, he recruited two lawyers, Louis Servin and Jacques Leschassier, a philocatholic Protestant, Isaac Casaubon, and a theologian from the Sorbonne, Edmond Richer. Even though there is no proof, it is probable that Priuli contacted a fifth writer, the Blois-born magistrate Guillaume Ribier whose Discours au Roy, an appeal to the general council written in the Gallican tradition,61 so pleased the doge Leonardo Dona that he asked Paolo Sarpi to undertake its translation, which was subsequently published in Venice.62 In August, the Senate of Venice put 2000 crowns – a fairly considerable amount – at Priuli’s disposal in order for him to pay the writers who had agreed to 59 Histoire du Syndicat, 1. 60 On the relations between Venice and France during the XVIth century and at the beginning of the XVIIth century, see Alain Tallon, Conscience nationale et sentiment religieux en France au XVIe siècle. Essai sur la vision gallicane du monde, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2002, 165–183. 61 [Guillaume Ribier], Discours au Roy, [s.l.], [s.n.], 1607. On this work and the debate which it caused in Paris and in Venice, see Marc Venard, ‘Le projet d’un nouveau concile dans la France d’Henri IV’, in Marie Viallon (ed.), Autour du Concile de Trente. Actes de la table ronde de Lyon (28 février 2003, Saint-Etienne, Presses de l’Université de Saint-Etienne, 2006, 47–60. 62 Biblioteca del Museo Correr, Fondo Donà, cod. 131, f. 229–243, quoted in Venard, ‘Le projet d’un nouveau concile’, 58.

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use their talents for the Venetian cause.63 Louis Servin who, since July, had been writing a Pro libertate status et reipublicae Venetorum Gallofranci ad Philenetum epistola64 and Jacques Leschassier who published, in December, a Consultatio on the controversy between Venice and the pope,65 both had taken court action against Ultramontane bishops who wanted to impose on their clergy, one in Angers, the other in Senlis, reforms in the spirit of the Council of Trent.66 Close to the royal power, they defended the liberties of the Gallican Church, which were, in their eyes, threatened.67 As for Casaubon, he accepted to write a De libertate ecclesiastica favourable to the Venetian point of view only because he believed that Roman clericalism stood in the path of religious peace. The publication of his treatise was, however, put on hold by Henry IV who wished to remain neutral in the conflict between the pope and Venice and did not wish to encourage litigious works. Only the first fifteen pages were printed and subsequently circulated throughout Europe through the good offices of the Venetian ambassador.68 In the dispatch he sent to his superiors on 18 July 1606, Priuli stated that he had ‘chosen’ Servin to reply to the allegations made by the pope’s partisans.69 Richer was recruited in the same way, probably on the recommendation of the advocate general who knew him from the time they had worked together on the reform of

63 Dispatch of 18 July 1606, quoted in Ulianich, ‘Saggio introduttivo’, xxv. 64 [Paris], 1606. On Louis Servin, see Salvo Mastellone, La reggenza di Maria de’Medici, Messina and Florence, G. D’Anna, 1962, 33–121. 65 Jacques Leschassier, Consultatio Parisii cujusdam de controversia inter sanctitatem Pauli et Sereniss. Rempublicam venetam [ad virum clariss. Venetum], s.l., 1607. According to Pierre de l’Estoile (Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris, vol. 3, November 1606, 177), the printer of this work was C. Bérion who seems to be Jean Berjon, a printer from Geneva who had settled in Paris in 1601. 66 Parsons, The Church in the Republic, 208–212; Thierry Amalou, ‘Jacques Leschassier, Senlis et les libertés de l’Église gallicane (1607)’, Revue de l’histoire des religions, 226, 2009, 445–466. 67 Several months earlier, Jacques Leschassier had published a dossier of canonical and historical sources favourable to the Gallican point of view which bore the title La liberté ancienne et canonique de l’Eglise gallicane (Paris, Claude Morel, 1606). 68 Isaac Casaubon, De libertate ecclesiastica liber singularis, ad viros politicos qui de controversia inter Paulum V, pontificem maximum et Rempublicam Venetam, edoceri cupuint, s.l. , 1607, 264. Melchior Goldhast re-edited the work in his Monarchia S. Romani Imperii in 1612 after a treatise of Gerson. Later re-edition in Isaac Casaubon, Epistolae, insertis ad eadem responsionibus, quotquot hactenus reperiri potuerunt, secundum seriem temporis accurate digestae, Rotterdam, Caspar Fritsch and Michaelis Böhm, 1709, 161–233. On the circumstances of the publication of this book, see Pattison, Isaac Casaubon, 195–196; Ulianich, ‘Saggio introduttivo’, xxix, note 6. In 1607, Casaubon called for an agreement between Christians in the preface of the re-edition of a book of Grégoire de Nysse. See Patterson, King James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom, 132–133. 69 Dispatch of 18 July 1606 referred to above.

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the University of Paris. It was therefore Priuli and not Richer who initiated the contact. The fact that he was busy editing the works of Gerson almost certainly brought him to the attention of the Venetian ambassador.70 Two initiatives resulted from this collaboration between the two men. On the one hand, Richer ‘advised’ the Compagnie de la Grand’Navire, as he wrote in his autobiography,71 to add the works of d’Ailly, Almain and Major to the first volume of Gerson’s works. It was a question of demonstrating that the conciliarist views of the chancellor of the University of Paris were shared by many generations of Parisian theologians and were not restricted to a single man. Cardinal du Perron understood it that way when he blamed Gerson’s edition, in his Harangue au Tiers in 1615, for advocating a decrease in papal authority whilst at the same time putting ‘the security of the kings under the feet of the people’.72 On the other hand, Priuli promoted the work of Gerson and his colleagues of the University of Paris. On 28 August, he announced, in a dispatch, the imminent publication of a new edition of Gerson’s works and proposed organising its distribution at the Frankfurt fair and in Italy.73 On 8 September he sent hard-tofind texts by John of Paris, William of Ockham, Pierre d’Ailly and John Major to Venice which had just been handed over to him by ‘one of the oldest and most important doctors’ of the Sorbonne who supported the Venetian cause but who wished to remain anonymous.74 This clearly meant Richer who had been a doctor of theology for almost fifteen years and who directed one of the most prestigious colleges in the capital. On 12 November 1606, Priuli sent to Venice a French translation of Sarpi’s Considerationi which he had managed to have published despite the nuncio’s opposition.75 A French translation of the Italian Servite’s Apologia also appeared during this period.76 In Paris, these writings were ‘loudly praised and collected by all the honest and learned men’, commented Pierre de l’Estoile.77 Casaubon sung their praises to Paul Pétau and Joseph Scaliger.78

70 On this point it is necessary to correct Salmon who wrote that Richer ‘at Sarpi’s bidding then embarked on his own tract and his edition of Gerson’ (‘Gallicanism and Anglicanism’, 182). 71 Histoire du syndicat de Richer, 2. 72 Harangue du cardinal Du Perron, 90. 73 Dispatch of 28 August 1606, quoted in Ulianich, xxvi. Priuli stated that he had ‘begged’ the Parisian publishing houses to reprint the works of Gerson. This is a blatant exaggeration as the publication of Gerson’s works had begun the previous year. 74 Dispatch of 8 September 1606, quoted in Ulianich, ‘Saggio introduttivo’, xxvii. See Oakley, ‘Complexities’, 387. 75 Examen de Paul … contenant la response aux censures de nostre S. Père le Pape Paul V contre la Serenissme République de Venise, s.l., 1606. See Ulianich, ‘Saggio introduttivo’, xxviii. 76 Apologie de Paul [Sarpi], … pour les traictez de J. Gerson, sur la validité des censures, contre les objections faites par l’illustrissime … cardinal Belarmin, s.l., 1606. 77 Pierre de l’Estoile, Journal, vol. 2, 211, quoted in Ulianich, ‘Saggio introduttivo’, xxviii. 78 Isaac Casaubon, Epistolae, 535 and 536, quoted in Ulianich ‘Saggio Introduttivo’, xxviii.

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The Apologia pro Ecclesia et Concilii auctoritate But there was another consequence, even more important, of the association between Priuli and Richer. Towards the end of 1606, in reply to appeals from the ambassador to Venice, the Parisian theologian wrote an Apologia pro Ecclesiae et Concilii auctoritate adversus Ioannis Gersonii obtectractores,79 which marked a decisive stage in the evolution of his ecclesiological thought. Priuli alluded to the work in a dispatch of 16 January 1607.80 All the themes which would be found five years later in the De potestate ecclesiastica et politica, the work which brought its author both celebrity and condemnation, were present. Although hurriedly written,81 probably in a few weeks, the Apologia developed, in a structured and logical way, an interpretation of the conciliarist doctrine, which, for being dependent on the theologyt of Gerson, whose works its author was busy editing, was nevertheless new in many ways. Because they did not have a copy of the Apologia to hand, Richer’s early biographers were ignorant of this aspect of the work.82 The fact that the Apologia – and in 1611 the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate – were written in response to the Robert Bellarmine’s attacks against Venice in the affair of the Interdict is an key element for the interpretation of Richer’s thinking. Pointing out that his correspondent had requested to remain anonymous, Priuli never mentioned Richer’s name in the dispatches he sent to Venice. But there is no question that it was him for the work that the ambassador mentioned, according to the dispatch of 16 January, dealt with ‘the authority of the pope and the manner in which this should be understood according to the true and legitimate authority of the Scriptures and the council’,83 a description which corresponded with Richer’s Apologia pro Ecclesiae et Concilii auctoritate.84

79 [Venice, 1607]. 80 Priuli, dispatch of 16 January 1607, quoted in Ulianich, ‘Saggio introduttivo’ xxix. 81 Richer asked Priuli for time but he promised to write it rapidly. See Ulianich ‘Saggio introduttivo’, xxix. 82 As far as we know, the only libraries to have conserved copies of this work are the British Library in London and the Biblioteca Nazionale Mariana in Venice. Puyol and Préclin only had at their disposal a later and much revised transcription of the work, the Apologia pro Joanne Gersonis pro suprema Ecclesiae & Concilii auctoritate, atque indepemdentia Regiae potestatis ab alio quam a solo Deo, Leiden, Paul Moriaen, 1676. Oakley (‘Bronze-Age Conciliarism’, 76–79) consulted the copy in the British Library (ibid., 76, note 41) and Ulianich, in all probability, that of Marciana (‘Saggio introduttivo, xxix, note 5). 83 Priuli, dispatch of 16 January 1607, quoted in Ulianich ‘Saggio introduttivo’, xxix. 84 Here, I follow the point of view expressed by Ulianich in his ‘Saggio introduttivo’, xxix. It could not have been Isaac Casaubon’s De libertate ecclesiastica because, before the printing of this treatise was put to a halt by order of the king, it consisted of 264 pages (see above, note 157). This book could not have been hastily written as was Richer’s, which consisted of 48 pages.

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In Paris, at this time, rumours were rife that the grand master of the Cardinal Lemoine College had written a book against the pope. His colleague, André Duval, alerted the nuncio, forcing Richer to go and see the latter in order to deny the claims: Duval let Cardinal Barberini know that Richer intended writing a book against Cardinal Bellarmine in order to defend Gerson. It was for this reason that Richer was obliged to go and see Cardinal Barberini to convince him that the rumours concerning an apology in favour of Gerson were based solely on the fact that Richer was known to be a supporter of the old maxims of the School of Paris: this had resulted in some people believing that he would not abstain from writing in Gerson’s defence.85

The preface to the Apologia’s re-edition, written by Richer towards the end of his life and published posthumously,86 shows the spirit in which he took up the pen in order to defend Gerson. In this story, the figure of André Duval, doctor of the Sorbonne, holder of one of the two chairs of theology created by Henry IV, friend of the Jesuits and follower of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola,87 played an important role. This ‘close friend who became the worst of enemies’88 did not cease trying to persuade Richer to abandon his conciliarist ideas. It was when he learnt that the nuncio had requested Duval to prepare a refutation of Sarpi along the lines of Bellarmine’s Riposta that the Gallican theologian decided to rework his Apologia. The main argument of the Jesuit cardinal, we will recall, was that the doctrine of the superiority of the council over the pope was acceptable only for the period when it was conceived. Gerson defended it, at the risk of bordering heterodoxy, in order to mend the schism. Once the threat had passed, it was no longer relevant. Richer opposed this interpretation. It compromised the doctrine of the School of Paris to which, above all else, he was attached. He wrote the Apologia to avenge the affront. The nuncio’s interferences, bolstered by Henry IV’s support, resulted in the delay of the publication of Gerson’s works and reinforced Richer’s determination. They demonstrated to him that the Venetians were correct in resisting to the Holy See. In the Apologia, more than Gerson who tried to maintain a balance between the prerogatives of the pope and those of the council, he set a clear limit the powers of St Peter’s successor who became essentially the executor of the conciliar assembly’s decisions.

85 86 87 88

Richer, Histoire du syndicat, 2. ‘Admonitio ad lectore’, in Apologia pro Joanne Gersonio, Leiden, Paul Moriaen, 1676. Cognet, ‘Duval’. Edmond Richer, Defensio libelii de ecclesiastica et polotica potestate in quinque divisa libros, vol. 1, Cologne, Balthasar ab Egmon, 1701, 5. ‘Vallius cum mihi quondam intimus, ex amicissimi inimicissimus evasit.’

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Richer deliberately refrained from handing his work over to a printer. As we have seen, Duval, who knew that his colleague had published not only Gerson but also d’Ailly, Almain and Major and was therefore capable of writing a book against the pope as rumour had it, alerted the nuncio. He then, not without a certain duplicity, pressed Richer to go and see the prelate. The theologian became alarmed for he did not want to run the risk of annoying the king, to whom Barberini had already suggested that anti-Roman writings would greatly displease the pope. He therefore denied that he was the author of the contentious work. It was for these reasons, Richer wrote in his autobiography, that the Apologia appeared only in 1606. However, the book appeared the following year in Venice, unknown to the author, said Richer. The person responsible for this speedy publication was Nicolas Lefèvre, a well-known philologist, collaborator of the Gallican Pierre Pithou and soon to be appointed tutor of the young Louis XIII. Hearing that Richer had been convoked before the nuncio, he asked permission to copy the manuscript.89 The text was then sent to Venice through the good offices of the ambassador. It is difficult to believe that Richer, with whom Priuli claimed to be in contact, knew nothing of this. His refusal to accept authorship of the work, under the pretext that it contained mistakes, is therefore suspicious. Consisting of forty-eight pages the Apologia is hardly longer than the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, which contained thirty pages. It is divided into fifty-three ‘axioms’, composed in the scholastic manner. The sub-title, which was barely modified in the work of 1611, summarised the argument of the work: ‘The Church is a monarchical constitution, instituted for a supernatural purpose, moderated by Christ through means of the ecumenical council, which serves as an aristocratic government’. Richer borrowed the Aristotelian typology of forms of government from Gerson but instead of suggesting a mixed form of government, he spoke of a monarchy tempered by the aristocracy with Christ representing the monarchical element. He also borrowed from Gerson the idea that ‘Christ gave the keys to the entire Church so that they could be used when all were in complete agreement’.90 Peter and his successors only exercised the power of the keys ‘executively’ (exequutive).91 Christ gave Peter ‘the exercise of the government of the Church and not the absolute government.’92 Full and total power fell upon the Church represented by the council. In addition, it was the entire

89 ‘Admonitio ad lectorem’, in Apologia pro Joanne Gersonio (1676), *1r-*2r. 90 ‘Admonitio ad lectorem’, in Apologia pro Ecclesiae et Concilii auctoritatem (1607), 3. For an analysis of this work, see Francis Oakley, The Conciliarist Tradition. Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church 1300–1870, New York, Oxford University Press, 2003, 165–168. 91 Ibid., 29 (axiom 31). 92 Ibid., 20 (axiom 21).

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Church and not just the pope that benefited from infallibility.93 Bishops and priests were ‘sent and appointed directly by Christ, in the same way as the pope.’94 In contrast to the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, the Apologia hardly dealt with the question of the pope’s temporal power. Richer was content to declare that the Church was a spiritual kingdom and not a temporal one.95 A passage in the preamble demonstrates where Richer intended placing himself in the ecclesiastical scene. It would be correct, he said, to avoid the two extremes represented by Protestantism and the pope’s pretentions to absolute power. As Aristotle had said, and in contrast to ‘Plato’s community’, equality and inequality, unity and division existed everywhere in the world. In the same way, the Republic was made up of different people and ministers who were subordinate one to the other. The Church, too, needed order so as to avoid two opposing evils: no head at all, or a head that was too powerful. No head at all was Protestantism. Too much head was the path taken by Rome since Boniface VIII and the Council of Trent.96 In its apparent simplicity, this conception of ecclesiastical government contained a radical element that Richer’s enemies did not fail to notice. Mid way between Rome and the Reformation, was he still a Catholic? For his part, the reply was in the affirmative. Whilst distancing himself from Roman ‘extremism’ he aligned with the Catholic tradition. All he had done was to reproduce the School of Paris’s doctrine. But for men like Duval and du Perron, not to mention Bellarmine, this teaching was ambiguous. By suggesting that papal powers be limited, Richer was drawing dangerously closer to the schismatic positions.

93 94 95 96

Ibid., 24 (axiom 26). Ibid., 30 (axiom 32). Ibid., 43 (axiom 53). Ibid., 9 (praemium).

Chapter 3. Richer, syndic of the Faculty of Theology

The new syndic’s plans At the time when Richer was writing the Apologia pro Ecclesiae auctoritate adversus Ioannis Gersonii obtectractores, the battle for supremacy between Gallicans and Ultramontanes which had been going on for several years took a new turn. At the Assembly of the Clergy held in 1605, the bishops defined the position which they were to maintain for the greater part of the seventeenth century. They accepted in its broad outlines the principle of the divine right of kings whilst drawing closer to the Roman stance regarding ecclesiastical government. The number of priests and bishops who called for the publication of the decrees of the Council of Trent, the only way, according to them, of putting an end to clerical abuse, was growing. The influence of religious orders was also on the rise, with the benevolent complicity of King Henry IV who hoped to get into the pope’s good books so that he could continue his policy of religious pacification. Ultramontanism therefore developed. However, the Gallican party, which was influential at the University of Paris, in Parliament and even at the Court, remained powerful.1 It was in this context that, on 2 January 1608, Richer was elected ‘by common consent’ syndic of the Faculty of Theology on the recommendation of his predecessor Roland Hébert.2 The task of the syndic consisted, since the early days of the Reformation, in registering the decisions of the Faculty, in monitoring their implementation and in inciting the dean of the Faculty to take the necessary steps for the preservation of faith and morals3. As argued by Jacques Gres-Gayer, 1 Victor Martin, Le Gallicanisme politique et la Réforme Catholique. Essai historique sur l’introduction en France des décrets du Concile de Trente (1563–1615), Paris, Picard, 1919, 360–361. On the role of the Parliament of Paris in the development of the Gallican mouvement at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries, see Parsons, The Church in the Republic, 97–106. 2 Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 1. 3 Farge, Orthodoxy and Reform, 41.

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two views of the doctrinal magisterium of the Catholic Church competed in the aftermath of the Council of Trent. The Faculty of Theology of Paris claimed the right to exercise this magisterium. In reference to a centuries-old theological tradition, it made a point of guaranteeing doctrinal orthodoxy through its censures. The other position, based on a doctrine of papal infaillibility about which there was still no consensus among Catholic theologians, stated that, ultimately, it was the Holy See, with the backing of the bishops and the religious orders, which warranted orthodoxy.4 It is difficult to say whether, by 1608, the new syndic was widely known as a Gallican theologian, apart from those with whom he was close such as André Duval. His Apologia had only had a limited diffusion and, in any case, he had disowned it. It was most likely his qualities as administrator, as censor of the University and as grand master of the Cardinal Lemoine College which earmarked him for the post of syndic. He was so busy, the Histoire du syndicat reveals,5 that for two years he had not attended faculty assemblies. He was absent the day that he was elected. Before accepting the post of syndic, Richer imposed certain conditions which were accepted by his peers. The assembly committed itself to ‘working with him so as to recover and reestablish the old order of the Faculty which [had] completely degenerated’.6 Significantly, his first task consisted of improving the recording and storage of the resolutions taken by the Faculty, many proceedings ‘being buried in dust and eaten by mites’ or used for malicious ends. This concern for historical documents, an indispensable tool in the fight against the abuse of power, marked Richer and many of his contemporaries during his entire life.7 On 1 February 1608, two weeks after having assumed the position, Richer cut back on the number of students from mendicant orders enrolling for the degree and introduced an effective control – not merely formal as had been the case – over the content of the theses before they were publicly defended.8 Regarding the students, he forbade ‘odious’ behaviour, that which was extreme and harmful to civil peace. The School of Paris, he emphasised, invoking the authority of Ber4 Jacques Grès-Gayer,‘The Magisterium of the Faculty of Theology of Paris in the Seventeenth Century’, Theological Studies, 53, 1992, 424–450. On the evolution of the procedures adopted to identify and condemn doctrinal errors in the Catholic Church, see also Bruno Neveu, L’erreur et son juge. Remarques sur les censures doctrinales à l’époque moderne, Naples, Bibliopolis, 1993. 5 Richer, Histoire du syndicat, 6. 6 Ibid., 5–6. 7 As the works of Pierre Pithou and Étienne Pasquier demonstrate, scholarship occupied from the beginning a privileged position in the Gallican tradition. See Donald Kelley, Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship: Language, Law and History in the French Renaissance, NewYork-London, Columbia University Press, 1970, 241–300. 8 Du Plessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 1.

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nard of Clairvaux, Gerson and Almain, aimed at maintaining an equilibrium ‘between those who invested too much or too little power in the pope than was reasonable’. He rejected students’ theses when he believed them to be ‘contrary to the maxims of the Sorbonne’ without concerning himself with what ‘Duval and his likes [might] say or report to His Holiness’ nuncio.’9 The new rules were rigorously applied. In February 1609, nineteen candidates for the bachelor’s degree were remanded to a later date. Parliament supported the Faculty of Theology after thirteen of them had appealed.10 On one point, however, Richer saw his plans thwarted. He did not obtain from his colleagues the authorisation to publish a volume of the Sorbonne’s maxims for use by the students for they feared the introduction, in an indirect way, of a confession of faith.11 He realised this project in the summer of 1611 when he handed over to the printer – without, however, the backing of the Faculty – a summary of the doctrine of Paris under the title De ecclesiastica et politica postetate. Richer’s first public address as syndic took place during an extraordinary assembly of the faculties on 16 November 1609 when he argued against the registration of the letters patent of the king authorising the re-opening of the Jesuit college in Clermont and the creation of a chair of controversy. After having obtained permission to teach theology, he stated, the Jesuits would insist on also teaching the humanities and ‘thereby encompass the entire university by so doing’.12 This stand, he wrote, led to an ‘incredible hatred’13 towards him. The king wished to impose his wishes on the University, but the Jesuits saw it as more prudent to wait.

9 Richer, Histoire du syndicat, 6. 10 Du Plessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 2. 11 Jourdain, Histoire de l’Université de Paris aux XVII et XVIII siècles, 48. Contrary to what Jotham Parson stated (The Church in the Republic, 290) there is no proof that Richer collaborated in the publication of a volume of Gallican texts which appeared in 1608 with no mention of the publisher under the title Quaedam acta Ecclesiae gallicanae pro libertatibus Ecclesiae et juris communis defensione. The work contained among others the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges and a protest from the Faculty of Theology against the Concordat of Bologne. 12 Ibid., 5. See Mémoires du Cardinal Richelieu, vol. 10 (1629), 424. 13 Richer, Histoire du syndicat, 9. For his part, Henri Fouqueray, the Jesuit historian, mentions Richer’s ‘extreme animosity’ towards the Company of Jesus (Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus en France, vol. 3, Paris, Bureau des Études, 1922, 122).

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The assassination of Henry IV On 14 May 1610 an unexpected event changed not only the destiny of the kingdom but also the nature of the theological debate as well as the relationship between church and state in France. It would have a profound influence on the career of Edmond Richer. Taking advantage of a traffic jam in which Henry IV’s coach was caught in rue de la Ferronnerie in Paris, a forty-seven-year-old man, François Ravaillac, stabbed the king three times in the chest. The latter’s death unleashed a great wave of anxiety in a country where the memories of the civil war at the end of the 1580s were still very much alive. The Protestants feared that the political tolerance led by the king would be abandoned. Throughout the country, the militia were on guard whilst, at the same time, pledges of loyalty and friendship pacts multiplied.14 The assassin, who was a fervent Catholic, believed that he had served the Church by ridding it of a tyrant who threatened its integrity. But death conferred upon the king a stature which he had not possessed during his lifetime. A legend was born: ‘Henry IV, unpopular, warmonger, poorly converted, perverse, bawdy and tyrannical immediately became, thanks to Ravaillac’s knife, a good king, a good prince and the best of kings.’15 A man of compromise and a fine politic, Henry IV had succeeded in calming the tension which reigned in France at the time of his political takeover. Marie de’ Medici, who held the throne during the minority of Louis XIII, did not enjoy the same authority. Reputed to be close to the nuncio and unable to impose herself on the parliamentarians, many of whom had been won over to Gallican ideals, she left the field wide open to controversy in a kingdom which was still in a state of shock and which vacillated about the way to behave. Although she was favourable towards the Ultramontane movement, she was obliged to return to Parliament the powers which her husband had withdrawn. Swift action was necessary for Henry of Bourbon, the prince of Condé, would soon return from Italy whence his cousin, the deceased king, had sent him into exile. Figurehead of the aristocratic movement, he threatened the authority of the regent.16 Ultimately, Henry IV’s death led to the consolidation of the monarchy but, in the meantime, confusion reigned. Because Ravaillac had acted in order to defend the pope, partisans of pontifical supremacy were on the defensive. Theologians who justified the tyrannicide, and they were many, were put in the stocks. Richer made the most of this situation in order to revive the cause of the liberties of the Gallican Church. Along with Achille de Harlay, first president of the Parliament 14 Michel Cassan, La Grande Peur de 1610. Les Français et l’assassinat d’Henri IV, Paris, Champ Vallon, 1610. The most compelling work remains that of Henri Mousnier, L’assassinat d’Henri IV (Paris, Gallimard, 1964). 15 Cottret, Tuer le tyran, 155. 16 Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy, 150.

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of Paris and Louis Servin, the advocate general, he systematically blocked the parti dévot’s plans. The Jesuits, who if successful would threaten the University, were his pet hate. But lines were not as clearly drawn as Richer imagined. If the Gallican party appeared to be the winner at the present time, its long term successes were threatened. Large sections of French society, not only amongst the clergy and the aristocracy but also amongst the middle class, were slowly being won over to the cause of a state Catholicism respectful of the pope’s prerogatives without, however, having to pledge him loyalty. Such was the cost of peace in the kingdom. The first reactions to the king’s assassination gave Richer the false impression that the pope’s partisans were condemned by public opinion and that he could go ahead with his programme of reviving the School of Paris. As Richelieu pointed out in his memoirs, the fact that the doctrines he opposed were attributed to enemies of the deceased king persuaded him of the validity of his undertaking.17 The censure of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate in March 1612 and the loss of his position of syndic a few months later showed him –too late – that he was deluding himself. A sign of the importance of the theological element in the process of political alignment following the king’s death, on the 27 May – the day on which Ravaillac was executed Place de Grève – was that Parliament ordered the dean and the syndic of the Faculty of Theology to renew the condemnation of Jean Petit, the theologian of the Sorbonne who, two centuries earlier had made the apology for the assassination of the Duke of Orleans. The instigator of the censuring of Jean Petit’s propositions, on 13 December 1413, was none other than Gerson who, two years later, on 6 July 1415, incited the Council of Constance to vote a decree condemning tyrannicide.18 For Richer, the request from Parliament was the dreamed for occasion to reinstate the Faculty of Theology to its former glory. Like many of his contemporaries, Pierre de l’Estoile amongst them,19 he felt that the ‘Jesuit school

17 Mémoires du Cardinal de Richelieu, vol. 10 (1629), 425. 18 Louis Pascoe, Jean Gerson: Principles of Church Reform, Leiden, Brill, 1973, 9; Mary Christine Davenport Batts, Jean Gerson: Politics and Political Theory, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Ottawa, 1976, 101–140; Mousnier, L’assassinat de Jean Petit, 68–71. On Jean Petit, see Alfred Colville, Jean Petit, la question du régicide au XVe siècle, Paris, Picard, 1932. As Mousnier stated (ibid., 70), Jean Petit was condemned by a council and not by the Faculty of Theology of Paris, as Parliament was mistakenly thinking by 1610. 19 Sylvio Hermann De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique du premier âge baroque. Antiromanisme doctrinal, pouvoir pastoral et raison du prince: le Saint-Siège face au prisme français (1607–1627), Rome, École française de Rome, 2009, 245.

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which stated that the pope had the right to depose kings and eliminate tyrants’20 was partially responsible for the assassination of Henry IV. This of course was an exaggeration. Robert Bellarmine, the main Jesuit theologian, imposed strict limits on the pope’s powers of deposition and his Spanish colleague, Juan Mariana, who effectively justified Jacques Clément’s murderous act, was not representative of the Company. According to Jacques-Antoine de Thou, when Richer, on Parliament’s orders, brought the document which censured Jean Petit to the king’s entourage, he ‘insinuated’ that Mariana’s opinion, far from representing a personal opinion, reflected the position of the entire Company.21 Of greater importance, Richer claimed that he had learned from Antoine Séguier, president à mortier in the Parliament of Paris, and from his nephew, a Jesuit student, that Pierre Coton, the confessor of Henry IV had attributed the death of the king to divine judgment because he was on the point of initiating a project which was opposed to the interest of the Church.22 Such an opinion demanded a reply. It was for this reason that the bishop of Paris, Henri de Gondi, took the initiative of summoning the syndic. They discussed Parliament’s right to give orders to the Faculty of Theology. The bishop believed that he alone had this right. Richer, in true scholastic fashion, replied that there were two types of censorship: one, which was doctrinal and which was the prerogative of the doctors of the Faculty and the other, juridical, which was the prerogative of the bishoIn this connection, he referred to the condemnation of Pierre Petit. Quoting Gerson at length, he asserted that the Faculty of Theology had deliberated on the orthodoxy of Pierre Petit’s propositions for three months before referring the matter to the bishop and that sixty-three doctors had sat with him when he delivered his judgment.23 When the Faculty met on 4 June, to renew Jean Petit’s condemnation, Antoine Rose, the bishop of Clermont, a doctor who, for a long time had not been seen at meetings at the Sorbonne, was present. According to Richer, he had been sent by the nuncio, the bishop and the Jesuits. Defiantly, the syndic asked him where in the Scriptures it was written that the French did not have the right to deliberate on subjects which concerned them without permission from the Apostolic See. But Rose intervened on one point only. He asked that Gerson’s name be removed 20 BnF, ms. lat. 9946, Historia academiae parisiensis, vol. 5, f. 128r. This section of the manuscript is reproduced, with some omissions, in Jourdain, Histoire de l’université de Paris, Pièces justificatives, 32–34. 21 Jacques-Antoine de Thou, Histoire Universelle, vol. 10, The Hague, Henri Scheurleer, 303. See Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy, 158. 22 BnF, ms. lat. 9946, Historia academiae parisiensis, vol. 5, f. 129r. 23 Ibid., 131r-v. In this connection, Richer quoted the Assertiones contentae in propositione defuncti magistri Joannis Gersonii, a sermon delivered to the Council of Constance by Gerson (Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 1, 190; Gerson, Œuvres, ed. Glorieux, vol. 5, nº 237, 420– 435).

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from the proposed document ‘so as not to displease the pope given the remarks that he had made concerning the authority of the council over the pope’. Initially, he argued, Gerson had not refuted Seneca’s words on the satisfaction which the death of a tyrant brought to God. Richer replied to him by saying that, indeed, the chancellor of the University of Paris had thought along those lines but that subsequently he had understood that tyrannicide resulted in evils greater than tyranny itself. This argument did not, however, convince the doctors. They voted, Rose along with them, for the renewal of Jean Petit’s condemnation, just as Parliament had wanted, but without mentioning Gerson’s name. As Richer had promised to Henri de Gondi, no reference to the Jesuits was made in the document.24 On 9 June, disregarding the bishop of Paris’s objection, Parliament had the Sorbonne’s decree renewing the condemnation of Jean Petit read in all parishes and ordered that Mariana’s De rege & regis institutione be publically burnt.25 Following the nuncio’s intervention, the regent suspended the publication of this decision but copies of the document continued to circulate clandestinely. As for the pope, he remained silent.26 Few signs reveal the upheaval brought about by Henry IV’s death in the Parisian theological world as much as the appeal made by the Jesuit Pierre Coton to the authority of the Council of Constance in a work which appeared simultaneously in Paris and in Lyon, with the king’s blessing, at the beginning of July 1610. Banished for decades from official discussions on the Church because of its support of conciliarism, this council was henceforth called upon by supporters of the pope to show their good faith in the face of accusations that they had condoned the regicide. The title clearly indicated Cotton’s intention: Lettre declaratoire de la doctrine des Pères Iesuites, conforme aux Decrets du Concile de Constance, adressée à la Royne, Mere du Roy, Regente en France.27 Coton totally denied the links which his enemies, Richer amongst them, had established between the speeches made by certain theologians in support of the regicide and the actual death of Henry IV: The topic which was debated at the Council of Constance and which has since then been more fully developed by the Catholic doctors, concerning the expulsion of tyrants, in no way impinges upon the good reputation and the very worthy reputation of him whose death we deplore.28

24 Ibid., f. 133r-v. 25 Du Plessis s’Argentré, Collectio, vol., 2/2, 12. 26 Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy, 158–166; De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 249, 255. 27 Paris, Claude Chappelet, and Lyon, Nicolas Julliéron, 1610. 28 Coton, Lettre declaratoire, 6–7.

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In order to exonerate the Jesuits from all suspicion, Coton quoted thirteen members of the Company, including Bellarmine, who had condemned tyrannicide and he showed that Mariana later disavowed the ‘particular’ point of view which he had expressed on this topic. He declared that he supported every point of the decree adopted by the Faculty of Theology on 4 June. In addition, in a statement which foreshadowed the doctrine of the monarchy by divine right, he stated that obedience was due to kings ‘not because they are virtuous, wise, powerful or endowed with other admirable qualities but because they are kings by divine right’.29 Coton’s Lettre declaratoire calmed the situation but the debate continued against the background of a rivalry between the third estate, which was represented in Parliament and whose responsibilities and privileges continued to increase, and the aristocracy.30 An anonymous Pater Noster accused Richer and his friends of having ‘been advised by certain people who have a distinctive trace of heresy’.31 On 20 August, The Jesuits obtained a letter patent from the queen authorising the re-opening of the College of Clermont. The Faculty of Theology gave its consent by 32 votes to 28 on the condition that the religious submitted to the rules of the University. Richer, who was amongst the minority, succeeded, in a second session, in getting the assembly to vote for an appeal to Parliament. Two other faculties supported the Jesuits’ proposal but the rector, Jean Granger, opposed it. The balance between the parties changed, however, and on the day of the debate in Parliament, 16 November 1610, Marie de’ Medici imposed a deferment of the discussion to a later date.32 The intervention of Thomas Edmondes, the English ambassador to the queen, explained, at least in part, her hesitation. Deeply moved by the death of Henry IV, James I had reasserted the need for an oath of allegiance to the king and given a new impetus to the persecution of the English Catholics. The publication in France of a virulent pamphlet against him had infuriated him and he had insisted that the pope’s supporters be brought into line.33 But it was another event whose impact went beyond the borders of France which dominated the session of Parliament on 26 November 1610. Since September the Tractatus de potestate Romani Summi Pontificus in rebus temporalibus of Robert Bellarmine had been circulating in Paris, a treatise which the Jesuit controversialist had published in Rome as a reply to the De potestate papae of the Pont-à-Mousson lawyer William Barclay which had appeared, post29 Ibid., 29. See De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 256. 30 Roland Mousnier, preface to Salvo Mastellone, La reggenza di Marie de’Medici, vii–xiv. On this subject, see De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 259. 31 Préclin, ‘Edmond Richer’, 254. 32 Jourdain, Histoire de l’Université, 59; Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy, 172–173. 33 On the English interventions, see De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 280–290.

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humously, a year before. As he had done in his Controversies twenty-five years earlier, Bellarmine defended the doctrine of the pope’s indirect power in temporal matters. In an ideological climate still deeply marked, in France as well as in England, by the death of Henry IV, this publication appeared as a provocation. It ruined all efforts at pacification attempted by Coton and his Parisian confrères. It provided the weapons needed by those, both in Parliament and in the Faculty of Theology in Paris, who wished to scuttle, once and for all, the manoeuvres of the Roman party. On that day, Parliament, instead of discussing the reopening of the College of Clermont as was expected, condemned Bellarmine’s treatise for containing a ‘false and detestable suggestion for the toppling of the powerful sovereigns, chosen and established by God, the uprising of subjects against their prince, the removal of their oath of fealty, the encouraging of conspiracies against their person and their estates, all of which troubled public peace and tranquillity’ and forbade the sale and possession of the treatise throughout the kingdom.34 It is unlikely that Richer intervened in the writing of the plea against Bellarmine in Parliament. It has been attributed to Louis Servin and it is doubtless he who delivered it. Following a point of view akin to that of the Politiques, the plea affirmed that the conciliar assemblies could not bind kings when, on the instructions of the pope or his legates, they threatened royal power and that kings received their prerogatives from God alone.35 Following the example of Gerson and Almain, Richer believed that the power of kings came from the people and, like them, he hesitated to subscribe to a declaration that limited the powers of the council.36 It is quite clear, on the other hand, that the Parliamentary decree of 26 November strengthened his determination to defend the rights of the Gallican Church against the abuse of Roman power. His actions in the following months were proof of this. Meanwhile, the supporters of papal power remained unrelenting. The nuncio, who had the regent’s ear, succeeded, on 30 November, in having the Conseil de Régence suspend the implementation of the Parliament’s ruling.37 The text was, however, not withdrawn and news of a judgement against Bellarmine spread throughout Europe.

34 Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 34. On the potential results of the condemnation of Bellarmine’s treatise, see Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy, 178–183. 35 Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol 2/2, 28. On the authorship of this plea which appeared in 1610 under the title Remonstrances et conclusions des Gens du Roy et arrest de la cour de Parlement du 26 novembre 1610 sur le livre intitulé Tractatus de potestate Summi Pontificis…, see Mastellone, La reggenza di Marie de’ Medici, 82–84; De Franceschi, La crise théologicopolitique, 291–292. See also Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy, 178–183. 36 See in the second part of this present work the analysis Richer’s De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. 37 Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy, 186–187.

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But the more Richer became involved in the Gallican battle, the more he made enemies. On 4 January 1611, the nuncio denounced him to Cardinal Borghese, the secretary of state in Rome, for having obliged a student to remove from his thesis the proposition that ‘the Sovereign Pontiff holds his authority directly from Jesus Christ’.38 During a meeting of the Faculty of Theology several months earlier, Richer had justified this censure, quoting texts from the Scriptures according to which it was to the Church and not to the pope that Christ had given the power of the keys.39 This argument, which had already appeared in Richer’s Apologia pro Ecclesiae et Concilii auctoritate and which would soon feature in his De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, obviously did not convince the ecclesiastical authorities. Within the Faculty, the syndic faced growing opposition. At the beginning of the year an acrimonious debate brought him into conflict with four of his colleagues, André Duval, Joaquim de Forgemont, Raoul de Gazil and Nicolas Fortin, who had sanctioned, in a preface to the Response apologétique à l’Anticoton, a defence by an anonymous Jesuit of Pierre Coton, the former confessor of the king, who, in his opinion, had been unfairly implicated. The problem was that, in an attempt to clear the Jesuits, the author of the work claimed, imprudently, that Juan Mariana, the Jesuit known for his defence of the regicide, had at all times remained faithful to the decree of the Council of Constance regarding regicide.40 For Richer, this represented a casus belli. On 1 February, he had the assembly of the doctors vote on a resolution clarifying the litigious case without, however, it must be noted, censuring the Response apologétique. Duval and his colleagues immediately reported the incident to the queen and, at the following assembly on 1 March, they accused the syndic of having obtained the resolution of the previous month ‘by conspiracy, violence and tumult’. According to them, it was a matter of a ‘sort of conspiracy which he spread throughout the community against the four doctors’. The assembly vindicated Richer and the matter went no further.41 But the incident was revealing. However tenaciously the syndic had believed in the justness of his cause, amongst the body which he administered

38 Roberto Ubaldini, nuncio in Paris, to Scipione Borghese, Secretary of State, 4 January 1601, in De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 329. 39 Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 16. 40 Response apologetique a l’Anticoton et a ceux de sa suite. Presentée a la Royne, mere du Roy, regente en France. Ou il est monstré, que les auteurs anonymes de ces libelles difamatoires sont attaints des crimes d’heresie, leze Majesté, perfide, sacrilege, & tres-enorme imposture, Au Pont [Paris?], Michel Gaillard, 1610, 40. 41 Du Plessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 40–41.

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there were adversaries determined to harm him. Already, on 4 April, the nuncio Ubaldini let it be known that he should be removed from his post as quickly as possible.42

The general chapter of the Dominicans An incident then occurred which convinced Richer that it was necessary to publicise his ideas by means of a work dealing with the doctrine of the School of Paris. This incident happened alongside the general chapter of the Dominicans, the highest decision-making body of the Order of Preachers, which was held in May of 1611 at the priory of Saint Jacques in Paris. A public debate brought face to face the partisans and the adversaries of the doctrine of the Council of Constance concerning the superiority of the council over the pope. As was the case four years earlier during the affair of the Interdict of Venice, the ecclesiastical heritage of Gerson was at the heart of the discussions. Never, since the debate between Thomas de Vio known as Cajetan and Jacques Almain during the conflict between King Louis XII and Pope Julius II on the eve of the Reformation,43 had the question of the respective powers of the pope and the council been discussed at such length. Using Francis Oakley’s terminology, things were moving from the silver age to the bronze age of conciliarism.44 The event was significant: in addition to the twenty-seven diffinitors, there were friars from all the provinces of the Order, bringing the number of participants to four hundred and fifty. As was customary, the chapter consisted of two sessions: the oral defence of theses, of which there were twenty-seven, interspersed with liturgical feasts, and the chapter itself, whose principal mission was 42 Ubaldini to Borghese, 14 April 1611, quoted in De Franceschi, La crise theologico-politique, 348: ‘L’impietà del sindico è insopportabile e se non si trova modo per discreditarlo e per levargli l’officio, si può temere che un giorno non sia causa di qualche notabile inconveniente e scandalo.’ 43 On the debate between Cajetan and Almain on the respective powers of the pope and of the council, see Francis Oakley, ‘Almain and Major: Conciliar Theory on the Eve of the Reformation:, American Historical Review, 70, 1965, 673–690; Olivier de la Brosse, Le pape et le concile; La comparaison de leurs pouvoirs à la veille de la Réforme, Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 1965; Frederic Baumgartner, ‘Louis XII’s Gallican Crisis of 1510–13’ in Adrianna Bakos (ed.), Politics, Ideology and Law in Early Modern Europe. Essays in honour of J.H.M. Salmon, Rochester, NY, University of Rochester Press 1994, 55–72; Parsons, The Church in the Republic, 25–33. The main texts, in English translation, are to be found in J.H. Burns and Thomas Izbicki (ed.), Conciliarism and Papalism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997. On the anti-papal pamphlets written in French by the supporters of King Louis XII, see Jennifer Britnel, Le Roi très chrétien contre le pape. Écrits antipapaux en français sous le règne de Louis XII, Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2011. 44 Oakley, ‘Bronze-Age Conciliarism’.

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the introduction of the reform in the province of France.45 The public defence of the theses drew numerous auditors, doctors in theology, religious from various orders, bishops, nuncio, members of Parliament and members of the royal family. On 27 May, more than two thousand people according to Richer, who sometimes over-estimated numbers, were in attendance.46 If there were vast numbers of people who squeezed into Saint Thomas’ schools at Saint-Jacques’ priory, it was because a debate were taking place on subjects which had been forbidden since Richer, strict guardian of the School of Paris’s doctrine, had become syndic of the Faculty of Theology. He had censured, as has already been seen, all propositions deemed not to conform with this doctrine. As long as the Court and the Parliament consented to it, the Dominican chapter offered a platform where controversial propositions, particularly on the question of the respective right of the pope and the council, could be debated. Two theses on this subject were on the agenda for the debate of 27 May. One was entitled ‘In no circumstances is the council above the pope’ and the other ‘The pope has the sole right to define the verities of faith for he cannot be mistaken’. The first was to be argued by a lecturer at the priory of Cologne, Guibert of Rosenbach, with his regent of studies, Cosme Morelles, in the chair47. The previous evening, whilst Richer was preparing to have Louis Servin intervene in order to censure the theses, Cardin Le Bret, another magistrate of the Parliament, sought out the prior of Saint Jacques, Nicolas Coëffeteau,48 and asked him to cancel the defence of the controversial theses so as to avoid a scandal. The prior replied that the regulating of the chapter was not within his authority and that his foreign confrères were not familiar with the customs of the University of Paris. But he undertook to see that things would not get out of hand. To avoid any 45 On this section of the general chapter of Paris, see Daniel Antonin Mortier, Histoire des maîtres généraux de l’Ordre des Prêcheurs, vol. 6 (1589–1615), Paris, Picard, 1913, 172 sq; Stéphane-Marie Morgain, ‘La soutenance des doctrines romaines lors du chapitre général des Jacobins de mai 1611 à Paris’, Mémoire dominicaine, 6, 1995, 219–220. 46 Richer, Histoire du syndicat, 22. 47 There is much documentary evidence on the theological debates at the Dominican Chapter of May 1610: Description des choses plus remarquables qui se sont passees en l’assemblée du chapitre général de Freres Prescheurs en leur couvent de Paris le 20. du mois de May 1611, Paris, Rolin Thierry, 1611; Recit veritable de ce qui s’est passé a Paris, en la dispute publique du Chapitre General des religieux de l’Ordre de S. Dominique, le vendredi XXVII de May, MDCXI, s.l.n.d. in Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 43–45; Roberto Ubaldini to Scipione Borghese, 12 June 1611, quoted in Morgain, ‘La soutenance’, 234; Mémoires de Richelieu, vol. 1, Paris, Renouard, 1907, 158–160; Richer, Histoire du syndicat, 16–30. According to the Recit veritable, Cosme Morelle, the regent of studies of the province of Cologne was a Spaniard (Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 43). 48 Nicolas Coëffeteau was also the king’s preacher and, as such, close to the king’s grand chaplain, Cardinal du Perron. He later became bishop of Marseille. See Charles Urbain, Nicolas Coëffeteau dominicain, évêque de Marseille, un des fondateurs de la prose français (1574–1623), Paris, Thorin & fils, 1893.

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confrontation he consulted with the gens du roi – the officials of the Parliament of Paris – who forbade any discussion of the contentious issues at the chapter. This ruling was communicated to the master general of the Dominican Order, Agostino Galamina, to the president of the session, to the respondent and to the bachelors.49 Richer was faced with a dilemma; if things were up to him alone, the contentious theses would automatically have been banned but as he was not in a position to control the agenda of the general chapter of the Dominicans, he felt obliged to discuss them. He did not want his silence or that of his colleagues to be taken as approval, albeit one that was enforced on them, of the Ultramontane theses. But to avoid any disruptions, the gens du roi forbade any debate on the theses. It was, however, for the sake of the liberties of the Gallican Church, of which the king was the guarantor, that Richer wished to intervene. In order to defend the dignity of the Faculty of Theology which he believed to be compromised, he had to risk alienating the Court. On the afternoon of the 27, Richer found himself in the gallery of the Dominican school of theology together with several doctors from the Faculty and many other dignitaries. Hardly had the session begun, when he sharply interrupted Coëffeteau informing him that, if the theses which were to be debated that day were true, the French people who had always believed the articles of the Council of Constance to be articles of faith should be seen as heretics or, at the very least, schismatics. This would never have happened had King Henry IV still been alive. His speech terminated, he challenged the verger of the Faculty of Theology to present a formulaire d’opposition in which he formally signified the Sorbonne’s opposition to the contentious theses.50 The prior gave him the same answer which he had given Cardin Le Bret the previous day: there was nothing he could do. In any case, the master general of the Dominican Order had forbidden debate on the controversial points. Richer then changed his strategy. He announced his intention of sending a graduate to dispute the validity of the contentious thesis but declared that he was prepared to interrupt the discussion if the president of the session were thought it was necessary. A first licence bachelor, Claude Bertin, submitted the following proposition, in the form of a syllogism:

49 Description, 4; Recit veritable, in Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 43. See De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 361. 50 Description, 4; Richer Histoire du syndicat, 18–20.

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Everything which an ecumenical and legitimate council finds repellent is heretical. The proposition that the council may in no case be considered to be above the pope, is repellent to the ecumenical and legitimate Council of Constance: it is therefore heretical.51

The debate finally took place despite having been prohibited, for the topic roused great interest amongst the delegates. It was Cosme de Morelles, the president of the session, who replied and not the regent, Guibert de Rosenbach. Wishing to maintain peace, he stated that he had no intention of offending the University of Paris which he recognised as ‘the mother of all other universities’. All he asked was that Bertin concede that the doctrine declared at the Council of Constance was no more than an opinion which could be accepted as true or false and not a truth of faith which involved salvation. In support of this proposition, he quoted Francisco de Vitoria and Melchior Cano. He could equally have mentioned Cajetan who contended in his treatise of 1511 that the decrees of the fourth and fifth sessions at Constance only dealt incidentally and not formally with matters of faith. Assuming that their authority was incontestable, which Cajetan denied in any case, they were not de fide.52 The discussion could have ended there, but the nuncio, who had become very emotional, insisted that it continue. Cardinal du Perron, who feared the political repercussions of the matter, reminded Richer that the gens du roi had forbidden discussion. The syndic replied that this interdiction had only been communicated to Coëffeteau verbally and in private letters and that the gens du roi would not find it amiss were the School of Paris to defend its ancient doctrine through an act of public opposition. But the objections of his adversaries embarrassed him. According to the nuncio, at the end of his speech, he ‘blushed and became silent’.53 So the discussion continued. Quoting Cajetan this time, Morelles repudiated the authority of the decrees of the fourth and fifth sessions of the Council of Constance, pointing out that the sole intention of the council was to put an end to the schism, that the conciliar fathers did not debate any subject in depth and that, moreover, as Pope Martin V had not yet been elected, all decrees of these two sessions were invalid.54 Hearing this, Bertin, repeating this time an argument of Almain, replied that Martin V had approved the decrees adopted by the council

51 Recit veritable, in Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 44; Richer, Histoire du syndicat, 22. 52 Cajetan, Auctoritas papae et concilii sive ecclesiae comparara, Rome, 1611, Chapter VIII, in Burns and Izbicki (ed.), Conciliarism and papalism, 41. On this question, see de la Brosse, Le pape et le concile, 303. 53 Quoted in Morgain, ‘La soutenance’, 226. 54 Richer, Histoire du syndicat, 26–27. See Cajetan, Auctoritas, chapter VIII, in Burns and Izbicki (ed.), Conciliarism and papalism, 30–31.

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before his election and that, for this reason, these decrees were binding. There was no need, as could be seen at Trent, for a special papal bull to approve the decrees of a council.55 On the orders of du Perron, the debate was brought to an end. For Richer and his colleagues the outcome of the confrontation, although modest, was satisfying. On the defensive, Morelles did not attempt to demonstrate, as Cajetan had a century earlier or Bellarmine more recently, the superiority of the pope, vicar of Christ and holder of the potentia praeceptiva, over the bishops, mere successors of the apostles, or over the council, a body which represented the Church. He was content to declare ‘problematic’ the doctrine defined at the fourth and fifth sessions of the Council of Trent. Speaking through Bertin, the Faculty of Theology of Paris had given him a reply and its honour was safe. But this was only the first round of a battle which comprised many. On Sunday 29 May, the debate on the second contentious thesis, which dealt with the pope’s infallibility, was scheduled. In this instance, it was Richer who intended putting a stop to the debate and the ecclesiastical authorities who wanted it to take place. The evening before, the syndic convinced Nicolas de Verdun, the first president of Parliament, to forbid all debate on the pope’s infallibility which he claimed the papal supporters wanted to extend to moral issues. The theological schools at Saint-Jacques’ priory were closed till further notice. For their part, the nuncio, Cardinal du Perron and two other prelates sought out Nicolas Brûlart de Sillery, the chancellor, and after some negotiation, they succeeded in having the theological debates at the general chapter of the Dominicans authorised once more on condition that papal infallibility was not discussed. For them it was a question of a return match. The contentious thesis was not discussed, but it was upheld and published. Richer was ordered by the Marquis de Villeroy, secretary of state, not to intervene in the dispute.56 One can see the emergence of the front lines which would characterise the battle between the syndic and his adversaries in the coming years. If, on the whole, Richer could count on parliamentary support, the proponents of papal power had backing which was just as strong from the Conseil de Régence. It was this which would bring about the fall of the syndic barely a year later. For its part, the Faculty of Theology was divided. According to Richer’s Histoire du syndicat, one of the doctors, François de Harley, abbot of Saint-Victor, planned to propose a motion of no confidence against the syndic at the assembly of 1 June but, at the last minute, he abandoned this plan.57

55 Richer, Histoire du syndicat, 29. 56 Préclin, ‘Edmond Richer’, 256; De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 361–361. 57 Richer, Histoire du syndicat, 41–42.

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It is of interest to note that the two parties accused one another of the same fault: both were said to put the monarchy in danger. When he was received by the first president of Parliament on 28 May, Richer assured him that he had ‘often prevented a schism’ by curtailing the intrigues of the nuncio who upheld the ‘doctrine of deposing and killing the kings’.58 It was with this in mind that he had intervened during the general chapter of the Dominicans. When du Perron and the two bishops went to see the chancellor, they asserted that by reducing the powers of the pope Richer was casting doubt on the validity of the queen’s marriage for a papal dispensation had been necessary to allow Henry IV to remarry.59 For the episcopate as well as for the Gallican party with which Richer was associated the best way of ensuring one’s power was to pose as the defender of the monarchy and to insist on the risks which the rival group’s pretentions posed with regard to the stability of the kingdom.60

58 Ibid., 31. 59 Ibid., 34. In December 1599, Henry IVobtained from Pope Clement VIII the annulation of his marriage to Marguerite de Valois and married, a year later, Marie de’ Medici, daughter of Francesco I de’ Medici and Jeanne of Austria. The birth of the crown prince the following year ensured the future of the Bourbon dynasty. 60 Parsons, The Church in the Republic, 258.

Chapter 4. The De ecclesiastica et politica potestate and its diffusion in Europe

The first editions of the treatise Richer’s treatise on ecclesiastical and political power, which came off the press anonymously in the autumn of 1611, was the consequence of these events. The questions it raised, Richer noted in the Histoire du syndicat, had been triggered ‘partly by the general chapter of the Jacobins and partly by the righteous sorrow caused by the death of the king’.1 The initial impetus came from the chancellor Brûlart de Sillery and the secretary of state Villeroy to whom those involved in the 27 May dispute had reported. The following day they had asked the first president of Parliament, Nicolas de Verdun, to obtain the minutes of the dispute from the syndic. He refused, stating that the nuncio would be ‘greatly offended’. Verdun replied that he had nothing to fear and that he would be protected. But Richer, who knew that he had offended the Court by publicly contradicting his adversaries and who feared a blow under the belt, would not give way. On the other hand, he promised to give a favourable reply to another request from the first president which was to send him ‘a summary of the early doctrine of the Sorbonne and some of the decrees of [his] Faculty’.2 This summary would be the De politicate et ecclesiastate potestate. Who, then, was Nicolas de Verdun, the man responsible for the birth of the controversial work? When Achille de Harlay, a well-known Gallican, resigned from his position on 29 March 1611 because of his age and also because a courtesan, who was later found guilty of libel, had accused him of having been involved in the king’s assassination, it was he, a former student at the Jesuit 1 Richer, Histoire du syndicat, 259. 2 Ibid., pp 33–35. J.H.M. Salmon seems to have been mistaken when he asserted, without giving the source, that Richer’s work was drafted ‘in reply to Servin’s request for a statement of Gallican principles’ (‘Gallicanism and Anglicanism in the age of the Counter-Reformation’, in Renaissance and Revolt. Essays in the intellectual and social history of early modern France, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987, 186).

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College in Clermont and the nuncio’s preferred candidate, who acceded to the position after having been first president in the Parliament of Toulouse. He secured the post in competition with Jacques-Auguste de Thou, a close friend of Richer’s. Pierre de l’Estoile described him as ‘a learned man, capable, well qualified for an important post, fervent Roman Catholic but in the Jesuit way’. Indeed, he had been taught by the Jesuits. As soon as he had been appointed, he began discussions with Duval and his friends, leaving Richer, reported the nuncio, ‘completely bewildered’.3 But Nicolas de Verdun proved to be less loyal towards the parti dévot than Ubaldini had hoped. At the end of April, he entrusted the examination of a work of the Augustinian Léonard Coqueau criticising King James I of England to the advisor who had recommended the censure of Cardinal Bellarmine the preceding year.4 He promised the Protestants that he would respect the Edict of Nantes.5 In the matter of the chapter of the Dominicans, Nicolas de Verdun took Richer’s argument seriously to the Ultramontanes’ disappointment. For this reason, and against the advice of Philippe de Gamache, one of his colleagues at the Faculty of Theology, the syndic believed that he could trust the first president in spite of his Jesuit support and he settled down to draft a summary of the doctrine of the School of Paris.6 The feelings aroused by the assassination of the king had not yet dissipated and he felt that the moment was right to confuse his adversaries by noting, in black and white, the doctrine of the Sorbonne concerning the government of the Church. Richer wrote the book in a few weeks. After having it read by several theologians, Philippe de Gamache amongst them, he sent a copy of the manuscript to Nicolas de Verdun at the end of July. To the treatise, he added the censure of the Dominican Jean de Sarrazin by the Faculty of Theology of Paris in 1429. This unpublished document, which he had unearthed amongst a collection of original manuscripts held at the Sorbonne,7 reinforced his position in the debate over the jurisdiction of bishops and priests and the status of exempt religious, notably Jesuits and Oratorians. Sarrazin was obliged to concede that lower order prelates, priests or bishops, had received their powers of jurisdiction directly from God and not from the pope, as had been stated at the Council of Constance.8 Richer also made use of the text of confession of faith imposed on masters and students 3 Ubaldini to Borghese, 14 April 1611, quoted in Fouqueray, Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus en France, vol. 1, Paris, Bureau des Études, 1922, 276. On this event, see also De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 345. 4 De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 351. 5 Pierre de l’Estoile, Mémoires-journaux, vol. 11, Paris, Librairie des Bibliophiles, 1883, 101. 6 Richer, Histoire du syndicat, 5. 7 Richer, Demonstratio libelli de ecclesiastica et politica potestate, Paris, 1622, 122. 8 Du Plessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 1, 2nd pagination, 227–229.

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of the Faculty of Theology in 1543 at King François I’s request during a campaign of anti-Lutheran repression in the French kingdom.9 Six of the articles concerned the Church’s power of jurisdiction and the authority of the general councils.10 Meanwhile, on 22 August 1611, the Faculty of Theology of Paris censured the Huguenot Philippe Duplessis-Mornay’s Mystère d’iniquité, an attack of Bellarmine’s and Baronius’ opinions on pontifical supremacy.11 Richer, who had been charged by the Faculty with the publication of the censure, asked the same publisher, Heureux Blancvillain, to print three hundred copies of his own treatise. In the Histoire du syndicat he claimed that he wanted only a limited distribution of his work: The Faculty of Theology having ordered that its condemnation of Duplessis-Mornay’s book entitled the Mystère d’iniquité be published, Richer had three hundred copies of his book on ecclesiastical and political power be printed at the same time, not with the aim of publishing them but solely to distribute them amongst his friends because none of them had taken the trouble to copy it by hand. Thus Richer, fearing that some of these copies might not be accurately transcribed and that someone who had a copy might have it published full of errors, had this booklet printed and did not wish to append his name nor that of the printer; all the more so because he had no intention of making it public.12

As a result in September two works were printed by Heureux Blancvillain: a slim volume of twelve pages containing Jean Sarrazin’s censure, the six articles of the 1543 anti-Lutheran confession of faith and the decree against Philippe Du PlessisMornay13 and an anonymous treatise of thirty pages entitled De politica et ecclesiastica potestate liber unus.14 Both bore the stamp of the printer but only the first volume gave his name.

9 ‘Index Sententiarum Parisiensis Scholae, seu Decretorum a Magistris Parisiensis Academiae ordinatorum adversus novos errors’, in Du Plessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 1, Index, xii (18 January 1543). On this confession of faith, see Farge, Orthodoxy and Reform, 269. 10 Articles 18–23. The complete text is in Claude Horry, Pratique des officialitez ordinaires, foraines et privilégiées, et autres cours et jurisdictions ecclesiastiques, Paris, François-André Pralard fils, 1703, 145–147. 11 Philippe de Mornay, Le mystère d’iniquité, c’est-à-dire, l’histoire de la papauté, par quels progrez elle est montée à ce comble, et quelles oppositions les gens de bien lui ont fait de temps en temps. Ou sont aussi défendus les Droicts des Empereurs Rois & Princes Chrestiens, contre les Assertions des Cardinaux Bellarmin & Baronius, Saumur, Thomas Portau, 1611. The text relating to the censure is reproduced in Du Plessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 49. 12 Histoire du syndicat, 45–46. 13 Decreta Sacrae Facultatis Theologiae Parisiensis de Potestate Ecclesiastica & primatu Romani Pontificis, contra Sectarios huius seculi, Paris, Apud Felicem Blanvileum, in vico Sancti Victorius, 1611, 12. The appearance of this small work followed shortly after the censure of the Mystère d’iniquité by Duplessis-Mornay on 22 August 1611. According to the Continuation du Mercure francois, ou suite de l’histoire de l’auguste regence de la Roine Marie de Medicis, sous son fils le Tres Chrestien Roy de France et de Navarre Louis XIII, Cologne, Pierre Albert

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Richer composed his treatise ‘according to the rules of dogmatic theology,’ as he explained in the Histoire du syndicat. His intention was to provide ‘the source from which one [should] draw the doctrine of the School of Paris’.15 His ideas will be dealt with in greater detail in the second part of this book. For the moment, it suffices to note that the treatise described the relations which ought to have existed between the Church, the Holy See and the political power. The pope was seen as having only a ‘ministerial’ role, in other words, by delegation. The real custodians of spiritual power were the bishops and the priests who, together, constituted the ‘aristocracy’ of the Church. The exercise of temporal jurisdiction was strictly reserved for princes. Popes had no power in civil matters and it was legitimate to resist their encroachments by resorting to the procedure of appel comme d’abus. In October,16 Richer entrusted copies of his book to theological colleagues in order to obtain their opinion. Jean Filesac, who was to replace the syndic a year later, limited himself to saying that the work ‘would hardly please Rome’.17 Duval, as we shall see, found the book to be full of errors and denounced its author to the bishop of Paris. On seeing the controversy spreading, Richer decided, in January 1612, to put up for sale the two hundred and fifty copies he still had: To arm himself against the false rumours that were circulating regarding his book, at the end of January [Richer] decided to release all his remaining copies so that, by reading this work, the general public would realise that he was not what his enemies accused him of being. Earlier on, Richer had hardly distributed fifty odd copies of this treatise, a few amongst some of his friends, a few amongst some of the counsellors of the Court, to be used as a statement of evidence in the cause of the university against the Jesuits.18

During the following months at least four re-editions of Richer’s treatise saw the light of day in spite of the complaints of the bishops and the nuncio and the reservations of the Court which feared disturbances: two were in Latin, published by Jean Petitpas in Paris and Pierre Chevillot in Troyes respectively, one in French with no printer’s name and a bilingual edition, published by Jacques Mangeant in Caen. The two Latin re-editions and the bilingual edition included the texts of three censures of the Sorbonne which had initially been published separately.

14 15 16 17 18

1615, 486–487, Blancvillain reprinted the Decreta in 1612. This new emission seems to have been used for the bilingual edition of De ecclesiastica et politica potestate published in Caen in 1612. On Heureux Blancvillain, publisher in Paris from 1597 to 1628, see Philippe Renouard, Imprimeurs et librairies parisiens du XVI siècle, vol. 4, Paris, 1986, 85–87. [Edmond Richer], De ecclesiastica et politica potestate liber unus, Paris [Heureux Blancvillain], 1611. Histoire du syndicat, 39. Ibid., 62. Ibid., 46. Ibid., 62.

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The Ghent University Library has an incomplete copy of a 1611 edition of Richer’s De ecclesiastica et politica potestate which does not feature in any bibliography.19 It could well be a pirate edition, printed when the first copies of the treatise were beginning to circulate. Judging from the typographical material, the French translation which appeared under the title De la puissance ecclésiastique et politique20 seems to be the work of the printer Heureux Blancvillain. Rumour spread throughout Paris that it had been produced by the Huguenots and that ‘through contempt for the pope and his priests’ it was on sale in Charenton.21 ‘The faithful of the so-called church, Claude Durand claimed in an Advis approved on 15 February 1612, who do not wish to hear about sovereign power in their imagined freedom, had it published as being in favour of their buffoonery.’22 Durand, who was writing in French, would appear to be referring to the French translation of Richer’s treatise but it is possible that he was also referring to the Latin re-edition procured by Jean Petitpas.23 The De ecclesiastica et politica potestate was also distributed in the provinces. The two towns with a publisher who could publish it had one thing in common: the Jesuits were seeking to establish themselves there and they were meeting with strong opposition. In Caen, a town once opposed to the League and with a third of its population in favour of the Reformation, the disciples of Ignatius, making the most of King Henry IV’s support, took over a college and affiliated to the university in 1608, but a public gathering protested against their arrival.24 Doubtless in collaboration with Blancvillain, four years later Mangeant brought out a bilingual edition of the treatise ‘based on the copy printed in Paris’ (iouxte la copie 19 Decreta sacrae facultatis theologiae parisiens, de potestate ecclesiastica, & primate Romani Pontificis contra sactarios huius seculi, Paris, 1611. Ghent University Library: BIB.JUR.000702/1. The subtitle ‘Ecclesia est politia Monarchica, ad finem supernaturalem spiritualem instituta … ’ is by Richer. The stamp is that of another printer, different from Heureux Blancvillain who also published the Decreta in Paris during the autumn of 1611. Jean Sarrazin’s condemnation and the six articles of anti-Lutheran confession of faith appear at the end of the work (40–48). The section missing from the copy in the Ghent University Library could only be Richer’s De ecclesiastica et politica potestate and probably also the censure of Philippe Duplessis-Mornay’s Mystère d’iniquité. I thank Hendrik Defoort, the curator of ancient collections at Ghent University Library, for his kind assistance. 20 [Edmond Richer], De la puissance Ecclesiastique et Politique. L’Eglise est une police Monarchique, instituee à la fin surnaturelle: Conduite d’un gouvernement Aristocratique, par le souverain Pasteur des ames nostre Seigneur Jesus-Christ, Paris, [Heureux Blancvillain?], 1612, 48 pp. 21 Histoire du syndicat, 103. 22 [Claude Durand], Advis d’un docteur de Paris, sur un livre intitulé, De la puissance ecclesiastique et politique, Paris, 1612, f. [Aiii r]. 23 [Edmond Richer], De ecclesiastica et politica potestate liber unus, Paris, Jean Petitpas, 1612. 24 Léon Puiseux, Les jésuites à Caen, Caen, Hardel, 1846, 64–82; Alfred Hamy, Les Jésuites à Caen, Paris, Champion, 1899, 38–42.

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imprimée à Paris)’.25 In Troyes, the birthplace not only of Richer but also of the jurist Pierre Pithou, the Jesuits encountered even stronger opposition. In July 1611, the bishop, who had the regent’s backing but who was opposed by the mayor, François Pithou, brother of the Gallican lawyer, by the canons of the cathedral and by some of the inhabitants of the city, had to abandon all thought of handing over the city’s college to the Jesuits.26 With the party of the bons Français well entrenched in Troyes, it was not surprising to find a publisher who was interested in Richer’s treatise.27 The Histoire du syndicat de Richer, moreover, mentions the Jesuits’ desire to establish a college in Troyes.28

Richer at the service of James I’s religious policy A study of the different editions gives an idea of the distribution of Richer’s treatise immediately after it was written. The work was published, as we have just seen, in Paris and in two provincial cities. But it was also distributed in Europe: in 1612 and 1613 no less than three countries, Germany, England and the Netherlands, saw the De ecclesiatica et politica potestate appear either in Latin or in the vernacular. In Venice, where the market was not sufficiently large to warrant a local publication, copies also circulated. Whilst telling his friend Leschassier that he found Richer’s doctrine ‘inconsistent and, in a word, tepid’ (inconsistens et, ut uno verbo dicam, tepida),29 Sarpi asked Jérôme Groslot, one of his French correspondents, to send him a second copy of the De ecclesiastica et politica po25 [Edmond Richer], De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. Liber vnvs. Ecclesia, est politia Monarchica, ad finem supernaturalem instituta: regime aristocratico, quod omnium optimum & naturae convenientisismum est, temperara à summo animarum pastore Domino nostro Iesu Christo. De la puissance ecclesiastique et Politique. L’Eglise est une police Monarchique, instituée à une fin supernaturelle: conduite d’un gouvernement Aristocratique, par le souverain Pasteur des ames nostre Seigneur Iesus Christ, Caen, [Jacques Mangeant], 1612, 95 Bibliographical description in: Répertoire bibliographique des livres imprimés en France au XVIIe siècle, vol. 13: Normandie II, ed. Alain R. Girard, Baden-Baden, Valentin Koerner, 1985, 18. 26 Continuation du Mercure francois, 245–247; Fouqueray, Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus en France, vol. 3, 371–378; Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy, 12. 27 [Edmond Richer], De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, liber vnvs. Ecclesia, est Politia Monarchica, ad finem supernaturalem institute: regimine Aristocratico, quod omnium optimum, & naturae con venientissimum est, temperate a summon animarum pastore Domino nostro Iesu Christ[o], Troyes, [Pierre Chevillot], 1612, 68. Bibliographical description: Léon Techener, Bibliothèque Champenoise, Paris, L. Techener, 1886, 527–528, nº 1833; Répertoire bibliographique des livres imprimés en France au XVIIe siècle, vol. 3: Troyes, ed. J. Betz, BadenBaden, Valentin Koerner, 1981, 23. 28 Histoire du syndicat, 51. 29 Sarpi to Jacques Leschassier, Venice, 14 February 1612 in Letteri ai Gallicani, ed. B. Ulianich, Wiesbaden, Valentin Koerner, 1967, 102.

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testate so that he could introduce it into his circle of friends.30 In another letter to Leschassier, he expressed his delight at the ideological debate which the publication of Richer’s treatise had elicited.31 Whilst contributing to the development of a national conscience in France,32 Gallicanism aimed beyond the borders of that country. As William Bouwsma suggested, the authors associated with this movement reflected on the nature of Christendom. For them, this could not be a uniform and centralised system, as the supporters of pontifical supremacy claimed, but rather a series of distinct entities united by a single faith. They envisaged an international pluralist order which recognised differences in laws and customs. On this project, jurists and theologians from different countries, Protestants as well as Catholics, were willing to exchange views. In religious matters, they had more faith in the general council – or in a synod such as the one held in Dordrecht in 1618 – than in the papacy for sorting out relations between national churches.33 The interest sparked by Richer’s work in different European capitals is to be understood in this context. The first foreign editor to show an interest in Richer’s battle against the Roman party was the Protestant Melchior Goldast. This scholar of Swiss origin, a great connoisseur of medieval manuscripts, had settled in Frankfurt in 1606 where he earned his living as a corrector whilst, at the same time, compiling many collections of texts of law, philology, history and theology.34 He thus acquired, in 1608, from the Frankfurt publisher Petrus Kopff, a copy of the Historia sui temporis of Jacques-Antoine de Thou, the Gallican magistrate, who was close to Richer.35 During the last months of 1611, he obtained a copy of an account of the Paris Dominican chapter dispute, just in time to include it at the end of a col30 Sarpi to Jérôme Groslot de l’Isle, Venice, 10 April 1612 in Lettere ai Protestanti, ed. Manlio Diulio Busnelli, vol. 1, Bari, Laterza, 1931, 228. See Bouwsma, Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty, 501; Sylvio De Franceschi, ‘Les théologiens face à un antiromanisme catholique extrême au temps du richérisme. La condamnation du De Republica ecclesiastica de Marc’Antonio de Dominis par la Sorbonne (15 décembre 1617)’, Chrétiens et sociétés XVIeXXIe siècles, 11, 2004, 14. 31 Sarpi to Lechassier, Venice, 13 March 1612, in Letteri ai Gallicani, ed. B. Ulianich, 107. 32 Alain Talon, Conscience nationale et sentiment religieux en France au XVIe siècle. Essai sur la vision gallicane du monde, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2002. 33 William Bouwsma, ‘Gallicanism and the nature of Christendom’ in Essays in European Cultural History, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990, 311–312. 34 On Melchior Goldast (1576–1635), see Roger Aubert, article ‘Melchior Goldast’, Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastique, vol. 21, Paris, Letouzey, col. 487–489. 35 Jacobus Antonius Thuanus, Historiarum sui temporis opera, Frankfurt, Kopff [1608]. The editorial role of Melchior Goldast is mentioned in the letter he wrote to Johann Bockstad on 16 November 1608 (Virorum CLL et doctorum ad Melchiorem Goldastum … epistolae, Frankfurt, Christophorus Olssen, 1688, 288). The work appeared in Frankfurt in 1608 and again in 1610 without de Thou ever having given his permission. See Samuel Kinser, The Works of Jacques-Auguste de Thou, the Hague, Martin Nijhoff, 1966, 45–57.

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lection of documents on pontifical primacy published under the title Monarchia Sancti Romani Imperii.36 This short text – two pages in folio – roused his interest in Richer and when the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate appeared, a copy of the treatise was added to the second volume of the collection, which was published in Hanau in 1613. The work was re-edited in 1621,37 ensuring the circulation of the syndic’s work in learned circles. Meanwhile, an English translation of Richer’s treatise appeared in London under the title Treatise of Ecclesiasticall and Politike power.38 It came off the press of William Stansby, a well-known publisher in the capital, who had published the works of the chronicler Richard Johnson, the lawyer John Selden and the theologian Richard Hooker. In the registers of the Company of Stationers permission to undertake the publication is dated 23 March 1612.39 This came two days after the permission to publish the Ad epistolum illustri et reverendissimi cardinalis Perronii responsio of the Huguenot Isaac Casaubon, who had arrived in England two years earlier. The existence of an English translation of Richer’s treatise has escaped the attention of most of his biographers.40 It is mentioned – rather briefly and with no reference to the name of the translator – in the works of three historians of 36 Melchior Goldastus Haiminsfeldius, Monarchia S. Romani Imperii, sive Tractatus de Iurisdictione Imperiali seu Regia, & Pontifica seu Sacerdotali; deque potestate Imperatoris ac Pape, cum distinction utriusque Regiminis, Politici & Ecclesiastici […] A Catholicis Doctoribus conscripti atque editi: & nunc iterum ex tenebris producti, recensiti, ac oppositi Tractatibus eorum, qui utramque Potestatem in spiritualibus & temporalibus aut adulatorie aut imperite confundunt. Hanau, Thomas Willierius, 1611, 755–756. Bibliographical description in Jean George Theodore Graesse, Trésor des livres rares et précieux ou Nouveau Dictionnaire Bibliographique …, vol. 3, Dresden, R. Kuntze, 1862, 110. See also Jacques Le Long, Bibliothèque historique de la France, Paris, Gabriel Martin, 1719, 125. Reprint: Graz, 1959. 37 In the first edition, the volume including Richer’s treatise was numbered three (Hanau, Thomas Willierius, 1613.) In the second edition (Frankfurt, Eguenolphus Emmelius, 1621) it was numbered two. The Libellus appears on pages 797–806. 38 A Treatise of ecclesiasticall and Politike power. Shewing the Church is a Monarchicall government, ordained to a supernaturall and spirituall end, tempered with an aristocraticall order, (which is the best of all and most conformable to nature) by the great Pastor of soules Iesus Christ. Faithfully translated out of the Latin original, of late publikely printed and allowed in Paris. Now set foorth for a further warrant and encouragement to the Romish Catholikes of England, for theyr taking of the Oath of Allegiance; seeing so many others of their owne profession in other Countries doe deny the Popes infallibility in judgement and temporall power over Princes, directly against the doctrine of Jesuits, London, W. S[tansby], 1612, A1A14. Bibliographical description: A.W. Pollard and G.R. Redgrave, A Short-Title Catalogue of Books printed in England, Scotland and Ireland and of English books printed abroad 1475– 1640, 2nd edition, vol. 2, London, 1976, 277. 39 Edward Arber (ed.), A Transcript of the Register of the Company of Stationers of London, 1554–1640, vol. 3, London, 1876, 217. 40 Only Claude Sutto mentions it, in a few lines. See ‘Une controverse ecclésiologique au début du XVII siècle: le Libellus de ecclesiastica et politica potestate d’Edmond Richer (1611)’ in Homo Religiosus. Autour de Jean Delumeau, Paris, Fayard, 1977, 427.

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Anglicanism, John Hearsay McMillan Salmon,41 Johann Peter Somerville42 and Anthony Milton43 as well as in a recent biography of Robert Bellarmine.44 This problem deserves attention for it shows that, while there is no evidence of a direct link between Richer and King James I’s entourage, there was an interest in Anglican circles in the ideas of the syndic of the Faculty of Theology of Paris. The Dutch translation of Richer’s treatise, which was published soon afterwards, raises similar questions. The book was dedicated to Henry Stuart, prince of Wales, King James I’s eldest son. Its purpose, according to the sub-title, was to ‘encourage the Roman Catholics of England to take an oath of allegiance and to note that many members of their own faith in other countries denied the doctrinal infallibility of the pope and his temporal power over princes, in contradiction to the doctrine of the Jesuits’. The reason for Richer’s De ecclesiastica et politica potestate being translated into English was simple: it suited the designs of the king of England. James I’s desire to enter in dialogue with the Catholic Church was not new. A believer in the via media, he had dreamed since his accession to the throne of an ecumenical council which would correct that of Trent and unite, in a church presided over by the pope but not dominated by him, all true Catholics. The tutor to the future king, George Buchanan, having been a student of John Major in Paris and at St. Andrews in the 1520s, it is highly likely that he would have introduced the young prince to the ideas of the conciliarist theologian. In 1603, the year of his accession to the throne of England, James I suggested to Pope Clement VIII that an ecumenical council be convened in order to restore peace in the Church. He was encouraged in this move by theologians who would soon be known as Arminians, and particularly by Lancelot Andrewes, bishop of Winchester and John Overall, bishop of Lichfield.45 The divisions amongst English Catholics provided the king of England with an additional argument for including a member of the Roman Church in his project. Since the appointment of George Blackwell, a man reputed to be close to the Jesuits as archpriest to the English mission, the conflict between the secular priests, anxious to maintain the heritage of the pre-Henrician church, and the 41 Salmon, ‘Gallicanism and Anglicanism’, 187. 42 Johann Peter Somerville, ‘Jacobean political thought and the controversy over the Oath of Allegiance’, unpublished thesis from the University of Cambridge, 1981, 76, note 66. 43 Anthony Milton, Catholic and Reformed. The Reformed and Protestant Church in English Protestant Thought, 1600–1640, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995, 264, note 150. 44 Stefania Tutino, Empire of Souls. Robert Bellarmine and the Christian Commonwealth, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010, 175–181. 45 Peter White, ‘The Via Media in the Early Stuart Church’, in Margo Todd (ed.), From Reformation to Revolution, Politics and Religion in Early Modern England, London, Routledge, 1995, 78–94; W. B. Patterson, King James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998, 37–59.

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Jesuits, who were close to the Roman See and who wished to implement the Tridentine reform, came to a head. Many of the secular priests had developed contacts, at the University of Pont-à-Mousson in Lorraine, with the Toulouse jurist Pierre Grégoire who knew the work of Gerson well and who was sympathetic to the Gallicans. They appealed, in vain as it happened, to Pope Clement VIII against the appointment of Blackwell, whence their name of appelants.46 As we have already seen, the controversy bounced back after the Gunpowder Plot of May 1605, but this time with Blackwell aligning himself with the appelants. James I was convinced that there were two types of Catholics: the moderates who presented no danger to the Crown and the Jesuit sympathisers who were necessarily traitors. In his eyes – but not in the eyes of the majority of English theologians for whom all ‘papists’ were potential enemies – the oath of allegiance which he imposed on English Catholics in May 1606 was intended to separate the two groups. After a brief hesitation, Pope Paul V enjoined the English Catholics, in September, to refuse to take the oath. But Blackwell, whom James I had imprisoned in June 1607, finally said that he would take the oath and called upon the English Catholics to do the same. After a fruitless intervention on the part of Cardinal Bellarmine, he was finally relieved of his duties by the pope in January 1608.47 Within this context, the battle between Gallicans and Ultramontanes in France took on great importance. For the supporters of the via media Richer was a precious ally because, from within the Catholic Church, he was fighting a battle that resembled theirs. Moreover, the syndic closely followed the happenings in England as his autobiography48 and his history of the University of Paris49 show. The oath of allegiance issue sustained the controversy for several years. In 1608, James I defended his decision in the Triplici modo, triples cuneus, sive Apologia pro iuramento fidelitatis,50 which stated, in line with Luther’s theology, that the king held the two swords and could wield limitless spiritual power. The ‘triple knot’ referred to in the title designated the two briefs of the pope per46 Salmon, ‘Gallicanism and Anglicanism’, 177–181; De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 51–56. The documents pertaining to this matter have been published by T.G. Law under the title The Archpriest Controversy: Documents Relating to the Dissensions of the Roman Catholic Clergy, 1597–1602, vol. 2, London, Camden Society, 1896–1898. 47 De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 81–128; Bourdin, The Theological-Political Origins of the Modern State, 113–116. 48 Richer, Histoire du syndicat, 4. 49 BnF, ms. lat. 9947, Historia Academiae Parisiensis, vol. 5, f. 17r. 50 James I, Triplici nodo, triples cuneus: sive Apologia pro iuramento fidelitatia, adversus duo brevia Pauli Quinti et epistolam cardinalis Bellarmini ad. G. Blackvellum Archpresbyterum nuper scriptam, London, Robert Barker, 1607. Republished in J.P. Sommerville (ed.), King James and I, Political Writings, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995, 85–131. The work appeared in February 1608 (1607 in the old style). See De Franceschi, Crise théologicopolitico, 133.

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taining to the matter of the oath of allegiance and the letter sent by Bellarmine to Blackwell, urging him to change his mind. As Bernard Bourdin has pointed out, the affirmation of the kingdom’s political and religious unity was accompanied, in the case of the Stuart king, by a policy of tolerance towards religious minorities. He was prepared to reconcile himself with the English Catholics if they fully accepted his sovereignty. The theologians who, following the example of Richer, Sarpi or Arminius, recognised the primacy of the political over the religious spoke the same language as James I. Those who rejected this primacy, Bellarmine of course but also the Puritans and the Gomarists, were opposed to him. On this point, a transconfessional borderline ran through Europe.51 In the preface of the re-edition of his Apologie for the Oath of Allegiance, which appeared in 1609, the king again took up the theme of an appeal to the council which he had developed during the first years of his reign. This council would be open to all who adhered to the ‘old foundations’ of the Catholic faith: Whereas, if ever there were a possibilitie to bee expected of reducing all Christians to an uniformity of Religion, it must come by the meanes of a generall Councell; the place of their meeting being chosen so indifferent, so as all Christian Princes, either in their own Persons, or their Deputie Commissioners; and all Churchmen of Christian profession, that believe and professe all the ancient grounds of the true, ancient, Catholike and Apostolike Faith, might have tutum accessum thereunto.52

James I, who initially published his Apologie anonymously, this time claimed authorship. In order to confer an international dimension to his project, he sent a copy of his book to all the monarchs in Europe through his ambassadors. Henry IValone reacted positively. He had the book read by his advisors, amongst whom was Cardinal du Perron. The prelate declared that the references made by the king to the Church Fathers and to the ecumenical councils were encouraging.53

51 Bourdin, The Theological-Political Origins of the Modern State, 205–206. The same remark is made by Francis Oakley in ‘Constance, Basel and the Two Pisas: The Conciliarist Legacy in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England’, Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 2 (1994), 105–106. Likewise, Philippe Du Plessis-Mornay expressed conciliarist views in a memoir entitled ‘Pour le concile national’ in June 1600, the year of his dispute with Cardinal du Perron at Fontainebleau (Mémoires et correspondances, vol. 9, Paris, Treuttel and Würtz, 1824, 393– 396). 52 [James I], Apologie pour le serment de fidélité que le serenissme roi de la grand’ Bretagne requiert de tous ses sujets, London, Norton, 1609, quoted in Bourdin, The Theological-Political Origins of the Modern State, 128. See also Patterson, King James IV and I, 127; Frederick Shriver, ‘Liberal Catholicism: James I, Isaac Casaubon, Bishop Wittingham of Maryland and Mark Pattison’, Anglican and Episcopal History, 56, 1987, 304–306. 53 Bourdin, The Theological-Political Origins of the Modern State, 129–130.

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But let us return to the English translation of Richer’s treatise. In the dedication of the work, the translator stated – in terms which recall the preface of the re-edition of James I’s Apologie – that the general council was the best means of ensuring the reconciliation of Christians of differing confessions: Now that it seemes that all Christians of all professions, at least those of the better sort among them, draw neerer than ever they did one to another, and all to that happy medium, wherein consists the true and onely hope of a general reconciliation, it may please his heavenly goodnesse to stirre up, and strongly move all Christian Princes and Magistrates, as well Ecclesiasticall as Civill, to call together a good lawfull and free Councel, as generall as may bee; wherein all absolute and necessarie points to salvation, being considerately with brotherly love, and without animosity discussed, wee may with common consent of all, frame together a constant substantiall and universall profession of our faith. […]. It remaining, for the rest, lawfull to everie nationall Church, in things indifferent and not altogether absolute and necessarie to salvation, differently to beleeve according to their best advice and Christian libertie.54

The first task of the council was to reinstate the former rights of the Catholic Church by ‘clipping the wings’ of the popes who had tyrannically usurped them. The author of the preface was a Protestant.55 But this did not prevent him from including in his project of church reconciliation the Catholics who sought to reform the papacy from the inside. Amongst these, according to him, were the doctors of the Faculty of Theology of Paris whose opinions were exposed in the Treatise. The example of the ‘pope’s best friends’ should cause the Catholic subjects of the king of England, who were hesitant about swearing the oath of allegiance, to reflect. Indeed, they were not being asked to refuse obedience to the pope. Certainly, the bishop of Rome had not received any authority directly from God. But the councils of the early Church had recognised his pre-eminence within the group of five patriarchs. He was responsible for the western churches. This was what gave the king of England the right ‘to call the Church of Rome our mother Church’.56

The peripeties of a translation The translator signed the dedication to the prince with a laconic Δ. A second preface, addressed to the ‘Roman Catholics of England’, gave a few facts about his identity and his motivations. He was an expatriate who saw Great Britain as his country of adoption and who vowed deep gratitude towards the king of England 54 Treatise, f. A3r-v. 55 Ibid., f. B1r 56 Ibid., f. A3v –A4r

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for his hospitality. Interested in the controversy, he offered the prince of Wales an English translation of the Lettre déclaratoire of Pierre Coton whom he praised for having distanced himself from the regicide opinions of Juan Mariana shortly after the death of Henry IV. To advance the cause of the temporal power of kings, a cause close to the heart of James I, he was of the opinion that it would be better to call upon Catholic writers rather than Protestant ones. In this connection, Bellarmine could be quoted against himself. But it was at the Sorbonne that the best authorities on the Catholic tradition were to be found. Hence the pertinence of a translation of the anonymous text which he knew was written by ‘their sindick & learned speaker Richer’. English Catholics would be well advised to follow the Sorbonne theologians’ example. They could freely take the oath of allegiance to the king of England without renouncing their membership of the Catholic Church.57 The reference made to the French Herald, an appeal for a crusade against the pope at the time of Henry IV’s assassination,58 in the first preface of the book, allows for the identification of the translator. He was Jean Loiseau de Tourval, a Frenchman who had immigrated to England several years previously and who signed his works with a triangle sometimes accompanied by the cross of Malta.59 His first visit to London was in June of 1603, along with the French ambassador who had come to celebrate James I’s accession to the throne of England. He remained in London and struck up a friendship with the Provençal astronomer Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, who was visiting England and who introduced him to a circle of friends which included the scholar Joseph Julius Scaliger and the writer John Barclay, son of the Pont-à-Mousson lawyer William Barclay, with whom Bellarmine would soon come to loggerheads in a notorious controversy.60 It was perhaps on Peiresc’s recommendation that Tourval visited Pierre de L’Estoile on 20 September 1608 to speak of his desire to publish ‘two or three very fine treatises, amongst which there was one which was very remarkable and which contained, truly and in detail, the entire recent controversy in England’. The memorialist encouraged him to carry out his project but not in Paris to avoid any problems.61 The ‘remarkable’ treatise was none other than Triplici nodo of James I which had been circulating in Latin and whose publication in French, three 57 Ibid., f. B2rº – D1rº 58 The French Herald, summoning all true Christian princes to a generall, for a holy warr against the great enemy of Christendome, and all his slaves. Upon the occasion of the most execrable murder of Henry the great. London, E. Allde for Mathew Lownes, 1611, 46. See Somerville, ‘Jacobean political thought’, 77, note 66. 59 Alison Clarke, ‘Jean Loiseau de Tourval, a Huguenot translator in England, 1603–1631’, Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London’, 20, 1959, 36–59. 60 Ibid., 38. 61 Pierre de L’Estoile, Mémoires-journaux, vol. 9, 132.

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months earlier, had been interrupted, at at the nuncio’s request, by the chancellor Brûlart de Sillery, on penalty of a stiff fine both for the translator and the publisher.62 But Tourval was not intimidated. It must be pointed out that as well as being a writer and translator, he was also the king’s secret agent as is shown by a payment of thirty pounds by the British Treasury for ‘his travail and expenses, as well as bringing of letters hither from Paris, as for his pains in translating some small books out of English into French for his Majesty’s service’.63 When Tourval went to see L’Estoile again on 7 August 1609, his translation of James I’s Apologie for the Oath of allegiance had just been published in Paris.64 The name of the publisher, John Norton from London, was, of course, fictitious. As we saw above, it was a re-edition of the Triplici nodo, together with a preface dealing with the refutation published in the meantime by Bellarmine under the pseudonym of Matteo Torti.65 At that time, the book was not yet circulating in Paris.66 Only Henry IV possessed a copy, given directly to him by Thomas Edmondes, the ambassador from England. Tourval showed a letter from the king of England, charging him to publish the work, to the memorialist, who feared ‘too much work and trouble’ for his friend.67 On 17 August, Tourval introduced the ambassador, whom he apparently knew well, to the memorialist.68 In 1611, the year in which Richer’s treatise was published, Tourval pursued his politico-literary activities. He published anonymously, but with the characteristic Δ symbol, the English translation of three posthumous eulogies on Henry IV, written by ladies of his entourage. The work was published by William Stansby of London, the printer to whom he would give his English translation of Richer’s treatise a year later.69 He also published, but with another editor, the French Herald, about which we have already spoken. 62 De Franceschi, Crise politico-religieuse, 138. 63 Frederick Devon, Issues of the Exchequer, Being Payments made out of his Majesty’s Revenue during the Reign of King James I, London, Rodwell, 1836, 111, quoted in Clarke, ‘Jean Loiseau Tourval’, 40. Loiseau sent his claim for expenses on 6 November 1608. The payment was made two years later on 24 August 1610. 64 [James I], Apologie pour le serment de fidelité. 65 [Robert Bellarmine], Responsio Matthaei Torti presbyteri et theologi ad librum inscriptum Triplici nodo, triplex cumeus, Cologne, Bernard Gualter, 1608. 66 Pierre de L’Estoile, Mémoires-journaux, vol. 9, 338. The memorialist asked Tourval to send him a copy from London. He was not interested in the French translation of the book. See Clarke, ‘Jean Loiseau de Tourval’, 41. 67 L’Estoile, Mémoires-journaux, vol. 9, 327. 68 Ibid., 335. 69 [Jean Loiseau de Tourval], Three precious teares of blood, flowing from the wounded harts of three great French ladies. In memory of the vertues, complaints of the losse, and the execration of the murther, of that thrice-worthy monarch, Henry the Great, London, [W. Stansby], 1611.

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There is no formal proof that James I was personally involved in the English translation of Richer’s treatise, but it does seem likely. The two prefaces closely reflect his ideas. It is known that the translator, Jean Loiseau de Tourval, also translated the Apologie for the Oath of Allegiance written by the king and that he managed to have it published in Paris. He was close to the ambassador of England in Paris, to whom he had introduced Pierre de L’Estoile. Even if he were the writer of the two prefaces, he was unlikely to have undertaken the translation of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate without having spoken to the king. According to the Histoire du syndicat, François de Harlay, Richer’s sworn enemy, spread the rumour during the spring of 1612 that the syndic was ‘conferring’ with the ambassadors of England and of the States-General of the Netherlands and that he had received a stipend from the king of England. Richer vociferously claimed his innocence.70 But, in his autobiography, he did not deny that James I had defended him against Cardinal du Perron, burning all bridges with the prelate when the news was received – we will return to this event shortly – that the French bishops had condemned the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate at the Council of Sens’: I am certain that this prince [James I] after having learnt that the book by the syndic, dealing with the controversies of religion, had been condemned by Cardinal du Perron, to whom he used to write in a friendly manner, through the offices of Casaubon, severed all links with him, protesting that, in future, he wished no contact with a man who had condemned a book for errors and heresy which he knew well to contain no more errors or heresies than all the works of Bellarmine.71

According to president de Thou, Richer’s principal source in this matter, James I’s support of the syndic was made public when Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne, duke of Bouillon, returned from a mission to the king of England in June 1612. This Huguenot prince, a member of the royal council, had been charged to inform James I of the marriage of the young king Louis XIII to the Infanta of Spain and that of his sister Elisabeth to the prince of Asturias.72 There was no question, he insisted, of questionning the policy of tolerance desired by Henry IV. But the king of England, who knew that the regent and her counsellors had approved Richer’s condemnation, was not convinced: And with emphasis, he urged that by destroying the office of the king of France, his rights and the liberties of the Gallican Church, the king’s council had recently allowed Richer, who had defended the rights of the French Crown and the liberties of the Gallican Church, to be oppressed and his book to be condemned […] & this through an 70 Histoire du syndicat, 135. 71 Ibid., 136. 72 Jean-Luc Tulot (ed.), Correspondance intime de Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, duc de Bouillon (1555–1623), Saint-Brieuc, at the author’s expense, 2004, 98.

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argument from the greatest to the smallest, the prince inferred that if, in the case of things which concerned the office of the king of France and the constitution (police) of his own state, Richer and his book had been so badly mistreated in order to support the Court of Rome, there was no longer any reason to support or favour the Huguenots according to the edicts, when it pleased the pope to attack them.73

A text, written four years later, bears evidence of the king of England’s familiarity with Richer’s theological and political career. Refuting Cardinal du Perron’s Harangue to the third estate, the king praised the former syndic, without naming him, for having understood Gerson better than the prelate. James I was grateful to the Gallican theologian for having ‘changed his opinion on the question of the sovereignty of kings faced with the usurpation of popes by having liberated himself from the labyrinth of an error which was so tenacious and pernicious’. He had done better than du Perron who had ‘renounced his earlier opinion which was saintly and just’.74 The king of England was one of the few who knew that the intellectual journeys of Richer and du Perron had crossed: from being a Leaguer the former had become a Gallican whilst the latter had moved from being a Politique to becoming an avowed support of pontifical supremacy. By the spring of 1612, Richer knew that the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate had been translated into English at the request of the English king. But he fiercely denied ever having established any link with him. It is difficult to know whether he was telling the truth. Acknowledging connections with a Protestant prince would have placed him in the most awkward of positions at a time when he portrayed himself as the spokesperson of authentic Catholic tradition. His enemies accused him of associating with the Huguenots75 and the theologians who refuted his treatise identified similarities with the ideas of Luther and Calvin. Many of his Gallican friends, amongst whom were Jacques-Antoine de Thou, Pierre Servin and Jacques Gillot, associated with Protestants in the residence of the ambassador of Venice.76 In essence, Richer and the sponsors of the English translation of his treatise had much in common. This being said, there is nothing in the primary sources which confirms that the syndic took the initiative of approaching them. In the seventeenth century, the French Catholics did not consider Anglicanism as a model to be imitated. ‘For being prolix’, wrote Alain Talon, ‘the movement which 73 Histoire du syndicat, 138. 74 James I, A remonstrance […] For the right of kings, and the independence of their crownes. Against an oration of the most illustrious Card. of Perron, pronounced in the chamber of the third estate, Jan. 15 1615, [Cambridge], Cantrell Legge, 1616, in Charles Howard McIlwain (ed.), The Political Works of James I, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1918, 264. 75 Mémoires du Cardinal de Richelieu, vol. 10 (1629), 422–423. 76 René Pintard, Le libertinage érudit dans la première moitié du XVIIe siècle, republication, Geneva, Slatkine, 2000, 11.

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highlighted the common cause of the Gallican and Anglican churches against Roman absolutism, in spite of their confessional differences, was unable, in the long run, to counter the dominant image of Anglican reformation in France’.77 If James I lent his support to Richer, there is no proof that the syndic returned the compliment.

The reception of Richer’s work in the Netherlands We can only guess as to the circumstances under which the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate was translated into Dutch. Significantly, the rumours Richer mentioned in the Histoire du Syndicat associated the ambassadors of England and the States-General of the Netherlands with the same allegations. François van Aarssen, the States-General’s ambassador to France,78 might have played a role in the diffusion of Richer’s ideas. The fact that the Responsio of the French Protestant Isaac Casaubon, a guest of James I since 1610 and a respected theologian, was published simultaneously in English and Dutch in London in 161279 demonstrates that, in the mind of the king of England and the promoters of reunion of the Christian churches, the two countries shared the same interests. If there was one man who represented the junction between the Arminian movement and the cause for the reunion of the churches, it was Hugo Grotius, the well-known jurist. As a child he had been the guest and pupil of Uytenbogaert.80 On Arminius death, despite being a layman, he became the main promoter of Arminianism in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe because Arminius’ colleagues, Johannes Wtenbogaert and Simon Episcopius, both of whom were ministers, only wrote in Dutch. ‘Fiscal advocate’, in other words prosecutor general of the province of Holland, since 1607 and soon to be pensionnaire of Rotterdam, he was a member of the governing class of the Netherlands. The bonds of friendship which tied him to Wtenbogaert as well as his acute sense of the rights of the state led him to become involved in the controversy between the Remonstrants, another name for the Arminians, and the orthodox Calvinists. From 1612, whilst continuing the work on the foundations of international law which ensured his reputation, he became the principal spokesman for the Re-

77 Talon, Conscience nationale, 209. 78 On François van Aerssen, see Biographie universelle classique, ou dictionnaire historique portative classique, vol. 1, Paris, Gosselin, 2. At the Synod of Dordrecht in 1618 van Aerssen contributed to the downfall of the Arminians, whose cause he had formerly supported. 79 Patterson, James I and VI and the Reunion of Christendom, 134. 80 Zuber, ‘La triple jeunesse d’Hugo Grotius’, Dix-septième siècle, 35, 1983, 436.

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monstrant party. This commitment saw him sent to prison in August 1618 when Maurice of Nassau triumphed over Oldenbarnevelt, the protector of Arminius’ disciples. An avowed follower of Erasmus,81 Grotius advocated a universal and tolerant Christianity under the aegis of a strong secular power, guarantor of religious unity. Since 1610, he had been corresponding with Overall and Andrewes as well as Casaubon. These contacts were strengthened during the journey he made to England in 1613. Together with them he developed the idea of a via media in religion compatible with the sovereignty of the state.82 As we have seen, there were many ties linking James I to the bishops who backed his action in England, Grotius in the Netherlands, Casaubon and Richer in France and Sarpi in Venice. All took the early Church as their model, all yearned for concord and had faith in the ability of secular power to ensure religious peace. They were prepared to recognise the primacy of the Roman See but were strongly opposed to Bellarmine’s doctrine of the pope’s indirect power in temporal matters. For his part, Casaubon discovered the writings of Arminius before leaving for England. His Protestant friends, Daniel Tilenus, professor of theology in Sedan, and Jean Uytenbogaert had encouraged him to acquaint himself with these ideas. Uytenbogaert informed him, during a visit to Henry IV in the spring of 1610, of the recently deceased Arminius’ wish to work towards the reunion of Christians by implementing a distinction between the fundamental and non-fundamental doctrine of the Church. On 28 July 1610, Casaubon had praised Arminius during a conversation with Uytenbogaert.83 Towards the end of 1611 he began a correspondence with Grotius which would last until his death in July 1614.84 In the spring of 1613, the Dutch jurist’s arrival in England as a member of a diplomatic mission allowed the two men to meet.85 Casaubon spoke in favour of Jacobus Arminius’ cause to Lancelot Andrewes and other Anglican bishops. However, James I and Sarpi were more guarded, fearing a split in the Reformed camp.86 Grotius dreamed, as James I had once done, of an ecumenical council which would bring together all Christians embracing the traditions of the original church and those who were hostile towards the ‘tyranny’ of the pope. Among 81 Hugh Trevor-Roper, Catholics, Anglicans and Puritans. Seventeenth Century Essay, London, Secker and Warburg, 1987, 52. 82 For a discussion on Grotius’s ideas concerning the reunion of churches, see Patterson, James I and IV and the Reunion of Christendom, 139–142. 83 Mark Pattison, Casaubon 1559–1614, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1875, 224–225; Cozzi, Paolo Sarpi, 113. 84 Patterson, James I and IV and the Reunion of Christendom, 143. 85 Ibid., 144. 86 Cozzi, Paolo Sarpi, 126–127.

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these, the moderate Catholics, who included the Gallicans, featured prominently.87 Like Casaubon, Grotius was careful not to include all Catholics amongst the Jesuits and in this latter group he distinguished between those who were dangerous and those who were not. On 7 January 1612 he informed Casaubon of his project in terms which strikingly recall the preface to the prince in the English translation of Richer’s treatise: In order to restore harmony between the churches, the best method would be that all the churches which do not recognise the bishop of Rome’s universal monarchy demonstrate their agreement and their harmony by means of a public confession, putting aside all the questions which raise uncertainty. I have no doubt that this confession would attract the votes of the Romans who have shown themselves to be the least opposed to considering our cause with a minimum of impartiality. They will accept it even more willingly when they see that the good works have not been declared worthless, that all of the rituals have not been abolished and that the time-honoured confessions have not been condemned in advance. In order to achieve this result, a council must be convened to which delegates from the churches which had challenged the conclusions of the Council of Trent would be invited. I see such a council being held in England with the wise king of this country acting as moderator and president.88

Casaubon’s reaction was enthusiastic. The king, he replied on 27 January, was examining Grotius’ project with interest. England did not lack bishops who shared the sentiments of the Dutch jurist regarding the concord of churches. But things were more difficult in France. The best among them bowed under the yoke of superstition and Roman tyranny. If a reform which preserved intact the form of the original church was implemented, the numbers of those who joined the concord party would run into several thousands. Unfortunately, the ministers of the Reformed churches did not see things this way. Partisans of moderation were few in number.89 The decision to publish the Dutch translation of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate was made within this context. It appeared in 1612, published by Hillebrant Jacobsz from The Hague, under the title Vande kerckelike ende politiicke macht.90 The absence of a preface makes the identification of this edition par87 Patterson, James IV and I and the Reunion of Christendom, 142. 88 Grotius to Casaubon, 7 January 1612 in P.C. Molhuysen and B L. Meulenbroek (eds), Briefwisseling van Hugo Grotius, vol. 1, The Hague, Nijhoff, 1928 (letter 221), 191–193; Paul Botley and Máté Vince (ed.), The Correspondence of Isaac Casaubon in England, vol. 2: November 1611 to July 1612, Geneva, Droz, 2018, 130–132. 89 Casaubon to Grotius, 27 January 1612, in Molhuisen and Meulenbroek (ed.), Briefwesseling van Hugo Grotius, vol. 1, 196 (letter 223); Botley and Máté Vince (ed.), The Correspondence of Isaac Casaubon in England, vol. 2, 164–166. 90 [Edmond Richer], Vande kerckelicke ende politiicke macht. De kerke is een Monarchklicke Politie, inghestelt tot eene overnatuerlijcke eynde, belyte door een Aristocratijcksche Regieringhe, door den oppersten Heerder de Zielen, onsen Herre Iesum Christum. Wt het Francoys int

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ticularly difficult. The only clue is the name of the publisher. An examination of the latter’s production indicates that he was sympathetic towards the Remonstrant party which, at that time, was engaged in a merciless battle against the orthodox Calvinism of Franciscus Gomarus’ friends concerning predestination and the role of the state in ecclesiastical matters. The bound volume housed in the British Library which contains the Dutch translation of Richer’s treatise also includes a Remonstrant propaganda pamphlet published by Jacobsz in the same year.91 The Remonstrants’ main publisher was Thomas Basson from Leiden who published the Disputationes publicae of Jacobus Arminius, the founder of the movement, who died in 1609. But it was Jacobsz who published the Dutch translation of the Disputationes, a critique of pontifical primacy, in 1610.92 Grotius, as we have seen, dreamed of an ecumenical council open to all true Christians during which a declaration of universal faith would be adopted. As he made clear to Casaubon in his letter of 7 January 1612, this project included the moderate Catholics ill at ease with the Ultramontane theologians’ extreme opinions. Richer’s name did not figure in the letter but Grotius was probably also referring to him. One should note that on the subject of church and state relations the two men held remarkably similar positions. Like the author of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, Grotius took his inspiration from the history of the early Church even though, according to him, it was on the basis of an agreement on fundamental religious principles that the reunion of churches should function, something which Richer did not mention.93 Careful to affirm the pre-eminence of civil power, he was opposed to the pretentions of the Church – Reformed, in this case – regarding temporal matters. As a spiritual body, the Church had the right, according to him, to exercise pastoral responsibilities. But recourse to force was forbidden. In no ways could it encroach upon the prerogatives of the state. In all visible matters, including those that concerned the Church, it was the sole judge. In fact, it was advisable that power remain within the hands of a sole body. In addition, the state was charged with the protection and the governance of the Church.94

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Nederduytsch overheset. The Hague, Hillebrant Jacobsz, 1612. Bibliographical description: Anna E.C. Simony, Catalogue of Books from the Low Countries 1601–1621 in the British Library, London, British Library, 1990, 525. Naerder-Beriche ende opening vande procedure by den kercken-dienaren Remonstranten ghehouden inde regenwoordight Verschillen. Dienende tot nodighe Verantwoordinge op de Beschuldigingen vervat inde Remonstrantie tegen hun overhegeven …, The Hague, Hillebrant Jacobsz, 1612. Jacobus Arminius, Viederley theses of articulen, teghen t’pausdom, The Hague, Hillebrant Jacobsz, 1610. Patterson, James I and VI and the Reunion of Christendom, 141. See Douglas Nobbs, Theocracy and Toleration. A Study of the Disputes in Dutch Calvinism from 1600 to 1650, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1938, 59–91; Borschberg, State

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The question which remains is how Richer’s treatise arrived in Holland. Several hypotheses are conceivable. The first is an intervention on the part of the embassador of the States-General of the Netherlands in Paris, François van Aarssen. A few years earlier, another ambassador, Pietro Priuli, had played a comparable role in the matter of the Interdict of Venice. A second hypothesis is that a member of James I’s entourage, perhaps Jean Loiseau de Tourval, had sent a copy of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate to the Netherlands. The third hypothesis is that the initiative to publish Richer’s treatise in Dutch had come from the Remonstrant party and, directly or indirectly, from Grotius, who was one of its leaders. The grand jurist did indeed have connections in France where, at the age of sixteen, he had obtained a doctorate in law. He could have had the book sent to him through the good offices of the ambassador of Holland in Paris. Richer, as we have seen, protested ‘on the salvation of his soul’ that he never had any relations with the ambassadors of England or the Netherlands.95 But his friends, if not he himself, could have made contact with them. If he were known in England, nothing prevents one from believing that his reputation had also spread to the Netherlands. Because of a lack of documentation, it is impossible to establish the identity of the person who commissioned the Dutch translation of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. On the other hand, the existence of a European network of Catholic, Anglican and Protestant theologians with ecumenical leanings, if we may be permitted this anachronism, and for this reason interested in Richer’s work, is not in any doubt.96 The syndic’s battle against the temporal power of popes, his use of patristic and canonical sources and his call for the freedom of the Church had echoes throughout Europe. The most open-minded of the Protestants, men such as Casaubon, Grotius, Overall and Andrewes, looked favourably upon the participation of the Gallicans in their project of reconciliation of the churches. Sadly, it is not known what the author of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate thought of his German, English and Dutch admirers. The French sources, to which Richer’s biographers have, until now, confined themselves, are silent on the subject of the foreign editions of the treatise. In any case, and church in the early politico-religious works of Hugo Grotius, unpublished thesis, Cambridge University, 1990. On the doctrinal battles led by Grotius in the last part of his life, see Hans Bots and Pierre Leroy, ‘Hugo Grotius et la réunion des chrétiens’, Dix-Septième Siècle, 35/4, 1983, 451–470; Henk Nellen, ‘Disputando inclarescet veritas.’ Grotius as publicist in France (1621–1645), in H. Nellen and E. Rabbie (ed.), Hugo Grotius Theologian. Essays in Honour of G.H.M. Posthumus Meyjes, Leiden, Brill, 1994, 121–144. 95 Histoire du syndicat, 135. 96 On this international network, see Philippe Denis, ‘An ecumenical momentum. Reunion talks among Anglicans, Gallicans, Arminians and Huguenots in early seventeenth century Europe’, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 81, 2019, 43–63.

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the syndic did not have the time to think of diffusing his ideas in the rest of Europe. For the moment, his most immediate concern was replying to the attacks made from within his own institution, the Faculty of Theology of Paris.

Chapter 5. Richer’s condemnation

The confrontation On 17 December 1611, with five hundred people present,1 the trial for the registration of the letters patent authorising the Jesuits to teach theology in their Parisian college of Clermont opened in Parliament.2 The regent, who feared uprisings, was reticent, but Richer and the new rector, Pierre Hardivilliers, had forced the first president, Nicolas de Verdun, to reopen the discussion because, according to them, the flood of students to the College of Clermont endangered the independence of the University.3 For the second time in a year, the first being during the general chapter of the Dominicans in May 1611, a public debate opposed the partisans and adversaries of the separation of political and spiritual powers. Over and above the Jesuits’s place within the University, the question of the pope’s power of intervention in temporal matters, which had been raised two decades earlier by Bellarmine, was on the agenda. This matter would directly affect Richer’s career. By this date, as we have seen, private copies of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate were already circulating in Paris. The nuncio and the theologians in favour of pontifical supremacy were convinced that Richer’s ideas would lead to schism. They put in place a strategy that would result, in September 1612, in his dismissal from the post of syndic. Pierre de La Martelière, the advocate of the University, was the first to take the stand. He attempted to show the incompatibility between the Jesuit doctrine and 1 Fouqueray, Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus en France, vol. 3, 280. Richer spoke of two thousand people (Histoire du syndicat, 53). 2 On this process see Fouqueray, Histoire de la compagnie de Jésus en France, vol. 3. 280–287; Pierre Blet, ‘Jésuites et libertés gallicanes en 1611’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 24, 1955, 165–188; Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy, 213–215; De Franceschi, La crise politicoreligieuse, 394–398. 3 Fouqueray, Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus en France, vol. 3, 278; Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy, 191–192.

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that of the University, recalling their alleged role in the king’s assassination. He referred to the doctrine of the Sorbonne in terms inspired by Richer’s treatise.4 For his part, the avocat general du roi in the Parliament of Paris, Louis Servin, pleaded that the granting of letters patent be conditional on the Jesuits accepting four conditions, amongst which was the rejection of the doctrine of the pope’s indirect power and an undertaking to preserve the liberties of the Gallican Church.5 He was convinced, Eric Nelson argued, that the Jesuits would refuse these conditions and that their incorporation in the University of Paris would therefore be postponed sine die.6 According to the nuncio’s report, Servin also insisted that the Jesuits acknowledge the council’s superiority over the pope and force their priests to break the secret of confession in circumstances where princely persons were threatened.7 Anxious to reach a compromise, the Jesuit provincial, Christophe Balthazar, replied that in keeping with an established principle, the Company was prepared to follow the University’s doctrine as long as it was not opposed to Catholic faith and morals. This declaration caused Richer to leap from his seat and take the podium without permission from the president. ‘With great emotion,’ the nuncio reported, he announced that the arrival of the Jesuits would ruin the University because their constitution, which they were obliged to respect, was incompatible with the doctrine of the Sorbonne. Rome would impose its wishes on the doctors of theology.8 On 22 December, Parliament gave its ruling. The original text is lost but it would appear that it referred to Servin’s four conditions. A disturbing fact for the Jesuits was that they were forbidden to be involved in teaching and, consequently, had to close the College of Clermont’s boarding establishment.9 However, the ruling was modified by the Court on the very day it was registered, apparently through the intervention of the nuncio. In the final version, the only one which has been conserved, the Jesuits were only instructed to respect the liberties of the 4 Plaidoyé de Mͬ Pierre de la Marteliere, advocat en la Cour, fait en Parlement […] les dixseptiesme et dix-neufiesme Decembre, mil six cent unze, Paris, Jean Petitpas, 1612. 5 Archives nationales de France, Registers of the Parliament of Paris, X.1a5333, 22 December 1611, quoted in Blet, ‘Jésuites et libertés gallicanes’, 167–168. See also Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy, 194–196. 6 Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy, 194. 7 Ubaldini to Borghese, 3 January 1612, in Blet, ‘Jésuites et libertés gallicanes’, 178, 180. See also Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy, 196. In the Histoire du syndicat, 57–58, Richer reported a conversation between du Perron and Servin about the latter’s declarations regarding the breaking of the secret of confession. 8 Roberto Ubaldini to Cardinal Borghese, Paris, 3 January 1612, in Blet, ‘Jésuites et libertés gallicanes’, 176–177. See Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy, 197; De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 298. 9 Blet, ‘Jésuites et libertés gallicanes’, 168. According to Richer, there were ‘more than eighty students’ in residence (Histoire du syndicat, 51).

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Gallican Church such as they had been ‘for all time and anciently maintained and observed’ in the kingdom and the ban on teaching the young was restricted to Paris.10 For some time, Cardinal du Perron and the theologians in favour of the Roman positions had found the syndic’s extreme sympathy for the liberties of the Gallican Church unacceptable. Ubaldini made no secret of his desire to see Richer discharged from his post. The proceedings regarding the admission of the Jesuits to the University of Paris in December marked a further stage in this process of rejection. Henceforth the decision was made: by associating himself with the Gallican parliamentarians, the syndic had called pontifical authority into question. It was not only the Jesuits who were involved but the pope himself. Consequently, there was great danger of a schism! If Richer were to remain as head of the Faculty of Theology of Paris the future of the Church throughout France would be compromised. From then on, the syndic’s adversaries would not rest until such time as he had been stripped of his power. To achieve this, they had to gain the support of the majority of theologians at the Sorbonne, strengthen their position at Court and, if possible, change the parliamentarians’ mind about the temporal prerogatives of the pope. They had also to identify someone who could succeed Richer as syndic. This person would be Jean Filesac, a doctor in theology who was considered to be moderate, neither fiercely Ultramontane nor totally Gallican.11 On 28 December 1611 du Perron summoned Richer in order to complain, the latter reported in the Histoire du syndicat, ‘that the power of the pope had been debated whilst speaking about the situation of the university’.12 He put forward an argument which he had used several months earlier during an interview with the chancellor: by diminishing the power of the pope, the validity of Henry IV’s marriage to Anne of Austria would be questioned and this would compromise the future of the monarchy. Richer replied that Henry IV’s dispensation was a question of fact and not of right and that, in matters of fact, the Church and the general council were no more infallible than the pope. Even if the Sorbonne had always recognised the council’s superiority over the pope, it taught that ‘the Holy Father, by reason of primacy, could and should interpret divine right, natural and canonical, and grant dispensations for the good and the edification of the universal Church’.13 But the cardinal was not convinced. For years to come, he would put forward the argument that Richer’s ideas presented a threat to the monarchy. 10 Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 53–58. See Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy, 214; De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 400. 11 Histoire du syndicat, 59. On Jean Filesac, Féret, La Faculté de Théologie de Paris. Époque moderne, vol. 4, 369–376. 12 Ibid., 54. 13 Ibid., 55.

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It was André Duval, the Sorbonne theologian, to whom Richer had given a copy of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate in October – in confidence, it would seem, for they had been friends – who raised the alarm against the treatise which he found ‘full of errors and heresies’. At the beginning of January 1612, he passed on his notes to Cardinal du Perron and Antoine Séguier, the président à mortier, a man with close links with the parti dévot. Duval told them that the case of the University against the Jesuits had been judged according to ‘the maxims of this book’.14 He was well informed: in the Histoire du syndicat Richer admitted to having distributed copies of his treatise amongst his friends15 and did not deny, during a meeting with Jean Filesac in February, having provided Pierre de La Martelière with the documents necessary for the preparation of his plea.16 A passage from this plea would appear to have been taken, almost word for word, from Richer’s treatise: The School of Paris has always taught that the primacy of Saint Peter and his successors, the popes of Rome, is granted by divine right, in honour and reverence of which the Church, antiquity and the Christian princes have accorded and attributed to the Holy See several great privileges and prerogatives which come from human right: that immediately afterwards and proportionately Jesus Christ jointly gave all [his] disciples and apostles the power of the keys and dispatched them: that this mission is a true conferment of power and jurisdiction, no more or no less than all the members of the natural body which, although unequal, have their being that comes directly from nature; by means of which the Church is monarchical, tempered by the aristocratic government of bishops, priests, as is a senate, the freest and most perfect state imaginable.17

From then on, Richer’s treatise was openly questioned. In order to defend himself, as we have seen, the syndic put his remaining copies up for sale. Whilst Duval was preparing a response at Cardinal du Perron’s request,18 the nuncio informed Cardinal Scipione Borghese in Rome of the publication of the treatise.19 A few days later, he told him of his first impressions on reading the treatise: ‘it is no more than an epilogue to the abominable doctrine of Marsilius of Padua, of [Flaccius] Illyricus, of Brother Paulo [Sarpi] of Venice and all the heretics who have written about the primacy of Peter and consequently against the sovereign

14 15 16 17

Ibid., 61–62. Ibid., 45. Ibid. 79. Plaidoyé de M Pierre de la Marteliere, advocat en la Cour, fait en Parlement, 5th pagination, 46–47. This text also appeared in the Mercure françois in the year 1611. See Continuation du Mercure françois, 427. 18 Histoire du syndicat, 62. 19 Ubaldini to Borghese 19 January 1612, quoted in De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politico, 404.

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Roman Pontiff ’. Richer had not only challenged the temporal power of the popes but also their spiritual power. It became imperative that he be dismissed forthwith from his post of syndic.20 Meanwhile, the nuncio’s auditor, Alessandro Scappi, went ‘from door to door in order to see all the doctors of the Sorbonne’ so as to convince them to withdraw their trust in Richer.21 Appraised of these tactics by the public prosecutor, Nicolas de Bellièvre, the syndic obtained from Parliament, through Louis Servin’s intervention, a restraining order postponing the meeting of the Faculty of Theology scheduled for the 1 of February. On that day, Parliament summoned the syndic and several of his colleagues to resolve the matter. Richer was castigated for having published his work without permission. He did not deny the fact and declared that he was prepared to submit to the Faculty of Theology’s decisions. An ordinance was passed declaring that all copies of the treatise which had been sold and which were in circulation be withdrawn and the doctors were forbidden to discuss it until such time as the parliamentarians had proceeded to examine it. For his part, the theologian Joachim Forgemont, a member of the Ultramontane party, was blamed for having introduced a foreigner, the nuncio’s auditor, to the dean of the Faculty of Theology and the doctors were requested to be watchful of foreigners who were troublemakers. According to the nuncio, the first president envisaged summoning Scappi to appear. Dissatisfied, the nuncio called on the regent, threatening to leave the kingdom of France if Richer were not condemned.22 On 3 February, the syndic informed the Faculty of Theology, who had held an assembly, of the Parliament’s decisions. He stated that he wished to have his book examined by his peers, but Filesac counterattacked by blaming him for having published the decree of the Faculty without having obtained their permission.23 Richer still had some allies within the Faculty of Theology, but for the moment he was on the defensive. Meanwhile, the nuncio, Cardinal du Perron and the chancellor, Brûlart de Sillery, were in consultation with one another. As they had been unable to obtain a judgement against Richer from the Faculty of Theology, they handed over the task of censuring his work to the bishops. But the latter were divided. At a meeting at Cardinal du Perron’s home in Paris which lasted from 11 to 14 February, the bishops who were present agreed to find the treatise reprehensible but they were divided on the question as to whether the entire work should be condemned or 20 Ubaldini to Borghese, 31 January 1612, quoted ibid., 406. 21 Histoire du syndicat, 67. 22 Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, 2/2, 60–63; Ubaldini to Borghese, 14 February 1612, quoted in De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 407; BnF, ms. franç. 15734, f. 17–20; Continuation du Mercure François, 495–496; Histoire du syndicat, 70–77. 23 Histoire du syndicat, 70–77.

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merely a portion of it and whether it deserved being described as heretical. As none of the bishops, with the exception of that of Paris, had any jurisdiction over the University of Paris, they merely declared that the work warranted being censured and reported this decision to the provincial synod of bishops which was to be held the following month.24 ‘More agitated every day,’25 Jourdain reported, du Perron made Richer’s condemnation a personal matter. On 8 April, he confided in Casaubon saying: ‘This book has kept me in Paris for two months, constantly busy with our bishops.’26 Then began a session of arm wrestling between the parliamentarians and the bishops. Nicolas de Verdun informed the regent that the bishops had contravened Parliament’s ruling of 1 February. Du Perron replied by visiting Marie de’ Medici who said that he was correct. Richer was not permitted to appear before the Conseil de Régence. The only person who defended him was Prince Henry II of Bourbon-Condé, Henry IV’s nephew, a noble who led a dissident faction in the Conseil.27 In Rome, the pope confided in the French ambassador François Savary de Brèves his fears that the political intrigues would lead to a schism.28 After having heard Cardinal Bellarmine’s opinion on Richer’s book, the secretary of another cardinal wrote to a friend of Richer, the pontiff remained ‘for a full fortnight without giving audience to anyone and it was said that this work had turned the state of the Roman Curia on its head’.29 On 13 March, Cardinal du Perron, the archbishop of Sens, and seven of his suffragans, including Henry de Gondi, the bishop of Paris, met in synod to discuss Richer’s De ecclesiatica et politica potestate. They had received permission from the regent’s government to condemn the work on condition that a general clause protecting the rights and immunities of the Gallican Church be included. Accordingly, they declared the work to be: deserving of censure for several false, erroneous and scandalous propositions it contained which, as they sounded, were schismatic and heretical without, however, affecting the rights of the king and the French Crown or the rights, immunities and liberties of the Gallican Church.30 24 25 26 27

Ibid., 89–92; De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 408. Jourdain, Histoire de l’Université de Paris, 69. Du Perron, Les Ambassades et Negociations, 695. Histoire du syndicat, 92; Ubaldini to Borghese, 28 February 1618, quoted in De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 411. 28 De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 4 12. 29 Histoire du syndicat, 95. 30 Censure faite par les évêques de la province des Sens d’un livre intitule: De ecclesiasticâ et politicâ potestate, avec la reservation des droits du roi et de la couronne de France, droits, immunités et libertés de l’Eglise gallicane, publiée aux prônes des messes parochiales le 19 mars 1612, par l’ordonnance de M. l’évêque de Paris,s.l., 1612, reprinted in Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 3, 2nd part, 84. See De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 412.

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The bishops also prohibited the reading, possession, publication and sale of the treatise, a resolution which, given the number of subsequent re-editions and translations, appeared to have gone unheeded. There were two important restrictions to the decree of condemnation. Firstly, in order to avoid confrontations with political authorities, the bishops had reaffirmed the liberties of the Gallican Church, a statement which no doubt was vague but, by virtue of its mention, reassured Richer who had always affirmed the principle of these liberties. Secondly, the decree declared certain proposals of the treatise to be schismatic and heretical ‘as they sounded’ (ut sonant). It was easy for Richer to declare to Duval, several years later, that the bishops condemned his proposals ‘not absolutely … but conditionally’ by suggesting that they ‘needed explanations’.31 Yet, in spite of the clause regarding the liberties of the Gallican Church, it was a setback for Parliament. On 15 March, the queen summoned Nicolas de Verdun to inform him that she approved the bishops’ censure.32 On 18 March, the bishop of Paris, Henri de Gondi, had the decree published in all the parishes of the capital.33 But for the time being the Faculty of Theology did not yet have the right to discuss the treatise because the ruling of 1 February was still in force. For the nuncio the condemnation of 13 March was sufficient. On 28 March, he transmitted to du Perron the pope’s thanks for the role he had played in censuring Richer’s treatise. He also informed the queen of his satisfaction, at the same time requesting, in vain of course, that the clause relating to the liberties of the Gallican Church be withdrawn.34 Richer attempted to have the condemnation annulled by introducing an appel comme d’abus. He asserted that the synod had not been held in due form, that the clergy from the province had not been convened nor allowed to express themselves and that the condemnation undermined the authority of the king and Parliament. But the chancellor refused to register the appeal and when he approached Parliament, despite the fact that his request had been accepted the same day by the public prosecutor Bellièvre, the first president de Verdun indicated that, on orders of the Court, it had been rejected.35

31 Histoire du syndicat, 305. 32 Ubaldini to Borghese, 15 March 1612, quoted in De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 413. 33 Histoire du syndicat, 106. 34 De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 414. 35 Histoire du syndicat, 111–128; De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 118–127. On the appel comme d’abus, see Robert Genestal, Les origines de l’appel comme d’abus, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1951; Caroline Galland et Anne Bonzon (ed.), Justices croisées. Histoire et enjeux de l’appel comme d’abus (XIVe-XVIIIe siècles), Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, forthcoming.

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The downfall For Richer this was bad news. In his wrangle with the ecclesiastical hierarchy the support he received from Parliament was no longer sufficient. But his difficulties were only just beginning. Flawed because of the restrictive clause on which the queen had insisted, the ecclesiastical condemnation was soon to be confirmed and broadened. The Council of Sens had assembled only eight bishops, including Cardinal du Perron and the bishop of Paris. At least two prelates, the archbishop of Tours, André Frémiot, and the bishop of Beauvais, René Potier, had expressed reservations.36 During the discussion of Richer’s treatise at the home of Cardinal du Perron in February, they had stated that Richer should be heard and that he might possibly be in a position to explain the proposition for which he was being reproached.37 A third, Gabriel de l’Aubespine, the bishop of Orleans, had, according to Baillet, refused to sign the condemnation of the synod of Sens.38 But other bishops supported Cardinal du Perron. On 8 April 1612, the archbishop of Bordeaux, Cardinal François d’Escoubleau de Sourdis, sent him a message of congratulation.39 On 24 May, at the insistence of the nuncio, the archbishop of Aix-en-Provence, Paul Hurault de l’Hospital, had Richer’s doctrine condemned at a provincial council, this time without the restrictive clause.40 Once again, Richer tried to resort to the appel comme d’abus procedure, but as had happened the first time, he encountered the opposition of the Conseil de Régence, which, at the end of April, informed him, through Cardinal Jean de Bonsi, the Court chaplain, that he was forbidden to publish anything in defence of his treatise under pain of criminal proceedings.41 This interdiction would have grave consequences for the Gallican theologian. With the exception of two or three books which he published under his name towards the end of his life, he would no longer publish anything. The message from the Court was unambiguous: Know that [the king and the queen] have charged me as have the chancellor and president Jeannin to order you expressly to stop writing and to inform you that, if you were to bring anything into the light of day either to explain or to confirm your book, or against the condemnation of the prelates or even against Duval and others who have 36 37 38 39 40

Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 1, 350. Histoire du syndicat, 89–90. Baillet, La vie d’Edmond Richer, 146. Du Perron, Les Ambassades et Negotiations, 867. De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 417–418. See the text of condemnation in Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol 1, 368. 41 See Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 1, 387–389. According to [René] Richard, Le Véritable Père Josef, capucin, nommé au cardinalat, contenant l’histoire anecdote du cardinal de Richelieu, Saint Jean de Maurienne, Gaspard Butler, 1704, 272, the interdiction of publication was contained in the letters patent, but these do not appear to exist any longer.

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written books condemning yours, we will proceed against you as we would against a criminal guilty of lese-majesty, without any consideration for your priesthood. And take great care that nothing be published to defend your book in France, Germany or Geneva or elsewhere under any other name what-so-ever for we would blame no one but you.42

For his part, Pope Paul V confirmed the condemnation by the French bishops in the briefs of 6 May and 27 September 1612.43 In May of the following year, a decree of the Congregation of the Index, especially approved by the pope, included Richer’s De ecclesiastica et politica potestate in the catalogue of banned books. The decree was also published in Paris and distributed in the bookshops.44 Meanwhile, Richer was facing trouble on his home ground, the Faculty of Theology of Paris. On 1 March 1612, annoyed by the intervention of Parliament in the affairs of the Faculty, the doctors of theology indirectly censored the syndic by drawing up a complaint against those who had published decrees without permission from the Faculty.45 The noose was tightening around the syndic’s neck. Soon, the pope, and not only the nuncio, put pressure on the queen insisting that the Gallican theologian be dismissed from his post.46 At a meeting of the Faculty on 1 June, François de Harlay, one of the Gallican theologian’s fiercest adversaries, proposed instituting a debate for the election of a new syndic. The dean, Nicolas Roguenant, replied that, according to the Faculty’s tradition, the mandate of syndic was not for a specified term and that Richer had done nothing that warranted him being dismissed. For his part, the syndic replied that he was willing to submit his treatise so that it could be censured by the Faculty but that he was formally opposed to having his dismissal debated.47 Without explaining how he arrived at the figure, Richer declared in the Histoire du syndicat that forty-five of the seventy theologians were

42 Histoire du syndicat, 130. In 1617, during an interview with Georges Froger, Duval’s emissary, Richer confirmed that he had received the interdiction to defend his book in writing ‘under pain of a crime of lese- majesty’ (Histoire du syndicat, 276). 43 Text to be found in Puyol, Edmond Richer, 69–372. 44 Ibid., 369. See De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 446. Works by William Barclay, John Barclay, Philippe Duplessis-Mornay and Simon Vigor were also banned. According to Richer, it was François de Harlay, abbot of Saint-Victor, recently promoted coadjutor bishop of Rouen, and Quentin Billaud, a Dominican, who took the responsibility of publishing the Roman decree (Histoire du syndicat, 255). 45 Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 61–62. 46 Savary de Brèves to Marie de’ Medici, Rome, 27 April 1612, quoted in De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 416. 47 See the minutes of the meeting of 1 June 1612 in Histoire du syndicat, 139–144.

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in favour of a debate on his dismissal.48 But after five hours of deliberation the project was abandoned, with the syndic threatening to launch an appel comme d’abus against any future verdict.49 At the beginning of July, Nicolas de Verdun abandoned Richer because of pressure from the Court. He suggested that he resign so as to avoid the humiliation of being dismissed. Convinced of his rights, the syndic refused to do so.50 Unable to arrive at an amiable solution, the Conseil de Régence charged the Faculty of Theology, by means of letters patent dated 27 August, to proceed with the election of a new syndic. On 1 September, Richer was unanimously dismissed from his post of syndic by the eighty-six doctors who were present and Jean Filesac, the doctor who had been approached at the beginning of the year to fill the post, was elected to replace him. Following on the heels of this decision, the duration of the position of syndic was fixed for a period of one year, renewable only once. Richer announced his intention of publishing the letter of protestation he had read at the meeting.51 In this letter, he expressed his disbelief that the regent had approved his dismissal and attributed the move to machinations of the enemies of the deceased king and the Jesuits.52 But Richer still wanted to believe in his luck. On 1 October, he attempted, in vain, to have the faculty revoke its decision, invoking the Parliamentary ruling of 1 February.53 The publication, several months later, without any publisher’s name, of an account of Richer’s dismissal, including his letter of protestation of 1 September,54 a move which the former syndic could not have ignored, showed that he refused any legitimacy to the procedure taken by the Faculty of Theology regarding his discharge. For their part, Richer’s enemies wanted him to be excluded from the Faculty and his responsibility as grand master of the Cardinal Lemoine College to be terminated. However, the chancellor was opposed to these extreme measures, pointing out that, for peace to be restored, it was sufficient that the Faculty appoint a new syndic.55 On 29 September, Savary de Brèves, the French ambassador to Rome, informed Marie de’ Medici of the pope’s wish that Richer be

48 Histoire du syndicat, 145. 49 Ubaldini to Borghese, 7 June 1612, quoted in De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 418; Histoire du syndicat, 147. 50 Histoire du syndicat , 153–154; De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique , 419. 51 Histoire du syndicat, 157–159; De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 423–424. 52 Recueil de plusieurs actes remarquables pour l’histoire de ce temps, s.l., 1613. See Duplessis Collectio, vol. 2/2, 299–300. 53 Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 63. See De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 427. 54 Recueil de plusieurs actes. On this work, see Parsons, The Church in the Republic, 151. 55 Histoire du syndicat, 183–185.

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declared a heretic and that he be burnt in effigy. On 22 October, the regent replied to him that he should attempt to dissuade the pope for the situation was too unstable to antagonise the supporters of the fallen theologian.56 But troubles never come singly. A financial setback was soon added to the former syndic’s political woes. In 1602, Richer had applied for a canonicate at Notre-Dame de Paris. In July 1612, a canon died and Richer, whose name was first on the list, argued his case.57 The bishop of Paris objected, invoking the condemnation of the Gallican theologian’s doctrines. The future bishop of Aire, Sébastien Bouthilier, was the preferred candidate. A legal procedure then began between the University of Paris and the bishop because it involved a question of principle. The University won the case, but the brother of the former syndic’s rival, Claude Bouthilier, an influential counsellor in Parliament, appeared on the scene and, after a long and costly legal battle, Richer was forced to give up any claim to the canonicate.58 He was not to obtain a post – a prebendary of the diocese of Meaux – until eleven years later, in 1623.59 It was therefore the Conseil de Régence, on the intervention of the nuncio and the pope, which terminated Richer’s function as syndic. The pressure from Rome did not explain everything. It is possible that, independently of the pope, the queen took very seriously du Perron’s argument that the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate was seditious because of its ability to undermine the foundations of the monarchy. Parliament supported Richer to the best of its ability, thereby preventing the Faculty of Theology, the majority of whose members were henceforth opposed to the syndic, from questioning its authority. But at the end of a long battle, the supporters of pontifical primacy succeeded in having Richer dismissed. The only consolation for the Gallicans was that a clause protecting the liberties of their church had been inserted in the censure of the Council of Sens. This restriction, however, did not appear in the censure of the Council of Aix. Sylvio De Franceschi noted the ambiguity of the monarchical authority, which put an end to Richer’s functions without, as such, repudiating his ideas.60 The 56 Ibid., 256; De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 460. 57 On this practice, see Roland Mousnier, Les institutions de France sous la monarchie absolue, 1598–1789, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1974, vol. 1, 241. 58 See Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 1, 412–413; Féret, La Faculté de Théologie de Paris. Époque moderne, vol. 4, 12. Richer’s position is detailed in the Responses aux objections proposées contre les capacités de Emond Richer by M.S. Bouthilier, S. Gouault and De Bailly, s.l.n.d., 19 See also the leaflet entitled Extraict des Registres du Conseil d’Etat, 8 pp., inserted in Richer’s ’Historia Academiae parisiensis’, BnF, ms. lat. 9948, vol. 6, f. 128–133. On 7 July 1623 the bishop of Meaux awarded Richer a canonicate. See Histoire du syndicat, 367–368. 59 Histoire du syndicat, 367–368; Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 216; Préclin, ‘Edmond Richer’, 266. 60 De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 427.

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bishops condemned him but with a clause which confirmed their sympathy for the liberties of the Gallican Church and three of them, the archbishop of Tours, the bishop of Beauvais and the bishop of Orleans, expressed their reservations. The only person to condemn Richer without reservation was the pope. The syndic was not condemned by the Faculty of Theology of Paris and remained a member of this body. He also retained his position of grand master of the Cardinal Lemoine College. In addition, in spite of the nuncio’s protestations, his book was republished several times. The only restriction on the diffusion of his ideas was the Court’s interdiction to publish anything on the themes addressed in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. Feeling threatened, he obeyed this interdiction, at least until 1622.

The theological counterattack Two men, du Perron and Duval, played an essential role in the refutation of Richer’s ideas. They were the ones who provided the key arguments against his doctrine. The other refutators were minor figures even though some of them like Jean Boucher, the apologist of the regicide, who had since taken refuge in Tournai, and Jacques Sirmond, a respected philologist, had developed their own critique of Richer’s ideas. It is interesting to note that neither Duval nor du Perron conformed completely with the Roman position. Both were determined to defend the pope’s authority, in their view unfairly attacked by Richer, but, for all that, they were not wholehearted supporters of the Ultramontane point of view. In spite of everything, they remained sympathetic to Gallican ideals. However, their opposition to Richer was evident. The author of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate served as a foil. In reaction to him, they developed a standpoint that became more and more Roman. Since the end of 1611, du Perron had been determined to silence Richer, but we have to understand his reasons which were not necessarily those of the nuncio with whom he had formed an alliance. A step backwards to examine his intellectual and political pathway provides a key to understanding this question.61 Born in the canton of Bern where his father, a Protestant minister, had sought refuge, du Perron converted to Catholicism in 1578 at the age of twenty. Henri III, 61 No scholarly biography of Cardinal du Perron has yet been written. In the meantime, one can consult [Jean Lévesque] de Burigny, Vie du Cardinal du Perron, Archevêque de Sens et GrandAumônier de France, Paris, De Bure, 1678; Pierre Féret, Le Cardinal du Perron, orateur, controversiste, écrivain. Étude historique et critique, Paris, Didier, 1879; ‘Le cardinal Jacques Davy du Perron. Mélanges publiés à l’occasion du IVe Centenaire de sa naissance’, Notices, mémoires et documents publiés par la Société d’Archéologie et d’Histoire naturelle du Département de la Manche, vol. 64, 105th year, Saint-Lo, Jacqueline Press, 1956.

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to whom he was introduced, was struck by his quick mind and made him his reader. One day, says Pierre de l’Estoile, after having proved the existence of God ‘against the atheists’ the young man suggested to the king, who immediately became angry, that he make an inverse demonstration.62 During the troubles of the League, du Perron sided with the Politiques. ‘I was brought up under the wing of the King Henry III,’ he recalls in his Harangue to the Third Estate’ in 1615 and, as long as he was alive, I was always concerned for his well-being.’63 In ‘a very short time,’64 he drafted the harangue the king read to the Estates of Blois in October 1588.65 The following year, he decided, together with the theologian René Benoist and the Dominican Olivier Bérenger, to enter into discussions with the Protestant ministers who wanted a rapprochement66 and contradicted Bellarmine in an Examen pacifique de la doctrine des Huguenots, which was published anonymously.67 After Henry III’s assassination, du Perron was taken in by Cardinal Charles de Bourbon, the League’s candidate to the throne, and, fortified by his support, took part in discussions which led to the recantation of Henry IVand his absolution by the pope.68 Meanwhile, he had been ordained as a priest and, barely two years later, he was promoted to the position of bishop of Evreux by King Henry IVand then archbishop of Sens. He became a cardinal fifteen years later. Declared the victor in a celebrated oratory joust against Philippe Duplessis-Mornay in 1600 at Fontainebleau, he forged links with Isaac Casaubon, then the king’s librarian, in the hope of converting him to Catholicism.69

62 Pierre de l’Estoile, Registre-Journal du règne de Henri III, ed. Madeleine Lazard and Gilbert Shrenk, vol. 4, 1582–1584, Geneva, Droz, 2000, 105 (25 November 1583). On this anecdote, see Henri Busson, Le rationalisme dans la littérature française de la Renaissance (1533–1602), new ed., Paris, 1971, 538. Already questioned during du Perron’s life, the anecdote was held to be true by Louis Servin, the Gallican magistrate. See de Burigny, Vie du Cardinal du Perron, 50. It was also reported by the writer Gédéon Tallemand des Réaux in his Historiettes (ed. Antoine Adam, Paris, Gallimard, 1990, vol. 1, 42). 63 Harangue du cardinal Du Perron, 77. 64 [Isaac Vossius, ed.], Perroniana et Thuana, Cologne, Scagen, 1691, 157. 65 Text in Les diverses oeuvres de l’illustrissime Cardinal du Perron, Paris, Chaudière, 1633, 713– 721. 66 De Burigny, Vie du Cardinal du Perron, 56. 67 [Jacques Davy du Perron], Examen pacifique de la doctrine des Huguenots, prouvant contre les Catholiques rigoureux de notre temps … que nous qui sommes membres de l’Eglise Catholique, Apostolique, et Romaine ne devrions pas condamner les Huguenots pour heretiques jusques à ce qu’on ait faict preuve, Paris, [London, John Wolfe], 1589. 68 J. Lestocquoy, ‘Du Perron et l’absolution d’Henri IV’, Notices, mémoires et documents publiés par la société d’archéologie et d’histoire du département de la Manche’, 64, 1956, 75–83. 69 Michael Wolfe, ‘Exegesis as Public Performance: Controversialist Debate and Politics at the conference of Fontainebleau (1600)’, in Allison Forrestal and Eric Nelson (ed.), Politics and Religion in Early Bourbon France, Basingstoke, Palgrave MacMillan, 2009, 65–85.

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A Politique drawn to the cause of pontifical primacy, had Du Perron changed his colours as he had accused Richer, the Leaguer who became the spokesman for the Gallican party, of doing? Up to a certain point, yes, but his journey was nonetheless consistent. Since the age of twenty, he had been unswervingly loyal to the monarchy: to Henry III, initially, in spite of all his shortfalls, then to Henry IV whose close friend he became and finally to Marie de’ Medici. Another constant factor: he did his best to convert the Protestants in his entourage by engaging in closely argued theological discussions with them, discussions that were inspired by the teachings of the Church Fathers and ecclesiastical writers. The cardinal’s main grievance against Richer was the danger which his ideas posed for the monarchy. Of all the opponents of the Gallican theologian, he was the most politically orientated. He declared, time and time again, that Richer had not changed his point of view since he had written the apologia of the regicide in his bachelor’s degree and that by undermining the pope’s authority he was casting suspicion on the validity of Henry IV’s marriage to Marie de’ Medici, which had been sanctioned by papal dispensation, and on the legitimacy of King Louis XIII. Richer saw these accusations as political manoeuvring. But du Perron stated that he was convinced of the danger. By recommending a conciliarist regime for the Church, he told Richer the day after the trial for the registration of the Jesuits, he was opening the door to all sorts of excesses: Cardinal du Perron had Richer summoned and complained about the manner in which he had treated the power by pleading the case of the University, saying that it was possible that seditious confusion could ensue as a result of asking the general council to consider the dispensation granted by Clement VIII to King Henry the Great in order for him to marry Queen Marie de’ Medici and that this could trouble the tranquillity of the kingdom and could cause a schism.70

In February 1612 du Perron assured the queen that Richer’s treatise ‘was backed by some important person who had encouraged him to bring forth this work in order to trouble the state’. Had the syndic not published the 1429 censure of the Sorbonne against the Dominican Jean Sarrazin? This censure dated from a time when the Sorbonne was allied with the English against King Charles VII and had condemned Joan of Arc, the liberator of the kingdom.71 Richer, du Perron concluded was the sworn enemy of all kings and all monarchies & […] with the same maxims which he had used to attack the supreme authority of the pope in order to establish his superiority, he would likewise destroy the authority of all kings and sovereign princes.72

70 Histoire du syndicat, 54. 71 Ibid., 84–86. 72 Ibid., 86.

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Two months later du Perron encouraged Isaac Casaubon to persuade James I of England, with whom he had found asylum after the death of Henry IV, that Richer’s ideas were no less dangerous for him than they were for the king of France. As we have seen in an earlier section, he was deluding himself. The king of England was an enthusiastic supporter of Richer whose treatise he had had translated into English a month earlier. But this letter clearly indicates that, for du Perron, the impact of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate was essentially political: Amongst which [propositions], over and above those which are particularly harmful to our religion, I am certain that there are some of which His Majesty would not approve, particularly: that priests are part of the government of the Church, by reason of the aristocratic regime, along with the bishops. That elections are based on divine right. From this it follows, that all kings, who appoint to ecclesiastical positions, are defiling divine right […] That the aristocratic regime is the best of all and the most in keeping with nature; this is in direct confrontation with the monarchical state and royalty, against which he quotes Aristotle73.

The attacks of André Duval, the Sorbonne theologian, against the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate were no less severe. Duval, with whom Richer had had close links for a long time and to whom he had entrusted a copy of his treatise in October 1611 so that he could offer ‘his kind advice’,74 took it to heart, like du Perron, to refute the syndic’s ideas and to annihilate his power. It was he who invented the word ‘Richerist’ in order to discredit as disciples of a mere head of school the theologians who claimed to have their roots in the longstanding doctrine of the Sorbonne. The expression would be used by the anti-Jesuits in the eighteenth century.75 Duval targeted the heart of the syndic’s arguments. In an Elenchus he distributed amongst his friends in manuscript form before giving it to a publisher in March 1612, he undertook to show that, in spite of his protestations of loyalty, Richer betrayed the teaching of the School of Paris. Duval quoted, at great length, Gerson and Almain as well as Pierre d’Ailly, John Major and more recent authors such as Jean de Cellaia, Robert Ceneau and Gilbert Génébrard.76 None of these authors, he maintained, had questioned the legislative power and the power of excommunication which Richer denied the pope.77 According to Duval, stating that the power of the keys belonged to the Church made no sense. Abstract realities such as the Church or the state could not 73 74 75 76

Du Perron to Casaubon, 18 April 1612, in du Perron, Les Ambassades et Negotiations, 695. Histoire du syndicat, 62. Ibid., 109. André Duval, Libelli de Ecclesiatica et Politica potestate Elenchus, pro suprema romani Pontificis in Ecclesiam authoritate, Paris, [Jacquin], 1612, 153 (article 41). 77 Ibid., 106 (article 25) and 116 (article 28).

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possess power. The exegesis which Richer gave of the Dic ecclesiae (Mt 18, 17), claiming that Christ gave total power of jurisdiction to the Church, was wrong. If all sinners within the Church were to be denounced, nothing but disorder and confusion would ensue.78 The apostles did not collectively represent the Church. Duval conceded that the council, presided over by the pope, was infallible but this did not mean that it possessed power of jurisdiction. Even if they were occasionally a good thing, episcopal elections were not of divine right because this would mean that the pope, who had been appointing bishops for ‘ninety years and more’ was in a state of mortal sin.79 Similarly, the idea of popular consent should not be taken too far. The definition which Richer gave of the Church appeared to be heretical for it said nothing of the pope. It was unclear whether the authoritative element was the pope or Christ. The idea of the pope being a ministerial leader, with only incidental authority, was false. Putting the bishops and priests on the same footing was another mistake. The pope was essential to the Church because ‘the head represents the entire body as the king represents the totality of his kingdom’.80 The comparison Richer drew between the law and government (imperium), Duval went on, was seditious. Kings and judges could perform the same acts as the law: command, prevent, permit, punish and reward. But they did it in a better way for the law was dead. A judge was like a living law. In order to be effective, the law depended upon the legislator and the judge. The syndic was mistaken in showing preference for the law rather than for the leaders. This principle was as seditious in the Church as it was in the state.81 Duval may have dismantled Richer’s arguments point for point, he was not for this reason an unconditional follower of post-Tridentine Roman ecclesiology. If the Elenchus was enthusiastically received by the nuncio, its reception by the Holy Office was lukewarm and its author was obliged to make certain corrections. For a time, Duval even feared that his book would be listed in the Index donec corrigatur. A revised edition of his work – which sadly has been lost – appeared in 1613.82 The same discussion took place, the following year, after the publication of Duval’s De suprema Romani Pontificis potestate, a reply to a treatise of Simon Vigor, a disciple of Richer’s. This time, Bellarmine took things in hand. He

78 79 80 81 82

Ibid., 25 (article 4). Ibid., 43 (article 9). Allusion to the Concordat of Bologne (1516). Ibid., 75 (article 17). Ibid., 86 (article 22). Sylvio De Franceschi ‘Gallicanisme, antirichérisme et reconnaissance de la romanité ecclésiale. La dispute entre le cardinal Bellarmin et le théologian parisien André Duval (1614)’, in Jean-Louis Quantin and Jean-Claude Waquet (ed.), Papes, princes et savants dans l’Europe moderne. Mélanges à la mémoire de Bruno Neveu, Geneva, Droz, 2007, 99–101.

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reproached the Parisian theologian for writing that the king held his power directly from God and for not adhering unreservedly to the doctrine of papal infallibility.83 As the Dominican theologian Yves Congar pointed out, whilst he was opposed to Richer, Duval was influenced, though confusedly, by the conciliarist tradition. He noted, quite correctly, – we will return to this in the second part of the present work – that Gerson never denied the pope’s sovereign power within the ecclesiastical order. It was as a disciple of the School of Paris, Congar wrote, that Duval challenged the syndic’s ideas: If he rejects the idea of the power of the keys being handed over to the ecclesia and then passed on by it to the ministers, he refuses to make the authority ex sese the only principle of the government of the Church: the ecclesia has its own life, which does not simply derive from the pope. ‘Reception’ plays a role which Duval interprets according to the concept of passive infallibility: it is that of the ecclesia so much so that, if a pontiff teaches something that is incorrect, the ecclesia will not allow itself to be defiled, just as, if the ecclesia were to lapse into error, the pontiff would correct it. There remains in Duval something of the Gersonian condominium.84

The refutations of Richer’s treatise No less than seven theologians published refutations of Richer’s treatise.85 This figure shows the importance given to the treatise by the proponents of pontifical supremacy. Four of them – Claude Durand, André Duval, Jean Boucher and Joachim Forgemont – were theologians of the Sorbonne. Others who took up 83 Ibid., 104–114. 84 Yves Congar, L’Église. De Saint Augustin à l’époque moderne, Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 1970, 396. 85 Louis Ellies Du Pin also mentioned the ‘attacks’ by the Jesuits André Eudémon-Jean and Jean Gautier against Richer (Histoire ecclésiastique du dix-septième siècle, vol. 1, Paris, Pralard, 1714, 385) but we have found no trace of them. In the Defensio, vol. 2, 11, Richer mentioned, furthermore, concerning the definition of the monarchical system, the ‘notes’ of a certain Grégoire Froger against the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. This ‘friend of Duval’ was in fact George Froger, the priest of Saint-Nicolas de Chardonnet, whom Duval had sent as an emissary to the former syndic in 1617 (Histoire du syndicat, 274). An extract of his work against Richer, an unauthorised version of which had been circulating since the beginning of 1613, is included in the Recueil de ce qui s’est faict en Sorbonne, et ailleurs, contre un livre de Becanus Iesuite, a collection of anonymous documents aiming at discrediting the work of the Dutch Jesuit Martin van der Beeck, also known as Becanus, who supported the temporal power of popes in the context of the controversy on the oath of allegiance to the king of England. On this subject, see Fouqueray, Histoire de la compagnie de Jésus en France, vol. 3, 303–305; Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy, 206; Parsons, The Church in the Republic, 179–181, 201; De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 447–448; Tutino, Empire of the Souls, 242.

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cudgels against Richer were a Jesuit, Jacques Sirmond, a secular priest, Théophraste Bouju de Beaulieu, and a recently converted layman, Thomas Pelletier. Three of them, Sirmond, Boucher and Forgemont, used noms de plume, doubtless because of the desire of political and ecclesiastical authorities to put an end to the controversy. But, in fact, many of them had links with the Court. Du Perron was a member of the Conseil de Régence, Pelletier was the queen’s secretary, Bouju was the king’s advisor and chaplain and Sirmond would later become confessor to King Louis XIII. Durand, Duval and Pelletier published their works in quick succession and quoted from one another’s books at a time when the nuncio, the bishops and the queen’s counsellors were still hesitating about which route to follow. The work by Bouju de Beaulieu was published a year later but the section dealing with Richer had been written at the same time. This proliferation of writings against Richer in February and March 1612 was obviously a concerted plan. Sirmond replied a few months later on behalf of the Jesuits, followed by Boucher at the end of 1612 and then in March 1613 by Bouju de Beaulieu who included in his work a writing against Richer which had been drafted a year earlier as well as a refutation of a book of Simon Vigor, a faithful follower of the former syndic, which had been published in the meantime. The last refutation of Richer’s treatise, that of Joachim Forgemont, one of his most resolute adversaries since the beginning of the affair, for reasons which are not entirely clear, only appeared two years later, in March 1614. Author C[laude] Durand André Duval [Thomas] Pelletier [Jacques Sirmond] [Jean Boucher] Théophraste Bouju [Joachim Forgemont]

Position Doctor of Sorbonne Doctor of Sorbonne Writer Jesuit Doctor of Sorbonne King’s chaplain Doctor of Sorbonne

Work Advis d’un docteur de Paris Elenchus

Date February 1612

La monarchie de l’Eglise Notae stigmaticae Advis sur l’appel

March 1612 [autumn] 1612 November 1612 March 1613 [March 1614]

Deux advis Lettre à Mr Edmond Richer

March 1612

Because Duval, as we have seen, wrote in Latin, it fell upon Claude Duval to refute Richer in French. This native from Felletin in Creuse, doctor of Sorbonne, canon and, from 1611, penitentiary of Saint-Malo, had written several books on spirituality. In 1606, he had written a book on purgatory in response to the Protestant theologian Pierre Du Moulin. Ten years later, he contributed to the French translation of Caesar Baronius’ Annales ecclésiastiques.86 The Advis d’un docteur 86 Patrimoine littéraire européen. Index général, Brussels, De Boeck, 2000, 70.

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de Paris, sur un livre intitulé, De la puissance Ecclesiastique et Politique, which he published in Paris in February 1612 without publisher’s mark, was probably sponsored by Cardinal Ferdinand Gonzague, a relation of Marie de’ Medici, to whom the book was dedicated. On a visit to Paris since November 1611,87 this young Italian prelate became a counsellor to the king’s private council.88 He was embroiled in an angry outburst with the Gallican magistrate Louis Servin, in the presence of the queen, at the time of the trial for the Jesuits’ registration.89 Durand wrote his Advis rapidly, we are told, because he had to leave to preach a sermon at some eighty leagues from Paris. Duval ‘would do something better’.90 Durand took up themes developed by Du Perron. Richer’s work, he wrote, was ‘harmful to the monarchy as much from an ecclesiastical point of view as from a political one’. It ‘reduces the grandeur of the Church in general’. He wrote in French for he had learnt that Richer’s work had been translated into this language to ‘make the people appreciate that aristocracy was better than monarchy and thereby incite a schism in the Church and a rebellion in the monarchy’.91 Richer wanted a schism. In his eyes, the pope was nothing more than a ‘bailiff or a steward’. He compared the monarchy of the Church to a republic like Venice where the doge only has a shadow of superiority.92 Instead of declaring the council superior to the pope and investing power in mere priests, he would be better advised to recognise the evidence that the best government resided in a single individual. ‘Nature teaches us that the monarchical system is the most noble as it is fashioned on the pattern of the system of the universe which is governed by a sovereign monarch.’93 Thomas Pelletier’s argumentation in the work he published in March 1612 under the title La monarchie de l’Eglise was similar to that of Claude Duval. The difference lay in the fact that, as a recently converted Calvinist, he multiplied references to Protestant theologians, particularly Calvin, accusing the syndic of having drawn close to him. As Pelletier was a table companion of du Perron’s, it is not surprising that, like his sponsor and like Durand, he interpreted the De politica et ecclesiastica potestate in political terms. The work was dedicated to 87 Berchthold Zeller, La minorité de Louis XIII. Marie de Médicis et Sully. Étude nouvelle d’après les documents florentins et vénitiens, Paris, Hachette, 1892, 325. Cardinal de Gonzague would soon return to Mantua where he became duke on the death of his brother and renounced the cardinalship. 88 [Claude Durand], Advis d’un docteur de Paris, sur un livre intitulé, De la puissance Ecclesiastique et Politique, Paris, 1612, ‘Epistre dedicatoire’, f. [Biiv]. 89 Michel le Vassor, Histoire du règne de Louis XIII, roi de France et de Navarre, new ed., vol. 1, Amsterdam, 1757, 131–132. 90 [Durand], Advis d’un docteur de Paris, 181. 91 Ibid., ‘Epistre dédicatoire’, f. [Aiir-Aiir]. 92 Ibid., 3. 93 Ibid., 86.

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Henry of Lorraine, duke of Mayenne, who a year later would alongside the prince of Condé, Richer’s defender, ally himself to the nobles in revolt against the regent’s government. Ironically, Pelletier dedicated a treatise on the monarchy’s superiority over the aristocracy to a noble who would soon become a dissident. In the Histoire du syndicat Richer described Pelletier as an opportunist. He threw himself into the controversy, he mocked, ‘to show that he merited the stipend he had received from the French clergy for his recent conversion and for Cardinal du Perron’s table’.94 Isaac Casaubon, who did not like the pamphlet of his former coreligionist against the king of England, reminded his correspondents that he was held as a libertine before his conversion.95 He was quoted as saying of Pelletier: ‘Among Protestants he comes out as an atheist, but among Catholics he presents himself as a devot’ (Inter Reformatos atheus, inter Catholicos est zelota).96 In La monarchie de l’Eglise Pelletier accused Richer of playing the Calvinist game by diminishing the pope’s prerogatives. ‘It is a great mistake’, he wrote, ‘to want to establish in the Church any form of government other than the monarchy given the consequences which would ensue if it were to have any other form either aristocratic or popular, such as Calvin judged to be suitable for political government.’97 One detects in Richer, he wrote with indignation, ‘the mire of Lake Geneva’.98 It was to be feared that by praising the aristocracy in the Church his disciples would want to introduce it into the state’s administration ‘like the Lutherans had done’.99 ‘I would simply ask,’ he wrote, ‘how, if one claims to be a friend of royalty, one could prefer the aristocracy to the monarchy’.100 Further proof of Richer’s leaning towards Calvinism was the fact that he had proposed that simple priests have voting rights in the council. This was no longer ‘monarchy or aristocracy but pure democracy’.101 In another passage Pelletier suggested that there was an affinity between Richer and the Huguenot historian Louis Turquet de Mayerne, this ‘new Politique […] who has the name of the king in his mouth and who recognises him as the heart of the kingdom but on con94 Histoire du syndicat, 108–109. See also Richer, Defensio, vol. 1, 4. 95 Isaac Casaubon, Epistolae, insertis ad eadem responsionibus, quotquot hactenus reperiri potuerunt, secundum seriem temporis accurate digestae, Rotterdam, Caspar Fritsch and Michaelis Böhm, 1709, 440, 458. Reference to Thomas Pelletier, La Religion catholique soutenue en tous les points de sa doctrine, contre le livre adressé aux rois, potentats et républiques de la chrestienté par … Jacques I, roy d’Angleterre… [Paris, J. Jannon, 1610]. 96 René Pintard, Le libertinage érudit, 18. 97 [Thomas] Pelletier, La monarchie de l’Eglise contre les erreurs d’un certain livre intitulé De la Puissance ecclésiastique et politique, Paris, F. Huby, 1612, 29. 98 Ibid., 6. 99 Ibid., p 8. 100 Ibid., 70. 101 Ibid., 45.

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dition that the Estates General be the brain’.102 The syndic envisaged nothing less than a strengthening of the Estates General’s power! Whether they dealt with Luther, Calvin, Bèze, Du Plessis-Mornay or Turquet, the references which came across in the work all had the same purpose: to show that the author of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate was a Protestant in disguise, whose system attacked the very foundations of the French monarchy. With the Jesuit Jacques Sirmond’s pamphlet one moves into another stage of the controversy. This work which the Ultramontane Puyol himself described as ‘an empty declamation replete with vulgar insults’,103 was problematic. It brought nothing new to the discussion with its expected denunciation of conciliarist ideas and its string of patristic and canonical quotations. But he adopted a sarcastic tone, making fun of Richer’s modest origins.104 The author was a renowned philologist, a friend of Pierre Pithou’s known for having compared the Gallican point of view on the history of the Church with the Roman one.105 Richer saw him as the ‘most free of the prejudices and bad maxims of the Company’.106 Professor of rhetoric at the College of Clermont, he served as secretary of the Jesuit general Claudio Acquaviva from 1590 to 1608 before returning to Paris where he was appointed rector of the College of Clermont in 1617 and, later, King Louis XIII’s confessor. His Notae stigmaticae in magistrum triginta paginarum appeared in Frankfurt under the pseudonym of Jacques Cosme Fabricius during the autumn of 1612. According to Richer, the book was distributed in all the Jesuit colleges of France,107 which leads one to believe that it had been commissioned. In September 1611, the Jesuit general had also asked Sirmond to help his colleague Fronton Du Duc to refute Duplessis-Mornay’s Mystère d’Iniquité.108 Why did Sirmond turn on Richer so violently in the response to his treatise? The context provides a partial answer. It is known that the Jesuit academic had participated in the trial for the registration of the Jesuits in 1611 and, as a result, had witnessed the syndic’s frontal attack of Christophe Balthazar, the Jesuit provincial.109 Oblivious of his links with the circle of erudite Gallicans, he may 102 Ibid., 8. See Louis Turquet de Mayenne, La monarchie aristodémocratique ou le gouvernement composé et meslé des trois formes de legitimes Republiques (Paris, Jean le Bouc, 1611). 103 Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 1, 318. 104 [Jacques Sirmond], Notae stigmaticae in magistrum triginta paginarum, Frankfurt, Jacob Fischer, 1612, 7. 105 Jean-Baptiste Ladvocat, Dictionnaire historique-portatif, vol. 2, Paris, Le Clerc, 1760, 754; Kristine Louise Haugen, ‘A French Jesuit’s Lectures on Vergil, 1582–1583: Jacques Sirmond between Literature, History and Myth’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 30, 1999, 967–985; Marc Fumaroli, L’âge de l’éloquence. Rhétorique et «res literaria» de la Renaissance au seuil de l’époque classique, 3rd edition, Geneva, Droz, 2002, 252–253. 106 Baillet, La vie d’Edmond Richer, 156. 107 Richer Defensio, book 1, chapter 1, vol. 1, 4. 108 De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 379. 109 Richer, Defensio, book 1, chapter 1, vol, 1, 4.

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have sought revenge. Another element is the fact, attested by Richer, that the book was co-authored by a Parliamentary advocate, Jacques Gauthier.110 The possibility exists that the abusive passages were written by this co-author. Jean Boucher was no less opposed to Richer than Sirmond in his Advis sur l’appel interiecté par Me Edmond Richer, docteur et cy-devant syndic de la Faculté de Théologie à Paris, de la censure de son livre intitulé De ecclesiastica et politique potestate, but his harshness was not surprising. He published this work in November 1612 under the pseudonym of Paul de Gimont sieur d’Esclavolles.111 As a graduate, as we have seen, Richer had been won over by the apology that this doctor of the Sorbonne, curé of Saint-Benoit and spokesman for the Leaguers, had made for the regicide but he had made honourable amends in the following decade. As for Boucher, he fled to Tournai in the Spanish Netherlands where he obtained a position as canon. Between 1612 and 1614, he published no less than five works against the Gallicans and the Protestants including the Advis sur l’appel and in 1624, in one of his last books, he defended the idea of a crusade against Islam.112 Boucher taunted Richer for appealing comme d’abus to Parliament instead of defending his treatise before his peers. He was like the students who punched their adversaires in the face after failing to convince them of the soundness of their opinion: Mr Richer reminds me of the time when I was a student in Paris. When we went to debate in the other colleges, we sometimes came across well prepared students who debated subtly and counter-argued soundly. But at other times we encountered cheeky fellows of the College Plessis or idiots of the College Cardinal Le Moine who, because they could neither argue nor respond, resorted to fisticuffs. In a similar way, as Richer was unable to logically defend the doctrine of his book or to reply to those who had pointed out his errors, he decided to institute legal proceedings and, instead of confronting his colleagues and replying to those who had opposed him with doctrinal arguments, he attacked his masters, the very same ones who had justly condemned him by reason of their authority.113

110 Histoire du syndicat, 108; Richer, Defensio, vol. 1, 4. 111 [Jean Boucher], Advis sur l’appel interiecté par Me Edmond Richer, docteur et cy-devant syndic de la Faculté de Théologie à Paris, de la censure de son livre intitulé De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, Paris, F. Théophile, 1612. 112 On Jean Boucher, see Paul Scott Feira, Jean Boucher and the French Catholic League of 1584– 94, Honours thesis, Harvard University, 1989; Michel Defaye, Jean Boucher (1549–1646), théologien de la Ligue parisienne, chantre de la Croisade, Cadillac, Editions Saint-Remy, 2012. In the Couronne mystique, ou Armes de piété contre toute sorte d’impiété, hérésie, athéisme, schisme, magie et mahométisme (Tournai, Adrien Quinqué, 1624) Boucher levelled a final tirade against Richer. See Histoire du syndicat, 371–376. 113 Advis, 15.

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Richer claimed to defend the authority of kings, wrote Boucher, but it was a ‘false pretence’ so that he could sustain his errors on the Church and the pope.114 If, as the syndic claimed, the De Ecclesiastica et politica potestate repeated the doctrine of the School of Paris, why ‘was he apprehensive that the doctors of the Sorbonne would gather together to condemn him?’ On this point, Boucher was well informed, but he was obliged to add that ‘if it had been convened to examine [Richer’s treatise]’, the Faculty of Theology of Paris would have condemned it.115 In effect, the assembly of theologians never met to condemn Richer. They were content to dismiss him from his position as syndic on the express order of the Court. This point undermined Boucher’s case which, in the final count, was based on an argument of authority. The proof of Richer’s heterodoxy, according to him, lay in the condemnation of his doctrine by the bishops and in the ban imposed by the Court on publishing on the power of the Church and the pope. Along similar lines, the former Leaguer suggested that Richer had published, as an annex to his treatise, the condemnation of Duplessis-Mornay’s Mystère d’iniquité in order ‘to divert the opinion of those who correctly believed there was some sympathy between them’.116 In 1613 the tempo of the attacks against Richer’s doctrine slackened off. The only author who took the trouble to refute the former syndic was Théophrase Bouju de Beaulieu who, in May, published Deux Advis (Two Advices) against Richer’s treatise on ecclesiastical and political power and an anonymous work that can be attributed to Simon Vigor, a disciple of the Gallican theologian. Little is known about the life of Bouju de Beaulieu except that he was of the ‘ecclesiastical profession’ and wore its habit117 and that he was ‘counsellor and ordinary chaplain to the king’ as the title page of his work indicated. His main work was the Corps de toute la philosophie which appeared in Paris in 1614. He was also known to have plagiarised Cardinal du Perron, ten years earlier, in his Méthode pour convaincre par la Sainte Escriture, tous schismatiques et hérétiques.118 In the Avis au lecteur Bouju de Beaulieu claimed that, in February 1612, he had received from Charles de Bourbon, count of Soissons and head of the royal household, the instruction to write a report on Richer’s treatise. This was before the publication of Duval’s book. Later, at the suggestion of a friend of his who was 114 115 116 117

Ibid., 18. Ibid., 26. Ibid., 52. Pierre Du Moulin, Cartel de deffy du sieur de Bouju, surnommé de Beau-lieu, envoyé au Sieur du Moulin, avec les responses et repliques de part et d’autre, sur le point de la Cène et des marques de la vraie Eglise, Geneva, Pierre Aubert, 1625, 15. It is questionnable whether he was a Dominican as François-Marie Perennès claimed in Dictionnaire de bibliographie catholique, vol. 1, Paris, Jacques-Paul Migne, 1858, col. 937. 118 Paris, Marc Orry, 1604. See Féret, Le Cardinal du Perron, 292.

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a doctor, Richer came to see him at Hôtel de Soissons. He declared that he accepted that the pope was the essential head of the visible church and promised not to write anything further. But after Richer’s deposition, with the count of Soissons having died in the meantime, an anonymous book defending the ideas of the former syndic appeared. Bouju then thought that it was timely to publish the report which he had written for the count of Soissons as well as a critique of the anonymous work.119 Bouju de Beaulieu approached the examination of Richer’s doctrine as a philosopher. He reproached him for distorting Aristotle’s thoughts by calling the Church a monarchical constitution (politia monarchica) when, for the Stagirite, the term police designated a form of government. He was confusing form and function. Whatever its form of government, the Church remained a mystical body. The distinction which Richer introduced between state and form was meaningless. His intention, in truth, was to make an ‘absolute sovereignty’120 of an aristocratic regime. He had removed all substance from monarchical authority in the Church by attributing the power of jurisdiction to the council and by giving nothing but ministerial power to the pope and the bishops. Bouju found it ‘appalling’ that the responsibility of making laws for the implementation of the canons lay with a political prince.121 If a regime were monarchical, it could only reside in the person of the pope. Establishing a sovereign aristocracy was against the Catholic faith. Richer was proposing nothing but a ‘shadow monarchy.’122 Bouju de Beaulieu’s second ‘Advis’ was directed against the book of Simon Vigor, the king’s counsellor in the Grand Conseil, one of the few people who supported Richer publicly after his dismissal from the post of syndic.123 This long indigestible treatise consisting of two hundred and forty pages was offered as a commentary on the declaration from the Council of Basel to Pope Eugène IV affirming, with reference to the Council of Constance, the superiority of the council over the pope. The works of Duval, Durand and Pelletier were refuted and the accuracy of Richer’s ideas, who was specifically mentioned, defended. Pub-

119 Théophrase Bouju de Beaulieu, Deux Advis, l’un sur le livre de M. Edmond Richer, … intitulé: De la Puissance ecclésiastique et politique; l’autre sur un livre dont l’autheur ne se nomme point, qui est intitulé Commentaire sur l’auctorité de quelque concile général que ce soit sur le pape. De la response synodale donnée à Basle, etc., Paris, Jean Orry, 1613, [iv–v]. 120 Ibid., 4. 121 Ibid., 26. 122 Ibid., 28. 123 Frédéric Gabriel, ‘Une réponse aux artifices de parole: François Desmaret sur les pas de Simon Vigor’, in ‘Stratégies de l’équivoque’, Cahiers du Centre de recherches historiques, 33, 2004, 175.

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lished anonymously, the treatise appeared in Cologne to escape royal censure124. Du Perron declared it to be ‘inept, & wicked, badly written, full of ignorance and lies’.125 At this point we will not go into the details of the controversy which followed the publication of Vigor’s treatise. Suffice to say that it lasted until 1622. Four defenders of pontifical supremacy were involved: Bouju de Beaulieu, Duval, the Jesuit Louis Richeome, whom Vigor had seen fit to challenge after he had refuted the plea of the king’s advocate Louis Servin,126 and a certain Jean Le Fau, penitentiary of the Evreux church, whose work is only known through a mention in Richer’s Histoire du syndicat.127 Duval’s reply to Bouju de Beaulieu, the Disputatio de suprema Romani Pontifici in Ecclesiam potestate caused him, as we have already suggested, some problems in Rome.128 Vigor published three treatises in 1613, 1615 and 1621 respectively. The last two were published in Troyes,129 probably the sign of a link with the people in this town who had procured an edition of Richer’s De ecclesiastica et politica potestate in 1612. Bouju de Beaulieu, for his part, published two works: the Deux Advis in 1613 and a Deffence pour la hierarchie de l’Eglise in 1620. The last contemporary refutation of Richer’s De ecclesiastica et politica potestate was the book of Joachim Forgemont, the man who went from door to door with the nuncio’s auditor, Alessandro Scappi, to persuade his colleagues of the Faculty of Theology to condemn Richer. We will recall that this caused Parliament to reprimand him in February 1612. Apart from a few anti-Protestant writings, against the minister Pierre Du Moulin in particular, his only important work was the Lettre envoyée à M. Emond Richer de la Faculté de Théologie de Paris, & n’aguere Syndic d’icelle, par un sien Amy, qui charitablement lui monstre les erreurs de son livre, De Ecclesiastica & Polytica potestate, & le convie de les 124 [Simon Vigor], Ex responsione synodali data Basiliae oratoribu D. Eugenii IV. In congregatione generali III. non. septembr. M. CD XXXII., de auctoritate cujuslibet concilii generalis supra et quoslibet fideles, pars praecipua, et in eam commentarius, Cologne, Theophilus, 1613. 125 [Isaac Vossius, ed.], Perroniana, 217. 126 Louis Richeome, Advis et notes sur quelques plaidoyez de Maistre Louys Servin, Advocat du Roy, Caen, Georges de la Marinière, 1615. 127 Histoire du syndicat, 331. The work in question was entitled Tractatus de summi Pontificis auctoritate adversus apologeticas Simonis Vigorii objections and appears to have been published in Evreux in 1622. 128 André Duval, Disputatio de suprema Romani Pontificis in Ecclesiam potestate, Paris, Dionysius Langlaeus, 1614. See De Franceschi, ‘Gallicanisme, antirichérisme et reconnaissance de la romanité ecclésiale’, 104–114. 129 The Apologia Simonis Vigorii, … de suprema Ecclesiae auctoritate, adversus M Andream Duval, doctorem et professorem theologiae was published by Pierre Chevillot in 1615 and De l’Estat et gouvernement de l’Eglise avec la préface contenant une sommaire response au livre de Me Théophraste Bouju, dict Beaulieu, by Pierre Sourdet in 1621.

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effacer, which he published under the pseudonym of Philothée. The nuncio mentioned the work in a dispatch of 12 March 1614.130 Why Forgemont wrote a book against the former syndic at this precise moment is not clear. It was perhaps a response to an upsurge of Gallicanism in parliamentary circles or even in the Faculty of Theology, a year and a half later. Forgemont presented himself as a friend of Richer who wanted to bring him back to his senses. Firstly, he went over the events of 1612, then he refuted the ideas contained in the treatise. His work contained nothing that his predecessors had not already said. For him as well, the distinction between state and government did not make sense for if a state were aristocratic then it followed that the government was it too. Against Richer who denied the sovereignty of the pope and invested power in the council, he tried to prove, with the backing of the Church Fathers and the councils, that the Church was indeed monarchical. According to him, the former syndic had sided with the Lutherans and the Calvinists in order to fight against the pope’s authority. The most original part of Forgemont’s work was where he attempted to demonstrate the heretical nature of Richer’s doctrine, a judgement which the bishops gathered in Sens in March 1612 had hesitated to pronounce formally. He set out eleven ‘Catholic propositions well proven to be de fide’ concerning the pope, the council and the Church which Richer had questionned in his treatise.131 Added to these were the former syndic’s arrogance, his aversion for the pope, his spirit of discord and his obduracy, four evident ‘marks’ of heresy.132 Forgemont suggested three ‘remedies’ to the former syndic: to contemplate the abomination of heresy, to show humility and to invoke the Holy Spirit.133 For Forgemont the case was clear: Richer was a heretic! In La Descouverte des fausses consequences des Ministres de la Religion Pretenduë Réformée, a thousand-page long refutation of the Protestant articles of faith, he did not hesitate to name the former syndic, along with Calvin, Beza and Du Moulin, as the author of propositions contrary to the Catholic faith.134 Richer’s doctrine on the government of the Church and the ministry of the pope reinforced, according to him, Protestant heresy.135 130 Ubaldini to Borghese, Paris, 14 March 1612, quoted in De Franceschi, La crise théologicopolitique, 469–470. 131 [Joachim Forgemont], Lettre envoyée à M. Emond Richer … par un sien Amy qui charitablement lui monstre les erreurs de son livre De Ecclesiastica et Polytica potestate et le convie de les effacer, s.l., 1614, 74–81. 132 Ibid., 82–89. 133 Ibid., 89–96. 134 Joachim Forgemont, La Descouverte des fausses consequences des Ministres de la Religion Pretenduë Réformée, Paris, Michel Nivelle, 1619, 85, 103, 131–132, 141. 135 Richer, Defensio, book V, chapter XI, vol. 2, 2nd pagination, 25. See Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 1., 317.

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The seven refutations of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate had one thing in common: all were founded on the idea that, if a social group was to function, it was to have a leader with unlimited power. In reading these texts, one is struck by the pervasiveness of the monarchical principle. Richer’s adversaries all accused him of bringing disorder and confusion into the state by proposing an aristocratic government for the Church. In their eyes, the two were inseparable. It was impossible to have the aristocracy on one level and the monarchy on another. As a result, Richer was seditious. Unfortunately for Richer, his enemies succeeded in persuading the regent of the soundness of their analysis. It was through pressure from the Court that the syndic was forbidden to publish and that he was relieved of his functions. Many of Richer’s critics, starting with Cardinal du Perron, held positions in the Court or, at very least, had sponsors there. Everything had been played out within a tight circle of courtisans. Only two theologians did not fit this description: Duval and Boucher. For them, Richer’s main error was that he had falsely represented the doctrine of the School of Paris. They were not entirely wrong. Gerson, we will return to this, linked, instead of opposing as Richer had done, the supremacy of the pope and that of the council. But by excessively stressing the monarchical nature of the government of the Church, Duval and his colleagues moved even further away from the tradition of the Sorbonne than the former syndic had done.

Chapter 6. Forced retirement

The Oratory on the defensive Let us return to the story where we left off. On 1 September 1612, the Faculty of Theology dismissed Richer from his post as syndic. For him, this represented a defeat but he would not declare himself beaten. For the remaining twenty years of his life, he continued with his work as a publicist. ‘Behind closed doors in his college and his study’, as Louis Ellies Du Pin put it,1 he devoted most of his time to writing without, however, publishing much because of the interdictions. His most important works would only appear after his death but some of them remain in manuscript form, up to this day. When he was dismissed, rumour had it that some people wanted him discharged from his position of grand master of the Cardinal Lemoine College2 but, in the end, he retained it, which meant that he did not have to worry about earning a living. In 1627, he was still involved in the administrative affairs of the college because he published its statutes together with annotations.3 Richer’s being dismissed, the doctors supporting his ideas remained unyielding, all the more so since, in the autumn of 1612, the publication of a new book in favour of the temporal power of the pope, the Controversia anglicana of the Dutch Jesuit Martin van der Beeck or Becanus, rekindled the dispute ‘I was told in confidence’, wrote the nuncio, ‘that the Richerists and the Politiques want to seize the opportunity to have Bellarmine’s doctrine on the power of the Sovereign Pontiff condemned’.4 To prevent the controversy from becoming uncon1 Louis Ellies Du Pin, Histoire ecclésiastique du dix-septième siècle, vol. 1, 388. See also Histoire du syndicat, 283. 2 Histoire du syndicat, 175. 3 Statuta Collegii cardinalitii, cum aliquot senatus-consultis: pro eorumdem statutorum interpretation factis, quaequidem magister Edmundus Richer, s.l., 1627. See Féret, La Faculté de Théologie de Paris. Époque moderne, vol. 4, 18. 4 Ubaldini to Borghese, 29 January 1613, quoted in Fouqueray, Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus en France, vol. 3, 304. See Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy, 207

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trollable, the regent refused the Faculty of Theology permission to discuss the work whilst in Rome the contentious treatise was listed into the Index donec corrigatur. This did not prevent Richer’s friends from publishing a Recueil de ce qui s’est faict en Sorbonne et ailleurs contre un livre de Becanus iesuite, which contained the deliberations of the Sorbonne concerning the ban on examining Becanus’ book, the censure of Pope Paul V, a letter to the general of the Jesuits as well as a refutation of Richer’s De ecclesiastica et politica potestate by George Froger in which this author defended Becanus in a manner which was very embarrassing for the parti dévot.5 There is no proof that the Recueil de ce qui s’est faict en Sorbonne was the work of the former syndic. All that can be said, on the basis of typographic material, is that it was printed by the same publishing house as the Recueil de plusieurs actes remarquables pour l’histoire de ce temps, which dealt with Richer’s dismissal.6 The Gallican theologian’s last battle before, out of frustration, he stopped participating in the monthly meetings of the Faculty of Theology of Paris concerned the Oratory. On 17 May 1613, an extraordinary meeting of the Faculty took the decision that the graduates who had become members of the Oratory would be considered to be true doctors.7 The Society of the Oratory of Jesus, a congregation of priests trained to promote priestly ‘perfection’, had been founded in November 1611 by Pierre de Bérulle, a close friend of Cardinal du Perron and the theologian André Duval. Bérulle is above all known as the founder of what Henri Brémond called the French school of spirituality. But, with the backing of Henri de Gondi, the bishop of Paris, he had also become involved in the quarrels of his time.8 Like the Society of Jesus, the Oratory was one of the elements of the policy pursued by the Ultramontane party to control the Faculty of Theology. Richer was not mistaken about this, all the more so that, to his great disappointment, one of his disciples, Claude Bertin, the graduate who had spearheaded the attack against Guibert de Rosenbach at the Dominican Chapter in May 1611, had joined the new congregation9. To counter Richer and his supporters and to introduce into the Faculty of Theology the spirit of Tridentine reform Filesac, the new syndic, and Duval 5 M.G. Frogerii judicium de libro inscripto Controversia anglicana, s.l., 1613. 6 Recueil de plusieurs actes remarquables pour l’histoire de ce temps, s.l., 1613. On this pamphlet see Parsons, The Church in the Republic, 179–180; De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 448; Tutino, Empire of the Souls, 242. 7 Histoire du syndicat, 196. 8 Michel Houssaye, Le Père de Bérulle et l’Oratoire de Jésus 1611–1625, Paris, Plon, 1874; A. Molien, Le Cardinal de Bérulle, 2 vol., Paris, Beauchesne, 1947. See the account given by Richer of the beginnings of the Oratory in BnF, Histoire Academiae Parisiensis, vol. 6, f. 258–259 reproduced in Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 47–48. 9 Houssaye, Le Père de Bérulle, 63–65. See the colourful account of a discussion between Richer and Bertin in Histoire du syndicat, 248–251.

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attempted, by means of a revision of the Faculty of Theology’s statutes, to have members of the Oratory granted the same rights as graduates from the Faculty of Theology and to place in their hands the College of the Sorbonne which would then become the Oratory’s seminary.10 But they did not achieve their goals. On 14 August 1613, encouraged by Richer, the assembly of the Sorbonne decided that members of the Society who placed themselves under the rule of a superior of a religious order would be stripped of their rights.11 Preventing the Faculty of Theology from including the recruits from the Oratory – sixty men, according to Richer12 – was no less difficult, for Richer’s adversaries were in the majority. On the other hand, an increase in the number of religious who graduated as doctors went against the tradition of the Faculty of Theology of Paris, which had always been careful to limit the number and prerogatives of the religious it enrolled. To block the decree of 17 May, Richer sought out the rector of the University, Jean Saulmon, and impressed on him the harm that integrating members of the Oratory would cause to the University.13 But when the rector, who had been convinced by Richer’s arguments, appeared before the Faculty of Theology, the doctors shouted him down. On 15 June at a meeting of the four faculties of the University he demanded an apology. When the matter was brought to it, Parliament sided with Saulmon and, on 1 July, Filesac resigned from his position of syndic. Bérulle then turned to the procedure that had so well served Richer’s adversaries the previous year: he asked the regent for lettres de cachet ordering the Faculty of Theology to allow the doctors from the Oratory to retain their university privileges.14 In no way discouraged, Richer lodged an appeal to Parliament regarding the Faculty of Theology’s decision. However, the whole affair became bogged down and no decision was taken. For their part, the Oratorians became discouraged: not one of them made use of the privileges accorded them by the Faculty of Theology.15 This event provoked so much anger in the parti dévot that the regent’s counsellor, Jean-Louis Nogaret, duke of Epernon, who happened to have Bérulle as his confessor, threatened, along with the nuncio, to send Richer to Rome to be judged by the Inquisition. It took the intervention of the prince de Condé, the former syndic’s best defender at the Court, to prevent this.16 According to a report which Duval, who at the time was not on good terms with Bérulle, later wrote and 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 2. 4–5. Ibid., vol. 2, 27. Histoire du syndicat, 205. Histoire du syndicat, 213; Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 1, 33; Houssaye, Le Père de Bérulle, 73. Histoire du syndicat, 224–225; Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 1, 37. Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 1, 40. Histoire du Syndicat, 253–254; Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 43.

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sent to Richer, the duke of Epernon had thought of arresting Richer and locking him up in the chateau of Loches,17 but this allegation is impossible to verify.18 The episode, reported by the Gallican advocate Claude-Barthélémy Morisot after Richer’s death, of the latter’s arrest by a group of archers and his incarceration in the prison of Saint-Victor19 appears to have been invented for it does not appear in the Histoire du syndicat which is usually prolific on this sort of detail. In November 1613, Richer’s enemies sent an emissary to the Cardinal Lemoine College to tell him that the prince of Condé no longer supported him and that there was, once again, talk of sending him to Rome if he did not withdraw his former statements.20 A rumour did the rounds according to which the abbot of Saint-Victor’s men were prepared to kill him.21 The former syndic believed in these threats. Doubtless in an attempt to calm things, he decided not to attend the Faculty of Theology’s meetings any more. On the 16of the same month, he wrote his will.22

The Article of the Third Estate A year later, Richer became involved, unwittingly, in the controversy sparked by the article which the Third Estate submitted to the Estates General which convened in October 1614 shortly after the declaration of King Louis XIII’s majority, in a context darkened by the rebellion of princes. Presented by the city of Paris, this text, which was strongly Gallican in tone, was part of a document adopted by 17 Histoire du Syndicat, 254. See also Morisot’s letter, 1633 in Richard, Le Véritable Père Josef, capucin, 280. 18 Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 45 19 Claude-Barthélémy Morisot, Epistolarum centuria secunda, Dijon, Philibert Chavance, 1656, 16–17. 20 Histoire du Syndicat, 257. There is no proof that the prince of Condé effectively withdrew his support to Richer. According to the Remonstrance aux mal-contens, an anonymous pamphlet written shortly before the Estates General of 1614, the prince regretted, in a letter to Marie de’ Medici, the divisions between the French Church and the Sorbonne, a comment which the author of the pamphlet interpreted as a manifestation of support for Richer, whom he described as an ‘apocryphal doctor, who prepares a deplorable schism’ (ibid., 17). On this pamphlet see ‘La polémique politique en France de 1612 à 1615’, in R. Chartier et D. Richet (ed.), Représentation et vouloir politique. Autour des États Généraux de 1614, Paris, 1982, 173. 21 Ibid., 258. The hostility between Richer and François de Harlay, the abbot of Saint-Victor, had been going on for some time. Several references are made to it in the Histoire du Syndicat. According to the Mémorial de Jean de Thoulouse, prieur-vicaire de Saint-Victor de Paris (ed. Jean-Baptiste Capit, Turnhout, Brepols, 2008, 187–188) after have shown ‘affection’ for the Victorins over a long period of time, once he became syndic, Richer testified against them in a legal battle opposing them to the Benedictines in 1608 and, at the time, he received the support of the Holy See. I thank Thierry Amalou for drawing my attention to this document. 22 Baillet, Vie d’Edmond Richer, 246.

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the entire Third Estate with the exception of the province of Aquitaine. It was drafted by a counsellor in Parliament, Claude le Prêtre. It is of great interest to historians because it constitutes one of the first public expressions of the notion of monarchy of divine right in France:23 That in order to halt the course of the pernicious doctrine which, some years ago, was introduced by seditious minds against kings and sovereign powers established by God, with the aim of disconcerting and subverting them, the king is urged to have the assembly of his estates adopt a fundamental law throughout the kingdom which will be inviolable and known to all, by which he is recognised as sovereign in his state, holding his crown from God alone, and stating that there is no power on earth, whether spiritual or temporal, with any rights over his kingdom to remove the crown from the persons of our kings, nor which is able to dispense the king’s subjects, by any means or pretext, of the loyalty and obedience which they owe him.24

To the supporters of pontifical supremacy this article was inacceptable because it categorically refused the pope any right to intervene, even indirectly, in the affairs of state whilst giving the courts of justice unlimited powers in religious matters. It clearly was an attack on Bellarmine. King James I of England’s oath of allegiance, so disparaged by the Ultramontanes, demanded nothing less of English Catholics. Cardinal du Perron immediately stood up. At the beginning of January 1615 he addressed the Third Estate and the aristocracy in turn, in a long, impassioned and erudite Harangue urging them to abandon a document which, according to him, was so opposed to the tradition of the kingdom and the interests of the Church.25 It was at this point that Richer became involved. Without naming him but speaking in a manner which fooled no one, du Perron publically accused the former syndic of having drafted the controversial text. He began by insinuating that the article was written by an unknown author:

23 Mousnier, L’assassinat d’Henri IV, 260–263; Pierre Blet, ‘L’article du Tiers aux états généraux de 1614’, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, 2, 1955, 81–106; Id, Le clergé de France et la monarchie. Étude sur les Assemblées Générales du clergé de France 1615 to 1666, Rome, Gregorian University, 1958, vol. 1, 1–133; Eric Nelson, ‘Defining the Fundamental Laws of France: The Proposed First Article of the Third Estate to the French Estates General of 1614’, English Historical Review, 115, 2000, 1216–1230; Parsons, The Church in the Republic, 259– 262; De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 486–511. 24 ‘Cahiers de la ville et faubourgs de Paris pour estre présenté aux Etats Generaux de ce royaume que le Roy a voulu estre assemblez en la ville de Paris en la présente année mil six cents quatorze’, in Georges Picot and Paul Guérin (ed.), Documents relatifs aux États-Généraux de 1614, [Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, ca 1920], 51. 25 Harangue du cardinal Du Perron sur l’article du Serment prononcé devant le Tiers aux EtatsGénéraux de 1614, new ed., Paris, Librairie classique, 1826. See De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 503–504.

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I know that you are not the original authors of this article. I know that it was skilfully inserted amongst your cahiers. For a long time we have been threatened with this bone of contention. It is they who are already split from us who have thought that, by this means, they could sow seeds of discord amongst us and to this end have used people who call themselves Catholics, or even priests, so as to exploit the credulity and ingenuity of others under the pretence of serving the king.26

He then designated as author of the Article of the Third Estate the recent editor of Gerson, who was none other than Richer: So long as a writer criticises the pope and puts, as much as he likes, the salvation of the kings beneath the feet of the people, he is embraced, idolised and adored. Of this, there is no better proof than Gerson’s edition the very authors of the article placed before us today have been re-editing for the past eight years with inscriptions, images and praises because they believe it was written against the pope.27

In fact, Richer was not involved in the drafting of the Article of the Third Estate. Admittedly, he participated in the Estates General as the representative of the University of Paris. In the opening procession of the 26 October, he walked alongside three other doctors before the Third Estate, the clergy having refused to admit the university to its ranks.28 But if, as he wrote two years later in De potestate ecclesiae in rebus temporalibus, he totally subscribed to the Article of the Third Estate, he certainly was not its author, despite what du Perron said. It had been drafted by Claude Le Prestre whom he knew well and who confided in him particularly concerning the Jesuits’ plans.29 This counsellor to the Parliament of Paris had been assisted, according to other sources, by Charles de Lys, the advocate general at the Cour des Aides and doubtless also by the advocate Antoine Arnauld.30 In the Histoire du syndicat Richer made it clear that he had in no way been involved in drafting the article of the Third Estate.31

26 Ibid., 84–85. 27 Ibid., 90. 28 Archives du Ministère de l’Instruction publique, Register XXVI, 26, quoted in Jourdain, Histoire de l’Université de Paris, 80. 29 Edmond Richer, De potestate ecclesia in rebus temporalibus libri IV. Nunquam anthehac editi, Cologne, Bernadus Hestingh, 1691, 5–6. Le Prestre told Richer that he had received the visit of the Jesuit Georges Alexandre in October 1614 on his return from a meeting of the Île de France Third Estate assembly where he had presented the project of his declaration. He had wondered how Georges had been so rapidly informed. 30 Nelson, ‘Defining the Fundamental Laws of France’, 1220–1221; Parsons, The Church in the Republic, 259. 31 Histoire du Syndicat, 272. Puyol sided with Richer on this point, but added that the Article’s authors were his friends and that the nuncio was troubled by this (Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 85, 108). Préclin believed that the councillor Le Prestre was known as a friend of Richer’s but he admitted that he had no proof of this (‘Edmond Richer’ 264).

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It was somewhat ironical to find du Perron who three years earlier had accused Richer of placing the monarchy in a dangerous position by praising the aristocratic regime, indicting him now for giving – allegedly, for he was not the author of the Article – unlimited powers to the king. In his Harangue to the Third Estate he introduced a new slant to the charge which he levelled against the former syndic: through his ideas he was placing the ‘salvation of kings’ in jeopardy. In other words, his mistake was not protecting the kings against themselves by reminding them that their power was restricted. Only popes had the right to impose this restriction. As this reasoning did not seem sufficiently convincing, he added an ad hominem argument. To demonstrate that the former syndic had been and remained seditious, he once again quoted, this time in front of a large audience, the passage from the young Richer’s thesis on the merits of the regicide.32 In truth, the Gallican theologian was not, either at that time or at any other, a champion of the monarchy of divine right. The De Dominis affair, an episode to which we will soon return, gave Richer the opportunity to clarify his position on this point. He no doubt intended to protect royal power against the ascendancy of the pope. In the De potestate ecclesiae in rebus temporalibus, a book he started to write in 1617,33 he gave a long reply to du Perron’s declarations. By referring to the history of the Church from Hincmar of Reims and Saint Louis up until the rulings of Parliament and decisions of the Faculty of Theology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, he tried to prove that the article of the Third Estate conformed to the tradition of the Church. According to him, all powers be they monarchical, aristocratic or democratic where created by God when he created man. The coercive power of kings and princes was immutable and invariable. Clerics and lay people were subject to them. No one had the right to disturb public peace and tranquillity on the pretence that they were defending religion or suppressing tyranny. The duty to obey civil power was founded in divine and natural law and in the practice of the early Church. The pope had no right at all to force the abdication of kings.34 However, rejecting the indirect power of popes over kings and saying that kings hold their power from God alone are not the same thing. Like Thomas Aquinas and Almain before him, Richer affirmed the contractual origin of political power. ‘All principalities’, he had declared in the De ecclesiastica et politica

32 Harangue du cardinal Du Perron, 92–93. 33 Published in Cologne in 1691 (see above, footnote 560), the book only included four sections while the manuscrit version has six. See BnF, ms lat. 16060 and 16061, quoted in Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 427. 34 Richer, De potestate ecclesiae in rebus temporalibus, 147–148.

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potestate, ‘in respect of coactive force depend upon the agreement of men.’35 When the second part of Marcantonio De Dominis’ De Republica ecclestiastica appeared in 1620, he added to his treatise which, at that date was still in manuscript form, a chapter denouncing in unambiguous terms the author’s opinions concerning the divine right of kings.36 He refused to sanction any intervention of the pope in the affairs of the kingdom but he did not, for that matter, believe that the king could set the law without referring to any other than himself.37

The De Dominis affair The upheaval provoked, at the end of 1616, by the conversion to Protestantism of Marco Antonio de Dominis, the archbishop of Spalato, and, at the same time, the arrival in Paris of a new nuncio, Guido Bentivoglio, created a new situation for Richer. Of Croatian origin, the archbishop had sided with Venice, to which he owed his nomination, in the affair of the Interdict and had become very critical of Roman power. In contact with representatives of the Church of England for several months, he settled in Venice in 1615 before undertaking a journey to London where he arrived in December 1616.38 While on the way, he published an account of his conversion, the Causae profectionis, which was immediately translated into several languages. In Paris, where copies of the pamphlet began to circulate in January 1617,39 the catholiques 35 Richer, De la puissance ecclesiastique et politique, Paris, [Heureux Blancvillain], 1612, 12–13 (art. 2). 36 See Richer, De potestate ecclesiae in rebus temporalibus libri IV, 148: ‘Post tres annos quibus hoc opus de indirecta potestate Ecclesiae in res temporales absolveram, Antonius de Dominis Spalatensis Episcopus secundum volumen De Republica Ecclesiastica vulgavit.’ Inserted after the epilogue of the second section, this passage was obviously an ulterior addition. The second volume of De Dominis’ treatise appeared in Rome in 1620. This shows that the first draft of Richer’s De potestate ecclesiae in rebus temporalibus was completed in 1617, the year of the publication of the first volume of the De Republica Ecclesiastica, which Richer said he personally received from the author (Histoire du syndicat, 276). Puyol, Edmond Richer, t. 2, 427, mentions another edition (or émission?) of the book of which we did not find any copy: Emundi Richerii doctoris Parisiensis, de Potestate Ecclesiae in rebus temporalibus et defensio articuli quem tertius ordo comitiorum Regni Franciae pro lege fundamentali ejusdem Regni defigi postulavi annis 1614 et 1615, Cologne, 1692, in–4°. 37 Richer, De potestate ecclesiae in rebus temporalibus libri IV, 148–152. 38 An important bibliography on Marco Antonio De Dominis exists in Croatian, Italian, English and French. See in particular Noel Malcolm, De Dominis (1560–1624): Venetian, Anglican, Ecumenist and Relapsed Heretic, London, Strickland and Scott, 1984; W.B. Patterson, King James IV and I and the Reunion of Christendom, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, 220–259; Ellenora Belligni, Auctoritas e potestas. Marc’Antonio De dominis fra l’Inquistione e Giacomo I, Milan, 1963; De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 562–576. 39 De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 560.

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zélés began to ask one another anxiously if this defection, which had overjoyed the Huguenots, would not also strengthen the Gallican party. It was soon learnt that De Dominis had, in his luggage, a large treatise condemning papal power. Entitled De Republica ecclesiastica contra primatum papae, it had been published by Johannes Billius, a London publisher, in September.40 In Rome, Brussels, Cologne and Paris representatives of the Holy See prepared a counter attack. If he pursued the same objectives as his predecessor, Roberto Ubaldini, who had recently been promoted to cardinal, the new nuncio employed other methods. Instead of making a frontal attack against the Gallicans he attempted to mollify them. He was less imperious in his relations with the Court. His collaborators were more discreet. In the Histoire du syndicat Richer noted the change in approach.41 When at the end of July, he received the visit of Georges Froger, an emissary of André Duval who had himself been mandated by the nuncio, the former syndic had, in all likelihood, read the renegade bishop’s Causae profectionis and knew that his own reaction was being keenly anticipated. The perception of a similarity with the ideas of De Dominis which were more radical than his own, could cause him much harm. So he approached the meeting with caution. The two camps, it might be said, had symmetrical fears. The catholiques zélés feared that the Gallicans would make the most of the De Dominis affair to revive anti-papal propaganda. Richer and his friends feared being further marginalised by being compared with a man who was seen as a heretic. Froger restricted himself to asking Richer to explain his book on ecclesiastical and political power ‘so as to solve the divisions within the School of the Sorbonne’.42 The former syndic replied that he was unable to give an answer because he had been forbidden to publish anything concerning the themes dealt with in his treatise. Meanwhile, he had been sent from the Frankfurt fair a copy of the De Republica ecclesiastica, which had begun to circulate in Paris from mid-October. Duval’s entourage asked him for his reaction.43 In his treatise, De Dominis argued in favour of an entirely collegial ecclesiastical government in which popes and bishops would accord one another the same powers and privileges. The role of the pope would be to foster unity whilst at the same time respecting the autonomy of the local churches. He would have no effective authority beyond the borders of the diocese of Rome. The number of sacraments would be reduced to two, the sacramental character of ordination 40 Ibid., 565. The work appeared in three sections: De republica ecclesiastica libri X, London, Johannes Billius, 1617; De republica ecclesiastica pars secunda, London, Johannes Billius, 1620; De republica ecclesiastica pars tertia, Frankfort, Widow Jonas Ross, 1658. 41 Histoire du syndicat, 279. 42 Ibid., 274. 43 Ibid., 276.

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would be denied and the permanence of vows of religion rejected. In support of these ideas, the former archbishop quoted Gerson, Almain, Major and the theologians of the School of Paris, while disputing their opinions whenever he felt they were too advantageous to the Sovereign Pontiff.44 These proposals went considerably further than the Gerson-inspired conciliarism Richer had defended in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. The School of Paris, to which Richer claimed to owe allegiance, had never denied either the primacy of the pope regarding spiritual matters or the reality of the sacrament of order. In reply to de Duval’s friends who had requested his opinion, he stated that if De Dominis had restricted himself to writing ‘against the domination of the Court of Rome in an attempt to bring it back to the rule’, he would perhaps have given him his support but by dealing with questions of dogma he had ‘ruined everything and had opened the doors to further schisms’.45 In certain passages he ‘falsely distorts the doctrine of the School of Paris to serve his own ends’.46 He declared that Jesus Christ had given the power of the keys to each bishop individually with no pre-eminence or primacy whilst, according to the School of Paris, Jesus Christ had given the keys collectively to the entire church so that they could be used by the particular bishops ‘like a king in an executive capacity’.47 At this point started an exercise in ecclesiastical diplomacy that was to lead to mitigated results. On 19 October, Duval and Richer met at the College of Arras. The length of the account the former syndic gave of this encounter in the Histoire du syndicat – nine pages48 – indicates the importance it held for him. De Dominis was hardly mentioned in their conversation. It rather dealt with a reconciliation between two former friends which, initially, Richer believed to be possible but which, subsequently, he realised was impossible. It is difficult to know what transpired exactly because we only have Richer’s inevitably biased account. Duval, he said, mentioned that Richer had received from De Dominis a free copy of his book and added that the Parisian hawkers had begun to sell a new edition of the former syndic’s treatise.49 He said that the nuncio wanted to see him and suggested that he send his ideas on the power of the Church and the superiority of the council over the pope to him in writing. How could Duval make such a suggestion, Richer replied, when his ideas had been condemned five years previously? The theologian answered that at the time he was under pressure and that at present he was still suffering from the intrigues of Jean Filesac who had 44 45 46 47 48 49

De Dominis, De Republica ecclesiastica, 253. 256–257, 619, 621. Histoire du syndicat, 276. Ibid., 277. Ibid., 278. Histoire du syndicat, 279–288. If this re-edition ever existed, no trace of it remains today.

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become head of the party since his appointment as syndic. He encouraged Richer to attend the next meeting of the Faculty of Theology in Paris. The Gallican theologian replied that he did not intend writing anything and that it would be imprudent to go to the Faculty meeting because his enemies, Joachim Forgemont for example, would make use of this opportunity to try and have him condemned. He preferred to continue his retirement, buried in books. The nuncio’s dispatches echoed Duval’s efforts towards Richer. On 25 October, after having charged the Faculty of Theology and the Court to do everything possible to censure De Dominis’ work, Bentivoglio wrote to Cardinal Borghese that he ‘was trying hard to put Richer back on the right path’ and that it seemed that his ideas were more moderate than when he had written the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. He didn’t know whether he would succeed but he would send updates from time to time.50 On 8 November he returned to the same subject: I do not wish to say anything about Richer except that he is the subject of our attention. He is determined not to do anything harmful in the future. We must make as much ground as possible, step by steIn Parliament there are pestilential people with whom Richer communicates far too regularly.51

A month later Bentivoglio made a new assessment: Doctor Duval, a saintly man with an exceptional doctrine […] is fighting to get Richer to budge, if that be possible. At least we have succeeded in one thing and that is that he has withdrawn into himself.52

But Duval was not the only one to converse with Richer. Alternating between flattery and threats, one of the king’s counsellors, François de Montholon, baron de la Guierche, paid him two visits to invite him to attend the Faculty meetings. But in vain: the Gallican refused to become publically involved in the De Dominis affair.53 This, however, made no difference. On 30 October, without Richer being present, at a suggestion of the syndic Nicolas Ysambert, the Faculty appointed five doctors to examine De Dominis’ work.54 Three theologians close to the former syndic made some purely formal comments but did not contest the 50 Bentivoglio to Borghese, Paris, 25 October 1617 in Luigi De Steffani (ed.), La nunziatura de Francia del cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, Lettre a Scipione Borghese, cardinal nipote e segretario di stato de Paolo V, vol. 2, Florence, Felice Le Monnier, 1865, 30. 51 Bentivoglio to Borghese, Paris, 8 November 1617, in De Steffani (ed.), La nunziature in Francia, 65–66. 52 Bentivoglio to Borghese, Paris, 26 December 1617, in De Steffani (ed.), La nunziatura in Francia, 142. 53 Histoire du syndicat, 281–282. 54 Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2, 104.

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validity of the condemnation.55 On 15 December, the Faculty gave its ruling: of forty-seven propositions contained in the Causae profectionis and in the first four volumes of the De Republica ecclesiastica, thirty-three were declared to be heretical and thirteen schismatic. All of them dealt with points of ecclesiology or sacramental theology.56 A sign that the consensus only dealt with the spiritual primacy of the pope is that not one of the propositions which had been censured dealt with the question of the pope’s temporal power. The Gallican party had, indeed, retained supporters within the Faculty. If they were opposed to De Dominis’ extreme propositions concerning ecclesiological matters, they did not, for that matter, support Bellarmine’s ideas on the pope’s indirect power in temporal matters.57 The ruling was published at the beginning of 1618.58 Richer obtained a copy which he inserted between two manuscript pages of his Historia academiae parisiensis.59 He annotated each of the censured propositions highlighting, for example, that it was false to state that the Roman Church and the Catholic Church were two different things.60 Nothing is known about the drafting of these notes except that they appear as an annexure to the posthumous re-edition of one of his works, after a reprint of the text of censure.61 Puyol, who expressed the opinion that Richer’s notes were published in 1618, certainly made a mistake for at that time Richer had clearly stated his intention to publish nothing.62

55 Bentivoglio to Borghese, Paris, 5 December 1617 in De Staffani (ed.), La nunziatura in Francia, 106. See De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 568. 56 Censura Sacrae Facultatis theologiae Parisiensis in quatuor priores libros de Republica Ecclesiastica auctore Marco Antonio de Dominis …, Paris, Rolin Thierry, 1618. Richer included the twenty-four pages of this opuscule in his Historia Academiae Parisiensis, BnF, ms. lat. 9948, vol. 6, 801–812. See also Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 103–109. For a detailed analysis of the censure, see Sylvio Franceschi, ‘Les théologiens face à un antiromanisme extrême’, 19–31. 57 See De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 570. 58 Censura sacrae Facultatis theologiae parisiensis in quotuor priores libres de Republica Ecclesiastica, Paris, Rolin Thierry, 1618. 59 BnF, ms lat. 9948, Historia Academiae Parisiensis, vol. 6. 801–812. 60 Richer, Libellus de Ecclesiastica et Politica Potestate necon ejusdem Libelli … Demonstratio, Cologne, Balthasar ab Egmond, 1701, 7th pagination, 14. Richer made a point of distancing e himself from the Anglicans who, since the reign of Mary Tudor, were claiming to be Catholics whilst refusing to associate themselves with the Roman Church. On this issue, see Yves Congar, ‘Romanité et catholicité. Histoire de la conjonction changeante de deux dimensions de l’Église’, in Église et papauté. Regards historiques, Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 1994, 47. 61 Richer, Libellus, 14–26. The reprint of the text of censure (ibid., 1–13) contains numerous mistakes. 62 Puyol, Edmond Richer, 428. See Préclin, ’Edmond Richer’, 265, note 6.

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Richer’s false retraction In 1618, Duval once again sent Georges Froger to Richer to persuade him to explain his stance regarding his treatise. He assured him that no harm would be done to him. The former syndic remained adamant.63 To bend his resolution, the diocesan authorities decided, on Christmas Eve 1619, that Antoine Froment, the curé of the Cardinal Lemoine College, would refuse to grant him absolution. All the priests of the college were forbidden to hear his confession. Richer replied that Roland Hébert, one of his friends, would not hesitate to hear his confession.64 The threat, however, was successful for Richer was a pious man. In his autobiography he stated that it was his wont to confess each time he went to mass as well as on saints’ days.65 On 29 December 1618, he wrote to his critics enquiring as to which propositions in his book they wanted explained. On 1 January 1620, Duval sent Richer a document of retraction for him to sign. The former syndic responded by sending another letter in which he stated that he regretted the misunderstandings which his book had caused on account of its brevity and further said that he was prepared to submit to the judgement of the ‘Holy See and the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church’.66 On 9 January, Duval informed Richer that the nuncio and cardinals refused to accept the text of his retraction because it mentioned the doctrine of the School of Paris and because it ‘put the Holy See before the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church, contrary to custom, giving the impression he was doing so to depreciate the judgement of the Holy See and submit it to the judgement of the entire Church’.67 Richer replied that, in all conscience, he was unable to sign the document he had been presented with. He asked Duval which propositions in his work he refused to accept. ‘After having thought hard about it’, Duval mentioned the proposition concerning the imprescriptible nature of elections and the one where the Church ‘only survives in a political and secular state’.68 Having run out of arguments, he raised the threat of a condemnation for heresy. Richer replied that it was more serious being condemned by the Catholic Church, the bride of Jesus Christ, than by the Court of Rome, which ‘had established a temporal monarchy to put to death as heretics many of those who opposed the abuses it authorised’.69 63 Histoire du syndicat, 291. 64 Ibid., 292. A doctor of Sorbonne, Roland Hébert had backed Richer in 1612 when the majority of his colleagues wanted to dismiss him as syndic (Ibid., 66). 65 Ibid., 366. 66 Ibid., 302. 67 Ibid., 304. 68 Ibid., 309. 69 Ibid., 310–311.

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On 15 January, Duval returned to the attack. To bring the matter to a close, Richer sent him a letter saying that he refused to accept the judgment of the bishops and the pope because they could not be judge and jury and that, as a result, he wished to put a stop to the discussion.70 On hearing this, Cardinal de la Rochefoucault, who had succeeded du Perron as grand aumonier of France, exclaimed: ‘Since Richer does not want to obey, he must be put into a sack and thrown into the river!’71 Two years later, in March 1622, Roland Hébert, the penitentiary of the Church of Paris and recently-appointed archbishop of Bourges, a man whom the former syndic considered a friend, attempted to persuade him to be more flexible but he met with a blunt refusal.72 On 30 June 1622, Richer, who had had enough of the whole affair, had a copy of his declaration, not in any way toned down, notarised by a lawyer and had it published in Latin and French.73 He asked that one thousand eight hundred copies of the document be put into circulation.74 For the modern reader this discussion concerning the order of words would seem to be protracted and trivial. But for contemporaries it was crucial, as Cardinal de la Rochefoucault’s anger well indicated. For Richer, the Church came first and the papacy second. For the catholiques zélés, the opposite held true. But there was another dimension to the affair. Since the nuncio Bentivoglio’s arrival in Paris, a battle for the control of Richer’s mind had been raging. It was not enough to condemn his doctrine, he himself had to retract it. His very being was at stake in a wide-ranging and symbolic combat that would continue after his death.

The quarrel between seculars and regulars At the beginning of the 1620s, the Gallican party had regained some strength. The death of Cardinal du Perron in 1618 as well as the problems experienced by the regent with her son Louis XIII, already firmly in power, deprived the Ultramontanes of their main support. Contravening the injunction handed down to him by the Court ten years earlier, Richer published a reply to André Duval’s Elenchus. Entitled Demonstratio libelli de ecclesiastica et politico potestate, the work came off the press of the publisher Heureux Blancvillain in 1622, at the 70 71 72 73

Ibid., 317. Ibid., 318. Ibid., 334. Declaration d’Edmon Richer, touchant l’edition de son Livre de la Puissance Ecclesiastique et Politique, [Paris. 1622]. Text in Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2, 301. 74 Histoire du syndicat, 363.

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author’s own expense.75 Proof of the existence of this work is to hand,76 but it left few traces. It is not mentioned in the Histoire du syndicat and no refutation of the work has ever appeared whilst the writings of Simon Vigor, which covered the same topics, caused great controversy during the same period. In his appeal to King Louis XIII in 1623, Richer stated that he had never written anything in his own defence as Cardinal de Bonsi had enjoined him to do, in the name of the regent, eleven years earlier.77 In the Demonstratio Richer replied, point for point, to Duval’s arguments against the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. The text of the former syndic’s declaration of 30 June 1622 appeared at the beginning. In his response Richer referred not only to the Church Fathers, to Gratien’s Decretum, to Thomas Aquinas, Gerson, Almain and Aristotle but also to Bellarmine and Duval whom he quoted against themselves several times. Without betraying his conciliarist convictions, he expressed himself in a more moderate fashion on the subjects in dispute, particularly the role of the pope in the government of the Church. He conceded that the pontiff had the right to make canonical decisions but stressed that these needed to be sanctioned by the Church if they were to be fully effective.78 At the end of the Demonstratio, Richer included a passage from Cardinal Du Perron’s Réplique à la response du sérénissime roy de la Grande Bretagne, published posthumously in 1620, in which the prelate attempted to bring the Reformed Isaac Casaubon back to the Catholic Church by minimising the differences of opinion on the pope’s authority within the Church and his indirect power over temporal matters.79 Why, Richer wondered, was Du Perron so vehemently opposed to him when the subjects that he had discussed were not articles of faith?80 In the autumn of 1611, Richer had published three documents alongside the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate: Jean Sarrazin’ censure, the anti-Lutheran oath and Philippe Duplessis Mornay’s censure. In the Demonstratio he published 75 Edmond Richer, Demonstratio libelli de ecclesiastica et politica potestate. Ecclesia, est Politia Monarchica, ad finem supernaturalem institute, regimine Aristocratio, quod omnium optimum, & naturae convenientissimum est, temperata à summo animarum pastore Domino nostro Iesu Christo, Paris, [Heureux Blancvillain], 1622, new ed., Paris 1660; Cologne, Bernard Hestingh, 1683. The work is also included in Richer, Libellus de Ecclesiastica et Politica Potestate necnon ejusdem Libelli … Demonstratio, Cologne, Bernard Hetsingh, 1683, 1st pagination, 1–56; 2nd pagination, 1–21. 76 A copy is kept in the BnF. 77 Histoire du syndicat, 358. 78 Richer, Demonstratio, 78–79. 79 Jacques-Davy du Perron, Réplique à la réponse du sérénissime roy de la Grande Bretagne, Paris, Antoine Estienne, 1620, 858. 80 Richer, Demonstratio, 115–116.

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another three documents which, like the first three, had been unearthed in the Sorbonne’s archives:81 a censure of the propositions of the Parisian Franciscan Jean Gorel who, in 1409, had refused to allow parish priests to preach and give the sacraments;82 a censure, pronounced in 1482, of the propositions of the Tournais Cordelier Jean Angeli who had also challenged the rights of the regular clergy;83 the reply of the Faculty of Theology of Paris to King Charles VII regarding the reformation of the Church in 1497.84 Richer’s interest in Gorel’s and Angeli’s censures was far from trivial. It allows one to grasp an important aspect of his ecclesiological work. In the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate the syndic wrote that the hierarchical order consisted of the episcopal and the sacerdotal orders and that the council was made up not only of bishops but also of priests in charge of souls.85 This constituted a relatively minor aspect of the work but it was immediately considered as subversive by Richer’s enemies and, later, it gave rise to an accusation of Presbyterianism.86 In the eighteenth century, the anti-Jansenists saw in him the inspirer of the campaigns for the rights of the second order. Yet, this interest in the status of the secular clergy must be put into perspective. When Richer spoke of the priests’ power of jurisdiction, he was only following Gerson. The latter had become involved in Jean Gorel ‘s censure in his capacity as chancellor of the University of Paris87 and he returned to the question of the secular priests’ power of jurisdiction, as Richer pointed out,88 in the treatise on ecclesiastical power he wrote during the Council of Constance. In this work he declared that the hierarchical order in the Church included not only bishops and archbishops, successors of the twelve apostles, but also priests, successors of the seventy disciples. He specified that the prelates of the second order, which was what parish priests were, practiced, by virtue of their status, a power of jurisdiction: they heard confessions, preached the holy doctrine and ministered the

81 Puyol, who states that Gorel’s censure and the Sorbonne’s reply to Charles VII were attached to De ecclesiastica et politica potestate (Edmond Richer, vol. 1, 341–342), confused this work with the Demonstratio. 82 Ibid., 117–121. See Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 1, 2nd pagination, 178–180. 83 Ibid., 130–137. See Duplessis d’Argentré Collectio, vol. 1, 2nd pagination, 304–306. On this matter, see Paul Demeuldre, Frère Jean Angeli. Épisode des conflits entre le clergé séculier et le clergé régulier à Tournai (1482–1483), Brussels, Hayez, 1898. The Faculty of Theology of Paris had also reproached Jean Angeli for having limited to the case of heresy the Church’s power to dismiss the pope. See Martimort, Le gallicanisme de Bossuet, 38. 84 Ibid., 137–143. See Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 1, 2ndpagination 335–336. 85 Richer, De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, articles 2 and 5. 86 Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 1, 269. 87 Catherine Brown, Pastor and Laity in the theology of Jean Gerson, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987, 74–75. 88 Richer, Demonstratio, 122.

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sacraments.89 As Olivier de la Brosse noted, Gerson spoke of the clergy within the context of a discussion on the composition of councils. He gave a voice to all those who had charge of souls. To the laity he gave only a consultative voice. From a corporative perspective, the council owed it to itself to represent all the components of the Church.90 When Richer affirmed the rights of priests, he had no intention of being innovative. He remembered his master Gerson who had defended the secular clergy against the encroachment of the regular clergy. The difference was that, instead of setting his sights on Dominicans and Franciscans, he targeted Jesuits and Oratorians. At the time that the Demonstratio was published, the conflict between seculars and regulars was raging. It resulted in the first meeting between Richer and Cardinal Richelieu taking place. More than ever, priests were complaining of the fact that religious were going from diocese to diocese to preach and administer the sacraments without having requested permission from the local bishop and were inviting the faithful to make confession and take communion in their conventual churches.91 The publication in Antwerp of the fourth and last volume of the Quaestiones regularium et canonicarum of the Portuguese Franciscan Manuel Rodrigues and of a Compendium which popularised its contents,92 unleashed a violent quarrel. The author defended the intangible character of the religious’ immunities and privileges which he declared to be divine and natural and challenged the canonical authority of the bishops. The Faculty of Theology of Paris took cognisance of the matter on 4 January 1622 and declared, on 1 June of the same year, that Rodrigues ‘deserved to be roundly condemned for being pernicious and for disrupting all order in both states’. Four doctors where charged with preparing a decree of censure.93 The unanimity of the Parisian doctors, however, was nothing but a facade since many of them had Gallican sympathies. In a letter written during this period, Jansenius, the future author of the Augustinus, lamented the fact that there was ‘there’ (in France) a ‘very strong faction’ which had started to form when he was in the country and which was attempting to ‘ruin or diminish the 89 90 91 92

Jean Gerson, De potestate ecclesiastica de Gerson, cons. XI, ed. Glorieux, vol. 6, 240–241. Olivier de la Bosse, Le pape et le concile, 133–134. De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 596. Manuel Rodrigues, Quaestiones Regulares et Canonicae: in quibus utriusque iuris, & Privilegiorum regularium, & Apostolicarum Constitutionum, novae et veteres difficultates dispersae & confusae, miro ordine scholastico per quaestiones & articulos elucidantur, vol. 4, Antwerp, Beller, [1622], and Compendium quaestionum regularium … Ad commodiorem usum per aphorismos ordine alphabetico digestem, Antwerp, Beller, 1622. On Manuel Rodrigues, see Nicolaus Antonius Hispalensis, Bibliotheca hispana nova sive Hispanorum scriptorium qui ab anno MD ad MDCLXXXIV floruere notitia, vol. 1, Madrid, Joachim de Ibarra, 1783, 355. 93 Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 134–135.

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authority of the pope’.94 But the decision to exclude priests and religious from Faculty discussions to avoid outbursts gave rise to discontent. Richer, who had not attended the session but who was kept abreast of events by friends, reported that Duval, who had been asked to excuse himself from the meeting because he was the Carmelite superior, had put pressure on the chancellor Brûlart de Sillery through the intermediary of the bishop of Paris, who, at the time, was with Louis XIII at the siege of Montpellier, to prevent the censure of Rodrigues’ book.95 This point is difficult to verify, but the fact is that, at the following Faculty meeting on 1 July, the syndic announced that he had received from the chancellor the order to defer any decision regarding the incriminating work.96 These divisions encouraged Cardinal Richelieu, who had been performing the duties of proviseur of the University of Paris since the preceding year,97 to intervene. Recently appointed cardinal, he was in the ascendancy of his career. His handling of the Rodrigues’ affair demonstrated his skills as a negotiator. Whilst questioning the doctors who were in favour of censuring the Portuguese Franciscan, he realised that the quarrel between regulars and seculars raised the question of the relationship between the civil power and the spiritual power because the former insisted upon the Holy See’s authority in order to justify their privileges. He also listened to the point of view of the bishops, many of whom he met.98 On 26 February 1623, he summoned Richer who was regarded as the brains behind the doctors with Gallican leanings. The Histoire du syndicat does not say much about this meeting other than that the cardinal asked the former syndic to explain himself and he replied that he had been forbidden to defend his ideas in public. He gave him a copy of his declaration of June 1622.99 Richelieu’s suggestions appear to have had an effect on Richer for, when Cardinal de la Rochefoucault, who had made a report to King Louis XIII, met him in the presence of Duval and a few other ecclesiastics a month later, the former syndic declared that he was prepared to withdraw any mention of the School of Paris from his declaration ‘for the promotion of peace’. Here he was making an important concession. But he refused to renounce his book unless false, heretical or schismatic suggestions could be pointed out to him.100

94 Jansenius to Duverger de Hauranne, Louvain, 1 July 1611, quoted in De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 597. 95 Histoire du syndicat, 341. 96 Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2. 134–135. 97 Jourdain, Histoire de l’Université de Paris, 102; Tuilier, Histoire de l’Université de Paris et de la Sorbonne, vol. 1, 499. 98 Histoire du syndicat, 345–346. 99 Ibid., 347–348. 100 Ibid., 349–356.

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Richer then decided to visit the chancellor. On 23 March 1623, he entrusted the members of the Conseil du Roi with a request to the sovereign in which, after recalling the affair, he asked to be judged on the basis of his suggestions instead of being forced to renounce his work. It is not known whether the king received Richer’s letter but, according to the Histoire du syndicat, the secretary of state, Henri-Auguste de Loménie, and several members of the Conseil du Roi indicated that they regarded the request favourably.101

The last writings The conflict which opposed Charles Miron, the bishop of Angers, and his chapter regarding the appel comme d’abus gave Richer a new opportunity to make his voice heard. It was at Angers, it will be remembered, that he began his career as régent at the beginning of the 1580s. The links forged at that time had perhaps been maintained. As for Charles Miron, a reformist prelate known for the steadfastness of his Ultramontane position,102 he was not unknown to the former syndic either. He had participated in the meeting called by Cardinal du Perron in March 1612 to decide on the fate of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate.103 And two years later, serving as a representative of the clergy at the Estates General he vigorously opposed the adoption of the article of Tiers,104 a move commonly, albeit falsely, attributed to Richer. The opposition to Charles Miron was led by Pierre Guarande, an archdeacon and theological canon at the cathedral of Angers. Initially, the conflict concerned a question of ecclesiastical benefices and a change in the liturgy of festive days.105 Accusing the bishop of not having sufficiently consulted his chapter, Guarande appealed comme d’abus to Parliament. Miron reacted by excommunicating the archdeacon because, according to him, the appels comme d’abus lodged in Parliament were ‘invalid, heretical and impious’. In 1624, Jacques Boutreaux d’Estiau, a supporter of the archdeacon, published in his defence an Examen du cayer de l’Evesque d’Angers, pour le grand Archidiacre de l’Eglise d’Angers, concernant

101 Ibid. 356–360. 102 On Charles Miron (1569–16280, bishop of Angers (1587–1615, 1622–1626) and then of Lyon (1626–1628), see François Laplanche, ‘Au temps de la Renaissance et de la Réforme protestante (1500–1650)’ in François Lebrun (ed.), Le diocèse d’Angers, Paris, Beauchesne, 1981, 114–117; Parsons. The Church in the Republic, 212–217. 103 Histoire du syndicat, 89. 104 Blet, Le Clergé de France et la monarchie, vol. 1, 20 and passim. 105 Richer, Traité des appellations comme d’abus, s.l., 1763, 165–169.

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les appellations comme d’abus.106 The following year, the affair was discussed in the Assembly of the Clergy. The bishops, amongst whom Miron was ‘like lost a child’,107 Richer wrote, gave their full support to the bishop of Angers in his battle against the appel comme d’abus. He managed to have the affair brought up for discussion at the Conseil du Roi but the practice of the appel comme d’abus was retained.108 Richer himself had recourse to the appel comme d’abus procedure in the conflict which put him at loggerheads with the French bishops and he devoted an article to it in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate.109 The conflict between the bishop of Angers and his archdeacon inspired him to revisit the subject in a work intitled Traité des appelations comme d’abus.110 But as with the majority of texts written by the former syndic at this time, it did not appear until long after his death, in 1763.111 The first three books of the treatise were written, according to the editor, in 1623 and the fourth, which traced the history of the conflict, in 1625 and 1626.112 The Traité des appelations comme d’abus made abundant use of historical sources. In the established church, Richer explained, ecclesiastical sanctions were subjected to very strict conditions. This discipline had changed from the tenth century but Saint Louis and the other kings had continuously opposed the Church’s ascendancy over civil power. It was ‘domination’ of the pope and of the bishops which had made the use of the appel comme d’abus necessary. They had specifically targeted excommunication, a practice which ‘by its nature and by 106 S.l., 1624. According to the ‘Avertissement de l’éditeur’ of the Traité des Appellations contre l’abus de Richer (vol. 1, s.l., 1763, vii), the book was penned by the former syndic but this claim, which Puyol repeated (Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 429), is doubtful. On the disruptions between Charles Miron and his archdeacon, see Parsons, The Church in the Republic, 27. 107 Ibid., 169. 108 On the conflict between Charles Miron and Pierre Garande in Angers and the treatise Richer wrote on this occasion, see Philippe Denis, ‘Le Traité des Appellations comme d’Abus d’Edmond Richer (1623–1626). Contexte rédactionnel et propos ecclésiologique’, in Anne Bonzon, Caroline Galland (ed.), Justices croisées. Histoire et enjeux de l’appel comme d’abus (XIVe–XVIIIe siècles), Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, forthcoming. 109 Richer, De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, article 13. 110 Edmond Richer, Traité des Appelations comme d’abus. Que c’est un remède conforme à la Loy de Dieu, lequel a donné aux Roys et Princes Chrétiens l’Eglise en protection, & pareillement tous les Subjects qui vivent en leurs Etats sans nul excepter, pour leur faire guarder la Loy Divine, Naturelle & Canonique, & en rendre compte à Dieu seul, & juger souverainement de toutes sorte de faits qui peuvent naître en l’Eglise comme de chose appartenante à la Discipline extérieure, 2 volumes in one, s.l., 1763, in–12, 496 pages. Abridged version in André Marie Dupin, Libertés de l’Eglise gallicane. Manuel de droit public ecclésiastique français, Paris, Plon, 1860, 226–229. The 1763 version was published on the basis of a manuscript found in the library of M. Thuillier, a medical doctor from Orleans and conserved today in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (ms. fr. 23470). 111 Article 13. 112 Richer, Traité des Appelations comme d’abus, Preface, vi.

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divine right’ could have no temporal effect. Excommunication ‘should not be imposed upon a sovereign nor upon multitudes nor in cases where it would disturb public order [where it] would achieve more good than evil and where it would be difficult to impose’.113 The appel comme d’abus against an unfair excommunication was legitimate and holders of sovereign authority were entitled to declare it null and void because God had given authority to sovereigns to protect the Church and to defend all the rights of their subjects, clerics as well as laymen.114 As he had done in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, Richer strictly restricted the competence of ecclesiastical authority to spiritual affairs. The sovereign’s authority ‘came from God alone’ and its purpose was to ‘not only guarantee subjects their rights but to oblige them, for their own good, to observe, at least publicly, divine laws’.115 Whilst Richer was busy finishing his treatise on the appel comme d’abus, changes in the political situation improved the Gallicans’ position. They benefited, at least initially, from the foreign policy of Richelieu, henceforth the king’s prime minister and the strong man in the regime. To counter the Habsburgs, the cardinal concluded alliances with the Protestants from Grisons, Sweden and Germany. He sent his troops into the Valteline, a northern Italian territory with a Catholic population traditionally subjected to neighbouring Protestant lords, which the Spanish army and later the pope had recently occupied. This event filled the parti dévot with outrage. But once the Valteline had been conquered, Richelieu readjusted his position. In order to stabilise France’s position – at the expense of the Protestants – he set about restoring relations with the papacy and limiting the Gallicans’ sphere of influence. In religious matters, the cardinal minister kept to a middle path, respecting the liberties of the Gallican Church without, however, making them an absolute principle and remaining respectful of the pope’s right to exercise an influence in the religious affairs of the kingdom. After a brief period of ideological confusion, this pragmatic position allowed him to consolidate the king’s authority by reducing the political space contested by the Gallicans and the parti dévot since the death of Henry IV. They gradually ran out of arguments of controversy and the debate concerning the indirect power of the pope lost its

113 Ibid., vol. 1, 87. 114 Ibid., vol. 1, 142. 115 Ibid, vol. 1, 144. See Monique Cottret, ‘Edmond Richer (1559–1631). Le politique et le sacré’ in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie et al. (eds), L’État baroque (1610–1631). Regards sur la pensée politique de la France du premier XVIIe siècle, Paris, Vrin, 1985, 167–168.

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raison d’être.116 Richelieu-sponsored state Catholicism or étatisme chrétien, to use De Franceschi’s phrase, was not Gallican, though being somewhat antiRoman.117 As for now, Richelieu’s involvement in the Valteline conflict augmented tensions in France. It weighed heavily on the work of the Assembly of the Clergy, which began in May 1625 and went on until February 1626.118 Initially meant to arrive at an agreement on tax with the king – every ten years the contrat de décime had to be renewed – it became a veritable synod with Gallican overtones. Without Richelieu making any move and to the irritation of the nuncio’s representatives, the bishops questioned the Holy See’s interventions in diocesan life. The exemptions from which the religious benefited despite warnings from the Council of Trent and the increasing power of the Jesuits and the Oratorians were denounced. Léonor d’Estampes, the bishop of Chartres, and Gabriel d’Aubespine, the bishop of Orleans, drafted a Déclaration … sur ce qui est à observer sous la conduite de Messieurs les Evêques par le Réguliers & autres Exemptés, which Rome ended up rejecting. Richer’s supporters got busy.119 Whilst remaining in the shadows, the former syndic continued with his activities as a writer, hoping all the while that his name would be cleared. The publication in Antwerp and Frankfurt during the final months of 1625 of two anonymous pamphlets denouncing Richelieu’s policy of alliance unleashed a series of reactions which, paradoxically, led to the marginalisation of the Gallicans, the first to have been involved in the controversy. Correctly or not,120 the pamphlets’ authors were identified by contemporaries as being Jesuits. Entitled Mysteria politica, hoc est epistolae arcanae virorum illustrium sibi mutuo confidentium, lectu et consideration dignae,121 the first was a collection of letters

116 Amongst the works devoted to the religious policies of Richelieu one can mention Étienne Thuau, Raison d’État et pensée politique à l’époque de Richelieu, new ed., Paris, Michel Albin, 2000; Jörg Wollenberg, Les trois Richelieu. Servir Dieu, le Roi et la Raison, translated from German, Paris, F.X. de Guibert, 1995; Françoise Hildesheimer, Richelieu. Une certaine idée de l’État, Paris, Publisud, 1985. De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 600–601, speaks, in this context, of ‘catholicisme d’État ou étatisme chrétien’, quoting Thuau, Wollenberg and Hildesheimer (613). 117 De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 613. 118 On the Assembly of the Clergy of 1625, see Pierre Blet, Le Clergé en France et la monarchie, vol. 1, 276–295. 119 Victor Martin, Le Gallicanisme politique et le Clergé de France, 138–162; Aimé-Georges Martimort, Le gallicanisme de Bossuet, Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 1953, 71–75; Michael Baker, ‘Episcopal Unrest: Gallicanism in the 1625 Assembly of the Clergy’, Church History, 43, 1974, 65–77; Parsons, the Church in the Republic, 275–277; De Franceschi, La crise théologicopolitique, 622–623. 120 De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 607. 121 Antwerp, Henricus Aertssius, 1625.

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denigrating Richelieu’s activities. The second, Ad Ludovicum XIII regem christianissimum admonition,122 developed a theological argument in favour of the pope’s power of intervention in temporal matters. Using his position as proviseur of the Sorbonne, Richelieu approached the Faculty of Theology on 1 December 1625, requesting that they censure the two pamphlets.123 To the nuncio’s satisfaction, the censure made no mention of any particular doctrine.124 The Assembly of the Clergy also took a stand on the subject of the much debated pamphlets. It was, however, divided. A document of censure, drafted by Léonor d’Estampes, was first adopted on 13 December 1625. On the nuncio’s intervention, a second text, which gave greater attention to the pope’s authority but still condemning the two pamphlets, replaced it on 12 January 1626.125 This backing-down provoked an intervention of Parliament, which demanded the promulgation of the first version of the condemnation. Finally, on 26 February, a group of thirty-one bishops, meeting at the initiative of Cardinal François de La Rochefoucault, ratified the text of 12 January.126 Léonor d’Estampes did not attend the meeting. It was in this context that La Rochefoucault published his Raisons pour le désaveu fait par les évesques de ce roiaume d’un livret publié avec ce titre, Jugement des Cardinaux, Archevesques, Evesques et autres qui se sont trouvés en l’Assemblée générale du Clergé du roiaume sur quelques libelles défamatoires sans les noms des auteurs, contre le schismatisques de ce temps.127 He challenged the condemnation of 13 December 1625, supposedly inspired by the article submitted by the Tiers to the Estates General of 1614.128 Richer, who had followed the whole matter, then took up his pen in order to support the Gallican point of view. He replied to La Rochefoucauld’s Raisons pour le désaveu with his Considérations sur un livret intitulé Raisons pour un désaveu which appeared three years later, through the intervention of a friend,129

122 123 124 125 126 127

128 129

Augustae Francorum, [Lyon?], 1625. Du Plessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 190–192, 196–198. De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 611. Du Plessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 201. See De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 623–629. Du Plessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 201. See De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 632–634. François de la Rochefoucauld, Raisons pour le désaveu fait par les évesques de ce roiaume d’un livret publié avec ce titre ”Jugement des cardinaux, archevesques, évesques et autres qui se sont reouvés en l’assemblée générale du clergé de ce roiaume wur quelques livres diffamatoires … contre les schismatisques de ce temps”, Paris, 1626. Puyol attributes the work to the Jesuit Jean Phelippeaux (Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 430). De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique, 636. Baillet, Vie d’Edmond Richer, 347.

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under the pseudonym of Timothée François, catholique.130 In this voluminous treatise – no less than three hundred and twenty pages – the former syndic claimed that those who abandoned the ancient traditions of the Church and who attributed an exaggerated power to the pope were the true schismatics. This book seems to have had little impact. Only a limited number of copies appear to have been printed. But in March 1625 the publication of another treatise in Rome, the Tractatus de haeresi, schismate, apostasia, sollicitatione in sacramento paenitentia et de summo pontificis in his puniendis of the Italian Jesuit Antonio Santarelli,131 revived the controversy. It went so far in the defence of the Holy See’s prerogatives that it embarrassed the pope and the general of the Jesuits who were, however, supporters of Bellarmine’s doctrine of the indirect power of popes. Santarelli stated that the pope had ‘a power of supervision over princes and [that] consequently he had a power of correction’ and that the pope ‘could dethrone emperors and kings for their iniquities given that he had sovereign, supreme and absolute power’. In a tone which recalled that of Pope Boniface VIII, he stated that ‘for the well-being of the public it was sometimes his lot, dictated by prudence and reason, to chastise disobedient and incorrigible princes by means of temporal punishments, in other words, depriving them of their kingdom’.132 In the volatile climate which reigned in France at the time, such declarations could only stir up strong emotions. Richelieu manifested extreme irritation, the Court charged the Jesuits to disown their colleague and Parliament ordered the book to be burnt. On 4 April 1626, the Faculty of Theology declared Santarelli’s doctrine to be ‘new, false and against the word of God’. The condemnation was confirmed by an extraordinary assembly of the University of Paris and was supported by the Universities of Toulouse, Valence, Bordeaux, Poitiers, Bourges and Caen. For the Gallicans, this unanimous condemnation represented a triumph, which was, however, of short duration. Richelieu understood the danger that an open confrontation with the Holy See would pose for the country. For its part, the

130 Timothée François, catholique [Edmond Richer], Considérations sur un livret intitulé Raisons pour un désaveu faict par les évesques de ce royaume, etc. mis en lumière sous le nom de M. François, cardinal de La Rouchefoucault, contre les vrais schismatiques de ce temps, s.l., 1628. 131 Rome, apud haeredem Bartholemaei Zannetti, 1625. On the Santarelli affair, see Du Plessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 203–256; Féret, La Faculté de Théologie de Paris. Époque moderne, vol. 3, 109–121; Carlos Sommervogel, art. ‘Santarelli, Antoine’, in Bibliothèque de la compagnie de Jésus, vol. 7, Paris, Picard, 1896, col. 579–582; Victor Martin, Le Gallicanisme politique et le Clergé de France, 163–244. 132 Du Plessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 203–204. These quotations are taken from a summary of the book that was presented to the Parliament of Paris on 13 March 1606.

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Faculty of Theology toned down its condemnation on 2 January 1627. The Jesuits who were prepared to dissociate themselves from Santarelli’s ideas could, once again, raise their heads up high. In this polemical climate Richer felt obliged to react. This he did, according to Baillet, ‘not by turning to the Sorbonne, but by taking up his pen in the obscurity of his retirement so as to defend truth and justice’.133 Apart from the abovementioned Considérations, which also challenged the work of the Italian Jesuit, he wrote two other books on the Santarelli affair. The first was a defence of the Faculty of Theology’s censure. According to Baillet who appeared to have seen the text, it was composed of two parts, one dealing with the question of right, the other with the question of fact.134 The second text was an account of the events which had led up to the voting in the second condemnation. There are two versions of this document, both of them mentioned by Baillet.135 The longer of the two, in Latin, remains unpublished.136 The shorter version, in French, appeared in 1629, with the name of the author, under the title Relation véritable de ce qui s’est passé en Sorbonne les 15 de mars, 2 de mai, le 2 de janvier et 1 février 1726.137 By this time, Richer was almost seventy years old. Suffering from kidney stones, he knew that his days were numbered. For this reason, he doubled his effort to finish the books that he was writing. Thus, in ‘a short time’138 he completed a monumental Historia conciliorum generalium in quator libros distributa, which appeared posthumously139 as well as the Defensio of his 1612 treatise, a work which repeated and amplified the ideas expressed in the Demonstratio. The arguments, not only of Duval which had been dealt with in the previous work, but 133 Baillet, Vie d’Edmond Richer, 340. There is no mention of these writings in Histoire du syndicat, which went up to the year 1629. 134 Baillet, Vie d’Emond Richer, 340. Without giving his source, Puyol gave this book the following title: Defensio censurae Facultatis Parisiensis adversus librum Antonii Santarelli soc Jesu (Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 430). It is unlikely that the Raisons pour les condemnations cidevant faites du libelle Admonitio, du livre de Santarel et autres semblables, contre les Santarellistes de ce temps et leurs fauteurs, par un Français catholique (s.l. 1626, 8˚, 298 p.) attributed by Puyol to Richer (Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 431) were from him for, at that time, he had clearly indicated his intention not to publish anything. Sommervogel quoted the work without mentioning the name of the author (Bibliothèque, vol. 7, col, 582). 135 Baillet, Vie d’Edmond Richer, 340. 136 Historia rerum gestarum in Facultate theologica Parisiensi, pro et contra censuram libri Antonii Sanctarelli jesuitae: quem librum memorata Facultatus censuram notavit anno 1626. BnF, ms. lat. 13639. 137 [Edmond Richer], Relation véritable de ce qui s’est passé en Sorbonne les XV de mars, 1 d’avril, II de mai MDCXXVI, le II de janvier et le I février MDCXXVII, s.l., 1629, in 8˚. New edition in Annales de la société des soi-disans Jésuits, vol. 3, Paris, 1767, 167–206. 138 Baillet, Vie d’Edmond Richer, 347. 139 Edmond Richer, Historia concilium generalium in quator libros distributa, 2 vol., Cologne, Bernard Hetsingh, 1680–1681, new ed., 3 vol., 1683.

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also those of Cajetan against the superiority of the council over the pope were refuted using biblical, patristic, canonical and historical quotations.140 Here Richer developed, in greater detail than in his previous works, a theology of reception. ‘The hierarchical order’, which comprised the pope, the bishops and the priests, each according to his own attributions, exercised the power of jurisdiction. The ‘people’ of the Church consented by means of a ‘passive election’, which was either explicit or implicit, to submit themselves to the pastors whom the holders of the power of jurisdiction had chosen for them. ‘In order for a law to be enforceable’, the former syndic commented, ‘it has to be accepted’141. The Defensio was not published during the author’s life: it appeared only in 1701, seventy years after Richer’s death.142

Joan of Arc’s life Between 1626 and 1630 Richer completed a work which, strangely enough, the majority of his biographers fail to mention,143 the Histoire de la Pucelle d’Orléans (History of the Maid of Orleans),144 also called Joan of Arc, the young woman from Domrémy who helped Charles VII to reconquer Orleans and who attended his coronation before being captured by the Burgundians and handed over to the English who, after a mockery of a trial, burnt her for heresy in Rouen on 30 May 1431. Through the intervention of the Gallican historian Pierre Dupuy, Richer obtained the manuscript which was later be used by Jules Quicherat for his edition of Joan of Arc’s condemnation trial as well as one of the manuscripts of the rehabilitation trial. 140 A section of the third book of Richer’s Defensio is devoted to the refutation of Cajetan’s Apologia de comparata auctoritate papae et concilii (1512), a treatise remained without a response because of Almain’s premature death. See Oakley, ‘Bronze-Age Conciliarism’, 80– 83; The Conciliarist Tradition, 168–172. 141 Libellus de Ecclesiastica et Politica Potestate. Nec non ejusdem Libelli per eundem Richerium Demonstratio. Nova editio aucta ejusdem libelli defensione nunc primum typis edita ex manu-scripto ejusdem authoris. In duos tomos divisa. Cum aliis quibusdam opusculis, Cologne, Balthasar ab Egmond, 1701, 252. On consensus in the Church and reception, see ibid., vol. 1, 78. 142 The manuscript of the Defensio is conserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (ms. lat. 16062–16065). The manuscript is more detailed than the published version. One of the passages remained manuscript, in book 5, related Richer’s retraction of December 1629 (Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 353), which allows for dating the Defensio to the period immediately preceding Richer’s death. 143 Two exceptions are Préclin, ‘Edmond Richer’, 324–326, and Cottret, ‘Edmond Richer’, 170– 171. 144 Edmond Richer, Histoire de la Pucelle d’Orléans. Texte collationné et publié d’après le manuscrit de la Bibliothèque nationale, Fonds français, cote 10448, éd. Philippe-Hector Dunand, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1911.

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Using historical criticism, the former syndic attempted to separate truth from fiction, being careful not to write a panegyric. He showed, quoting supporting texts, that the trial of the Maid of Orléans had been a farce. ‘We believe that it is true maxim,’ he wrote in the introduction, ‘which says that is a great sacrilege to lie concerning historical matters because writing is nothing more than sacrificing to the truth.145 He chose to write in French ‘so that those who do not understand Latin and even women and girls can learn from and recognise the wonders of God towards the kingdom of France for which he has always shown particular care’.146 As Préclin has shown, this work does not display any militant Gallicanism.147 This explains why it could be published in 1911 when the modernist crisis was in full cry. But the idea of writing about the life of Joan of Arc was not foreign to the project which Richer had been pursuing for thirty years: celebrating and illustrating the ancient doctrine of the Sorbonne. The first to write about the Maid of Orléans was, in fact, none other than Jean Gerson, the chancellor of the University of Paris. Whilst staying in Lyon, the conciliarist theologian had supported the cause of the dauphin, against the University of Paris, who had joined the English camWhen the news of the liberation of Orleans broke, he wrote in a few days a piece entitled Super facto puellae et credulitate sibi praestanda148 to justify the belief in the divine mission of the Maid. This circumstantial document was the last of his works for he died two months later on 12 July 1429. Following the example of Jakob Wimpfeling, Richer published Gerson’s tract on Joan of Arc under the title, common at the time, De mirabili ictoria cuiusdam Puellae.149 Like the Alsatian humanist and the literary critics of our time, he refused him the authorship of another tract on the Maid of Orléans, the Opus quiddam collativum de quadam puella quae olim in Francia equitavit.150

145 146 147 148

Ibid., 12. Ibid., 15. Préclin, ‘Edmond Richer’ 326. J.B. Monnoyeur (ed.), Traité de Jean Gerson sur la Pucelle, Paris, Œuvre Nationale de Domrémy, 1910. The attribution of the tract to Gerson, which some authors have contested, is confirmed. See Daniel Hobbins, ‘Jean Gerson’s Authentic Tract on Joan of Arc: Super facto puellae et credulitate sibi praestanda (14 May 1429)’, Mediaeval Studies, 67, 2005, 99–155; Sean Field, ‘A New English translation of Jean Gerson’s authentic tract on Joan on Arc: About the feat of the maid and the faith that should be placed in her’, Magistra, 18/2, 2012, 36–53. These two authors published an edition of the text in Latin and in English respectively. 149 Opus quoddam collativum de quadam puella quae olim in Francia equitavit, in [Edmond Richer, ed.], Jean Gerson, Secunda pars operum, Paris, [Compagnie de la Grand’Navire], 1606, col. 874–878. 150 However, he did publish this piece (ibid., col. 870–874), attributing it to Henri de Gorckheim as Jakob Wimpfeling had done.

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By writing about Joan of Arc’s life, Richer was defending, indirectly, the reputation of the University of Paris. In 1612, it will be recalled, Cardinal du Perron had reproached him for being a bad Frenchman for republishing the censure of the friar Jean Sarrazin pronounced by the University in 1429, at a time when it was supporting the English against King Charles VII. Richer wanted, if not to cleanse the reputation of the Faculty of Theology, at least to place the event in its context. This point was sttressed by René Richard, Père Joseph’s biographer, at the beginning of the eighteenth century: And because the Sorbonne had been criticised for having condemned the Maid of Orleans […] Richer showed that the frame of mind of a group should not be judged in these times of trouble and war where freedom was oppressed by violence and by factions.151

151 Richard, Le Véritable Père Josef, capucin, 272–273.

Chapter 7. The battle for Richer’s soul

Richer’s forced retraction The writings published by Richer at the time of the Santarelli affair showed that after fifteen years of semi-retirement the former syndic had lost none of his pugnacity. Yet, he was on the defensive. The pressures he had to endure from his adversaries had affected him both physically and psychologically. The 1622 declaration and the Demonstratio, which had been published without permission during the same year, reproduced, without any major c hanges, the ideas for which he had been condemned ten years earlier. While hoping that his name would be cleared, he knew that his situation was precarious. A text of 31 August 1625 showed that, at that date, the possibility of a forced retraction did not seem unlikely to him. Three weeks earlier, on his deathbed, Philippe de Gamaches, one of his colleagues at the Faculty of Theology, had signed a document attesting that he rejected Richer’s doctrine.1 The former syndic was convinced that this declaration had been obtained under duress and he feared that the same misfortune would befall him. To ward off this possibility he let it be known in advance, in a notarised document, that any retraction on his part would be invalid: If, by chance, he were to be reduced to such extremities, that he be constrained to renounce his Livre de la Puissance Ecclesiastique & Politique or to change or to sign anything contrary to the declaration he had signed in front of two notaries on the last day of June in the year 1622, he denies, disclaims and rejects that which he might have been compelled to write and sign in contradiction of that declaration as being something which had been violently dragged out of him through threats and a justified fear that could come upon a man who is steadfast and could weaken him. That he declares in advance as false, alleged and void anything that might be published bearing his name on this subject.2 1 Histoire du syndicat, 381. 2 Dupplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, 2/2, 302. This document is not mentioned in the Histoire du syndicat.

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The subsequent events showed that Richer’s fears, excessive as they appeared to be, were not without foundation. On 19 June 1629, a first incident occurred. Falling seriously ill after Mass as a result of renal colic, the former syndic asked Antoine Fourment, the curé of Cardinal Lemoine College, for permission to choose a doctor of the Sorbonne to give him communion whilst he was unwell. Fourment immediately asked him to retract the errors contained in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. As he had done many times before, Richer refused and sent for a notary to note down his full adherence to the terms of the declaration he had made, also in the presence of a notary, on 30 June 1622. Eventually, ‘somewhat conscience-stricken’ according to Richer, Fourment changed his mind and authorised the former syndic to send for a doctor of the Sorbonne so that he could be given communion.3 But that would be for another time. In December 1629, Richelieu obtained the long-awaited retraction. As long as Duval and his colleagues at the Faculty of Theology were asking him to repudiate his ideas, he held fast. He realised that without sufficient political support they would be unable to force him to do so. When Richelieu met him for the first time in February 1623, he felt himself to be, to a certain point, in a position of strength. This time, the situation was different. As a member of the Conseil du Roi who fulfilled the role of prime minister, Richelieu personified royal authority. Richer had always respected public power. When in 1612, a member of the Conseil de Régence had forbidden him to write in defence of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, he had complied. The same situation was currently in force. An aggravating factor was that, on 13 January 1627, Louis XIII had forbidden theologians to write anything about Santarelli. The following year, Richer challenged the Italian Jesuit in a work written under a pseudonym. It is difficult to believe that Richelieu was not aware of this. Richer thus acted under constraint. According to information collected ten years or so after his death by Guy Patin, an erudite doctor in medicine close to the milieu of libertins spirituels, Richelieu had threatened to send the former syndic to the Bastille.4 It is impossible to verify this information. But that Richer, an old man suffering from renal colic, could have been seized by panic at the idea of spending the rest of his life in jail is not difficult to believe. The reasons why Richelieu wanted to settle the matter with Richer are clear. There is no need to postulate, as Patin did, that Richelieu turned on Richer to 3 Histoire du syndicat, 417. 4 Wiener Stadtbibliothek, Codex 7071 – Hohendorf 133, 136. This section of the ‘Papiers Patin’ is reproduced with some changes in Naudeana et Patiniana ou singularitez remaquables, prises des conversations de Mess. Naudé et Patin, 2nd ed., The Hague, Van Dole, 1748, 2nd pagination, 8. According to another section of the same manuscript (ibid., 102), Patin held this story from the apostolic nuncio, probably Nicolò Guido del Bagni. I owe this information to Frédéric Gabriel, research director at the École Nationale Supérieure of Lyon.

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have the hat of cardinal bestowed upon his brother Antoine, a Carthusian subsequently archbishop of Aix-en-Provence and Lyon.5 The cardinal-minister targeted Richer for diplomatic reasons. His policies since the Santarelli affair consisted of affirming royal authority whilst at the same time maintaining good relations with the Holy See. Both catholiques dévots and Gallicans had lost favour. He did not want the Sorbonne, of which he was the proviseur, to compromise the stability of the regime by engaging in endless quarrels about the indirect power of the pope. The defeat of the Protestants at La Rochelle gave him a free hand. On 24 November 1629 he summoned the syndic of the Faculty of Theology, Froger, the dean, Peschant as well as Duval, Mauclerc, Richer and a few others to command them to add to the oath sworn by all students before the oral defence of their theses a new reference to the decree of the Holy See. The minutes of this meeting were ratified by the Faculty of Theology on 1 December. The dean protested, but to no end.6 Getting Richer to toe the line was the logical follow-up to this episode. After having consulted André Duval and three other theologians from the Sorbonne, the cardinal-minister had Père Joseph, his confidant, and Charles Talon, the curé of Saint-Gervais, prepared a statement of retraction. He approved the document on 1 December and Richer heard about it on 4 December. At the former syndic’s request, the two men met on 7 December. At first Richer attempted to defend himself.7 But Richelieu spoke to him, according to the memoirs of the cardinal, ‘with so much energy and persuasion that he [forced] him, through the strength of his arguments, to recant, sincerely and voluntarily, his error’.8 Richer consented to this repudiation because, according to Baillet, ‘there was no other way of procuring peace at the Sorbonne’.9 In the presence of two notaries from Chatelet he signed the long-awaited retraction. In contrast to the declaration of 1622, this one was without any ambiguity: Having realised that some of the ideas in the small book which I wrote in 1611 […] have been badly interpreted, [I] protest and declare that I have always wanted to and still want to submit myself with the aforementioned book, its propositions, its interpretation and my entire doctrine to the judgement of the Catholic and Roman Church and the Apostolic See, which I recognise as mother and mistress of all the churches as well as the 5 Ibid., 136. On Alphonse de Richelieu, see Maximien Deloche, Un frère de Richelieu inconnu, chartreux, primat des Gaules, cardinal, ambassadeur. Documents inédits, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1935. 6 Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, 2/2, 286–287. 7 Richer, Defensio, text in manuscript form quoted by Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 353. The episode concerning the retraction is not mentioned in Histoire du syndicat, which ends on 9 July 1629. It is, however, recounted in great detail by Baillet (Vie d’Edmond Richer). See also Richard, Le Véritable Père Josef, capucin, 272–276. 8 Mémoires du Cardinal de Richelieu, vol. 1, 426. 9 Baillet, Vie d’Edmond Richer, 383.

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infallible judge of truth. I declare that I have experienced great pain in noticing that some of the propositions in this small book have been expressed in a way which has scandalised. […] I strongly disapprove of and condemn these propositions in as much as they oppose, as they sound, that is to say, according to the resonance of the words which strike the external ear, the judgement of the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church.

And to thwart, in advance, any further contestation, he added at Père Joseph’s suggestion: I profess that I make this declaration freely and voluntarily so that all can be aware of my obedience to the Apostolic See.10

This declaration resembled that of 1622 but several passages altered the meaning. Henceforth Richer would submit himself to the Catholic and Roman Church and not the other way round. In contrast to the conciliarist point of view, the Holy See was the only mouthpiece of the Catholic and Roman Church. The phrase ‘as they sound’, which reduced the impact of the censure imposed by the Council of Sens in March 1612, was emptied of its meaning. In his Mémoires Richelieu proudly announced the outcome of his intervention: This action received so many blessings from God that Richer no longer speaks of his mistakes, nor of the fact that he might have been infected by them, his soul having been so thoroughly cleansed that there no longer remains any trace of them; and the group of those who shared his opinions, following him as though he were a master, has disappeared and faded away to such an extent that they are no longer spoken of.11

In a sense, the cardinal-minister was right. Richer’s public and certified retraction dealt a decisive blow to the Gallican party for whom he was an emblematic figure. One can understand that from a propaganda point of view he made abundant use of this report. But this was to underestimate the character, tenacious until death, of the former syndic. He had only signed the declaration of 7 December because he had been forced to do so. Faced with a personage as strong as Richelieu, he could not refuse. Perhaps he appreciated the opportunity of catching up with Duval to

10 Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 2/2, 302–302. This document bears the signature of Charles Talon and Père Joseph. The declaration of 7 December 1629 in both French and Latin as well as the notary’s attestation were published after Richer’s death, probably at the instigation of Duval: Déclaration et protestation de feu maistre Emond Richer, docteur en théologie et grand maistre du college du Cardinal Le Moine, sur l’édition de son livre “De la Puissance ecclésiastique et politique” faite entre les mains de Mgr l’Em. Cardinal de Richelieu, s.l., 1632, 16 pages, 8˚. 11 Richelieu, Mémoires, vol. 10 (1629), 426–427.

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whom, in spite of a long enmity, he remained attached.12 But in his heart of hearts he remained faithful to the doctrine of the School of Paris, which he had defended throughout his life. It was an affair of conscience. No later than 24 December 1629, he signed a Testamentum which made no reference to the retraction to which he had consented a few days earlier. On the contrary, he painted a picture of the intrigues and injustices which had caused him to lose the position of syndic and made an apologia of the De ecclesiatica et politica potestate, supported by numerous biblical quotations. His only crime, he explained, was having wanted to defend the traditional doctrine of the School of Paris. Copies of the Testamentum were printed at the beginning of 1630. Much used by Richer’s supporters in the controversy which was to ensue, it was republished several times.13

Richer’s last will Soon Richer was to fall ill again. He died on 29 November 1631 after having prayers which he had written himself read to him14 and received the sacraments from the hand of Charles Ternois, one of Cardinal Lemoine College’s scholarship holders.15 He was buried at the Sorbonne where, every year, a mass was said in memory of him.16 Throughout his life, Richer, the poor boy who had risen to become syndic of the Faculty of Theology of Paris, was the subject of controversy. Ironically, his death brought no relief. The sincerity of his retraction was contested, resulting in debates as to his final wishes. Had Richer retracted his Gallican opinions on his deathbed or had he not? As could be expected, the person who was most concerned about spreading the idea of a Richer who, in extremis, had converted to Roman orthodoxy, was Duval. The Ultramontane theologian persuaded witnesses to sign a notarised

12 Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 356, quoting a passage remained unpublished of Richer’s Defensio. 13 Richer, Testamentum, Paris, 1630, in–4˚, 24 pages. Reprinted as documentary proof in Richer, Defensio, Cologne, Balthasar ab Egmont, 1683 and 1701. See also Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vo. 2/2, 303–309. 14 They are reproduced in Richer, Libellus, Cologne, 1701, 2nd pagination, 25–28. 15 Baillet, Vie d’Edmond Richer, 406. 16 Dupin, Libertés de l’Eglise gallicane, 226.

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declaration according to which Richer had stated his unfailing support of the Holy See on his deathbed and had confirmed the declaration made two years earlier in the presence of Cardinal Richelieu.17 In 1636, Duval stated furthermore, in the preface to his commentary of Thomas Aquinas’ Summa, that, before dying, Richer had declared in ‘a clear voice’ that the retraction of the doctrine contained in his book had not been forced from him ‘either by fear, nor by flattery nor by promises’ and that he would like posterity to see it as authentic.18 A third and last retraction of the De ecclesiastica at politica potestate, allegedly found in Richer’s library, was disseminated, after his death, under the title Ejuratio altera errorum Emundi Richerii in musaeolo reperta.19 In this text, which was obviously a forgery, the former syndic indicated having received his ideas from Luther and Calvin. The Flemish Jesuit Jacques La Fontaine used it in the anti-Jansenist controversy in the following century.20 But his German confrère Lorenz Veith, though vehemently opposed to Richer’s ‘system’, cast doubt on the authenticity of the document.21 In any event, Duval and his Ultramontane friends were deluding themselves. Far from laying down arms, the former syndic’s supporters fiercely contested their version of his death. Their protests were to feed Gallican fervour for almost two centuries. The oldest testimony according to which Richer defended his ideas until the moment of his death is to be found in a letter written by the Dijon advocate Charles Barthélémy Morisot to a canon from Langres by the name of Curet and dated 25 March 1633.22 According to Morisot, Richer’s final retraction 17 Duval included the document in the preface to the re-edition of his Tractatus de suprema Summi Pontificis potestate, which was published after his commentary on Thomas Aquinas’ Summa. See André Duval, Commentarii in primam secundae partis Summae D. Thomae, tomus prior complectens sex tractatus …, Paris, Sebastien Cramoisy, 1636, vol. 2, 690–691. 18 André Duval, preface to Cardinal de Richelieu, proviseur of the Sorbonne, Paris, 29 February 1636, in Commentarii in primam secundae partis Summae D. Thomae, tomus prior complectens sex tractatus…, Paris, Sebastien Cramoisy, 1636, f. e5r˚-v˚. The declaration made before the apostolic notary by the witnesses of Richer’s death is to be found at the end of the treatise (ibid., 691). See Féret, La Faculté de Théology de Paris. Époque moderne, vol. 4, 20. 19 Eiuratio altera errorum Emundi Richerii in musaelo eius reperta post obitum suum, s.l.n.d., 7 pages, in–8˚. 20 [Jacques La Fontaine], Sanctissimi Dominis Nostri Clementi Papae XI Constitutio Unigenitus theologice propugnata, vol. 3, Rome, Joannes Maria Salvioni, 1721, col. 1143–1147. 21 Lorenz Veith, Edmundi Richerii Doctoris Parisini systema de ecclesiastica et politica potestate singulari dissertatione confutatum, Augsburg, Fratres Veith, 1783, 27. 22 Claude Barthélémy Morisot, Epistolarum centuria secunda, Dijon, Philibert Chavance, 1656, 16–17. He lived from 1592 to 1661. Extract in Richer, Libellus, Cologne, 1660, 1st pagination, iii. French translation in Richard, Le Véritable Père Josef, capucin, 277–284. On Claude-Barthélémy Morisot (1592–1661), a Jesuit-educated resident of Dijon who became Gallican during his youth under the influence of John Barclay and published numerous books in Latin, see J.-L. Foisset, art. ‘Morisot, Claude Barthélémy’, Biographie universelle ancienne et

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would have been extorted from him by Père Joseph during a dinner organised at the latter’s home. Physically threatened, Richer purportedly signed a retraction that had been prepared in advance in the presence of an apostolic notary. Broken by the ordeal, he would have died on his return to the Cardinal Lemoine College. Is this account credible? In his letter, Morisot speaks of the death of Richer as a recent event even though it had occurred two years earlier and he gave the theologian’s age as eighty-four whereas he was only seventy-two when he died. These errors leave suspicion hanging over the head of the advocate. We will never know what Richer’s frame of mind was at the moment of his death for the version given by Duval should also be viewed with caution. It is sufficient to note the importance attributed by the political and ecclesiastical actors of the time to the sentiments of the former syndic. The battle which raged about them showed, a posteriori, the influence of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. As Richer had pointed out in his Histoire du syndicat, ‘it is unusual for authors having written a book that has been censured to subscribe to the censure’.23 To eradicate the former syndic’s ideas his adversaries, Bentivoglio and Duval in particular, had tried to force a retraction from him and, after twelve years of dispute, it had taken an intervention by Richelieu to get him to sign a document stating that he renounced his ideas. The cardinal-minister – or at least the secretary who compiled the book on his instructions – devoted no less than eight pages to Richer in his Mémoires.24 It must be added that the controversy that surrounded the last wishes of Richer did not come to an end on the death of his contemporaries. It sprang back to life half a century later on the occasion of the publication by the Assembly of the Clergy of the well-known articles on the independence of kings and the limits to Rome’s primacy. On 17 March 1683, one of the opponents of the Declaration of the Clergy, the doctor of the Sorbonne Martin Grandin, made reference to Richer’s retraction. It showed, he argued, that the ancient doctrine of the School of Paris could serve only as a pretext for a refusal to obey the pope.25

moderne, new ed., vol. 29, Paris, Desplaces, 1857, 336–337; Louise Godard de Donville ‘D’Alitophile (Cl.-B. Morisot 1625) à Théophile de Viau sans le Libertinage’, in Luc Fraisse (ed.), L’histoire littéraire: ses méthodes et ses résultats. Mélanges offerts à Madeleine Bertaud, Geneva, Droz, 2001, 539–544. 23 Histoire dy syndicat, 355. 24 Mémoires de Richelieu, vol. 10, 420–427. On the circumstances surrounding the writing of Richelieu’s Mémoires see Christian Jouhaud, ‘Les Mémoires de Richelieu: une logique manufacturière’, Mots, 32, September 1992, 81–93. 25 See Martimort, Le gallicanisme de Bossuet, 504. On Martin Grandin (1604–1691), doctor of the Sorbonne, for a time syndic of the Faculty of Theology, supporter of Ultramontane ideas, see Jacques Grès-Gayer, ‘The Magisterium of the Faculty of Theology of Paris in the Seventeenth Century’, Theological Studies, 53, 1992, 437.

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But the Gallicans did not intend letting this declaration go unanswered. The same year there appeared in Cologne Richer’s Vindiciae Doctrinae majorum scholae Parisiensis … contra defensores Monarchiae universalis et absolutae curiae Romaniae, an anthology of conciliarist writings which, until then, had remained in manuscript form.26 The third volume contained Richer’s Testamentum as well as a letter of 23 March 1683, unfortunately anonymous, by a former scholarship holder of the Cardinal Lemoine College, which dealt with the last moments of the author of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. The writer of the letter assured that he had stayed with his master until the end, reading, at his request, the prayers he had himself written. At no time, he added, did Richer retract his ideas and those, like Grandin, who claimed the contrary were imposters: They wanted to tarnish his image by saying that he had retracted his opinions. It is true that during the time of Cardinal Richelieu he was obliged, because the persecution was so violent, to explain his thoughts on certain propositions, over which his enemies wished to triumph, taking the document he had signed at that time as a retraction. Far from thinking along those lines, he continued to write and to share with us his doctrine as it was contained in the books we have received from him, particularly in the three volumes of the History of the General Councils. He died with these feelings and I am astounded that there are people who dare publish that at the moment of death he showed pain or regret at having remained true to the maxims he had upheld throughout his life, both verbally and through his writings. They must be seen as brazen or as imposters or, at the very least, as poorly informed people. I did not leave him for a single moment during the course of his illness and helped him until the moment of his death.27

26 Edmond Richer, Vindiciae Doctrinae Majorum Scholae Parisiensis, Seu Constans & perpetua Scholae Parisiensis Doctrina de Authoritate & infallibilitate Ecclesiae in rebus Fidei & Morum, Contra Defensores Monarchiae universalis & absolutae Curiae Romanae, 4 volumes, Cologne, Balthasar ab Egmond et Socii, 1683. 27 Ibid., vol. 3, 2nd pagination, 27.

Chapter 8. The myth of Richerism

The posthumous works of Richer During the one hundred and sixty or so years that separated the death of Richer and the French Revolution the memory of the Gallican theologian remained very much alive in France and the neighbouring countries, but his influence was less important and, above all, less direct than his biographers, Pierre-Édouard Puyol and the historian Edmond Préclin in particular, state. The phenomenon of Richerism, to use a word invented by the Parisian theologian André Duval and used by Richer’s adversaries after his death, has to be seen in its correct perspective. The former syndic remained alive through his manuscripts, which were conserved by those close to him and through his works, whether published for the first time or re-edited by his disciples. Richer’s books certainly had readers but, in general, they did not quote their sources as they did not want to be labelled as Richerists. The only patronage they acknowledged was that of Pierre d’Ailly, Jean Gerson and Jacques Almain. As Bossuet, who knew Richer’s work and who approved of his loyalty towards the School of Paris but mistrusted his veneration of the aristocratic regime, wrote, ‘what one thinks of his ideas is up to the reader but the French clergy do not support him. They have more faith in Gerson and the Parisians’.1 Amongst the Gallicans and their Jansenist allies, the natural inheritors of Richer, the only ones who openly celebrated his memory were his biographer Adrien Baillet and the authors of biographical or bibliographical

1 Bossuet, Defensio declarationis cleri gallicani de ecclesiastica potestate, Appendix III, 1, in Œuvres, vol. 22, Paris, Vivès, 1865, pp 572–573. See Martimort, Le gallicanisme de Bossuet, 541. In writing this work, Bossuet used Richer’s Vindiciae doctrinae majorum scholae parisiensis, which had recently been published, as well as a manuscript copy of the Defensio which would only appear in 1701 (ibid., 566). He devoted two chapters to the conflict between Richer and the parti dévôt in 1611 and 1612 (Defensio declarationis, book 6, chapters 24 and 25 in Œuvres, vol. 21, 743–748).

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articles devoted to him in the eighteenth century. The adversaries of the so-called Richerist movement frequently mentioned Richer’s name but only to blacken it for they had barely read his works and systematically distorted his thinking. According to Thierry de Viaixnes, a Jansenist Benedictine who was imprisoned at Vincennes at the beginning of the eighteenth century and whose recorded cross-examination has been conserved,2 on Richer’s death ten or eleven handwritten manuscripts, amongst which were the six volumes of his history of the University of Paris, passed into the possession of a nephew through marriage by the name of Evrard. The same information appears in a letter of Thierry de Viaixnes to Dubois de Brigode, a companion of the Jansenist theologian Pasquier Quesnel, in 1698. He wrote of ‘Monsieur Evrard, advocate from Paris, who had married a niece of Monsieur Richer’ as possessing a manuscript of the Gallican theologian.3 The person involved was probably Philippe Evrard, an advocate in the Parliament of Paris of whom the engraver Gérard Edelinck made a portrait.4 His father-in–law was Jean Richer, the theologian’s brother who is mentioned in the Histoire du syndicat5. At the end of the seventeenth century, the Evrard couple no longer owned the manuscripts. They had given them to Jacques Breyer, a canon of the basilica of Saint Urbain in Troyes, a town not far from where Richer had grown up, where his treatise on ecclesiastical and political power had been printed and where his disciple Simon Vigor had published some of his works.6 At that time, Troyes was in the throws of becoming a Jansenist town.7 It is known that the theologian of the Sorbonne Nicolas Breyer, an older brother of Jacques, frequently saw the Gallican writer Jean de Launoy, an admirer of Richer.8 It was probably through him that the canon from Troyes came into contact with the Evrard couple and was entrusted with Richer’s manuscripts. 2 Compte rendu de l’histoire de Blache et des pièces trouvées par les commissaires du Parlement au Collège de Louis-le-Grand en 1763 [Paris, 1768]. 8. See Jean-Ernest Godefroy, ‘Un bénédictin janséniste: Dom Thierry de Viaixnes’, Revue Mabillon, 13, 1932, 177. The cross-examination was led by a lieutenant named d’Argenson. It went on for several days during December 1704. 3 Thierry de Viaixnes to [Dubois] de Brigode, 2 April 1699 in [Jacques-Julien Bonnaud], Découverte importante sur le système de la Constitution du Clergé décrétée par l’Assemblée nationale, Paris, Crapart, s.l., [1791], 9. 4 Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, inventory number M26596. See Catalogus Bibliothecae Selectae, Librorum Praestantium, Codicum MSS & Editionum Rariorum: Quam Collegit Vir Nobilissimus Theodorus Boendermaker, Amsterdam, Joannes Boom, 1722, 102. 5 Histoire du syndicat, 194. 6 Godefroy, ‘Un bénédictin janséniste’, 177, note 4. On Jacques Breyer († 1707) see Jacques Le Long, Bibliothèque Historique de la France, new ed., vol. 1, Paris, Hérissand 1768, 338; [Pierre Jean Grosley], Eloge historique et critique de Monsieur Breyer, chanoine de l’Eglise de Troyes, s.l., 1753, 3. 7 Godefroy, ‘Un bénédectin janséniste’, 172. 8 [Grosley], Eloge historique, 3.

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At an unknown date, probably towards 1700, with de Viaixnes having shown an interest in Richer’s manuscripts, Breyer handed them over to him, but misfortune came his way for, on 6 August 1703, the Benedictine monk was arrested on Louis XIV’s orders for his Jansenist views and the manuscripts were removed from his cell at the abbey of Hauvilliers in Champagne three days later.9 Some of them were put into the library of the Jesuit novitiate before being sent to the king’s library in 1763 when the Company was abolished. Others were handed over to the Benedictines at the Abbey of Saint-Germain des Prés.10 At the time of its publication in 1763, the manuscript of the Traité des appelations comme d’abus was in the study of Charles Thuillier, a medical doctor from Orléans who was the author of well-known works on venereal diseases. It is unclear whether it was part of the manuscripts confiscated in 1703.11 With Richer having been forbidden to publish since 1612, the majority of his writings remained in manuscript form. Only five works, the Demonstratio, two occasional documents, the statutes of the Cardinal Lemoine College and the Testamentum were published after that date, whilst he was still alive. In the century and a half after his death, six works which had already been published were reprinted and six unpublished works printed for the first time. His life of Joan of Arc, as we have seen, was published in the twentieth century. The only important work by Richer that remains unpublished to this day is his history of the University of Paris. The following table shows that, during the reign of Louis XIV, Richer’s works were published abroad in order to avoid being censored.12 Under the reign of his successor, they were once again published in France. The majority of the editions or re-editions appeared in 1683 soon after the Declaration of the Assembly of Clergy. By then, the misgivings against the former syndic seemed to have been abandoned, even at the Sorbonne, as the Reformed pastor Jacques Basnage pointed out to Pierre Bayle: What seems to me to be the most extraordinary thing is that Mr Richer’s reputation has been restored. With the Faculty obliged to use his writings and follow his sentiments and with his books, which had been blacklisted, being openly sold, you will be surprised to learn that, at the end of a volume of these Vindiciæ doctrinæ majorum, they went as far

9 10 11 12

BnF, ms fr. 10561, Notes sur le recueil de Richer, quoted in Préclin, ‘Edmond Richer’, 328. Puyol, ‘Edmond Richer’, 328, note 10. Edmond Richer, Traité des appellations comme d’abus …, s.l., 1763, Avertissement au lecteur. On the censorship of books under Louis XIV, see George Minois, Censure et culture sous l’Ancien Régime, Paris, Fayard, 1995.

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as inserting the notes of some theologians from Paris who qualify the Jesuit doctrine on the pope as heretical and their sentiment as a pestilential doctrine that is pernicious to the Church to such an extent that one must find it horrifying.’13

One would have to wait for the decade 1753–1763 for Richer’s works to attract as much public appreciation and this at a time when the debate on the rights of the second order of the clergy was in full swing in a context marked by the influence of the Enlightenment. Re-editions and posthumous editions of Edmond Richer’s works (1660–1763) Date

Re-editions

1660

De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, followed by Demonstratio Apologia pro Joanne Gersonio

Posthumous editions

1676 1680–81 Historia conciliorum generalium 1683 Libellus de ecclesiastica et Historia conciliorum generalium politica potestate, followed by Demonstratio 1691 Vindiciae doctrinae majorum scholae Parisiensis 1683 Testamentum Vindiciae doctrinae majorum scholae Parisiensis 1691 De potestate ecclesiae in rebus temporalibus 1693 Obstetrix Animorum 1701 Defensio, preceded by De ecclesiastica et politica potestate and Demonstratio 1753 Histoire du syndicat 1755 Demonstratio libelli de ecclesiastica et politica potestate 1763 Traité des appellations comme d’abus

Place of publication Paris Leiden Cologne Cologne Cologne Cologne Cologne Leipzig Cologne Avignon Paris s.l.

Very little is known of the circumstances surrounding the publication of Richer’s posthumous works. The only editorial process about which information has been preserved is that which resulted in the publication of the Defensio in 1701. The project was started by Thierry de Viaixnes, no doubt in collaboration with the Gallican historian Louis Ellies Du Pin, who is particularly remembered for his re-

13 Jacques Basnage to Pierre Bayle, [Rouen, October-November 1683], Electronic edition of the correspondence of Pierre Bayle, letter 233 .

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edition of the Gerson’s works.14 The Jansenist Benedictine first had a book of the Dominican Tomás de Lemos on grace printed by the Reims publisher François Godard, the preface of which Louis Ellies Du Pin edited.15 He then suggested to the publisher that they print Richer’s Defensio on the basis of a manuscript entrusted to him by Breyer. But Godard had his hands full so he had the work published by his colleague Jean-François Bronckart in Liège. This, at least, was what de Viaixnes stated, despite knowing that ‘according to the frontispiece’ the work appeared to have been published in Cologne.16 This statement, which appears to contradict the fact that other works by Richer had been published by Balthasar ab Egmond in Cologne, is difficult to verify.17 In any case, according to the afore-mentioned letter by de Viaixnes to de Brigode, it seemed certain at the time that the book would become a bestseller: I have unearthed a manuscript of a large work by Richer which has not been printed. There are more than two thousand pages which are bigger than this one. This could make a large in-folio or three in–4˚. I am convinced that such a manuscript would enrich any bookseller and that people would rush to buy it, especially in France.18

The reception of Richer’s work during the seventeenth century Richer’s influence, as has already been seen, was never acknowledged by those who shared his ideas. But the former syndic nevertheless retained followers especially in the years after his death. The Faculty of Theology in Paris, for its part, adopted a prudent stance. If it abstained from supporting the Gallican party, it did not give into Ultramontane pressure. When, in 1634, Richelieu, wishing to reassure Rome, asked the Sorbonne to approve a declaration on the pope which had been drafted, together with the nuncio Alexandre Bichi, by his emissary Léonor d’Estampes, bishop of Chartres, Nicolas Ysambert and three other doctors, the dean of the Faculty, Jean Filesac refused, not without courage, 14 On Louis Ellies Du Pin (1657–1719) see Jacques Grès-Gayer, ‘Un théologien gallican, témoin de son temps: Louis Ellies Du Pin (1657–1719), Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 72, 1986, 67–121; ‘Le gallicanisme de Louis Ellies Du Pin (1659–1719)’, LIAS, 18, 1991, 37–82. 15 The work appeared in 1702 with the incorrect mention of Louvain. See Godefroy, ‘Un bénédictin janséniste’ 176. This was a re-edition of a book which had appeared in Liège in 1676 under the title Panoplia gratiae, seu de rationalis creaturæ in finem supernaturalem gratuita divina suavi-potente ordinatione. On Tomás de Lemos, voir Sylvio Hermann De Franceschi, ‘El tomismo agustiniano de los dominicos españoles. Tomás de Lemos y la referencia a san Agustín en tiempos de las Congregaciones de auxiliis’, in Marina Mestre Zaragozá and Philippe Rabaté (eds), Agustín en España (siglos XVI y XVII): Aspectos de Filosofía, Teología y Espiritualidad, Toulouse, Presses universitaires du Mirail, 2011, 191–213. 16 Compte rendu de l’histoire de Blache, 9. 17 It is not mentioned in Xavier de Theux’s Bibliographie liégoise (Brussels, Olivier, 1867). 18 Quoted in [Bonnaud], Découverte, 9.

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to comply.19 The text clearly targeted Richer’s ideas. ‘Saint Peter and the Roman pontiffs’, it read, ‘hold their dignity as head of the Church, not from the Church itself, but from Christ. The Roman pontiff is not an accidental but essential and necessary head of the Church whilst, nevertheless, remaining subordinate to Christ.’20 Amongst the supporters of the former syndic was Jean de Launoy, a Gallican historian known for the war which he waged against myths. He had received his doctorate in 1634, three years after Richer’s death.21 According to the ex-Jesuit François-Xavier de Feller, who did not quote his sources, Launoy used to hold salons where much was spoken about the Gallican theologian. But as early as 1636, doubtless judging that they were in conflict with Richelieu’s policy of religious pacification, King Louis XIII put a stop to these meetings: The conferences which he held at his home every Monday were a type of academic school where people sought to teach one another but also, occasionally, to lead one another astray; and, as they resembled conventicules, attended by people with a dogmatising nature, the king forbade them in 1636. Richer was a focal point, with his opinions, and those who were present attempted to establish a democratic and anarchical system which, not being suitable for any society, turned the very foundations of the authority of the Catholic Church upside down.22

With André Duval having died in 1638, other theologians took over so as to posthumously refute Richer. In 1644 the ‘Richerists’, as René Rapin, a young Jesuit lecturing at the College of Clermont named them, were sufficiently numerous at the Faculty of Theology in Paris to cause concern. ‘In this august body’, he wrote in his memoirs, ‘a remnant of Richerists still wielded power who, under the pretext of disapproving the overly strong power which reigned in the Church of Rome, often expressed extremely offensive remarks regarding the pope’s authority which they contested on every possible occasion without achieving anything’.23 19 Duplessis d’Argentré, Collectio, 2/2, 298–299. 20 ‘Articles qui ont esté concertez et deliberez au college d’Inville, le 24e juing 1643 après midy, par M. l’evesque de Chartres et les docteurs Duval, Isambert et Lescot, lecteurs du Roy en theologie, Charton, penitentier, et Cornet, docteur de Navarre’, quoted in Martimort, Le gallicanisme de Bossuet, 56. There are two versions of this text, one in the BnF (Ms Dupuy 571, f.49) and the other at the Saint Genevieve Library (Ms 260, f. 247). It is alluded to in a document of controversy of 1671 (Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 102). 21 On Jean de Launoy, see Lecler, ‘Qu’est-ce que les libertés de l’Église gallicane?’, 57. 22 François-Xavier de Feller, article, ‘Launoy, Jean de’ in Biographie universelle, ou dictionnaire historique des hommes qui se sont fait un nom par leur génie, leur talent, leurs vertus, leurs erreurs ou leurs crimes depuis le commencement du monde jusqu’à nos jours, new ed., vol. 4, Besançon-Paris, Outhernin-Chalandre, 1839, 64. 23 Mémoires du René Rapin de la Compagnie de Jésus sur l’Eglise et la société. La cour, la ville et le jansénisme (1644–1669), ed. Louis Aubineau, vol. 1, Paris, Gaume Frères and J. Duprey, 1865, 44. See Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 440.

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In the same year, another Jesuit, Denis Pétau, devoted a section of his Dogmata theologica to Richer.24 Having entered the Company in 1605, this colleague of Fronton Du Duc was especially known for his patristic and historical works. But he also wrote theological works, the Dogmata theologica, an incomplete general survey of Tridentine theology, representing the most important one. Three chapters of the third book, which dealt with ecclesiastical hierarchy, are dedicated to to Richer’s De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. He set out to show that the Gallican theologian betrayed the thinking of both Gerson and Almain by refusing to grant the pope any power and, thereforce, was heretical. By stating this, he overhardened Richer’s position, portraying him almost as a Protestant. Contrary to what Pétau wrote, Richer did not deny that the pope possessed the power of jurisdiction. He merely stated that this power should be used in the service of the entire Church of which the council was the voice.25 Meanwhile, the Jansenist quarrel exploded, inflaming French Catholicism after the condemnation, in 1642, of the theses on grace defended by the bishop of Ypres Cornelius Jansen in the Augustinus, a posthumous work published in Louvain two years earlier. The Sorbonne embarked on a debate concerning five propositions supposedly reflecting Jansenius’ thought and the entire affair was submitted to Pope Innocent X’s arbitration. He condemned the propositions in question in the papal bull Cum occasione. In contrast to the representatives of what came to be known as the second Jansenism, which appeared at the end of the century, Saint-Cyran, the Arnaulds and their followers did not take a stand on the question of power in the Church. They accepted the spiritual as much as the temporal supremacy of the pope and recognised the authority of the French bishops, some of whom actually sided with them.26 A letter written in May 1653 by Jacques Sainte-Beuve, a professor of theology at the Sorbonne who was divested of his chair for having refused to sign the condemnation of Antoine Arnauld, shows that during the first phase of their history the Jansenists refused to associate themselves with Richer’s disciples with whom the only thing they had in common was their aversion towards the Jesuits. Writing to Louis-Gorin de Saint-Amour, a member of the delegation sent to the pope by the French bishops favourable to the Jansenists to defend the five propositions, Sainte-Beuve stressed that a condemnation of these propositions would diminish the Holy See’s authority and would provide the ‘Richerists’ with ammunition:

24 Denis Pétau, Dogmata theologica, vol. 1–3, Paris, Sébastien Cramoisy, 1644, vol. 4–5, 1650. 25 Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 1, 257–261. 26 Edmond Préclin, Les Jansénistes du XVIIIe siècle et la Constitution civile du clergé. Le développement du richérisme. Sa propagation dans le Bas Clergé 1713–1791, Paris, Librairie Universitaire Gambier, 1928, 12–18.

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I know for certain that if what the Molinists boast of is true, it will be one of the most disadvantageous things for the Holy See which will lessen, in the majority of minds, the respect and the submission which they have always felt toward Rome and which will encourage many others to adopt Richerist sentiments. […] I beg you to reflect on this and to remember that a long time ago I indicated to you that on this decision depends the renewal of Richerism in France, something that I strongly fear.27

At this time, Gallican principles continued to draw support from jurist and Parliamentarian circles. As Joseph Lecler has shown, the basis of what was called Gallican policy had barely changed. Pierre Dupuy, whose Traité des droits et libertez de l’Eglise gallicane28 was condemned by eighteen bishops gathered in assembly in February 1639, did nothing more than repeat the argumentation proposed by Pierre Pithou in 1594.29 Dupuy, who had known Richer, supported his cause but it was not from him that he had learnt his attachment for Gallican liberties. The theologians from the Sorbonne, whose autonomy from Rome and the monarchy continued to diminish,30 were divided. Some of them refused to rally to the Ultramontane party but did not see themselves as supporting, as such, the ideas of the former syndic. Pierre de Marca, for example, if he could be seen as being Gallican, questioned the length of time that the liberties of the Gallican Church had been in existence and distanced himself from the teachings of the Council of Constance regarding the superiority of the council over the pope.31 The same was true of Antoine Charlas, the theological counsellor of François de Caulet, one of the two bishops who had refused, at the time of the controversy on the right of régale, to sign the very Gallican Declaration of the Assembly of Clergy in 1682 on royal rights. He also suggested a minimalist interpretation of the liberties of the Gallican Church.32 Charlas deserves attention because, in his Tractatus de libertatibus ecclesiae gallicanae which appeared in 1684, he criticised Richer by name about the recent edition of a collection of conciliarist texts the former syndic had compiled under

27 Journal de Mr de Saint-Amour, docteur de Sorbonne, De ce qui s’est fait à Rome dans l’Affaire des Cinq Propositions, s.l., 1662, 522–523. 28 [Pierre Dupuy], Traitez des droits et libertez de l’Eglise gallicane. Preuves des libertez de l’Eglise gallicane, s.l., 1639. 29 Joseph Lecler ‘Qu’est-ce que les libertés de l’Église gallicane?’, Recherches de sciences religieuses, 24, 1934, 47. 30 Jacques Grès-Gayer, ‘The Magisterium of the Faculty of Theology of Paris in the Seventeenth Century’, Theological Studies, 53, 1992, 424–450. 31 Ibid., 54, 60. 32 Ibid., 55, 59. See also Martimort, Le gallicanisme de Bossuet, 602–621; Richard Costigan, The Consensus of the Church and Papal Infallibility, Washington DC, The Catholic University of America Press, 2005, 29–30.

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the title of Vindiciae doctrinae majorum scholae Parisiensis.33 He maintained that Richer’s Vindiciae in no ways proved the validity of the four articles of the clergy for his doctrine was not that of Gerson. He discussed Richer’s interpretation of texts of Popes Zosimus and Gregory the Great in favour of Gallican ideas and pointed out that it had been condemned by the Holy See, the French bishops, the Sorbonne and the king.34

Richerism as an argument of controversy It was in connection with the second Jansenism that the question of Richer’s influence and the existence of a movement named after him Richerist was raised. Even if they became involved in the political debate,35 the followers of Jansenius and Saint-Cyran remained on the margins of the debate on the liberties of the Gallican Church. Everything changed in 1695 when Louis XIV signed an edict granting bishops a set of new rights regarding the bestowing of the power of confession and preaching to priests not recognised as curés.36 This move drew together the second order of the clergy, that is to say, the secular priests, and the Jansenists who had been marginalised by the royal policies. Thus was born a second generation of Jansenists, who added to the ideas on grace which had characterised their predecessors a series of propositions on the nature of ecclesiastical power. More and more critical of the Tridentine model of the Church, they supported the claims of the second order against the bishops and stated, following the tradition of the School of Paris, that ecclesiastical power belonged to the whole Church, represented by the council, and not just to the pope. They reproached the Roman Curia for intervening in the affairs of the Church of France without respecting the traditional intermediaries and became indignant at seeing Jansenius condemned by Rome for suggestions which did not appear anywhere in his work. 33 Edmond Richer, Vindiciae Doctrinae Majorum Scholae Parisiensis, Seu Constans & perpetua Scholae Parisiensis Doctrina de Authoritate & infallibilitate Ecclesiae in rebus Fidei & Morum. Contra Defensores Monarchiae universalis & absolutae Curiae Romanae. Liber tertius, continens Scripta Cardinalis Alliaceni & Jaonnis Gersonii, Cologne, Balthasar ab Egmont, 1683. 34 [Antoine Charlas], Tractatus de libertatibus ecclesiae gallicanae amplam discussionem declarationis factae ab illustrissimis Archiepiscopis, & Episcopis, Parisiis mandato Regio congregates, Anno M.DC.LXXXII, Liège, Hovius, 1684, 577, 614. On the interpretation of Pope Zosimus’letter see Joseph Lecler, ‘Qu’est-ce que les libertés de l’Église gallicane?’, Recherches de sciences religieuses, 24, 1934, 59; Martimort, Le gallicanisme de Bossuet, 567. 35 René Taveneaux, Jansénisme et politique, Paris, Armand Collin, 1965. 36 Préclin, Les jansénistes du XVIIIe siècle, 22–26, Dale Van Kley, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution. From Calvin to the Civil Constitution, 1560–1791, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1996, 41.

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In a milestone treatise, Edmond Préclin called Richerism the movement for the recognition of the rights of the second order associated with Jansenism. Along the lines of Pierre-Édouard Puyol, he saw in Richer’s writings a mixture of episcopalism, royalism and parochialism. This last characteristic, according to him, was the one which dominated. ‘Richerism is infested with obvious contradictions which will only gradually be whittled away through the refining of elements which are foreign to parochialism.’37 We will discuss further the merit of the application of the categories of episcopalism and royalism to Richer.38 The reference to parochialism is equally questionable. A movement for the recognition of the rights of the second order certainly existed during the eighteenth century. As was shown by Dale Van Kley, it laid the foundations, through its democratic tone, for certain developments of the French Revolution.39 But, as Préclin himself recognised, it imperfectly reflected Richer’s thoughts. It must not be forgotten that the Gallican theologian borrowed from Gerson the idea that the hierarchical order in the Church included priests, the successors of the seventy disciples, and that the prelates of the second order exercised their power of jurisdiction because of their status.40 The author of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate was in no way a militant for the rights of priests against the rights of the bishops. On this subject, he was more a catalyst than an instigator.41 Préclin essentialised Richerism. Under his pen, it became an autonomous and permanent doctrine which adapted itself to changing circumstances. It is quite possible that authors such as Quesnel or Le Gros – we will return to this – had read Richer’s works which were freely available and that the themes developed in them had a particular resonance for them. But

37 Préclin, Les jansénistes du XVIIIe siècle, 111. See also Préclin, ‘Edmond Richer’, 334–336; Sutto, ‘Une controverse ecclésiologique du début du XVIIe siècle’ 428–429. 38 I concur with Michel Baslez’s conclusions in his Recherches sur le De ecclesiastica et politica potestate d’Edmond Richer, thesis for the Diplôme d’Études Supérieures d’Histoire des Institutions, University of Paris II, 1974, 137. On Richerism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, see Oakley, ‘Bronze-Age Conciliarism’, 71; Van Kley, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution, 65–74, 196–203. 39 Préclin, Le jansénistes du XVIIIe siècle, 28; Van Kley, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution, 41. 40 Francis Oakley makes the same observation in The Conciliarist Tradition. Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church 1300–1870, New York, Oxford University Press, 2003, 167: ‘In Richer’s own day, and sometimes indeed, later on, his insistence on the divinely established and hierarchical status of the parish clergy was recognized for what it was – no bold novelty but the echoing of a theme prominent in the thinking of Gerson, and so long established in the latter’s day that the novelty lay not in its affirmation but in the willingness of some members of the mendicant order to deny it.’ 41 I borrow this apt expression from Grès-Gayer, ‘The Magisterium of the Faculty of Theology of Paris’, 446.

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they never quoted from Richer and the expression Richerism was only used, always in a pejorative way, by the adversaries of Jansenism. At no time was Richerism a formal movement.42 Richer and the representatives of the second Jansenism shared the belief that it was the whole Church which had received the power of the keys and not only the successor of Peter. According to the former syndic, it had an aristocratic order. The council had decision-making power. At the end of the seventeenth century and during the eighteenth century, there was a shift in meaning: the aristocratic element which had dominated in Richer and the Gallicans of his era gave way to a more multitudinist, if not to say more democratic, understanding of the Church. The movement for the recognition of the rights of the second order was in line with this perspective. The first defenders of the equality of priests and bishops did not flaunt themselves as Gallicans.43 One of the first authors to write on this subject was Jacques Boileau, the brother of the poet Nicolas Boileau, who, in 1676, wrote under the pseudonym of Fontejus – the fountain of right. Dean of the cathedral of Sens and a doctor of the Sorbonne, he was known to be an eccentric. In the De antique jure presbyterorum in regimine ecclesiastico, a small volume written in Latin, he set out to show that, in early Christianity, priests participated in the government of the Church alongside bishops. In this context, he quoted Irenaeus of Lyon, Cyprian and the councils of Gaul, referring to a publication by the Jesuit Jacques Sirmond, one of Richer’s opponents. In the first chapter of his book, he declared that Christ had not introduced the monarchy into the Church but, further on, one realises that he was speaking of the episcopal monarchy and not

42 On this topic see Grès-Gayer, ‘Le gallicanisme de Louis Ellies Du Pin’, 61: ‘It is difficult to follow the evolution and the influence of “Richerist Gallicanism”. Too often it is interpreted as a “parochialism” – or, as its adversaries called it, a “Presbyterianism” – whose main aim was to defend the rights of the clergy of the second order whilst, in fact, it was something far greater: appearing to be loyal toward a national tradition, it was in fact a total reconstruction of a certain model of society, political as much a religious’. For his part, Dale Van Kley saw Richerism as a ‘misnomer’. He pointed out that Nicolas Travers’ work, Les pouvoirs légitimes du premier et du second ordre dans l’administration des sacrements et le government de l’Église (s.l., 1744), which Préclin considered to be representative of the Richerist movement, made no mention of Richer (The Religious Origins of the French Revolution, 91). 43 One of the curés’ first movements of protest against episcopal abuse was the one Richard Golden described in Paris under the Fronde, calling it, no doubt incorrectly, Richerist. See Richard Golden, The Godly Rebellion: Parisian Curés and the Religious Fronde, 1652–1662, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1981, 3, 14, 72–73, 155–156; Oakley, ‘BronzeAge Conciliarism’, 71.

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the pontifical monarchy.44 Whist Jacques Boileau was a Jansenist, he certainly was not a Richerist, as Préclin made him out to be.45 His work made no mention whatsoever of the School of Paris. The same is true of Jacques-Joseph Duguet’s Conférences ecclésiastiques, a work written in 1678 and 1679 and published posthumously in 1742. A connoisseur of the Church Fathers, this Oratorian left his congregation in 1685 to avoid signing the Formulaire, a document renewing the condemnation of Jansenius’ five propositions. His book, striking in its erudition, was, in part, written against the Protestant historian David Blondel. It stated that the clergy and the community formerly had the right to elect the bishop and that the clergy sat in at council meetings.46 Recent authors such as Pétau, Scaliger and Grotius were quoted,47 but not Richer. No more than Boileau can Duguet be considered a Richerist. At the very most, the influence of the author of De ecclesiastica et politica potestate is indirect. The Declaration of the Assembly of the Clergy in 1682 gave a new thrust to Gallicanism. Several works of Richer, as we have seen, were published the following year. In 1692 the Gallican historian Adrien Baillet ‘amused himself ’, as he wrote to a doctor at the Sorbonne, by writing a biography on Richer which he never dared to have published. It appeared only in 1714, shortly before the publication of the papal bull Unigenitus.48 In 1692 as well, Eustache Le Noble, a somewhat marginal Jansenist, published an anonymous opuscule entitled L’esprit de Gerson, which, at first reading, seemed to have been written by Richer. He reproduced the ideas of the former syndic without adding much that was new. Bossuet, the principal drafter of the Declaration of the Clergy declared the author to be a ‘very dishonest man who knew nothing about theology’ but who had nevertheless ‘learnt something very valuable from the author he is quoting’.49 In the preface to his work, Le Noble declared that the heretics and the libertines who showed ‘no respect for the Holy See’ and ‘the slaves of Rome’ were equally to blame.50 In a tone which evoked 44 Claudius Fontejus [Jacques Boileau], De antique jure presbyterorum in regimine ecclesiastico, Turin, Bartolomeo Zappata, [Lyon?], 1676, 146. 45 Préclin, Les jansénistes du XVIII siècle, 22–24. 46 Ibid. 24. 47 [Jacques-Joseph] Duguet, Conferences ecclesiastiques ou dissertations sur les auteurs, les conciles & la discipline des premiers siècles de l’Eglise, vol. 1, Cologne, at the Company’s cost, 1742. 48 Leonard Wang, ‘En marge de la controverse gallicane-ultramontainiste en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Une Biographie Oubliée: La Vie d’Edmond Richer, Docteur de Sorbonne, by Baillet’, Dix-septième siècle, 104, 1974, 79–82. 49 Bossuet, Œuvres, vol. 39, Versailles, Lebel, 1818, 120. See Préclin, Les jansénistes du XVIIIe siècle, 24; Martimort, Le gallicanisme de Bossuet, 644–645. 50 [Eustache Le Noble], L’esprit de Gerson ou instructions catholiques touchant le Saint-Siège, s.l., 1791, 2.

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Richer he took a stance in favour of a ‘spiritual monarchy led by the aristocratic government of the councils’ and repudiated the ‘Roman Court’ with its intrigues and material preoccupations’.51 He stated that the pope’s claims to temporal power contradicted the practices of the early Church and said that in spiritual matters the pontiff would do better to follow Gerson rather than Bellarmine. The summary he gave of the doctrine of the chancellor of the University of Paris seemed to draw, almost word for word, on Richer’s De ecclesiastica et politica potestate: Gerson opposes this & so does the entire Gallican Church & this is the doctrine of the Sorbonne. 1. That the Church was founded by Jesus Christ as a monarchy which was subordinate to the laws of an aristocratic government. 2. That the pope is only the ministerial head of the Church of which Jesus Christ is the only essential head & that the keys were given to the whole Church. 3. That all the bishops receive their power directly from Jesus Christ with a single episcopate in which they all participate equally with the pope. 4. That the infallibility belongs to the Church which has been legally assembled and not to the pope alone. 5. That the council is above the pope when it is ecumenical and legitimate. 6. That secular princes have been and are entitled to convene councils & the councils do not need to be confirmed by the pope. 7. That he has no power either direct or indirect over the tenure of secular princes.52

The second part of the work was entirely devoted to the refutation of the arguments of the ‘Ultramontanes’, Bellarmine in particular, in favour of pontifical infallibility.53 It ended with an ‘Appeal to the future Council’.54 At no time was the question of the powers of the second order addressed. Le Noble joined the conciliarist tradition, like Richer, but he was not a Richerist in the sense that Préclin understood the word. Of greater historical significance is the Nouveau Testament en français avec des réflexions morales pour chaque verset of Pasquier Quesnel, the main representative of the second Jansenism who was in exile at the time for having refused to sign the Formulaire. It was this book, which appeared in 1692, that the antiJansenists chose as target of a pontifical censure.55 At the end of a long process which involved the French bishops so as not to offend Gallican sensibilities, one hundred and one propositions of the treatise were condemned by Pope Clement

51 Ibid., 5–6. 52 Ibid., 40–41. 53 Ibid., 108. The term ‘Ultramontain’ already appeared in Richer’s Histoire du syndicat, 24. On the history of the word, see H. Raab, ‘Zur Geschichte und Bedeutung des Schlagswortes Ultramontan im 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhundert’, Historisches Jahrbuch der Görresgesellschaft, 81, 1962, 152–173; De Francheschi, Crise théologico-politique, 23. 54 Ibid., 247. 55 Jacques Grès-Gayer, ‘The Unigenitus of Clement XI: a fresh look at the issues’, Theological Studies, 49, 1988, 265.

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XI in the bull Unigenitus in 1713. To discredit Quesnel, the Jesuit Michel Le Tellier, one of the condemnation’s main instigators and, in addition, King Louis XIV’s confessor, accused him of being a Richerist. It would, however, not appear that the Jansenist theologian was inspired by Richer, directly in any case. In fact, as has been shown by Jacques Gres-Gayer, it was Quesnel’s condemnation by Rome, which was seen as being contrary to practice, rather than the writings of this theologian which favoured the revival of the Gallican movement under the auspices of Jansenism.56 Several of Quesnel’s ‘moral reflections’ dealt with the Church and the sharing of power within its midst. Whilst he recognised the primacy of the pope, the author of the Réflexions morales considered that the whole Church had the power to excommunicate and that it was from the Church that the pope and the bishops derived their authority: The tribunal of the Church is as old as the Church itself. The power and the authority to punish and to excommunicate reside in this. It is granted to the entire body which depends on a leader, for and in the name of the entire body of the Church and its invisible head.57

If these reflections and others concerning Christ, head of the Church, and the right of the faithful to elect priests and bishops make one think of Richer, they also bring the conciliarist movement to mind. But, contrary to Quesnel, Richer was wary of giving any power to the laity.58 His idea of the government of the Church was resolutely aristocratic. The two men’s systems were not sufficiently similar to enable one to say that Quesnel was a disciple of Richer. However, Quesnel’s adversaries were convinced that this was the case. In a work entitled Le Quesnel hérétique dans ses reflexions sur le Nouveau Testament, Le Tellier established a link between Richerism – he used the word – and Jansenism. Overstating the meaning of the document in the process, he referred to the letter, quoted above, of Sainte-Beuve to Saint-Amour which predicted the development of Richerism if Jansenius’ five propositions were to be condemned. Saint-Cyran, he added, ‘was so imbued with Richer’s ideas that he did not hesitate to call fools those who dared condemning them’. The Gallican theologian was forbidden to publish anything during his lifetime but now the Jansenists were publishing his works. The ‘core of Richerism’, stated Le Tellier, lay in the fact that the power of the keys had not been bestowed upon the apostles but upon the entire Church, 56 Ibid., 278–281. 57 [Pasquier Quesnel], Le Nouveau Testament en français, avec des reflexions morales sur chaque verset, pour en rendre la lecture & la meditation plus facile à ceux qui commencent à s’y appliquer, 4 volumes, Paris, Preslard, 1692, new ed. 1693, here vol. 3, 444, quoted in Préclin, Les jansénistes du XVIIIe siècle, 26. 58 Ibid., 278–281.

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laymen as well as priests. This applied to the relations between the pope and bishops, between bishops and priests, and between kings and states.59 This text was significant: it revealed the existence at the beginning of the eighteenth century of a belief in the permanence of the Richerist movement which Richer’s Ultramontane adversaries, Pierre-Édouard Puyol in particular, as well as historians like Edmond Préclin, would endorse. The book which the Oratorian Vivien de La Borde published in 1714 under the title Du témoignage de la vérité dans l’Eglise, when Louis XIV imposed lettres de cachet on the opponents of the bull Unigenitus, showed the scope of the changes that occurred during this period. He wrote that bishops’ judgements essentially depended on the consent of the body of the faithful and that the body of pastors could not make a false testimony’.60 The Church’, he concluded, ‘the voice of the Church, the testimony of truth, the authority of the See, these are four things that must be constantly sought, at all times.’61 With de La Borde Jansenism moved towards a democratic conception of the Church. Whatever Préclin said, this was far removed from Richer.62 Two years later, when, Louis XIV having been replaced by a regent who was still indecisive, the appeals to a general council for the revocation of the condemnation of Jansenism multiplied.63 Nicolas Le Gros, a Jansenist canon who had returned from exile, published a book with a significant title: Du renversement des libertez de l’Eglise gallicane dans l’affaire de la Constitution Unigenitus (Of the overturning of the liberties of the Gallican Church in the affair of the constitution Unigenitus). He returned to the century-old theme of the liberties of the Gallican Church but with more insistence than Pithou and Dupuy a century earlier on the need for the consent of the faithful for the exercise of the power of jurisdiction.64 According to him, ‘it is the entire Church which has ownership [of the keys] to exercise power through its ministers’65 and ‘the popes themselves

59 [Michel Le Tellier], Le Quesnel heretique dans ses reflexions sur le Nouveau Testament, s.l., 1705, 12–13. 60 [Vivien de La Borde], Du témoignage de la vérité dans l’Eglise. Dissertation théologique où l’on examine quel est ce témoignage, tant en général qu’en particulier, au regard de la dernière Constitution, s.l., 1714, 90, 94. 61 Ibid., 317. 62 Préclin, Les jansénistes du XVIIIe siècle, 42. 63 Marie-José Michel, ‘Clergé et pastorale jansénistes à Paris (1699–1730)’, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, 27, 1979, 178. 64 Préclin, Les jansénistes du XVIIIe siècle, 60–64; G. Cerny, Theology, Politics and Letters at the Crossroads of European civilization. Jacques Basnage and the Huguenot Baylean Refugees in the Dutch Republic, Dordrecht, Martinus Nijhoff, 1987, 241. 65 {Nicolas Le Gros], Du renversement des libertez de l’Eglise gallicane dans l’affaire de la Constitution Unigenitus, vol. 1, p, 340.

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may only excommunicate when they can, at the very least, presume the consent of the entire body’.66 Significantly, whilst he referred several times to Gerson and Almain,67 he did not even once mention the former syndic.68 Among the authors who referred to Richer during this period was Jean-Joseph Languet de Gergy, bishop of Soissons, an ardent defender of the bull Unigenitus and of the monarchical cause, who associated the former syndic with the apostate bishop Marco Antonio De Dominis and with the Reformed theologian Pierre Jurieu.69 Another one was the Flemish Jesuit Jacques La Fontaine who mentioned Richer’s retractions to show that, unlike Quesnel, the former syndic was prepared to recognise his errors.70 At the beginning of the eighteenth century the most illustrious disciple of Gerson’s was Louis Ellies Du Pin who procured, as we have seen, a new edition of his works in 1706, which depended on that of Richer but which was more complete.71 His historical work, which was immense, aimed at opposing to the Tridentine model, which dominated at the time, a vision of the Church which was less hierarchical, more community-based and more sensitive to the theme of the unity of Christians. Like Quesnel, de La Borde and Le Gros, he believed that ecclesiastical power resided in the entire Church, which entrusted the exercise of 66 Ibid., vol. 1, 399. 67 Ibid., vol. 2, 139, 149, 162–163, 172, 539. See Oakley, The Conciliarist Tradition, 246. 68 Van Kley made the same observation about another book of Nicolas Le Gros, the Mémoire sur les droits du second ordre du clergé, s.l., 1733 (The Religious Origins of the French Revolution, 910). Oakley must be corrected on this point (The Conciliarist Tradition 246): contrary to what this author, otherwise one of the best writers on conciliarism in the modern era, led one to believe, only Gerson, d’Ailly, Almain and Major were mentioned in the works of Le Gros and never Richer. 69 Instruction pastorale de Monseigneur J. Joseph Languet évêque de Soissons contenant un troisième avertissement à ceux, qui dans son Diocèse, se sont déclarez Appelans de la Constitution Unigenitus, Reims, B. Multeau, 1718, 6. See Van Kley, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution, 83. 70 [Jacques La Fontaine], Sanctissimi Dominis Nostri Clementi Papae XI Constitutio Unigenitus theologice propugnata, vol. 3, Rome, Joannes Maria Salvioni, 1721, col. 1139–1149. 71 In a ‘Mémoire sur les ouvrages d’Almain et de Richer’ addressed to King Louis XIV, the very Gallican Henri François d’Aguesseau, public prosecutor in the Parliament of Paris and soon to be chancellor, defended the re-edition of Gerson’s works by Louis Ellies Du Pin which included, on the example of Richer, a treatise by Jacques Almain (Œuvres complètes, vol. 13, Paris, 1789, 521, new ed., vol. 8, Paris, Fantin, 1819, 527–537). See Isabelle Brancourt, Le chancelier d’Aguesseau. Étude biographique, thesis from the University of Lille, 2002, reprint, Paris, Publisud, 2006, 416. D’Aguesseau attempted to show King Louis XIV that the conciliarist doctrine held no threat towards royalty in spite of Almain’s declarations on the consensual origin of temporal power. Of eight pages of text, only a single paragraph was devoted to Richer. In a letter written to Fénelon on 4 March 1713, the Jesuit Jacques Philippe Lallemant pointed out that ‘some doctors had previously indicated to the syndic [of the Faculty of Theology] that they would denounce M. [Louis Ellies] for his work on Gerson and Almain’ (Correspondance de Fénelon, vol. 4, Paris, Ferra, 1827, 179). The memoir on Almain and Richer is to be seen against this background.

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this power to pastors by way of elections. He accepted the primacy of Rome but rejected the idea of pontifical infallibility. Christ, he wrote, using a language reminiscent of Richer, wanted ‘a constitutional monarchy tempered by aristocracy’.72 Of all the writers of the period, Ellies Du Pin was the one who best knew Richer to whom he had devoted a lengthy section of his Histoire ecclésiastique du dixseptième siècle, which appeared in 1714.73 But as Gres-Gayer has stressed, it did more than merely follow the inspiration of the former syndic, he considerably enlarged his perspectives. Based on a careful reading of the patristic and conciliarist texts, he proposed a new interpretation of Catholicism which was both reactionary because of its return to the past and innovatory because of its insistence on the representation of the faithful and their necessary reception of ecclesial doctrine.74

From conciliarist constitutionalism to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy Richerism, as we have seen, only existed in the minds of its detractors. With the exception of the authors of biographical or bibliographical notices, all of whom relied on Adrien Baillet’s Vie d’Edmond Richer,75 rare were the authors such as Eustache Le Noble or Louis Ellies Du Pin who truly paid attention to the writings of Richer and even those considered themselves to be followers of Gerson rather than of the former syndic. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, it was not the Jansenists but rather men like the Jesuit Michel Le Tellier or Bishop JeanJoseph Languet who spoke of Richerism. According to them, it was Richer who had introduced the ‘poison’ of Jansenism into France. The same reproach was made fifty years later by Bertrand Capmartin de Chaupy in his Observation sur le refus que fait le Chastelet de reconnoitre la Chambre Royale. This work appeared in 1754 during the conflict between the 72 Louis Ellies Du Pin, De Antiqua Ecclesiae disciplina dissertationes historicae, Paris, Arnold Seneuse, 1686, 378, Eclaircissement, 4v˚, quoted in Grès-Gayer, ‘Le gallicanisme de Louis Ellies Du Pin’, 47. 73 Louis Ellies Du Pin, Histoire ecclésiastique du dix-septième siècle, vol. 1, Paris, André Pralard, 1714, 377–425. 74 Grès-Gayer, ‘Le gallicanisme de Louis Ellies Du Pin’, 61. 75 Louis Moreri, Le grand dictionnaire historique ou le mélange curieux de l’histoire sacrée et profane, new ed., vol. 6, Paris, Jean-Baptiste Coignard, 1725, 110–111; [Jean-Pierre Niceron], Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des hommes illustres dans la république des lettres, vol. 27, Paris, Briasson, 1734, 356–373; [Bonaventure Racine], Abrégé de l’histoire ecclésiastique contenant les événements considérables de chaque siècle avec des réflexions, new ed., vol. 10, Cologne, 1754, 207–307.

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Parliament of Paris and King Louis XV concerning the obligation imposed upon priests to refuse the sacrament of confession on the dying unless they produced a billet de confession (letter of confession) proving that they subscribed to the bull Unigenitus.76 Capmartin de Chaupy defended the king when he reacted to the Grandes Remonstrances of Parliament by replacing the latter, exiled to Pontoise at the time, with a new chamber of registration called the Royal Chamber. However, he was obliged to leave the kingdom two years later when, in a move of appeasement, Louis XV promulgated a so-called law of silence regarding the Unigenitus bull.77 As far as Capmartin de Chaupy was concerned, Richer was the force behind the Grandes Remonstrances. It was he who had spread the spirit of democracy in the Jansenist party and its allies in Parliament: Richer was the first Frenchman who brought this principle into the light of day. He claimed that all the power which governed society belonged to society itself, that it owned it and that it only awarded its exercise. He applied this principle as much to spiritual society, that is to say, the Church, as to civil society, the state. The Jansenists who could rely neither on spiritual nor on temporal authority found Richer’s doctrine too conform to their interests for not following it. They enthusiastically adopted it.78

A Jesuit writing during the same period, Pierre-François Lafitau, attacked Richer even more vigorously. According to him, the Gallican theologian ‘had no difficulty in showing us that he had drawn [his doctrine] from Luther and Calvin’.79 It was not he who imagined that authority was invested in the nation and not the king, but it was he who popularised the idea. He undermined royal authority by the principles he defended in his treatise De la puissance ecclésiastique et politique.80 At the time of the affair of the billets de confession the Jansenists drew, not without justification, a parallel between Richer, who had also been threatened with dying without confessing, and their co-religionists who were refused the sacrament because of their opinions. It was in this context that Richer’s Histoire

76 Préclin, Les jansénistes du XVIIIe siècle, 236. 77 John Rogister, Louis XV and the Parlement of Paris, 1737–1755, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995. 78 [Bertrand Capmartin de Chaupy], Observations sur le refus que fait le Chastelet de reconnaître la Chambre Royale, s.l., 1774, 196. See Van Kley, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution, 226–227; Oakley. The Conciliarist Tradition, 244–245. 79 [Pierre-François Lafitau], Entretiens d’Anselme de d’Isodore sur les affaires du temps, s.l., 1756, 111–112. See Van Kley, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution, 227. 80 [Lafitau], Entretiens, 110.

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du syndicat, which had remained in manuscript form up until then, was published.81 The anonymous editor of the book presented the former syndic as the victim of unfair persecution: He was treated as a heretic and those who, like him, were attached to the maxims of the kingdom, were known as Richerists. His cure was forbidden to hear his confession without the permission of the Council of Conscience of the archbishop of Paris.82

The theme of persecution was taken up again in the preface of Richer’s Traité des appelations comme d’abus which was published, also for the first time, in 1763. The syndic, according to the author, had done nothing more than defend the doctrine of the School of Paris: No one is ignorant of the persecutions he had to suffer for having informed the clergy and the magistrate of the time-honoured doctrine of the University of Paris concerning the nature, the extent and the limits of the respective powers of the papacy and the empire regarding the external police of the Church: with what courage and steadfastness he fought and suffered for the defence of our maxims and he taught these important truths in spite of the threats of their powerful and formidable enemies.83

On the eve of the French Revolution, Jansenism and reform ideas were spreading to Italy, notably under the influence of Scipione di Ricci, the bishop of Pistoia.84 At the latter’s invitation, a diocesan synod, which drew delegates from throughout Europe, adopted a programme of reform favourable to the rights of the clergy in Pistoia.85 In 1789, a Roman priest by the name of Pietro Ciminnita again took up the accusation of Richerism in a response to Richer’s Traité des appellation comme d’abus. Calling on the precedent set by the Council of Sardique in 343, which had sanctioned appeals to Rome when there were disagreements between bishops, he defended the Ultramontane point of view and expressed his indignation at the ‘bad faith, the calomnies, the paralogisms and the antilogisms’ of the former syndic.86 81 Histoire du syndicat de Richer par Richer lui-même, Avignon, Alexandre Girard, 1753. 82 Ibid, Preface, I r-v. 83 Edmond Richer, Traité des appellations comme d’abus, vol. 1, s.l., 1763, Preface of the editor, i r-v. 84 On Jansenism in Italy see Edmond Préclin, ‘L’influence du jansénisme français à l’étranger’, Revue historique, 63, 1928, 43–68; Enrico Dammig, Il movimento giansenista a Roma nella seconda metà del secolo XVIII, Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Romana, 1945; Dale Van Kley, ‘Catholic Conciliar Reform in an Age of Anti-Catholic Revolution: France, Italy and the Netherlands, 1758–1801’, in James Bradley and Dale Van Kley (eds), Religion and Politics in Enlightenment Europe, Notre Dame, Indiana, University of Notre Dame Press, 2001, 109–117. 85 Préclin, ‘L’influence du jansénisme français à l’étranger’, 57–65. 86 Pietro Ciminnita, Il diritto delle Romane Appellazioni vendicato dale ingiurie di Edmondo Richer Dottor di Parigi rinnovate oggidi’ dalla setta de Richeristi nella esposizione del concilio di Sardica in cui si mostrano la mala fede, le calunnie, i paralogisimi, e l’antilogie di questo donnato scrittore, e de’suoi seguaci, Rome, Luigi Perego Salvioni, 1789. The text by the canon

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Ciminnita’s book shows that the opposition to Richer was a European phenomenon. In Rome, the Jesuits – or former Jesuits – had been campaigning against Richerism for a long time.87 Another anti-Gallican and anti-Jansenist centre was Augsbourg in Bavaria where two former Jesuits, Aloysius Merz and Lorenz Veith, denigrated Richer in books published in 1783 et 1784 respectively. Veith tried to demonstrate that Richer’s ‘system’, as he called it, annihilated as much the power of the pope as that of the prince.88 Merz reproached, indiscriminately, the former syndic, the Gallican bishop Pierre de Marca, the magistrate and historian Florimond de Raymond and the Flemish Jansenist Zeger Van Espen for undermining the power of the pope.89 The Jansenists of the second half of the eighteenth century saw Richer as one of their own but this did not prevent them from transforming the conciliarism of Gerson and Almain in which, like the former syndic, they claimed to have their roots, into a new doctrine which we will call, after Dale Van Kley, conciliarist constitutionalism. They saw the general council as a representative body comparable to the Estates General.90 They could not and did not wish to recognise the gap that separated their idea of political and ecclesiastical power from that of Richer.

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of Sardique is reproduced in Klaus Schatz, La primauté du Pape. Son histoire des origines à nos jours, Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 1992, 264–265. Eighty-four of the propositions of the synod convoked by Ricci in Pistoia in September 1786 were condemned by Pope Pius VI in his encyclical Auctorem Fidei of 28 August 1794. They are reproduced in Enchiridion symbolum et definitionum quae in rebus fidei et morum a concillis oecumenicis et summis pontificis emanarunt by Henricus Denziger (Würzburg, Sthael, 1854, 309–343. However, neither the encyclical nor even the ‘Denziger’ mentioned Richer. It was only Adolf Schönmetzer, in a later edition of the work, who stated, according to the commonly-held belief that pre-Revolutionary Gallicanism was necessarily Richerist but without any evidence, that many of the condemned propositions were taken from Richer’s De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. See H. Denziger and A. Schönmetzer, Enchiridion symbolorum, Freiburg, Herder, 1965, 519, quoted in Yves Congar, L’Église de saint Augustin à l’époque moderne, Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 1970, 395. From the Italian Jesuit Giovanni Batista Faure (1702–1779), briefly emprisoned after the suppression of the Compagny in 1773, see the Dissertatio polemica adversus Richeristas de ecclesiastica ac politica potestate: deque investituris juste proscriptis per S. Gregorium VII ejusque successores ad Calixtum II habita in Collegio Romano a. Societatis Jesu (Rome, Komarek, 1752). Lorenz Veith, Edmundi Richerii Doctoris Parisini systema de ecclesiastica et politica potestate singulari dissertatione confutatum, Augsburg, Fratres Veith, 1783. Aloysius Merz, Frag, ob Edmundus Richerius, Petrus de Marka, Florimundus Raymundus und Zegerus van Espen als Zeugen für die Nichtigkeit des Pabstthums angeführt werden können; widen den schon bekannten Bibliothecar, und seinen Übersetzer, am Feste der heiligen Hilaria beantwortet, Augsburg, Joseph Wolff, 1784. Dale Van Kley, ‘The Estates General as Ecumenical Council: The Constitutionalism of Corporate Consensus and the ‘Parliament’s‘ Ruling of September 25, 1788’, Journal of Modern History, 61, 1989, 17.

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The final stage in the debate on Richer and Richerism took place in 1790 when the National Constituent Assembly voted on the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. The ecclesiastical committee which drew up the document was made up of Gallican jurists with ties to the Jansenist movement. They developed the idea, typical of conciliarist constitutionalism, that, although it was managed by a hierarchy, the Church belonged to all its members and, consequently, could fall under the supervision of the state which had its roots in the citizens. Insofar as it concerned temporal realities, the power of jurisdiction could be exercised by representatives of public power. The clergy was elected and the priests were the equals of the bishops rather than their subordinates.91 Reaction was not slow in coming. Soon after the vote, Jacques-Julien Bonnaud, an anti-revolutionary priest and writer who ended up on the scaffold, made the comparison with Richer in a brochure entitled Découverte importante sur le système de la Constitution du Clergé décrétée par l’Assemblée nationale. ‘I maintain’, he declared solemnly, ‘that this entire constitution, the work of the Martineaus, the Treilhards, the Camus, is nothing but pure plagiarism of Richerism, condemned in 1612 by two councils in France’.92 In order to show Richer’s rebellious nature, Bonnaud returned to the old accusation, made during his time by Cardinal du Perron, that the syndic had never renounced the apology of regicide in his bachelor’s thesis. He added that the Jansenists ‘had become panegyric about Richer’s system to which they had signed letters of affiliation’93 and that before Jansenism, Calvinism ‘had taught the dogma of Richer’.94 The Civil Constitution of the Clergy, he concluded, ‘is nothing more than the scholarship of an old book by an old doctor, unearthed from the dust of libraries where it had been buried under the wrath of the church which had anathemised it’.95 The final word, if there is indeed one, belongs to Gabriel-Nicolas Maultrot, the most eminent representative of pre-revolutionary Jansenism. Known as the ‘advocate of the second order’, he defended a radical form of conciliarist theology which was extremely critical of the bishops’ abuse of power and favourable

91 Van Kley, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution, 352–358. 92 [Jacques-Julien Bonnaud], Découverte importante sur le système de la Constitution du Clergé décrétée par l’Assemblée nationale, Paris, Crapart, s.d., 2–3. On Jacques Julien-Bonnaud (1740–1792), see Roman d’Amat, article ‘Bonnaud (Jacques-Julien)’, in Dictionnaire de Biographie française, vol. 6, Paris, Letouzey, 1954, col. 986. 93 [Bonnaud], Découverte importante, 8 94 Ibid., 10. 95 Ibid., 27. In The Religious Origins of the French Revolution, 365, Van Kley refers to another anti-revolutionary writer, the ex-Jesuit Augustin Barruel, who included Richer together with John of Paris, John Hus, Martin Luther and Thomas Münzer in a genealogy of ideas ending up with the Revolution.

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towards the rights of the parochial clergy.96 Without going so far as to say that a council is worth nothing unless the clergy agree, he believed, like Richer, but also like Gerson and Almain, that the clergy needed to be heard.97 However, he did not lend his support to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which he saw as going too far in the attempt to secularise the Church.98 Richerism, he replied to Bonnaud in a work in two parts that was published respectively in 1790 and 1791, was a ‘chimera’.99 Unable to fault Jansenism, its adversaries associated it with ‘Richerism’, which, according to them, was nothing but a watered down version of Calvinism. But all this was false. Richer, Maultrot claimed, was not heretical. In the first volume of his work, he revisited the aspects of his life which had been criticised by Bonnaud. In writing the apology for the regicide, the young Richer had been influenced by his time. During that period, the entire Sorbonne supported the Leaguers.100 He had been condemned by a group of bishops and the pope because of the intrigues of his enemies. His ‘pretended retraction’ had no value as his will, which was published shortly after his meeting with Richelieu, proved.101 In the second volume, Maultrot replied to Duval’s arguments against Richer’s treatise. The pope, according to the author of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate,’ has a true monarchy in the whole Church by virtue of which he is the universal bishop, the ordinary of the ordinaries’. The only restriction imposed on his power was that he was not authorised to create new canons.102 Far from being Calvinist, this conception of the Church was perfectly traditional. It was insane, as Bonnaud had done, to see Richer – and the Jansenists, by association – as the instigator of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. This was pure libel!103 In this little known treatise,104 Maultrot demonstrated an astoundingly profound knowledge of Richer’s life and work. Since Baillet and Du Pin, no one had paid as much attention to the ideas of the former syndic. There is no doubt that he felt sympathetic towards him. But this did not prevent him from denouncing his 96 On Gabriel-Nicolas Maultrot (1714–1803), see Préclin, Les jansénistes du XVIII siècle, 333– 363; Van Kley, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution, 336–339. 97 Gabriel-Nicolas Maultrot, Les prêtres juges dans les conciles avec les èvêques, s.l., 1780, vol. 1, 11, quoted in Préclin, Les jansénistes du XVIII siècle, 349–350. 98 Préclin, Les jansénistes du XVIII siècle, 339–340; Van Kley, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution, 358–360. 99 [Gabriel-Nicolas Maultrot], Défense de Richer, chimere du richérisme, ou Réfutation de la brochure intitulée: Découverte importante sur le vrai système de la constitution du clergé, décrétée par l’Assemblée, 2 vols, Paris, Le Clere, 1790–1791. 100 Ibid., vol. 1, 32. 101 Ibid., vol. 1. 150. 102 Ibid., vol. 2, 20. 103 Ibid., vol. 2, 62. 104 Neither Edmond Préclin nor Dale Van Kley, who surely had a good knowledge of Jansenism in the eighteenth century, appeared to have read him.

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enemies’ use of Richerism for the purpose of controversy. That Maultrot, the defender par excellence of the rights of the second order, did not say a word about them is highly significant. He saw Richer as he always wanted to be seen: not as head of a supposedly Presbyterian or democratic school, but as the defender of the School of Paris.

Part Two. Edmond Richer’s Ecclesiological and Political Writings

Chapter 1. The School of Paris

On the first page of three of his books, the Apologia pro ecclesiae & concilii auctoritate (1607), the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate (1611) and the Demonstratio libelii de ecclesiastica et politica potestate (1622), Richer reproduced, without hardly any changes, the definition of the Church which was to become his trademark: The Church is a monarchical constitution, instituted for a supernatural end, led by an aristocratic government, which is the best of all and the most conform to nature, by the sovereign pastor of souls, our Lord.1

This definition is at the heart of the syndic’s ecclesiological doctrine. Complex and contradictory in some way, it has not always been properly understood. The aim of this chapter is to examine, on the basis of his writings and those of his critics, what Richer meant. With great consistency he stated that he was doing nothing but expounding the doctrine of the School of Faculty of Theology of Paris, in short, the doctrine of the School of Paris. His critics, led by Andre Duval, also claimed to follow the School of Paris, but they rejected the interpretation the syndic gave of it. They considered Richer to be a dangerous innovator. Their criticism targeted two aspects of Richer’s thought: his ideas concerning the Church and his conception of political power. According to them, he had separated himself from the Parisian doctors and from Gerson in particular by excessively limiting the power of the pope, by attributing to priests the same powers as those of bishops and by giving lay people powers which they did not possess. This system which Duval, du Perron, the nuncio Ubaldini and other contemporaries called ‘Richerism’ could lead to schism and heresy. In addition, Richer’s opinions concerning aristocratic government threatened the peace of the kingdom and were seditious. Was the conception of the Church which Richer claimed conformed to the doctrine of the School of Paris ‘completely unheard of ’, as Aimé-Georges 1 Edmond Richer, De politica et politica potestate, Paris, Heureux Blancvillain, 1611.

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Martimort maintained?2 Was his system, to use Yves Congar’s words, an ‘excessive tendency to attribute to the ecclesia a life that would not be purely derived from its hierarchical and papal head’ together with the idea that ‘the hierarchical priesthood is unique, equal in all its participants’?3 Or else, to quote a more recent writer, are we dealing with ‘an extreme version of conciliarist ecclesiology’?4 The majority of writers who dealt with Richer, often superficially, took for granted the fact that he, in one way or another, betrayed the spirit of the School of Paris. This is the claim that needs to be verified. In order to determine how much and in what ways Richer broke new ground compared to the Parisian masters one should read not only the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate which Duval and his friends took as the main subject of their criticism but also Richer’s other works, which were not published during his lifetime because of censorshiThe only writer who took into account Richer’s entire work was Gabriel-Nicolas Maultrot at the end of the eighteenth century,5 but his work was quickly forgotten. Pierre-Édouard Puyol undertook a selective reading of Richer’s last writings.6 With the exception of Francis Oakley, the most recent authors reproduce, without changing much, the arguments developed by Richer’s critics in the first half of the seventeenth century and taken up, in the aftermath of the First Vatican Council, by Puyol two centuries later. At a date that is difficult to determine exactly, the opinion of the doctors of the Faculty of Theology of Paris on diverse ecclesiological questions began to set a precedent in Christendom, creating a body of Catholic doctrine with a level of authority comparable to that of the popes’ doctrine. This was what Richer and his contemporaries called the doctrine of the School of Paris. The texts to which the users of this expression made reference went back to the beginning of the fourteenth century when the Parisian doctors provided King Philip the Fair with arguments for his battle against the temporal appetites of Pope Boniface VIII, if not to an even earlier date. The phrase ‘School of Paris’ was not from Richer. It can be found a century earlier, for instance under the pen of Thomas Starkley, a man close to King Henry VIII, or, to distance himself from it, under the pen of the Catholic controversialist Albert Pighius.7 But it was only at the beginning of the 2 Aimé-Georges Martimort, Le gallicanisme de Bossuet, Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 1953, 53. 3 Yves Congar, L’Église de Saint Augustin à l’époque moderne, Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 1970, 394. 4 Stefania Tutino, Empire of Souls. Robert Bellarmine and the Christian Commonwealth, New York, Oxford University Press, 2010, 173. 5 [Gabriel-Nicolas Maultrot], Défense de Richer, chimere du Richérisme, ou Réfutation de la brochure intitulée: Découverte importante sur le vrai systême de la constitution du Clergé, décrétée par l’Assemblée Nationale, 2 vol., Paris, Le Clere, 1790–1791. 6 Pierre-Édouard Puyol, Étude historique et critique sur la rénovation du gallicanisme au commencement du XVII siècle, 2 vol., Paris, Olmer, 1876. 7 Public Record Office, London, State Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII, 1/141, f. 190r: ‘Et concilia et gersonius and parisiensis schola stant in contraria cui ego hactenus hesi.’ See

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seventeenth century that it became common. Richer started, from 1607,8 to make a systematic use of it, giving it, once for all, an unequivocal meaning, based on the idea that, from time immemorial and in a unanimous manner, the doctors of the University of Paris had defended a conciliarist standpoint. The Vindiciae doctrinae majorum Scholae Parisiensis,9 a book which long remained in manuscript form, provided a list of all the theologians who, according to the former syndic, were particularly representative of the School of Paris. Spread over three centuries, they numbered six: Gilles of Rome, to whom he erroneously attributed a writing favourable to Philip the Fair’s positions,10 John of Paris, Pierre d’Ailly, Jean Gerson, Jacques Almain and John Major. Drawing on works which have appeared in recent years on conciliarism,11 Gallicanism,12 the emergence of the doctrine of the divine right of kings,13 and the

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Thomas F. Mayer, ‘Thomas Starkey, an Unknown Conciliarist at the Court of Henry VIII’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 49, 1988, 219; ‘Francis Oakley, Constance, Basel and the Two Pisas: The Conciliarist Legacy in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England ’, Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 26, 1994, 97. [Richer], Apologia pro Ecclesiae & Concilii auctoritate, Venice, 1607, 5 and passim. Edmond Richer, Vindiciae Doctrinae Majorum Scholae Parisiensis, Seu Constans & perpetua Scholae Parisiensis Doctrina de Authoritate & infallibilitate Ecclesiae in rebus Fidei & Morum. Contra Defensores Monarchiae universalis & absolutae Curiae Romanae. 4 vol., Cologne, Balthasar ab Egmond et Socii, 1683. Pierre Féret, La Faculté de Théologie de Paris et ses docteurs les plus célèbres. Moyen Âge, Paris, Picard, 1896, vol. 3, 467–468. John Neville Figgis, ‘The Conciliar Movement and Papal Reaction’ in From Gerson to Grotius 1414–1625, Cambridge University Press, [1907]; Olivier de la Brosse, Le pape et le concile. La comparaison de leurs pouvoirs à la veille de la Réforme, Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 1965; Brian Tierney, Foundations of the Conciliar Theory: The Contribution of Medieval Canonists from Gratian to the Great Schism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1955; Congar, L’Église de saint Augustin à l’époque moderne, Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 1970, 297–352; Joseph Lecler, Le pape ou le concile ? Une interrogation de l’Église médiévale, Paris, Chalet, 1973; Klaus Schatz, La primauté du pape. Son histoire des origines à nos jours, Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 1992, 157– 210; Alain Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente (1518–1563), Rome, École française de Rome, 1997, 423–453; G.H.M. Posthumus Meyjes, Jean Gerson, Apostle of Unity: His Church Politics and Ecclesiology, Leiden, Brill, 1999; Francis Oakley, The Conciliarist Tradition. Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church 1300–1870, New York, Oxford University Press, 2003; Id., ‘Gerson’s Legacy’ in Brian Patrick McGuire (ed.), A Companion to Jean Gerson, Leiden, Brill, 2006, 367–400. Victor Martin, Le Gallicanisme politique et le Clergé de France, Paris, Picard, 1929; Joseph Lecler, ‘Qu’est-ce que les libertés de l’Eglise gallicane? ’, Recherches de sciences religieuses, vol. 23, 1933, 385–410, 542–568, 1934, 47–87; Martimort, Le gallicanisme de Bossuet, 17–130; William Bouwsma, ‘Gallicanism and the nature of Christiandom ’, in Essays in European Culture, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990, 308–320; Jotham Parsons, The Church in the Republic: Gallicanism & Political Ideology in Renaissance France, Washington, University of America Press, 2004. John Courtnay Murray, ‘St Robert Bellarmine on the indirect power’, Theological Studies, vol. 9, 1948, 491–535; J.H.M. Salmon. ‘Catholic Resistance theory, Ultramontanism and the royalist response, 1580–1620’, in J.H. Burns, ed. The Cambridge History of Political Thought

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theory of mixed government,14 I will sketch in broad terms the ecclesiological and political doctrines which, rightly or wrongly, Richer claimed to uphold. For reasons of clarity, I will distinguish between three problems which were posed at the same time and which were linked: the relationship between pope and council, the power of popes in temporal matters and the origin of political power. They were at the centre of the debate between Richer and his critics.

Pope and council The first appeals to the council concerning the alleged abuses of the pope went as far back as the middle of the thirteenth century. They became more frequent at the beginning of the fourteenth century during the conflict between Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII about the king’s right to sanction a seditious bishop and, by that time, they were accompanied by an ecclesiological elaboration which announced the conciliarist theory of the following century. The most eminent representative of this theological movement was the Dominican Jean Quidort, known as John of Paris, who Richer praised ostensibly in the last section of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. He acknowledged the leading role of the pope but refused to accord him absolute power over the Church. Even though he filled the highest ecclesiastical position, the pontiff remained part of the body of the Church and was thus not superior to it. This corporative conception of the Church was based on a collection of canonical texts from older periods.15 The most important – which is to be found in Richer’s treatise – was the canon De papa which had been included in de Gratian’s Decretum at the beginning of the thirteenth century. ‘The pope is not judged by anyone,’ it stated, ‘unless he deviates in the faith.’16 Until the middle of the sixteenth century, the idea of a heretical pope was accepted by all, not only by the Parisian doctors but by people such as Cajetan who was, nevertheless, a declared 1450–1700, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991, 219–253; Bernard Bourdin, The Theological-Political Origins of the Modern State: the controversy between James I of England and Cardinal Bellarmine, Washington D.C., 2011; Stefania Tutino, Empire of Souls. Robert Bellarmine and the Christian Commonwealth, New York, Oxford University Press, 2010. 14 Julian H. Franklin, ‘Sovereigny and the mixed constitution: Bodin and his critics’ in Burns (ed.), The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 298–328; James Blythe, Le gouvernement idéal et la constitution mixte au Moyen Age, Friburg, Academic Press, 2005; Marie GailleNikodimov, Le Gouvernement mixte. De l’idéal politique au monstre constitutionnel en Europe (XIII–XVII siècles), Saint-Étienne, Publications de l’Université de Saint-Étienne, 2005. 15 Tierney, Foundations of the Conciliar Theory. 16 Gratian, Decretum, distinctio 40, canon 6. See Lecler, Le pape ou le concile, 42; Martimort, Le gallicanisme de Bossuet, 37; Oakley, The Conciliarist Tradition, 122.

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supporter of pontifical supremacy.17 Equally common from the thirteenth century onwards was the maxim of Justinian origin, ‘That which concerns everyone should be debated and approved by everyone’,18 which also appeared in Richer’s treatise. Two themes which would undergo important developments in Gallican literature came out during this period. First came the idea that the pope was capable of committing abuses in the exercise of his. He was not infallible either in government or in doctrinal magisterium. The abuse par excellence concerned the financial management of the Church. For lack of being submitted to sufficient control, the Roman See laid its hands on the resources of the local churches by imposing excessive taxes on the faithful and by diverting to its own profit the right to collate benefices. Another abuse concerned the administration of justice. Left on its own, Roman power tended to encroach on the jurisdiction of civil courts. This applied particularly to offending clerks who were not allowed access to ordinary justice. A second recurring motif in the Gallican Church’s discourse concerned the appeal to the general council: the fact of appealing to a council or the convocation, if necessary without papal authority, of a conciliar assembly was seen as a necessity, albeit extreme, in cases of abuse of pontifical authority. The election, in September 1378, of a French pope, Clement VII, rival of a pope who had been elected in Rome a few months earlier under the name of Urban VI, made the conciliarist theory more relevant than ever. The doctors of the University of Paris, particularly Pierre d’Ailly, and his twelve years younger colleague Jean Gerson, formulated the idea that the convocation of a council was the only solution to avoiding a schism. In 1395 Gerson replaced d’Ailly as chancellor of the University of Paris when he was elected bishop and, soon after, cardinal. Although the Sorbonne was subject to papal authority, it strove to find a doctrinal solution to the conflict which was dividing Christendom. In spite of differences which, in reality, were minor, regarding the role of cardinals in church government in particular,19 d’Ailly and Gerson were in agreement about developing a strong and coherent ecclesiological doctrine focused on the idea, already put forward by John of Paris, that the pope was a member of the Church and not above it and that the council, which represented the whole Church, possessed an authority superior to that of the pope. This conception of ecclesiastical power was debated at the council which began in Constance in November 1414 at the initiative of Emperor Sigismond and with the support of John XXIII, one of the three rival popes. The main aim of the 17 This point is highlighted by Oakley in ‘Almain and Major: Conciliar Theory on the Eve of the Reformation’, American Historical Review, 70, 1965, 673–690. 18 Yves Congar, ‘Quod omnes tangit, ab omnibus tractari et approbari debet”, Revue historique du droit français et étranger, 36, 1958, 210–258. 19 Oakley, ‘Almain and Major’, 686–688.

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gathering was to put an end to the schism but it also wished to reform the Church in capite et in membris and to condemn the errors of John Wycliffe and John Hus. In opposition to these two, the council reaffirmed the primacy of the pope but declared, by the Haec sancta decree of 6 April 1415, that the council held its power ‘directly from Christ’ and that no one, not even the pope, could disobey it ‘in matters which affected the faith and the eradication of the schism.’20 By the decree Frequens, which was adopted on 9 October 1417, a month before the election of Pope Martin V that restored the unity of the Church, the assembly decided that, henceforth, the council would meet at regular intervals, at first five years later, then every seven years, then every ten years.21 Devised during the time of the schism and proclaimed at the Council of Constance, the conciliarist doctrine was elaborated in greatest detail in the works of Gerson who, until the end of the Ancient Regime, would be the highly respected and constantly quoted leader of the theologians of the School of Paris, of the Gallican jurists and of the supporters of the rights of the second order of clergy. As we have seen in an earlier chapter, his ecclesiological work faded somewhat from the public eye, particularly in France,22 during the last two thirds of the sixteenth century before coming back into favour at the beginning of the seventeenth century thanks to people like Richer. In the meanwhile, the status of the Council of Constance and, by implication, the value of Gerson’s arguments became the subject of heated discussions. The theologians who were in favour of pontifical supremacy, Torquemada, Cajetan or Bellarmine for example, minimised the significance of the Haec sancta decree by maintaining that it only aimed at solving the schism and did not, therefore set a precedent. The theologians of the School of Paris held an opposing view. For them, the decrees of the Council of Constance were of divine right. Consequently, it would be false, if not heretical, to question them. These two standpoints clashed, we will recall, at the Dominican chapter in Paris in May 1611. The most often quoted of Gerson’s ecclesiological works was the treatise De potestate ecclesiastica, which bears the date of 6 February 1417 but certain passages of which had perhaps been drafted earlier.23 At that time, the Parisian theologian had reflected on the implications of the Haec sancta decree and had 20 Decrees of the Council of Constance, 4th session, 6 April 1415. 21 Ibid., 39th session, 9 October 1417. 22 As Francis Oakley, ‘Constance, Basel and the two Pisas: The Conciliarist Legacy in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century England’, Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, vol. 26, 1994, 87–118, has shown, the conciliarist theories were very influential in England and Scotland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 23 Jean Gerson, Œuvres complètes, ed. Palémon Glorieux, vol. 6, 1965, 210–250. The most thorough commentary of Gerson’s De potestate ecclesiastica is that of Posthumus Meyjes (Jean Gerson Apostle of Unity, 247–286). See also de la Brosse, Le pape et le concile, 108–145; Oakley, ‘Gerson as Conciliarist ’, 196–204.

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proposed a church theology that would form its theological basis. A church reformer and a conciliarist theologian, Gerson was also, and perhaps above all, a spiritual person. Influenced by Pseudo-Dionysius,24 he saw in the terrestrial church a ‘hierarchy’ – an expression later used by Richer – which corresponded to celestial and supra-celestial hierarchies. Each level of the hierarchy was charged with ‘purifying, illuminating and leading to perfection’ (purgare, illuminare et perficere) the level below it.25 Contrary to the papalist theologians, Gerson insisted on the fact that the power of order, that is, the right to administer the sacraments, was based on the power of jurisdiction and not the opposite.26 This proposition had two important consequences. The first was that the power of jurisdiction was not seen as a given: it was linked to the sacramental mission of the Church, which included the pope but was not limited to him. On this subject Gerson quoted the Dic ecclesiae of Mt 18, 15–17: ‘If someone sins against you, go and find him face to face and if he does not listen to you take two or three brothers aside then speak about it to the entire church.’27 The second consequence was that all the ordained ministers, including priests, exercised, although in different degrees, the power of jurisdiction. Therefore, not only the pope, the cardinals and the bishops were invited to participate in the council, but priests as well.28 On the other hand, lay people who did not have the power of order, were excluded.29

24 On the influence of Pseudo-Denys on Gerson, see André Combes, Jean Gerson, commentateur dyonisien, Paris, Vrin, 1942; Louis Pascoe, Jean Gerson: Principles of Church Reform, Leiden, Brill, 1973, 22–38. 25 Gerson, De potestate ecclesiastica, consideratio 5, in Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 6, 219. 26 Posthumus Meyjes, Jean Gerson, 255–257; Parsons, The Church in the Republic, 150–151. On the distinction between the power of order and the power of jurisdiction in medieval ecclesiology, see Francis Oakley ‘Christian obedience and authority, 1520–50 ’ in Burns (ed.), The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450–1700, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991, 162–163. 27 Gerson, De potestate ecclesiastica, consideratio 4, in Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 6, 216. On Gerson’s exegesis of Mt 18,17, see de la Brosse, Le pape et le concile, 220–227; Posthumus Meyjes, Jean Gerson, 257. Note that this text was frequently used by Protestant theologians. See Philippe Denis, ‘Le recours à l’Écriture dans les Églises de la Réforme au XVIe siècle: exégèse de Mt 18,15–17 et pratique de la discipline’, Histoire de l’exégèse au XVIe siècle, Genève, Droz, 1978, 286–298. 28 Ibid., 12, in Gerson, Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 6, 242. In the sermon Ambulate dum lucem habetis of 23 March 1415 Gerson stated that the Council represented a gathering of ‘the entire hierarchical state of the whole Catholic Church’ (Gerson, Opera Omnia, ed. Du Pin, vol. 2, col. 205C). The question of the opinions held by Gerson, d’Ailly and Almain concerning the priests’ right of vote at the council is addressed in Francis Oakley, ‘Figgis, Constance and the Divine of Paris’, American Historical Review, 75, 1969, 378–379. 29 D’Ailly, who gave the right to vote to kings and princes or to their representatives, went further than Gerson on this point (Oakley, ‘Figgis, Constance and the Divines of Paris’, 379).

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The Church, from Gerson’s point of view, was represented by the council. But how was it possible to reconcile the power of the pope who was at the top of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and that of the council which represented the Church? In the scholastic language of his time, Gerson distinguished between the ecclesiastical power which ‘in an absolute form’ (formaliter in se et absolute) belonged to the ecclesiastical hierarchy from the pope to the lower clergy, ‘in a material form’ (materialiter), in other words, from the point of view of its holder, to the general council which was in the best position to understand the needs of the Church and, finally, ‘regarding its exercise and its execution’ (quoad exercitium et executionem) by Peter and his successors.30 This left the question of the ‘plenitude of power’ (plenitudo potestatis), one of the most contentious points in medieval theology. Here as well Gerson made use of a scholastic distinction. ‘Formally and subjectively’ (formaliter et subjective), he explained, ‘ecclesiastical power fully resides in the Roman pontiff alone’.31 As a human being, the pope was, in effect, the only member of the Church who could claim to exercise the totality of the power of jurisdiction. However, ecclesiastical power ‘in its plenitude’ resided in the Church represented by the council, which was the receiver of this power and therefore had the right to regulate its use.32 There is no doubt that Gerson recognised the eminent dignity of the pope. He knew that, without him, the Church would not exist. However, he refused to grant the sovereign pontiff – and consequently the Roman Curia whose abuses were known to all – absolute authority. Being at the top of the Church’s hierarchy, the pope was the only one who could claim to exercise power over all members of the Church taken individually. But he did not represent the Church. The council alone could do so. ‘Even though the pope, Gerson wrote in a text of January 1417, subjectively (subjective), has the plenitude of power over each member of the Church when it comes to ordain, regulate and deputise (ordinative, regulative et suppletive), still, every time it meets in synod, the Church possesses the plenitude of power even over the pope when it comes to ordain, regulate and deputise (ordinative, regulative et suppletive).33 In a sermon delivered in July 1415, at the time when Emperor Sigismund left the council with the mission of convincing Pope Benedict XIII to resign, Gerson indicated how he envisaged putting this ecclesiology into practice. Unlike Tho30 Ibid., consideratio 6, in Gerson, Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 6, 220–221. See Posthumus Meyjes, Jean Gerson, 259–267. 31 Ibid., consideratio 10, in Gerson, Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 6, 227. See Posthumus Meyjes, Jean Gerson, 269. 32 Ibid., consideratio 11, in Gerson, Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 6, 232. See Posthumus Meyjes, Jean Gerson, 273. 33 Sermon for the feast of Saint Anthony Nuptiae factae sunt (17 January 1417), in Gerson, Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 5, 384.

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mas Aquinas, for whom the model of mixed government did not apply to the Church, the chancellor did not hesitate to establish an analogy between civil government and ecclesiastical government. ‘As in the kingdom of France where the king has established a parliament which is empowered to judge him,’ he wrote, ‘the pope is subject to the authority of the council.’34 In terms which Richer would reuse, he specified that the council ‘had authority to give advice and direct (conciliative and dictative) whilst the pope had authority to implement and execute (exercitative and executive).35 Rather than a constitutional monarchy in the sense in which this term is understood today, Gerson envisaged for the Church a centralised authority but with a controlling body which would meet regularly and could, when necessary, depose the head of government and revoke his decrees. According to Mary Christine Davenport Batts, for Gerson the pope was a ‘chief executive officer’.36 When he had been elected, Martin V did not ratify the Haec Sancta decree but he took into account the Frequens decree, which dealt with the periodicity of councils. The Councils of Siena and Basel were convoked on the planned dates in 1423 and 1431 respectively.37 Legitimately convoked by Martin V three weeks before his death, the Council of Basel confirmed and expanded, in the presence of a great number of delegates, the decrees of the Council of Constance not without causing open conflict with Eugene IV, the new pope, who ended up convoking, in 1439, a rival council in Florence, whilst the Council of Basel was bogged down in pointless quarrels. In Rome, the doctrine of the superiority of the council over the pope was finally abandoned but it was maintained in France where it had first originated during the fourteenth century. In May and June of 1438 King Charles VII convoked an assembly of the clergy of France in Bourges which adopted twenty-three decrees of the Council of Basel, amongst which the one which stated the supremacy of the council over the pope. They were published under the title of Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges. The theme of the ‘liberties of the Gallican Church’, which had been commonly used in the political and ecclesiological discourse for a century, took on a new meaning: it was no longer merely a question of preventing the Roman Curia from tapping into the kingdom’s finances but of refusing the pope the right to intervene in the affairs of the French Church unless he had the sovereign’s permission. In the words of Frederic Baumgartner, a move had been made from ecclesiastical

34 Gerson, Sermo super processionibus faciendis pro viagio regis romanorum, in Gerson, Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 5, 478. See Blythe, Le gouvernement idéal, 375. 35 Ibid., 479. See Lecler, Le pape ou le concile?, 100–101. 36 Mary Christine Davenport Batts, Jean Gerson: Politics and Political Theory, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Ottawa, 1976, 174. 37 Lecler, Le pape ou le concile?, 106–109.

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conciliarism to royal conciliarism.38 The doctors of the University of Paris encouraged this evolution by making decisions which set a precedent. ‘Thus,’ wrote Jean Dauvilliers, ‘the Church of France became used to doing without the pope and from these habits of independence sprung the idea that it was a privileged sector of the universal Church and that the king could, by means of his ordinances, intervene in its discipline: in fact, the Church of France was governed by the king and by the assembly of the clergy.’39 The conflict between King Louis XII and Pope Julius II in 1510 concerning questions of ecclesiastical stipends and political strategy allowed for a new development of the conciliarist theory which Francis Oakley, referring to the golden age of the movement at the beginning of the fourteenth century, called ‘the silver age of conciliarism’.40 In the spring of 1511, at the time that the pope was experiencing a military setback at Bologne, Louis XII convoked a general council at Pisa after having taken the advice of the bishops and doctors of theology in the kingdom. In the convocation document, which he co-signed with Emperor Maximilian, he made reference to the Council of Constance whose decision that a council should be held every ten years had been ignored for a long time.41 On the advice of Thomas de Vio also known as Cajetan, the master general of the Dominican Order, the pope reacted by convoking, in turn, a council, known as Lateran V, whose main aim was to counteract the claims of the dissident cardinals. The Faculty of Theology of Paris played an important role in this affair. It was, indeed, upon them that Louis XII called to reply to the treatise that Cajetan had written in the summer of 1511 to refute the arguments of the conciliarists and which bore the title of De comparatione auctoritatis concilii et papae. Jacques Almain, a young but brilliant doctor who was already the author of several philosophical treatises, responded during the following summer with a work entitled De auctoritate ecclesiae et conciliorum generalium.42 In a clearer manner than Gerson, he compared civil power, which originated in the people even 38 Frederic Baumgartner, ‘Louis’ XIII’s Gallican Crisis of 1510–1513’, in Adrianna Bakos (ed.), Politics, Ideology and the law in early modern Europe. Essays in honor of J.H.M. Salmon, Rochester, University of Rochester Press, 1994, 55. 39 Jean Dauvilliers, ‘Avant-Propos’ in Robert Génestal, Les origines de l’appel comme abus. Notes de cours publiées par les soins de Pierre Timbal, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1951, xiii. 40 Francis Oakley, ‘Bronze-Age Conciliarism: Edmond Richer’s Encounter with Cajetan and Bellarmine’, History of Political Thought, 20, 1999, 65–86. 41 De la Brosse, Le pape et le concile, 58–59. See Baumgartner, ‘Louis XII’s Gallican Crisis’, 63–64. 42 For a modern edition of these two treatises, in an English translation, see J.H. Burns and Thomas Izbicki (ed.), Conciliarism and papalism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997. Almain’s treatise appears at the end of the first volume of Gerson’s works published by Richer in 1606.

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though it could be granted to the king, and ecclesiastical power. He did not deny the specific character of the Church, which he identified with the mystical body of Christ and whose supernatural ends he recognised. In contrast to Ockham, he unambiguously affirmed the primacy of the pope. But he also stated that it would be unthinkable for the Church, which was at the mercy of papal abuse of power, to have a weaker constitution than that of civil society which had made provision for a counterweight to the power of princes.43 For this reason, he believed that it was appropriate for the council to have an authority superior to the pope. In his opinion, the pope had a power superior to the bishops and, in the absence of a council, he was the only one in a position to govern the Church. However, his authority was inferior to the council both in extent and in perfection.44 To Cajetan, who attempted, not without difficulty, to explain how, according to the Decretists, the pope could be declared heretical even though he received his authority from God,45 Almain responded that it was the council and not the pope which was infallible. If he were to abuse his powers – an obvious allusion to the intrigues of Pope Julius II – a council could be called to judge him.46 Like the Council of Basel three quarters of a century earlier, the ‘conciliabule’ of Pisa, as the supporters of the pope named it, came to nothing. King François I and Pope Leon X, who came to power the following year, rapidly came to an agreement. In 1516, a year before the Protestant Reformation burst onto the scene, the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges was replaced by the Concordat of Bologne in terms of which the king could appoint candidates to vacant ecclesiastical positions and, on behalf of the pope, give them a canonical investiture. Reference was no longer made to the decrees of Constance or Basel. Two important restrictions marked the works of Jacques Almain, who died three years after having drafted his treatise on the authority of the councils, and that of John Major, a contemporary Parisian conciliarist of Scottish origin. The first was that they did not envisage the question of the abuse of Roman authority within the context of Church reform.47 They did not foresee the movement of religious protest that would lead to the Protestant Reformation. Richer was faced with the same problem a century later: from the Tridentine reform he retained only the reaffirmation of pontifical authority without seriously considering the need for a pastoral and spiritual reform in the Church. The second limit to the Parisian conciliarists’ position at the beginning of the sixteenth century was its 43 Almain, De auctoritate ecclesiae et conciliorum generalium, chap. 7, ed. Burns, 161. See Oakley, ‘Almain and Major ’, 678. 44 Oakley, ‘Conciliarism in the Sixteenth Century’, 124–125. 45 Oakley, ‘Almain and Major’, 676. 46 Oakley, ‘Conciliarism in the Sixteenth Century’, 126. 47 Oakley, ‘Almain and Major’, 688–690.

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contingent nature: it answered the needs of a moment of crisis. With the conflict resolved, the view prevailed that it was no longer necessary to affirm the superiority of the council over the pope. The conciliarist doctrine was not, however, abandoned. Because Almain and Major spoke on behalf of the University of Paris, doctors in subsequent generations, like the Ultramontane Andre Duval, felt bound to take their writings seriously. The Concordat of Bologne, which marked a stop in the reception of the Council of Basel in France, in no way diminished the prestige which the Faculty of Theology of the University of Paris enjoyed throughout Christendom. In April 1521, for instance, it pronounced a sentence, at the invitation of the Duke of Saxony, on Luther’s doctrine, almost a year after the promulgation of Pope Leon X’s bull Exsurge, Domine.48 The legacy of Constance and Basel was preserved but, as Alain Tallon noted, it seemed to have petrified.49 On the defensive, conciliarist theology was content to condemn opinions which were favourable to pontifical supremacy. Theologians and jurists regretted the revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, which, according to them, had guaranteed the efficient workings of the Church in judicial and fiscal matters. Typical of the attitude which prevailed in France during the sixteenth century was the letter which the Cardinal of Lorraine sent to his agent in Rome in February 1563: I cannot deny that I am French, that I was nurtured at the University of Paris where one believes in the authority of the council over the pope and where those who practice the contrary are accused of heresy. In France the Council of Constance is held for general in all its parts, one adheres to that of Basel and takes that of Florence to be neither legal nor general, and for this we would rather send Frenchmen to death than go against them.50

The only works by Gerson that were published in the last two thirds of the sixteenth century dealt, as we have already seen, with issues of pastoral spirituality and theology. The only exception, no doubt significant, was the publication, in 1560 and 1561 and again under the League, of a sermon delivered in 1405 before Charles VI in which the chancellor called upon the University to commit itself to unity and pleaded, in political matters, for a temperate monarchy.51 The subject of the liberties of the Gallican Church which started to become familiar in France during the fourteenth century assumed a renewed relevance at 48 James Farge, Orthodoxy and Reform in Early Reformation France. The Faculty of Theology of Paris, 1500–1543, Leiden, Brill, 1985, 125–130. 49 Lecler, ‘Qu’est-ce que les libertés de l’Eglise gallicane?’, Recherches de sciences religieuses, 23, 1933, 544; Tallon, La France et le Concile de France, xx. 50 The Cardinal of Lorraine to Breton, his agent in Rome, 1 February 1563, quoted in Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente, 422. 51 Jean Gerson, Harangue faicte devant le roy, Paris, Gilles Corrozet, 1560. There were three further editions in 1561 and two in 1588.

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the beginning of the reign of Henry IV in circles that were favourable to the affirmation of royal authority. A veritable doctrine, structured if not always coherent, appeared in the writings of jurists, parliamentarians and theologians in reference to a past that was somewhat idealised but examined with a genuine concern for historical criticism. This ‘erudite Gallicanism’52 restored the credibility of the conciliarist theory, which was considered to be one of the jewels of Gallican tradition. In his Libertez de l’Eglise gallicane, a work which appeared in 1594 and which Richer has certainly consulted, the jurist Pierre Pithou stated without hesitation that the pope was beneath the council: Although, according to the ecclesiastical rule, or (as Saint Cyril said in a letter to Pope Celestine) according to the ancient custom of all the churches, the general councils could not gather nor be held without the pope, who, clave non errante, was recognised as the head and first in the militant church and the father of all Christians, and that they could not take any decisions nor forbid anything without him and without his authority; however, he was not considered to be above the universal council, but was controlled by the decrees and rulings of this body, as he was subject to the commands of the Church, the bride of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was chiefly represented by such an assembly.53

The power of the popes in temporal matters The link between the conciliarist theory, which refused the pope the right to judge the Church without being judged by it, and the rejection of the popes’ claims that they had the right to intervene in temporal matters, Jotham Parsons noted, was not direct but was sufficiently plausible to allow the Gallicans, clerics as well as laypeople, to see it as an obvious fact.54 Had Bellarmine not reaffirmed, soon after the death of Henry IV, the doctrine of the indirect authority of popes, it is not certain that Richer would have written the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, a large part of which was devoted to this question. There is however a paradox: Gerson and Almain, Richer’s masters, took a stance regarding papal authority in temporal matters which was amazingly close to that of Bellarmine. Of course, the context was different. In order to understand this problem, it is necessary to backtrack slightly. The idea that the pope was the supreme head of an entity which included the Church and royalty, the first being superior in dignity to the second, went back to the twelfth century when the papacy, henceforth independent from civil power, came into open competition with it. ‘In the same way that the moon receives its 52 On this subject, see in particular Parson, The Church and the Republic. 53 Pierre Pithou, Les libertez de l’Eglise gallicane, Paris, M. Pattison, 1594, 40–41. 54 Parsons, The Church in the Republic, 24.

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light from the sun to which it is inferior in size, quality, position and power’, Pope Innocent III wrote shortly after his accession in 1198, ‘royal authority acquires its splendour and dignity from papal authority’.55 This hierocratic concept of authority is expressed in its most extreme way in Pope Boniface VIII’s bull Unam Sanctum which decreed, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, that spiritual authority established temporal power and could judge it if it deviated. Although it became anachronistic by reason of the growth of the national states and the division of Christendom, the so-called two swords theory was still professed in Rome at the end of the sixteenth century as shown by the putting in the index of a work by Bellarmine which proposed a toned-down version of it.56 Several theologians defended this theory, including Alessandro Carreri57 and Francisco Bozzio,58 two authors mentioned, alongside Boniface VIII, by Richer in his treatise. However, since the thirteenth century, influenced by theologians such as Thomas Aquinas and John of Paris, both of whom were readers of Aristotle, a different conception of the relations between church and state had appeared, which granted secular authority a certain margin of autonomy whilst recognising in fine that the pope’s authority, whose aim was salvation, was superior to it. According to these authors, civil authority stemmed from natural right and came directly from God without intervention from either the pope or the Church.59 During later periods different formulations sought to find, in the spirit of John of Paris, a compromise between the unlimited authority of the pope and the unbridled autonomy of temporal authority as was recommended, for example, by Marsilius of Padua and William of Ockham. The doctrine of the indirect power of the pope which would provoke the confrontations that we have seen during Richer’s time, found there its distant origins, without, however, having the

55 August Potthast, Regesta pontificum romanorum 1198–1303, vol. 1, Berlin, Rudolf de Decker, 1874. See Martimort, Le gallicanisme de Bossuet, 61; Congar, L’Église de saint Augustin à l’époque moderne, 193. 56 Xavier Le Bachelet, ‘Bellarmin à l’index: Documents nouveaux’, Études, 111, 1907, 229–246. 57 Bellarmine explicitly took Carreri to task in the section of his Controversies that dealt with pontifical authority. See Courtnay Murray, ‘St Robert Bellarmine on the indirect power’, 493, 497. 58 A member of the Congregation of the Oratory, Francisco Bozzio (1548–1610) had defended the doctrine of the direct power of popes in temporal matters in a treatise entitled De temporali ecclesiae monarchiae et iuridictione (Cologne, Iohannes Gymnicus, 1602). See Sylvio Hermann De Franceschi, La crise théologico-politique du premier âge baroque. Antiromanisme doctrinal, pouvoir pastoral et raison du prince: le Saint-Siège face au prisme français (1607–1627), Rome, École française de Rome, 2009, 278, 331. 59 Congar, L’Église de saint Augustin à l’époque moderne, 283–284.

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firmness and precision given it by Bellarmine.60 During the sixteenth century, it appeared in the writings of disciples of Thomas Aquinas such as Cajetan and Francisco de Vitoria, the master of Salaomanca.61 In his treatise De ecclesiastica potestate Gerson also sought a middle way between the ‘jealous rejection’ (detractio livida), as he metaphorically called the refusal to grant the pope complete authority in temporal matters, and the ‘false flattery’ (adulatio subdola), in other words, the appeal to the pontiff ’s spirit of domination. According to him, priests needed secular possessions in order to carry out their ministry and the pope had the right to grant stipends. However, he was obliged to use this authority with wisdom and had to ensure that the Church was not abused. Those who held civil authority, even pagans, possessed rights and a dignity which could be transgressed only if they threatened the faith. It was only in this event that the pope could use his authority against a temporal prince62. Almain’s position was hardly different from that of Gerson. It is expressed in the Expositio circa decisiones Magistri Guilielmi Occam super potestate ecclesiastica et laici, a little known treatise of the young Parisian master but to which a man like Duval referred in the seventeenth century. Drafted in 1505, before the controversy between Louis XII and Julius II, it appeared posthumously.63 Almain refused the pope the right to dissolve marriages or to influence the fate of souls in purgatory by granting indulgences. He declared, against the papalists, that the jurisdiction of secular princes did not come from the pope who did not have a

60 Certain authors see in a decretal of Pope Innocent IV (1243–1254) the distant source of the doctrine of indirect authority. See, for example, Martimort, Le gallicanisme de Bossuet, 65. But, according to Otto Gierke, this interpretation of the document is incorrect (Political Theories of the Middle Ages, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, new ed., 1987, 108). 61 Martimort, Le gallicanisme de Bossuet, 64–65; Stéphane-Marie Morgain, ‘La soutenance des doctrines romaines lors du chapitre général des Jacobins de mai 1611 à Paris ’, Mémoire dominicaine, 6, 1995, 112; Burns, ‘Introduction ’, in Burns and Izbicki, Conciliarism and papalism, xiii. 62 Gerson, De potestate ecclesiastica, consideratio 12, in Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 6, 236–242. See Gierke, Political Theories, 108; Posthumus Meyjes, Jean Gerson, 278–282; Oakley, ‘Gerson as Conciliarist’, 199. Gerson defended the same ideas in his treatise De iurisdictione spirituali et temporali (Œuvres complètes, vol. 6, 259–264). It is true, as De Franceschi (Raison d’État et raison d’Église. La France et l’interdit vénitien (1606–1607): aspects diplomatiques et doctrinaux, Paris, Champion, 2009, 512) stressed it, that this treatise is missing from Richer’s edition of Gerson’s works, but this absence is not significant, as this author thought it was. It was also missing from the edition of Wimpfeling, which greatly inspired Richer. In any case, the same ideas are expressed in Gerson’s De ecclesiastica potestate, which Richer edited and which he often quoted. 63 Originally included in the Aurea clarissimi et opuscula Doctoris Theologi Magistri Jacobi Almain Senonensis Opuscula, which were published posthumously in 1518, it has been reedited by Richer in 1606 and then by Du Pin in 1701.

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limitless authority in temporal matters. However, he did concede that popes exercised jurisdiction in civil matters, not regularly (regulariter) for sure but occasionally (casualiter).64 Here we have, in broad outline, a recognition of the indirect power of popes. This may come as a surprise, given that Almain’s authority, like that of Gerson as well, never ceased to be called upon by the opponents of this doctrine. But as Victor Martin has shown, the idea of the popes’ ‘accidental’ authority in temporal matters was commonly accepted in France at the beginning of the modern era. It remained in this form until the wars of religion, the monarchomach ideas of Beza, Hotman and other Protestants and finally the League changed the situation.65 The abandonment of the doctrine of the popular origin of power and the emergence of that of the divine right of kings, a subject to which we will return, henceforth made the idea of an intervention of popes in temporal matters, even in extreme cases, problematic. A choice had to be made between the pope and the king. No one understood this better than Bellarmine who, in order to protect the authority of popes in a changed context, developed – or rather specified because, as we have already seen, the basic principles had been present since the fourteenth century – the doctrine of the indirect power of popes. Bellarmine approached the question of the popes’ temporal power in the fifth book of the third of his Controversies, a treatise in several volumes in which he published, starting in 1586, the content of his teaching at the Roman College. At that time he was closely following the political situation in France, as was shown by his response, which appeared in 1587, to the Apologie catholique of the Toulouse jurist Pierre de Belloy, an advocate of Henry of Navarre’s right to succeed King Henry III.66 To the supporters of the two swords theory Bellarmine replied that the pope was not the master of the world – or even of the Christian world – for the power of the princes stemmed from freedom and not sin. Political authority had its foundation in natural law. If, in the supernatural order, people had to submit to ecclesiastical authority, in the natural order they had to obey the prince, whether he be Christian or pagan. At no time did Christ exercise temporal authority.67 64 Almain, Expositio circa decisiones Magistri Guilielmi Occam super potestate ecclesiastica et laici, in Gerson, Opera Omnia, ed. L.E. Du Pin, Antwerp, 1706, col. 1106D. See Oakley, ‘Conciliarism in the Sixteenth Century’, 121–122. 65 Victor Martin, Le Gallicanisme politique et le Clergé en France, Paris, Picard, 1929, 85 and passim. 66 [Robert Bellarmine], Responsio ad praecipua capita Apologiae, quae falso catholica inscribitur, pro successione Henrici Navarreni in Francorum regnum, s.l., 1587. See Bourdin, The Theological-Political Origins of the Modern State, 134. 67 Robert Bellarmine, De Romano pontifice, third controversy, book 5, chapter 2 in Disputationum … de controversiis Christianae fidei adversus huius temporis haereticos tomus primus, Lyon, Jean Pillehotte, , 1609, col. 788–789. See Bourdin, The Theological-Political

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Meanwhile, the temporal and spiritual domains, though distinct, had the same end, which was spiritual. The final cause of power, to use scholastic language, was salvation. For this reason, the pope had the right to intervene when the salvation of mankind was endangered. Bellarmine envisaged three types of interventions: the deposition of a king who threatened faith, the imposition of a civil law that would rectify a situation dangerous for the salvation of souls and the exercise of judicial authority when a judgment was deemed necessary for spiritual reasons. It was not, however, an ordinary form of government. Exceptional circumstances alone justified it: The pope, as pope, may not ordinarily depose temporal princes, even for a just cause, in the way he deposes bishops, that is to say because he is their ordinary judge; nevertheless, he may transfer royal power, taking it away from one person and conferring it upon another if this is necessary for the salvation of souls, because he is the supreme spiritual prince.68

At another time, this doctrine might have been found to be acceptable. But the circumstances gave it a novel dimension. The possibility of the accession of a Protestant prince to the throne of France, the rebellion of the Republic of Venice against Roman jurisdiction and the imposition on English Catholics of an oath of allegiance towards a schismatic king made the boundaries which Bellarmine had so laboriously drawn between the ordinary and extraordinary exercising of pontifical power in temporal matters rather blurred. Direct intervention on the part of the pope in the affairs of the kingdom of France no longer appeared to be impossible. The supporters, henceforth numerous and determined, of a strong and independent civil power did not believe in Bellarmine’s good faith.69 The assassination by Catholic extremists of two kings, Henry III and Henry IV, and the attempt on the life of a third one, James I of England, seemed to confirm a posteriori the threatening nature of his doctrine. In this context the appeal to the liberties of the Gallican Church, which were said to go back to the origins of the kingdom of France and which had been jealously preserved by the University of Paris, took on a new meaning. Hence-

Origins of the Modern State, 138. Bellarmine also dealt with the indirect power of the pope in the section of the fifth controversy devoted to lay people and political government (ibid., col. 1273–1320). He returned to this subject with more details in the Tractatus de potestate summi pontificis he published in 1610 in reply to a treatise of William Barclay on the authority of the pope. Extracts from these two documents are available in English translation: Robert Bellarmine, On Temporal and Spiritual Authority, ed. Stefania Tutino, Indianapolis, Liberty Fund, 2012. 68 Ibid., chapter 6, in Disputationum … tomus primus, col. 795–796. 69 This point is raised by Courtney Murray in the study already quoted.

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forth, as Pierre Pithou stated in the year of Henry IV’s accession to the throne, it was a matter of strictly limiting the pope’s authority to the spiritual domain and not allowing any encroachment by pontifical jurisdiction on royal jurisdiction: Even though the pope is recognised as being sovereign with regard to spiritual matters, nevertheless in France absolute and limitless authority does not exist, but is controlled and restricted by the canons and rules of the ancient councils of the Church accepted by this kingdom: et in hoc maxime constat libertas Ecclesiae gallicanae, as word for word the University of Paris (which keeps, as the old French romance says, the key to our Christendom and which, up till now, has carefully promoted and protected these rights) stated and suggested in full court of Parliament, when it opposed the verification of the bulls of Cardinal of Amboise’s legation.70

Even sharper was the statement by the Gallican jurist Guillaume Ribier at the time of the Interdict of Venice in 1607. In his Apologie pour le discours au Roy sur la reunion de ses subiects en une mesme et Seule Religion he requested to ‘clearly separate the temporal and the spiritual authority, the royal and the sacerdotal dignity and to impose terms and limits on both’.71 The king being the protector of the Church, it was up to him and not to the pope to administer ecclesiastical properties and to judge matters affecting the Church of France. This is the message we will find in Richer’s De ecclesiastica et politica potestate.

The origin of political power The controversy regarding the indirect power of the pope was not unrelated to another debate which troubled minds at the end of the Wars of Religion: the problem of knowing whether the power of kings was of divine right or whether it had been transmitted to the king by the people by means of a translatio (transfer) which was, for the most part, fictional. In the second hypothesis, the subjects of the power were entitled to keep an eye on its exercise. The king had duties towards his subjects. The monarquomach theories, Protestant as much as Catholic, which justified the right to resist a prince when he turned into a tyrant and which, in their most extreme form, justified tyrannicide, caused supporters of royal authority to doubt the validity of the doctrine of the popular origin of power which had been traditional since the Middle Age. It was no coincidence that the theory of the

70 Pithou, Les libertez de l’Eglise gallicane, 5. 71 [Guillaume Ribier], Apologie pour le discours au Roy sur la reunion de ses sujets en une mesme et Seule Religion, s.l., 1607, 26.

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divine right of kings was first, albeit vaguely, formulated at the time of the League before winning over King James I of England and his entourage at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The School of Paris became involved in this debate because its founders John of Paris, Pierre d’Ailly and Jean Gerson where amongst the theoreticians of the popular origin of civil power. Richer, their distant heir, would remember this. But during his time the boundaries were shifting. The assassination of Henry IVonce again raised the question of tyrannicide whilst the power struggles, which undermined the kingdom during the regency, prepared minds for a more absolutist conception of monarchical power. An historical survey, brief though it may be, of the theory of the popular origin of power could not ignore another political doctrine commonly accepted at the time, that of mixed government, which was supported by the same authors and which was challenged for similar reasons at the end of the sixteenth century. Both aimed at limiting – in the case of mixed government one would rather say ‘temper’ – monarchical power, which, although combined with other forms of power, was however given precedence by almost all the writers. Although he was rarely associated with the University of Paris despite having both studied and taught there, Thomas Aquinas is a good starting point for this discussion for he was one of the first scholastic theologians to have mentioned the popular origin of authority as well as mixed government. The expression Omnis potestas a Deo per populum, which is often attributed to the Angelic Doctor,72 was not penned by him but clearly expresses his thought. In an article of the Summa Theologiae he showed, making use of Aristotle’s categories, that as the end of power is the common good, which involves all the people, the holders of power are accountable to them or to their representatives: Law has to do properly, primarily, and principally with an ordering toward the common good. Now to order something toward the common good is the role either of the whole multitude or of someone who is acting in place of the whole multitude. Therefore, establishing a law is something that belongs either to the whole multitude or to a public personage who is in charge of the whole multitude. For in all other cases as well, ordering something to an end is the role of someone for whom that end is his own.73

Thomas Aquinas was the first person, before Albert the Great it would seem, to have read Aristotle’s Politics where the classical typology of forms of government was presented: three ‘pure’ forms, the monarchy, the aristocracy and the politeia 72 See, for example, Marcel Prélot, Histoire des idées politiques, Paris, Dalloz, 1970, 181; Bourdin, The Theological-Political Origins of the Modern State, 144. 73 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, lallae, q. 90, art. 3. I have used the English translation made available on the site www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/summa-translation/Part%201–2/st1–2ques90.pdf.

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or timocracy, and three ‘impure’ forms, tyranny, oligarchy and democracy. By pure form, the Stagyrite meant a form of government which served the common good. According to him, a proportionate mix of the three forms of government had more chance of being stable than a simple form of government because it was in a better position to take into account the interests of the different groups of the population. Thomas Aquinas was not inspired by Polybius, a Greek theoretician who had suggested a different model of mixed government, because his works were not available during his time.74 In an article in the Summa theologica about the judicial precepts concerning those in power, the Dominican theologian defined mixed government in the following way: Hence, the best manner of constituting the ruling offices occurs in a city or region in which there is a single person who is placed in authority on the basis of virtue and presides over everyone, and in which under him there are certain others who govern in accord with virtue, and yet in which this political arrangement involves everyone, both because the rulers can be chosen from among everyone and also because they are chosen by everyone. This is the best political arrangement, with a good mixture of monarchy, insofar as there is a single preeminent ruler, aristocracy, insofar as many govern in accord with virtue, and democracy, i. e., rule by the people, insofar as the rulers can be chosen from among the people and the choice of rulers falls to the people.75

In order to establish by divine right the pre-eminence of the mixed government Thomas Aquinas referred to the precedent of Moses, a single leader, who, in order to rule, relied on a senate of seventy elected members chosen by the people, which was thus represented.76 But, for all that and unlike Gerson and later Richer, the Angelic Doctor refused to apply the model of mixed government to the Church which, in his eyes, was a monarchy by divine right. The government of the people of Israel did not constitute a precedent for the Church.77 The Dominican John of Paris, a disciple of Thomas Aquinas who offered his services to King Philip the Fair, defended, like his master, the idea that God and the people were the source of power.78 At the time, this point of view was com-

74 There are numerous studies on mixed government in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. See in particular Blythe, Le gouvernement idéal. 75 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, lallae, q. 105, art. 1. 76 Ibid. 77 Blythe, Le gouvernement idéal, 239, 372. 78 Ernst Kantorowicz, ‘La royauté médiévale sous l’impact d’une conception scientifique du droit’, Politix, vol. 8, n° 32, 1995, 11–12.

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monly accepted by theologians and jurists.79 Although he was endowed with a coercive power over his subjects, the king was bound by natural law: he was not above the law. Gerson, who is above all known for his ecclesiological thought but also contributed to the study of political systems, followed as well, in this regard, the teachings of Thomas Aquinas.80 His most important political writing is the sermon, republished several times during the sixteenth century, that he delivered before King Charles VI in 1405, but he also dealt with political matters at the Council of Constance, particularly in his treatise De ecclesiastica potestate. He recommended the adoption of a balanced system of government. He declared himself to be in favour not only of the monarchy but of the hereditary monarchy and believed, in reference to Romans 13, that one should obey the king as one did God. But what he was envisaging was a temperate monarchy in which the king followed the advice of Parliament and the Estates General,81 in fact a form of mixed government. In other words, he supported the doctrine of the popular origin of power82 and declared that the king had duties as well as rights. As was shown above, Gerson differed from Thomas Aquinas by considering that the best form of government, that which, according to Aristotle, combined the monarchy, the aristocracy and the timocracy, was as suited to the Church as it was to civil society: Among these systems there is one which is better than all the others taken individually, which is composed of royal and aristocratic [systems], like in the kingdom of France, where the king has instituted the parliament by whom he is prepared to be judged. But the best and healthiest of all the systems is that which comprises the three good [forms]: royalty, aristocracy and timocracy. […] The general council is a system formed in this manner, directed as it is more by the assistance of the Holy Spirit and the promise of Jesus Christ than by nature and human skills.83

79 For an overview on the medieval roots of the doctrine of the popular origin of power, see Brian Tierney, Religion, law and the growth of constitutional thought, 1150–1650, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008, 56–60. 80 On the political though of Gerson, see J.B. Schwab, Johannes Gerson, Professor der Theologie und Kanzler der Universität Paris: eine Monographie, Stahel’schen Buchhandlung, Wurzburg, 1858, 416–426; Mary Christine Davenport Batts, Jean Gerson: politics and political theory, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Ottawa, 1976; Blythe, Le gouvernement ideal, 375– 381. 81 Gerson, Œuvres complètes, vol. 7, 1018, 1159 and 1165, quoted in Batts, Jean Gerson, 236. 82 Batts, Jean Gerson, 227–236. According to this author, it was a question of ‘a true constitutionalism where the king was no longer an absolute sovereign but the dominating factor and the co-ordinator of the governmental machine’ (ibid., 97). 83 Gerson, Sermo super processionibus faciendis pro viagio regis romanorum in Gerson, Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 5, 478, quoted in Blythe, Le gouvernement idéal, 375.

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The theory of the popular origin of civil government figured, even more prominently, in Jacques Almain’s treatise on the authority of the Church where it formed the first part of the argument. Royal power, he wrote, did not come directly from God nor from the prince himself but, according to natural law, from the community (communitas), which could withdraw it if the government did not serve the common good. If the king held a ‘power of jurisdiction’ (potestas iuridictionis) to maintain order, he was not at the origin of this power. ‘Authority’ (auctoritas), that is, the ability to give legitimacy to the law, belonged to the people. Referring implicitly to the doctrine of mixed government, he stated that ‘a constitution is not called royal because the person who governs is superior in jurisdiction to the whole community and is not subject to it, but on account of the fact that he happens to be a leader who has jurisdiction over the individual members of the community and is thus superior to them all’.84 Significantly, on the question of the origin of civil power Almain referred to Thomas Aquinas by name. It is therefore not surprising that Bellarmine, who was a Thomist, used the same argument. His merit, according to Courtnay Murray, was that he systematised and revitalised the doctrine of the natural origin of power.85 ‘Political power’, he wrote in the De laicis, ‘is by divine right. However, divine right does not confer power on any specific person but rather on the multitude. If positive law is not taken into account, there is no reason why one individual rather than another should dominate those who, up until then, had been his equals’. Bellarmine added that the choice of the type of government stemmed from the law of nations and not from natural law and that the ‘multitude’ could, at will, transform a monarchy into an aristocracy or a democracy.86 He also stated that ‘democracy supplemented by aristocracy and democracy was more useful in this life than simple monarchy’.87 The theologians of the School of Paris and Bellarmine thus shared the same views on political power. On the other hand, they differed on the question of ecclesiastical power. For the former, an analogy between the two powers existed. For the Jesuit controversialist they were of a radically different nature: There are two differences between royal power and pontifical power. The first, which concerns the subject of power is that political power resides in the multitude whilst ecclesiastical power has as immediate subject an individual. The second, which con84 Almain, Libellus de auctoritate ecclesiae, Paris, 1512, in Burns and Izbicki (ed.), Conciliarism and papalism, 137–138. See Oakley, ‘Almain and Major’, 676. 85 Courtnay, Murray, ‘St Robert Bellarmine on the indirect power’, 503–504. 86 Bellarmine, De laicis, fifth controversy, book 3, chapter 6 in Disputationum … de controversiis Christianae fidei adversus huius temporis haereticos tomus primus, Lyon, Jean Pillehotte, 1609, col. 1279D. 87 Bellarmine, De summon pontifice, third controversy, book 1, chapter 3 in Disputationum … tomus primus, Lyon, 1609, col. 456–457.

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cerns the efficient character of power, is that political power stems from divine law or from the law of nations depending on whether it is seen to be universal or individual whilst ecclesiastical power is of divine right in all cases and comes directly from God.88

Whatever these differences, up until the second half of the sixteenth century, a broad consensus existed amongst jurists and theologians on the idea that, in order to guarantee the stability of a kingdom, restrictions or ‘reins’ (brides), as some authors called them, should be placed on the king’s power. Power should be shared between the king and Parliament or the Estates General. No one seriously thought of confiding authority in the people for mob disturbances caused fear but, theoretically, they participated in power in as much as they were its source.89 It was in this climate that, at a time of the Wars of Religion, different theories of resistance developed. From the idea that power was contractually entrusted to its rulers by the people so that that the people could depose a prince who did not fulfil his obligations there was only a small step which, on the Protestant side, authors such as Theodore Beza or François Hotman and, on the Catholic side, people like Jean Boucher would take.90 This constitutionalism avant la lettre, which originated in the Thomist doctrine of the popular origin of power and which found support, with Gerson and particularly Almain, in conciliarism, produced, by reaction, a desire for order and authority.91 The idea, widespread since Aristotle, that the sharing of power would prevent conflict was put under attack. Far from ensuring the stability of the kingdom, it seemed now that it would compromise it. To maintain peace one had to grant the sovereign – be he one, a small number or the multitude – full authority to make laws. He was to enjoy, in other words, absolute sovereignty. The only limits to the sovereign’s power were natural law and the fundamental customs of the kingdom.92 The most eminent representative of this new political theory was Jean Bodin, a man who found religious unrest disturbing while seeing in the Catholic Church a guarantor of stability.93 He openly questioned, in his Six livres de la République which appeared in 1576, the theory of mixed government which to him seemed 88 Bellarmine, De laicis, fifth controversy, book 3, chapter 6 in Disputationum … tomus primus, coll. 1280 A. 89 Diego Quaglioni, ‘La souveraineté partagée au Moyen Age’ in Gaille-Nikodimov (ed.), Le Gouvernement mixte, 15–24. 90 Victor Martin, Le Gallicanisme Politique et le Clergé de France, 41–86. 91 For a discussion, ancient but still relevant, on the links between constitutionalism and conciliarism, see Oakley, ‘Figgis, Constance and the Divine of Paris’. 92 Jean-Fabien Spitz, Bodin et la souveraineté, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1998; Julian Franklin, ‘Sovereignty and the mixed constitution: Bodin and his critics’, in J.H. Burns (ed.), The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450–1700, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991, 306–308. 93 Jean Mesnard, ‘La pensée religieuse de Bodin’, Revue du seizième siècle, 16, 1929, 77–121.

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harmful to the ‘sovereign power’ (puissance souveraine) which the Republic needed in order to function efficiently. According to him, sovereignty was indivisible: Comparing the monarchy with the common estate and with seigniory is impossible and incompatible […] and is something that could not even be imagined. For if sovereignty is indivisible, as we have shown, how could it be assigned to a prince, to the lords and to the people simultaneously?94

Sovereignty could not be shared between the state and the government, but this did not mean that different forms of government could not suit a republic. On this subject, Bodin established a distinction, which was to be found in Richer’s De ecclesiastica et politica potestate: between the state, which he also called the seigniory (seigneurie), and the government or the administration. Both could have different forms: It is important that a clear distinction be made between the form of the state, and the form of the government, which is merely the machinery of policing the state, though no one has yet considered it in that light. To illustrate, a state may be a monarchy, but it is governed democratically if the prince distributes lands, magistracies, offices, and honours indifferently to all, without regard to the claims of either birth or wealth or virtue. Or a monarchy can be governed aristocratically when the prince confines the distribution of lands and offices to the nobles, the most worthy, or the rich, as the case may be.95

Bodin also rejected the theory of the popular origin of power, which he blamed for the chronic instability from which the kingdom of France suffered. In reply to the Vindiciae contra tyrannos, an anonymous writing of 1579 which, a few years later, William Barclay would describe as ‘monarquomach’, he strongly denied, in a re-edition of the Six livres de la République, the suggestion that it was a good idea to impose a limit upon the authority of the prince:

94 Jean Bodin, Les six livres de la République, Paris, Jacques Du Puy, 1576, Book 2, chapter 1. On Jean Bodin and mixed government, see Julian Franklin, ‘Sovereignty and the mixed constitution: Bodin and his critics ’, in J.H. Burns (ed.), The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450–1700, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991, 298–328; Christian Nadeau, ‘Les constitutionalistes français face au problème de la constitution mixte: Claude Seyssel et Jean Bodin’, in Gaille-Nikodimov (ed.), Le Gouvernement mixte, 95–115. 95 Bodin, Les six livres de la République, book 2, chapter 2. I use M.J. Tooley’s translation of Bodin’s treatise (Six Books of Commonwealth, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1955). On the distinction between state and government in Bodin’s work, see Yves Charles Zarka, ‘État et gouvernement chez Bodin et les théoriciens de la raison d’État ’ in Zarka (ed.), Jean Bodin: nature, histoire, droit et politique, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1996, 149–160; Luc Foisneau, ‘Sovereignty and reason of state: Bodin, Botero, Richelieu and Hobbes’, in Howell Lloyd (ed.), The Reception of Bodin, Leiden, Brill, 2013, 331–332.

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And for this reason I earlier wrote that in a well ordered state the sovereign power should be invested in a single person without the estates playing any role in it nor having any power to make the law […], it is not to please the prince that one holds this opinion but rather for the safety and happiness of the subjects; and, on the contrary, when the power of the monarch is limited, by subjecting him to the estates of the people or the senate, sovereignty has no guaranteed foundation, leading to popular confusion or miserable anarchy, the plague of states and Republics.96

Bodin did not mention the divine right of kings, but the first author who appears to have used this expression, the Gallican jurist Pierre de Belloy, knew his work and referred, like him, to the concept of sovereign power in order to describe royal authority. He also rejected the doctrine of the popular origin of power. Against Bellarmine – who, as we have seen, made a point to refute his ideas – and against the Leaguers, of whom he became the bête noire, he stated, in the treatise De l’autorité du Roy in 1587, that kings held their power directly from God and that, as they were answerable only to God, the pope did not have the right to depose them.97 One of the first authors to follow this route, de Belloy combined in the person of the king two attributes which the lawyers of the Renaissance – and, after them, Jacques Almain, in whom the Leaguers henceforth would find a new credibility, – had carefully distinguished: auctoritas, that is, the capacity to give legitimacy to the law, which, ultimately, belongs to the people, and potestas, or coercive power, which the king can exercise when necessity arises. For him and for the Politiques, whose aspirations he expressed, the king directly received from God the source of his power.98 Another reader of Bodin was Pierre Grégoire, a Toulouse man like Pierre de Belloy, who lectured law at the University of Pont-à-Mousson in Lorraine. He also opposed the theory of mixed government whilst distinguishing, as the author of the Six livres de la République, between the form of power and the way it is administered. He pointed out, which Bodin had refused to do, that the sovereign was restricted not only by natural law but also by divine law. Eclectic, Grégoire remained marked, through the influence of Gerson among others, by the medieval theory of political power whilst at the same time formulating ideas which remind one of Bodin.99 96 Bodin, Les six livres de la République, 2nd edition, Paris, Jacques du Puis, 1583, 965, quoted in Quaglioni, ‘La souveraineté partagée du Moyen Âge’, 22–23. 97 Salmon, ‘Catholic Resistance Theory’, 233–234. 98 I express my gratitude to Thierry Amalou who drew my attention to this point. On the emergence of the doctrine of absolute power in France, see Arlette Jouanna, Le pouvoir absolu. Naissance de l’imaginaire politique de la royauté, Paris, Gallimard, 2013. 99 Ibid., 234. On Pierre Grégoire see Claude Collot, L’École doctrinaire de droit public à Pont-àMousson (Pierre Grégoire de Toulouse et Guillaume Barclay), Paris, R. Pichon and R. DurandAuzas, 1965, 112–126, 132–152; Christian Zendri, Pierre Grégoire tra leges e mores: ricerche sulla pubblistica francese del tardo Cinquecento, Bologna, Monduzzi, 2007.

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His successor at Pont-à-Mousson, the Scot William Barclay, was, for his part, firmly in favour of the authority of princes. He condemned as ‘monarquomach’, in a De regno et regali potestate which appeared in 1600, the supporters of the right to resist civil power and declared, along the lines of de Belloy, that kings held their authority directly from God.100 The ideas of the Politiques on the divine right of kings found an echo in England from the end of the reign of Elizabeth.101 Their main supporter was James VI of Scotland, a king-theologian, who succeeded Elizabeth of England under the name of James I in 1603. In the Traité des libres monarchies which appeared in 1598 and in the Apology for the Oath of Allegiance in 1609, he presented, for the first time in the modern era, a complete, although not always coherent, theory of the divine right of kings. If subjects were obliged to obey the king, the latter had to undertake to respect divine law. He had the same obligation as the kings of the Old Testament. As ‘God’s lieutenant on earth’, the king could not be judged by anyone other than God: The duetie, and alleageance of the people to their lawfull king, their obedience, I say, ought to be to him, as to Gods lieutenant in earth, obeying his commands in all things, except directly against God, as the commands of Gods Minister, acknowledging him a Iudge set by God over them, having power to judge them but to be judged onely by God, whom to onely he must give count of his iudgment.102

This all seemed far from the School of Paris of which Richer claimed to be the interpreter. If the ecclesiological legacy of the School seemed easy to accept, things became more complicated where political theory was concerned. In spite of the criticisms of the Ultramontanes, the Faculty of Theology of Paris felt entitled to invoke the authority of d’Ailly, Gerson, Almain and Major concerning the superiority of the council over the pope. On the issue of the temporal power of popes, the Parisian doctors leaning towards Gallicanism were ad odds with the masters they venerated because these had accepted the idea of an accidental power of the popes in temporal matters, a position which was not so distant from that of Bellarmine. Regarding the question of the popular origin of power and that, which was related, of the mixed constitution the problem was the ambiguous nature of the doctrine of the School of Paris. It was better suited, in spite of its conciliarist filiation, to the Protestant Monarchomachs and to the Leaguers than to the supporters of a strong royal power, in Paris as well as in London. Yet, it 100 Ibid., 235–236. On William Barclay, see Collot, L’École doctrinale, 127–131, 152–160. 101 Ibid., 247. 102 [James VI of Scotland], The Trew Law of Pure Monarchies: or, The Reciprok and Mutuall Duetie betwixt a Free King and his Naturall Subjects, Edinburg, Robert Waldegrave, 1598, reproduced in The Workes of the Most High and Mightie Prince James, ed. James [Montague], London, Robert Barker and John Bill, 1616, 200.

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was to the latter group that the Gallicans were politically the closest. A man such as James I supported the doctrine of the superiority of the council over the pope in the hope of speeding up the reunion of Churches,103 but he had no time for the doctrine of the right of resistance to which the conciliarist theologians had, nevertheless, indirectly contributed. In the following chapters, we shall see how Richer took into account this contradictory legacy.

103 Oakley, ‘Figgis, Constance and the Divines of Paris’, 374; W.B. Patterson, King James VI and the reunion of Christendom, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, 68.

Chapter 2. Richer’s ecclesiology

In order to correctly interpret Richer’s thought his entire work must be taken into consideration with the problem that it is extremely voluminous. Most commentators restricted themselves to quoting from his most famous work, the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, for which he has been condemned by ecclesiastical authority in March 1612. This short text was certainly essential but it had been hastily and at times carelessly written. The Apologia pro ecclesiae & concilii auctoritate, which was published in Venice in 1607 without the author’s permission, gave an early version of his ecclesiological thought. The Demonstratio, published in 1622, and the Defensio, written towards 1629 and published in 1701, clarified and completed the doctrine put forward in De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. Thus, on two occasions Richer set about replying to the objections, valid or unfair depending on the issue, of his Ultramontane colleague André Duval. The latter did not have access to Richer’s last two works but it is known that he met Richer at least once after he had been suspended. Duval’s arguments were of two kinds: firstly he attempted to demonstrate the ‘novelty’ of Richer’s doctrine: novelty with regard to the School of Paris to which, while favouring the Tridentine line, he continued to claim allegiance, and novelty with regard to the Church’s traditional doctrine based on the Bible, the Church Fathers and the ancient canons. Secondly, he attempted to show that Richer was a bad theologian. He tracked down all his contradictions and errors of logic and questioned his definitions of philosophical and theological terms. Richer answered him point for point. They had been formed by the same teachers and belonged to the same culture. Both of them resorted to the argument of authority: what the teachers had taught was taken to be true. In order to prove a point they multiplied references to authorities. When possible, opponents were quoted against themselves. Richer quoted prolifically from the Bible with a distinct preference for the New Testament, which was quoted forty times in De ecclesiastica et politica potestate as opposed to the two quotations from the Old Testament. The reason for this

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preferred approach was obvious: in the New Testament, as though it had been placed in a trust, one found divine law, a collection of rules decreed by Christ for the government of the Church. Gratian’s Decretum, which was quoted fourteen times, was another major reference. It was through this work, available in the edition procured by the doctor of Sorbonne Antoine de Mouchy in the sixteenth century,1 that Richer had access to the Church Fathers and to the ancient canons. Only Augustine and Optatus of Milevis were quoted in the text together with Bernard of Clairvaux whose legacy was the subject of bitter disputes between the conciliarists and the supporters of pontifical supremacy. Gerson was only quoted twice in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate and Nicholas of Cusa once but their works, together with those of Almain and Major, greatly influenced Richer as is shown by the many quotations from these authors which appeared in the Demonstratio and the Defensio. He also quoted John of Paris and Alonso Tostato, Torquemada’s critic in the fifteenth century. The syndic also referred to the writings of his opponents, Robert Bellarmine of course, but also to those of Cesar Baronius and lesser known defensors of pontifical supremacy such as Alessandro Carreri, Francisco Bozzio, Agostino Steuco, Léonard Coqueau and Thomas Sanders. He did not quote Cajetan in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate but took the pain to refute him in the Defensio. Finally, he referred to historians of his time, particularly to Onofrio Panvinio and Jacques Sirmond.2 As Richer himself did in the Demonstratio and the Defensio, I will follow the order of matters of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, which consists of eighteen sections. After an introduction (1–3), the syndic concentrated on demonstrating the validity of eight ‘principles’ (4–13) before refuting the ‘opposite opinion’ (14–18).

The whole and the parts The treatise began with a proposition which was presented as an ‘axiom’: God and nature, Richer wrote, have in mind the ‘subject’ (suppositus) before the part. By so doing, he went back to the idea outlined by John of Paris and developed by Gerson that the pope was in the Church and not above it and, consequently, was 1 Antoine Demochares [de Mouchy], Decretorum collectanea ex varia copiosaque scriptorum ecclesiasticorum … per Dn. Gratianum in gratiam rei ecclesiasticae concinnata, ac suis classibus distincta, [Paris], Charlotte Guillard and Guillaume Desbois, 1547. Several re-editions. 2 For bibliographical references to these authors in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate see Edmond Richer, De la puissance ecclésiastique et politique. Texte de la première édition latine (1611) et française (1612), introduit et annoté par Philippe Denis. Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 2014.

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only a part of it.3 It was to the Church and not to the pope that Christ had given the power of the keys. Using an expression to which I will return, Richer defined the pope and the bishops as ‘instruments and ministers’ of the Church, responsible for the ‘execution’ of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. He was comparable to the eye which ‘is and subsists by and through the human person’.4 The eye is not the body, he continued in another part of the treatise, and ‘several eyes see further and perceive better than a single one’. As Saint Paul said in the letter to the Corinthians, all parts of the body are essential if it is to function well. The Church ws not epitomised by the pope. ‘If the entire body were but an eye, where would hearing be?’5 Duval opened fire with a salvo of arguments against this metaphor. Why speak of the eye and not of the head? Was this so as to reduce pontifical dignity? The image of the eye was false, he added, because this organ was for the human person (propter hominem) and not by the human person (per hominem). The eye and the human person had been created at the same time. The final cause and the efficient cause met only in God.6 The subject and the parts should not be confused, he continued, because, as it is the eye and not the human person who saw ‘immediately and essentially’, so it was the pope and not the Church who received the power of the keys. The Church as a body was incapable of carrying out a jurisdiction. It was true that a council could decree laws but it was the bishops and not the whole Church who acted.7 Against the argument that two eyes saw better than one he replied that experience had proved the contrary.8 The pope, he added, represented the Church of which he was the head: The head represents the entire body just as does the king his kingdom and the bishop his church. In the sense that he is the judge and the head of the universal church, the pope can henceforth enjoy the same privilege of infallibility as the whole body does.9

In a letter to Casaubon, which has already been mentioned, du Perron quoted amongst the syndic’s controversial propositions, the one which dealt with the whole and the parts:

3 Gerson, De potestate ecclesiastica, consideratio 11, in Gerson, Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 6, 233. 4 Richer, De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, art. 1. 5 Ibid, art. 6. 6 André Duval, Libelli de ecclesiastica et politica elenchus, pro suprema romani Pontificis in Ecclesiam authoritate, Paris, [Jacquin], 1612, 12–13. 7 Ibid., 13–18. 8 Ibid., 72–73. 9 Ibid., 75.

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That God has an influence which is more essential and immediate on the whole rather than on the parts: and that it is the whole which produces actions and not the parts, which act only as the instruments of the whole.10

Du Perron commented that this proposition was correct when it dealt with ‘physical subjects’ such as human beings, animals or plants for, in their case, the part could not exist without the whole. But it was false when analogically applied to kingdoms, states or republics because they ‘do not possess an essential unity but are a whole through aggregation’. When a king acted, it was he himself who acted, not the kingdom. One could not assimilate the whole and the parts.11 Du Perron, who had discussed this question with Duval, was speaking here of the Church. The pope was the head of the Church and not the representative. He acted in his own name and not in the name of the Church. Du Perron rejected the corporative conception of the Church, which, as we have seen, underlied the conciliarist theory. In fact, regarding the question of the whole and the parts, in spite of Duval’s assurances, Richer had on his side not only canonical tradition12 but scholastic theology. Here is what Thomas Aquinas wrote, not about the eye but about the hand: Actions, in effect, emanate from the person and from the whole (actiones autem sunt suppositorum et totorum), and not from the parts, figures or powers. Correctly speaking, one does not say the hand strikes but that man strikes with his hand, not that heat warms up but rather that the fire warms through heat.13

And to the accusation that Richer’s discourses tended to reduce the dignity of the pope one can answer that the image of the eye is biblical. It appears in the first epistle to the Corinthians. The faithful are members of a body of which Christ is the head.14 But Richer had at his disposal an argument which was even more forceful. In his Controversies Bellarmine also addressed the question of the whole and the parts. In a chapter of the treatise dealing with the authority of councils the Jesuit theologian discussed the belief of theologians according to which the pope was obliged to submit to the decisions of the councils. One of these theologians, he 10 Jacques Davy du Perron to Isaac Casaubon, 18 April 1612 in Les Ambassades et Negotiations de l’Illustrissime et Reverendissime Cardinal du Perron, archevesque de Sens, primat des Gaules et de Germanie & Grand Aumosnier de France, Paris, Antoine Estienne, 1623, 694. 11 Ibid. 12 Brian Tierney, Religion, law and the growth of constitutional thought, 1150–1650, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008, 17: ‘The canonists were able to reconcile the conciliar authority with their reaching on papal sovereignty because, for them, the pope was an intrinsic part of the general council.’ 13 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, IIaIIae, q. 58, art. 2. 14 1 Cor 12, 16–17, 21.

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wrote, was Gerson who, after having referred to the Dic ecclesiae of Mt 18, 15–17, stated that the pope was a member of the Church and therefore inferior to its totality. In the Demonstratio Richer noted that Bellarmine had made an important concession on this subject: he had admitted not only that Christ was the head of the Church, a fact which was difficult to deny given that it was made by Saint Paul, but that ‘the pope is the instrument of the body of the Church and is therefore smaller than the whole, which allows us to include Christ, who is the subject, in the whole’.15 Duval did not accuse Richer of distancing himself from the doctrine of the School of Paris as he did in the discussion of other articles of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. The syndic’s arguments were, in effect, in agreement on all points with those of John of Paris and Gerson. In truth, it was Duval who, in spirit if not in letter, betrayed the ancient doctrine of the doctors of Paris. He refused to believe that an abstract reality such as the church or the state could exercise any authority. Imprisoned in Aristotle’s categories, he could only imagine three possible holders of authority: the one, the small number or the multitude. Saying, like Richer, that the Church ‘primarily and immediately’ exercised the power of jurisdiction implied, horresco referens, that the multitude exercised authority. It ‘smack[ed] of Lutheranism’.16 ‘A church without bishops,’ Duval ranted, ‘and a fortiori without a supreme pontiff, cannot govern, it is governed (unless there is a republic such as that of Anacharsis, where the wise are governed by mad people).’17 Only concrete people like the pope or, at a push, the pope and bishops gathered together in council, could make decisions. In the same way, only the king and his council, and not the kingdom, could exercise authority in the temporal domain.18 The pope ‘represented’ the Church and the king the kingdom in the sense that they represented the body of which they were part. The physical body of the pope was the mystical body of the Church just as the earthly body of the king was the physical and immortal body of the kingdom.19 15 Richer, Demonstratio, 3. Quotation from Bellarmine, De conciliis et ecclesia, fourth controversy, book 2, chapter 19, in Disputationum … tomus primus, Lyon, 1609, col. 912B. 16 Duval, Elenchus, 19. Seventy-five years later, the question of whether or not Richer was a crypto-Protestant was still being debated. Returning to the metaphor of the body and the eye in a work of controversy, Fénelon declared that no Catholic theologian, not even Richer, had ever supported the view that pastors held their authority from their congregation. Richer ‘foresaw the objections of the Protestants’ by showing that the human body (the Church) produced sight (the authority of the keys) and not the eyes (the priests). See François Fénelon, Traité sur le ministère des pasteurs, Paris, Auboin, 1688, chapter 11 in Œuvres, vol. 2, Paris, Gauthier, 1830, 97–98. 17 Ibid., 23. Born in Scythia, the philosopher Anacharsis (6th century BCE) is said to have found the Greek customs, which he discovered during a voyage, very strange. 18 Ibid., 18. 19 On the body of the king, see Ernst Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies. A Study in Medieval Political Theology, Princeton, Kavolis, 1980. Richer probably took his inspiration from Ger-

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Richer reasoned differently. No more than Gerson did he envisage giving authority to the people. What he had in mind, based on the corporative model in use during the Middle Ages, was a church constituted as a whole from which no member, even the head, should be separated. He envisaged representation in a different form from that of Duval. For him, the council represented the Church without in any way replacing it: it spoke in the Church’s name and protected its interests. Like the conciliarist theologians from whom he claimed to draw his inspiration, Richer advocated, in the medieval categories with which he was familiar, a constitutionalism which resembled modern-day parliamentarianism.20 Meanwhile, the accusation made by Duval was serious. When he returned to the manuscript a few years later, Richer realised that he had to explain himself better. In order to avoid appearing as an advocate for the rights of the laity, he specified that what he meant by the Church, just like Gerson whose terms he used, was the ‘sacerdotal church and the hierarchical order’.21 As we have seen earlier, in the De potestate ecclesiastica the chancellor of the University of Paris attributed the power of jurisdiction to the ‘hierarchy of the Church’ which included all those who ‘purify, enlighten and lead to perfection’,22 in other words, the pope, the bishops and the priests, each according to his status. The expression ‘hierarchical order’ appeared as a leitmotif in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, in the Demonstratio and in the Defensio. It can only be fully understood if one bears in mind the corporative model of the Church. Yves Congar got it wrong when he claimed that ‘for Richer the hierarchical priesthood [was] unique, equal in all its members’.23 He was basing his judgment on an extract from the Defensio which stated that ‘the episcopate and the priesthood of Christ are indivisible and reside completely in the hierarchical

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son who stated that the king had three ‘bodies’, corporal, civil and spiritual. See Mary Christine Davenport Batts, Jean Gerson: politics and political theory, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Ottawa, 1976, 80. Regarding the links between conciliarist theory and the ideas of the French Revolution see John Neville Figgis, ‘The Conciliar Movement and the Papal Reaction’, in From Gerson to Grotius 1414–1625, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, [1907], 35–61; Francis Oakley, ‘Figgis, Constance and the Divine of Paris’, American Historical Review, 75, 1969, 368–386; Dale Van Kley, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution. From Calvin to the Civil Constitution, 1560–1791, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1996. Richer, Demonstratio, 5. Gerson, De potestate ecclesiastica, consideratio 5, in Gerson, Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 6, 219. See G.H.M. Posthumus Meyjes, Jean Gerson, Apostle of Unity: His Church Politics and Ecclesiology, Leiden, Brill, 1999, 258. Congar, L’Église de saint Augustin à l’époque moderne, 395.

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order as well as, formally and intentionally, in any bishop or priest, these being only distinguished materially, in matters concerning the discharging of duties and administration.’24 This text, in fact, is reminiscent of a passage from Gerson’s De ecclesiastica potestate in which ecclesiastical authority is considered ‘formally’ (formaliter), ‘materially’ (materialiter) and ‘with regard to its exercise and execution’ (quoad exercitium et executionem).25 Richer did not put the pope, the bishops and the priests on the same footing any more than did Gerson. But he believed that, together, the holders of these offices constituted a ‘hierarchical order’, based on the sacraments of the order, which exercised authority in the Church. Congar’s incorrect interpretation stems from an uncritical reading of Duval, like that made by generations of commentators. One should note the clerical character of this ecclesiology. Like his masters Gerson and Almain, Richer had no intention of awarding power to the laity. As he explained in the Demonstratio, if by Church we mean the laity, the Church holds the keys only with regard to the end which it pursues (finaliter) and not in its form (formaliter). Understood in this way, it was to the ‘sacerdotal church’ that the power of the keys is given. Daily practice, Richer added, demonstrated that the right of jurisdiction was accorded to bishops and priests. ‘Let us therefore stop perpetuating confusion regarding the meaning of the word Church. This is unworthy of a theologian!’26

The disputed legacy of Jacques Almain In the second article Richer expounded his views on the exercising of the power of jurisdiction within the Church. ‘Jesus Christ’, he wrote, ‘conferred upon the hierarchical order immediately and as a matter of faith the keys or the jurisdiction through the intermediary and the true mission of the apostles and disciples’. This assertion led him to clarify the respective roles of the bishops, successors of the twelve apostles, and of the priests, successors of the seventy disciples. Like their medieval predecessors, Richer and Duval engaged in a war of biblical quotations which was not original at all except for the fact that the author of the Elenchus annexed to his cause Almain, an author one would rather have expected to be quoted by the syndic. 24 Richer, Defensio, vol. 1, 92. 25 Gerson, De potestate ecclesiastica, consideratio 6, in Glorieux, ed. Œuvres complètes, vol. 6, 220. 26 Richer, Demonstratio, 31.

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Like Gerson before him, Richer attached great importance to the Dic ecclesiae of Mt 18, 15–17 which was at the foundation of the idea of a collective ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The passage was quoted three times in the treatise.27 He also mentioned, quoting Luke 10, 1, the sending of the seventy disciples on mission and, quoting John 20, 21–23, the mission of the disciples after the Resurrection, the important fact being that it was not a single man, Peter, but a group of disciples that received, from Jesus, the order of mission. In order to embarrass Richer, Duval quoted a passage from Almain’s Expositio circa decisiones Magistri Guilielmi Occam super potestate ecclesiastica et laici, where the latter referred to ‘Feed my sheep’ of John 21, 17, the text traditionally used by papalists to defend papal supremacy.28 In this treatise, Almain, who was still a student, discussed the ideas of the English theologian William of Ockham who had given a very restrictive interpretation of the pope’s powers. As Duval observed, Almain distinguished between the institution of ecclesiastical power by Christ and the choice of the person who would wield this power. Jesus established ecclesiastical power when, according to Mt 18, 15–18, he gave the power of excommunication to the disciples and when he allowed Peter to use this power by saying to him: ‘Feed my sheep’. But it was not because the power to bind and loose sins and, likewise, that of celebrating the Eucharist were instituted by Jesus before he conferred the sacrament of the order upon Peter and the other apostles, Almain pointed out, that this sacrament was optional.29 Here Duval showed himself to be a good controversist. He selected from a treatise of the young Almain against Ockham a text which affirmed the pope’s power of jurisdiction. But Almain himself, in his reply to Cajetan several years later, gave another interpretation of the ‘Feed my sheep’ of John 21, 17. Jesus, he argued, said to Peter ‘Feed my sheep’ and not ‘Feed your sheep’. The power of jurisdiction had certainly be given to the entire Church but, because it was impossible, for practical reasons, for everyone to exercise it at the same time, he had confided its administration to a single person, the apostle Peter.30 Richer expressed the same idea in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. He did not deny that the pope had the right to exercise the power of jurisdiction. He simply said that this right, even when in the hands of the pope, belonged to the Church. Duval also invoked Almain’s authority to disprove Richer’s ideas concerning the church’s right to the nomination of bishops. The Gallican theologian was referring to the fact that in the early church it was the faithful who elected the bishop by acclamation. During the Middle Ages, this right was exercised by the 27 Richer, De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, art. 2, 6, 14. 28 Duval, Elenchus, 27–28. 29 Almain, Expositio circa decisiones Magistri Guilielmi Occam super potestate ecclesiastica et laici, chapter 4, in Gerson, Opera Omnia, ed. Du Pin, vol. 2, col. 1023 A. See also 1018D. 30 Almain, De auctoritate ecclesiae, chapter 8, ed. Burns, 171.

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cathedral chapters until such time as, initially in exceptional cases and later as a matter of course, it was transferred to the pope in the fourteenth century. In France, it was not until the Concordat of Bologne in 1516 that the papacy conferred canonical investiture upon the bishops, after they had been appointed by secular power. In the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, without expressing an opinion on the validity of episcopal elections of his period, Richer wholehearted praised the early practice: Let us learn from the practice of the early Church and from the sacred canons that the collations of benefices, as they are called today, existed by common right for a period of 1400 years, as did the holy elections. And here is the reason: any principalty regarding coactive force stems from the consent of people as was confirmed by divine and natural law, and neither the passage of time, nor the privileges of places nor the dignity of persons could repeal this.31

To Richer’s claim that the elections of the bishops required ‘by divine and natural law’ the consent of the people, Duval responded that if it was correct, all French episcopal nominations ‘for the past ninety and more years’, in other words since the Concordat of Bologne, would be invalid and those who participated in them, the pope, the king of France and the Gallican bishops ‘were constantly in a state of mortal sin’.32 It is at this point of the argument that Duval brought in Almain together with Pierre d’Ailly, from whom, incidentally, Louis XII’s theological advisor claimed to have taken his inspiration. He quoted a passage from Almain’s treatise against Ockham which attributed ‘to Peter alone and to his successors the power to appoint canons and to confer offices and ecclesiastical positions throughout the entire universe’.33 This passage, however, had to be put into context. In what was, after all, the work of a student, Almain was replying to an author who had denied the power of jurisdiction to Peter’s successor and had declared that a multiplicity of popes would not be harmful to the unity of the Church.34 In the De auctoritate ecclesiae, which Duval was careful not to quote, Almain imposed important limitations on the pope’s power of jurisdiction. This being said, Duval’s objection remained a serious one. In the Demonstratio Richer replied to it with an argument of authority. He quoted Cyprian’s epistle 68, which stated that episcopal elections were of divine right as well as a passage in a

31 Richer, De la puissance ecclésiastique et politique, art. 2. 32 Duval, Elenchus, 43. 33 Ibid., 48. Duval combined two passages from Almain’s treatise. See Expositio circa decisions Magistri Guilielmi Occam super potestate ecclesiastica et laici De auctoritate papae, chapter 2, in Gerson, Opera Omnia, ed. Du Pin, vol. 2, col. 1015 A and chapter 4, ibid., col. 1921D 34 Congar, L’Église de saint Augustin à l’époque moderne, 293.

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similar vein from Gerson’s De vita spirituali animae. He added that, even if elections were prescribed by divine right, extraordinary situations existed, as in France since the Concordat of Bologne, where the law could not be applied. A return to the normal situation as soon as possible was recommended.35 Richer himself doubtless found this argument unsatisfactory for he returned to the point in the Defensio. This time, he used all the resources of scholastic theology to deal with the question of elections with the necessary nuances. Firstly, he differentiated between two ways of conferring ecclesiastical jurisdiction: ‘formally and with regard to the state’ (formaliter et quoad habitum) and ‘materially and with regard to usage and exercise’ (materialiter et quoad usum et exercitum). The first way was achieved through ordination and rested entirely in the hands of the ‘hierarchical order’, that is to say, the pope and the bishops. The second was achieved through election, which had two forms: active and passive. Active election of the incumbents of the power of jurisdiction was normally entrusted to the hierarchical order but it could happen ‘for the good of the Church or for any other reason’ that this right was entrusted to ‘Christian princes and the laity’. Richer thus justified the practice of episcopal appointments used in France since the Concordat of Bologne. But he did not stop there. The idea of passive elections allowed him to reformulate the idea of a power of the Church over episcopal elections, which he had imprudently declared to be of divine right in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. Passive election, he explained, was the consent of the people (consensus populi) to submit themselves to the priest and bishops who had been elected. This consent might be implicit or explicit. ‘The hierarchical order does not have the right to deprive the people of passive election and the right to consent.’ In this way, the clergy and the people participated, each in his own way, in the elections.36 Richer thus returned to the theme of the consent of the people but in a more restrictive way than in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. In the first formulation, it was a question of a general principle, as valid for the Church as it is for civil society. As we have seen in the preceding chapter, the syndic conformed, regarding this question, to an opinion commonly held by theologians, from Thomas Aquinas to Gerson and Nicholas of Cusa. The idea of ‘translation’ of power implied, according to this opinion, that of popular consent. In his treatise against Ockham, Almain wrote that there were only two ways of being subject to an obligation: by personal consent or by order of a superior.37 The important, however, was to see what popular consent actually meant in practice. In the 35 Richer, Defensio, vol. 1, 35–38. 36 Richer, Defensio, vol. 1, 251–252. 37 Almain, Expositio circa decisiones Magistri Guilielmi Occam super potestate ecclesiastica et laici De auctoritate papae, chapter 4, in Gerson, Opera Omnia, ed. Du Pin, vol. 2, col. 1019 A. Duval quoted this passage in the Elenchus, 50.

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Defensio Richer proposed a clarification which entailed saying that popular consent could, in certain cases, be passively expressed but still remained a right which leaders were obliged to recognise. From this discussion we can learn two things: firstly that, compared to Richer’s later writings, the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate was abrupt and, at times, rudimentary in its wording. Writing in an impassioned context, Richer used expressions which outstripped his thought. The second is that, without changing anything regarding his basic ideas on the Church and political society, the former syndic showed that he was prepared to reformulate his theses so as to make them more acceptable. To this end, he profitably used the retirement which the hazards of his ecclesiastical career had imposed upon him.

A monarchical constitution conducted by an aristocratic government The first ‘principle’ was expounded in the third article of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. It stipulated that the Church was a ‘monarchical constitution’ (politia monarchica) led by an ‘aristocratic government’ (regimen aristocraticum) through Christ who is the ‘absolute monarch’ (monarcha absolutus). The Latin version of the treatise stated that this aristocratic government was ‘the best of all and the most conform with nature’.38 As we have noted, this definition of the Church was foregrounded in the title page of several of Richer’s works. The question of the definition of the Church was addressed once again in the third ‘principle’ which defined the relations between the ‘constitution (politia)’ of the Church – also described as the ‘state’ of the Church – and its ‘government’: The third principle distinguishes between the state of the Church and its government, for its state is monarchical either for the order which brings about unity or for the execution of the canons which depends upon the Roman pontiff as ministerial chief: but the administration is aristocratic, by virtue of providence, with the support of an efficient Council and in line with the constitutions of the same canons.39

In the Elenchus Duval criticised two aspects of Richer’s definition: it had no precedent and it made no mention of the pope. According to his own definition, which he maintained was accepted ‘by all’ but which, in reality, was typical of the

38 Richer, De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, Paris, [Heureux Blancvillain], 1611, 5. 39 Richer, De la puissance ecclesiastica et politique, art. 5.

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modern era in its insistence on the submission to papal authority,40 the Church was a ‘congregation of militant believers under the authority of a single supreme pastor, the vicar of Christ, who partake of the sacraments’.41 The definition of the Church which Richer proposed was anything but simple. It mystified his contemporaries who, unable to recognise any known elements, judged it to be ‘completely false not to say heretical,’42 to use Duval’s expression. The problem arose from the fact that Richer used the Aristotelian categories of monarchy and aristocracy without using, obviously at least, the model of mixed government. He stated that he wanted an aristocratic government for the Church because it was the ‘best of all and the most conform with nature’ but, at the same time, he spoke of a ‘monarchical constitution (politia monarchica)’. The monarchical aspect of his system appeared to relate, simultaneously, to Christ, the ‘absolute monarch’, and to the pope, the ‘ministerial leader’. The Ultramontanes found this formula ambiguous. They felt that Richer’s was contradicting himself: how could the pope be the head of the Church if its government was in the hands of the few? After all, the pope was the vicar of Christ. ‘When he states that the Church is a monarchical constitution (politia monarchica),’ Duval asked, ‘who does he see as the monarch: Christ, the pope or both of them?’43 If Christ was the king of the Church, how could it be aristocratic? And if the pope was the king of the Church, it was even more difficult to see how the Church could be aristocratic. Either Richer did not know what he was saying or he was a heretic. The key, we will see, is to be found in the distinction between state and government which, without necessarily stemming directly from Bodin, certainly makes one think of him. But before turning to this, let us firstly examine Duval’s objections. As he usually did, he reproached Richer for committing a conceptual error. By constitution (politia), he argued, one means an act and an accident, not an essence and a nature. In a refutation of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, which is known only through what Richer said about it in the Defensio, Georges Froger, a friend of Duval’s, expressed a similar idea when he accused the syndic of speaking of a ‘monarchical constitution (politia monarchica)’ rather than of a ‘monarchy’.44 If Richer had said that the Church was a monarchy, everyone would have agreed with him. It was the phrase ‘monarchical constitution’ which caused the 40 In this regard see Benoît Schmitz, ‘Claves regni coelorum: le sens d’une métaphore entre hérésiologie et ecclésiologie (XVIe siècle) », Bulletin du centre d’études médiévales d’Auxerre, special series, 7, 2013, 2–4. 41 Duval, Elenchus, 52. 42 Ibid., 52. 43 Ibid., 53. 44 Richer, Defensio, vol. 2, 11.

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problem. Duval defined the constitution as an accident and found it problematic that the monarchy of the Church was defined in this way. Let us remember that, for Aristotle, an accident was that which was not part of the essence of a thing or of its definition. It was not part of the definition of humankind, for example, to have blue eyes because all people did not necessarily have blue eyes. The colour of the eyes was therefore an accident.45 Richer defended himself against the accusation of novelty in the second volume of the Defensio.46 He stated, citing from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Politics,47 that a constitution (politia) was definitely a nature and an essence and that, consequently, it was acceptable to speak of a monarchical constitution. The word politia – which was translated into French by ‘police’ – meant either a republic or a way of governing a republic. The former syndic pointed out that Joachim Périon, a translator of Aristotle in the first half of the sixteenth century, had translated πολιτεία with respublica. He added that Gerson had attributed the same meaning to the word politia when he wrote in the De potestate ecclesiastica that ‘the ecclesiastical constitution (politia ecclesiastica) should be governed by the best government’.48 One could well ask oneself what the purpose of this discussion about the meaning of the word police was. The ensuing section explained what was at stake. Richer based his argument on two foundations. On the one hand, he understood politia to mean a form of government. He followed Aristotle’s definition of the police or the constitution (πολιτεία) as ‘that which determines in the state the organisation of all the magistratures’.49 The Aristotelian constitution or police was the main concern of the city: it is what gave its shape to the city. It did not necessarily imply a written document. The constitution, for Aristotle, was the soul of the city. On the other hand, true to the medieval tradition, illustrated, as we have seen, by Thomas Aquinas, Gerson and Almain, Richer considered that all power, even royal power, had its origin in the people. Power, he said, was ‘in the hands and judgment of those who hold the keys to the republic’ (in eorum manu atque arbitrio … qui clavum Reipublicae tenant). As a result the constitution (politia) was ‘a habitual rapport and a relation to the people which is governed’ (habitudo

45 I quote this example from an outline of Aristotle’s philosophy that is to be found on the website http://sos.philisophie.free.fr/aristote.php. 46 Richer, Defensio, vol. 2, 11–13. The Demonstratio did not address the question of a definition of the Church. 47 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book 8 and Politics, Book 10. 48 Richer, Defensio, vol. 2, 11, quoting Gerson, De ecclesiastica potestate, consideratio 8, ed. Glorieux, Œuvres complètes, vol. 6, 225. 49 Aristotle, Politique, Book 3, chapter 4.

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et relatio ad populum qui regitur).50 In other words, the form of government of the republic – or of the Church – was not an accidental choice: it was part of the ‘essence’ and this essence had something to do with the people of the republic or of the Church for it was concerned, in the first instance, with the way in which it was governed. Here Richer allied himself with the old medieval adage that stated that ‘that which concerns everyone must be discussed and approved by everyone’.51 Thus, he continued, ‘the constitution (politia) does not concern an accomplished reality (actus),52 the manner of governing being a simple accident, but the assembly of the people who are associated by law (pro coetu hominum de jure sociatorum). In the same way the French expression L’État de France designated, simultaneously, the way of governing and the people which were governed as ‘the essence and subject of government’ (materia et subjectum regiminis).53 When Richer spoke of a monarchical constitution he was not thinking of an absolute monarchy such as had begun to be envisaged at the beginning of the seventeenth century for civil society or, since Trent, for the Church. What he had in mind was a monarchy at the service of the people which constituted it. This is where the misunderstanding between him and Duval lied. They were not speaking of the same monarchy. In the Defensio Richer gave a clear answer to Duval’s question: who is the monarch – Christ or the pope? Neither one nor the other, Richer replied. When one states that the Church has a monarchical constitution (politia monarchica), it does not mean that the Church is governed by a monarch who imposes his will upon the believers. What is meant is that the Church is governed ‘monarchically’ (monarchice), in other words, according to a monarchical principle which is applied to all levels of government. At the level of the universal Church, a man, the pope, is needed to ‘execute’ the decisions of the government of the Church, which is aristocratic. At the level of the diocese, a man, the bishop, is also required to direct the affairs of the Church.54

50 In Thomas Aquinas the habitudo is the relationship of power (potentia) to the proper act (actus proprius) or to the secondary act (actus secundarius), of the cause to what has been caused (causa ad causatum), whilst the relatio is a relation to the other exclusively considered as a term, and nothing more. See Nicolas Balthasar, ‘La réalité de la relation finie d’après saint Thomas d’Aquin’, Revue néoscolastique de philosophie, 31, 2nd series, n˚ 24, 1929, 398. 51 See Yves Congar, “Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus tractari et approbari debet”, Revue historique du droit français et étranger, 36, 1958, 210–258. 52 By ‘act’ (actus), which I have translated with ‘accomplished reality’, one must understand what the fact of being entails. Thus, an adult is an adult in act whilst a child is an adult in power (potentia). 53 Richer, Defensio, vol. 2, 11. 54 Richer, Defensio, vol. 2, 11–12.

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This is how the distinction which Richer established between the ‘constiution’ or the ‘state’ of the Church and its ‘government’ must be understood, the one being monarchical and the other aristocratic. For Duval, this way of expressing oneself made no sense. The state (status), he wrote, cannot not be a government (regimen) for it is a form of supreme power that necessarily implies the act of governing.55 For Richer, on the contrary, the distinction between state and government was crucial. It allowed for the combination of a monarchical element, which manifested itself in the execution, and an aristocratic element, which came into play in the decision-making, without the two elements being on the same footing as was the case in a mixed government. The simultaneous existence of a monarchical constitution and an aristocratic government was not a contradiction. The fact that a small number – the council – had the authority to make decisions within the Church did not prevent a man – the pope – from being charged with the execution of decisions which had been taken communally. It was true that the pontiff exercised a type of monarchical power but this was a power of service and not an absolute power. According to an expression to which we shall return, he was the ‘ministerial head’ of the Church. And Christ? Here, once again, Riches resorted to the Aristotelian categories in use at the Sorbonne. Considered in his relationship to the Church, he argued, Christ can be seen in two ways. Firstly, he is the Church’s ‘formal cause’, in other words that which ‘forms and unites the Church into a body whose nature he shares and which he sees as a beloved bride’. As such, he is the ‘essential head’ of the Church. But Christ can also be seen as the ‘efficient cause’ of the Church, in other words, its agent, the one who leads it in a particular direction. He gives the Church a visible and exterior government which, as we have seen, is aristocratic. If, according to Richer, Christ is an ‘absolute monarch’, it is in the sense that he has the authority to give the Church its constitution and not in the sense that he directs its daily operations. Once it has been duly constituted, he leaves it to govern itself.56

Essential head and ministerial head According to Richer, the first ‘principle’ of ecclesiastical government was that the state of the Church was monarchical and that its government was aristocratic. The following five principles dealt with the respective attributions of the pope, who represented the monarchical element of the Church, and the council, which represented the aristocratic element. The crux of the matter was what the return 55 Duval, Elenchus, 136. 56 Ibid., 12.

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to the conciliarist model of ecclesiastical government, which Richer recommended, meant in practice. It was less a question of the pope’s authority, which Richer claimed to accept, than of the exact scope of his responsibilities. If the syndic’s ideas appeared to be scandalous to the Ultramontanes it was because they saw him as abusively reducing the rights of the Holy See to intervene in the affairs of the Church of France. Richer felt that the Roman Curia was overly greedy and that limits should be imposed on its ambitions. A difference of degree and not of nature existed between these two views of pontifical power. A second question is that of establishing whether Richer’s doctrine was conform or not to the School of Paris. A man such as Duval felt obliged to take into consideration the teachings of Pierre d’Ailly, Jean Gerson and Jacques Almain even if they were at odds with the Ultramontane movement which he claimed to support. In order to declare a doctrine heretical, proof had to be furnished that it diverged from that of the masters of the University of Paris. It is perfectly clear that Richer was not an Ultramontane. The problem lies in determining whether he was an innovator as compared to the founders of the conciliarist movement , as his Parisian critics accused him of being. According to Richer, what distinguished Peter – and by extension, his successors – from Christ held in a formula which constituted the second ‘principle’: The second principle teaches that St Peter is only a provider and ministerial head and not the lord and founder of the Church: for this belongs to the one and only Jesus Christ, the essential head by whom and through whom the Church subsists.57

Contrary to what Duval suggested, the distinction between the essential head and the ministerial head of the Church was not an invention of Richer’s. It appeared, in almost the same terms, in Almain’s eighth chapter of the De auctoritate ecclesiae. The only difference was that Cajetan’s opponent called Christ the ‘principal head’ (caput principalis). The head, Almain pointed out, denotes a superiority which the sovereign pontiff does not exercise over the Church because he is its minister and not its lord. However, ‘in his relations with the individual Churches, the pope is the ministerial head (caput ministeriale) because, by virtue of the ministry confided in Peter, he has authority over them’.58 What was the difference, in practice, between an essential head and a ministerial head? The main attribute of power, according to Richer, was the ‘infallible power to make and decree canons’. One might say that it was a question of the legislative power within the Church. The subject was much debated. One should recall that Luther publically burnt the pontifical decretals in front of the gates of Wittenberg in December 1520. Amongst Catholic theologians, the question of 57 Richer, De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, art. 4. 58 Almain, De ecclesiae auctoritate, chapter 8, in Gerson, Opera, ed. Richer, vol. 1, col. 729 D-E.

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pontifical infallibility was disputed. Because there was no consensus, it was not raised at Trent. One would have to wait until the First Vatican Council before the doctrine of the pope’s infallibility would be declared to be of faith with certain restrictions and despite the objections of historians and canonists. Richer, however, did not hesitate. The right to define the doctrine lied, according to him, with the Church or with the general council which represented it and not with the pope.59 For good governance of the Church, the councils needed to meet frequently.60 Popes applied the decrees of the councils but did not initiate them: The sixth [principle] defines the extent of pontifical authority, firstly with regard to the particular churches dispersed around the world but not over the universal Church meeting in council: secondly, for the execution, interpretation and dispensation, but not at all for the establishment of canons, except for the fact that he presides in person, or through his legates, at the council and collects the votes and the consent of the fathers.61

It should be noted that Richer granted the pope the plenitude of pontifical power. This concept had been the object of an unceasing debate in the Middle Ages.62 In contrast to people like Marsilius of Padua or William of Ockham, Richer did not deny the pope the plenitude of power. But, like Gerson, he defined it in a restrictive way. The pope, for him, only exercised the plenitude of power between the councils. Today we would say that he headed a permanent secretariat charged with managing the Church between conciliar sessions. He might well have presided over a council and minuted its decisions, but he would not substitute himself to it. His authority was purely spiritual. His role was nevertheless a decisive one. If there was no central authority, individual churches could have applied council decisions each in their own way and this would have resulted in chaos. The pope, for Richer as well as for Gerson and Almain who expressed the same idea, was the guarantor of the unity of the Church. The term ‘execution’ (executio) was an essential part of Richer’s vocabulary. It occurred eight times in the Latin edition of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate and seventeen times in the French edition. Execution referred to the laws, human or divine, and the canons of the Church. Richer distinguished between a legislative power, qualified to make laws, and an executive power, responsible for implementing them. He did not invent this language. The distinction between legislative, executive and judicial power stemmed from Aristotle.63 It was known

59 60 61 62 63

Richer, De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, art. 6 (fourth principle). Ibid., art. 7 (fifth principle). Ibid., art. 9 (sixth principle). See particularly, Congar, L’Église de saint Augustin à l’époque moderne, 252–295. Aristotle, Politics, book 6.

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to medieval theologians who dealt with power.64 Gerson, in a passage quoted above, applied it to the Church. ‘The council’, he wrote, ‘has authority to give advice and direct (conciliative and dictative) whilst the pope has authority to implement and execute (exercitative and executive)’.65 The difference, if indeed there was one, was that Richer spoke of legislative power and executive power in a more emphatic manner than the chancellor of the University of Paris. The main task of the council, according to Gerson, Almain and, after them, Richer, was to define the doctrine. According to the doctrine commonly accepted during the Middle Ages, the pope could become heretical. In this case, conciliarist theologians stated, the council had the right to remove him from office. They went further than the supporters of pontifical supremacy who believed that in the case of the pope being heretical only God had the right to remove him from office. Almain devoted the final three chapters of his treatise on the authority of the Church to this issue. Richer addressed it in passing in one of the sections of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. Here, he refuted the use made by his opponents of the promise made by Jesus to Peter that he would pray for him so that his faith would not fail and that he should strengthen his brothers (Luke 22, 32). The text did not say, Richer argued, that this promise was made to Peter alone. Did Paul not publically reprimand Peter at the Council of Jerusalem?66 This exegesis was not original: Almain used the same passage in reply to Cajetan who, for his part, used it eight times.67 In the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate Richer imposed other restrictions on the pope’s power of jurisdiction. He noted that the pope could not grant dispensations from the common law of the Church without ‘the voices and the consent of the fathers’ of the council.68 In the De potestate ecclesiastica Gerson opposed the granting ‘without obvious reasons and without need’ of papal dispensations and insisted that the practice of dispensation be used for the common good.69 But unlike Richer he did not say that the granting of dispensations was dependent on the agreement of the council. The syndic also took a tougher stance than Gerson regarding the question of excommunication. According to the chancellor, Christ gave the power of excommunication to Peter ‘in the name of all’ (vice omnium). The Dic ecclesiae of 64 According to Morimichi Watanabe, (The political ideas of Nicholas of Cusa with special reference to his De Concordantia catholica, Geneva, Droz, 1963, 92) the expression potestas exsecutionis has its origin in patristic literature. 65 Gerson, Sermo super processionibus faciendis pro viagio regis romanorum, in Gerson, Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 5, 478. 66 Richer, De ecclesiatica et politica potestate, art. 7. 67 De la Brosse, Le pape et le concile, 208. 68 Richer, De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, art. 9. 69 Gerson, De potestate ecclesiastica, consideratio 2, in Gerson, Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 6, 215; consideratio 10, ibid., vol. 6, 230.

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Mt 18, 17 showed that it was up to the Church and not Peter to resolve conflicts in the community of disciples (Mt 18, 15–17).70 In the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate Richer appeared to refuse the pope the right to pronounce excommunications. ‘The entire sovereignty of external jurisdiction,’ he wrote, ‘is restricted regarding the power of excommunication which, we will show, was immediately entrusted by Jesus Christ to the Church’.71 However, this remark was somewhat toned down in the Demonstratio. The pope, he wrote, has the power to excommunicate (excommunicatio) but not that of applying force (coercio).72 Gerson did not enter into this type of discussion: in his eyes, there was no doubt that the pope had the full right to excommunicate. Finally, as we have shown above, Richer refused the pope the right of collation of ecclesiastical offices by stressing, not without reason, that, up until the fourteenth century, bishops had been appointed by cathedral chapters.73 Gerson merely condemned abuses within the institution by ministers of the Church.74 In conclusion, Richer took his inspiration from his predecessors, particularly Gerson and Almain by distinguishing between an essential head of the Church, who was Christ, and a ministerial head, the pope, describing him as the head of the executive with the legislative power within the Church being the preserve of the council. Like them, he acknowledged the plenitude of the pope’s power but gave of it a more restrictive definition than theirs. On the whole, Richer said the same thing as Gerson and Almain but he tended to be somewhat harsher and on certain points, such as the power to excommunicate, he imposed greater restrictions on papal authority. Duval severely judged Richer’s views on the government of the Church. Denying that the pope had the right to decree laws, he declared, was to make the same mistake as Luther, Calvin, the Waldensians and Marsilius of Padua, not to mention the Anti-Bellarminus, the work of the Reformed theologian Conrad Vorstius, the successor of Arminius in Leiden, which had appeared two years earlier in Germany.75 As far as Duval was concerned, the Church could not function if the popes’ right to publish canons was withdrawn. The heresies which the latter had condemned would, once again, become entrenched. As a ‘perfect society’ (Respublica perfecta) the Church had been conceived with nothing 70 71 72 73 74

Ibid., consideratio 3, in Gerson, Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 6, 216. Richer, De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, art. 2. Richer, Demonstratio, 51. Ibid. Gerson, De potestate ecclesiastica, consideratio 8, Gerson, Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 6, 223. 75 Ducal, Elenchus, 99. See Conrad Vorstius, Anti-Bellarminus Contractus. Hoc est, Compendiosum examen omnium fidei controversiarum, quae hoc tempore inter Evangelicos & Pontificios agitantur, 4 vol., Hanau, Antonius, 1610.

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lacking. It was to ensure that it lasted for ever that it had been constituted as a monarchy. If the pope could only apply ancient canons, he would have no more authority than a secular prince.76 Giving the exclusive right to make doctrinal decisions to the council would be impracticable. If two or three hundred years were to go by without a council, how would it be possible to resolve questions which the Church faces? Often kings refused to allow their bishops to attend council meetings which prevented the regular holding of conciliar assemblies.77 As far as Duval was concerned the distinction which Richer drew between the essential head and the ministerial head of the Church was not only false, it was dangerous because, in the long run, it made the pope superfluous. Doubting the pope implied doubting the Church. It was true, he continued, that Christ could have saved humankind without the Church, but this was not the route which he had chosen. He wanted ‘humankind to be governed by humankind’. In addition, Duval suggested that Richer questioned the value of the sacraments. ‘What Catholic’, he wrote, ‘would dare to state that people are content with the redemption of Christ and that the sacraments are superfluous?’ Refusing the pope the position of head of the Church was to make it a ‘shapeless and monstrous body’.78 It was not enough to say that the role of the pope was to ensure the unity of the Church, the Parisian doctor wrote. The pope had to govern. The Church could not be managed like the Republic of Venice where a senate imposed its wishes on the prince. Such a conception was not only harmful, it was heretical. ‘It is true that the state of the Church is monarchical and that the earthly Church has a visible supreme monarch who governs it’.79 Duval realised that some popes had been accused of despotism. The Aristotelian scheme of six forms of government, which was taught at all universities, was based on the idea that the monarchy, like any pure form of government, could degenerate into tyranny. He replied by declaring that, in the same way as it would be inconvenient to refuse the king of France an ‘independent and absolute’ power, one had to accept, as did many theologians except for the Parisians, ‘that the popes’ authority is absolute, that it comes from Christ and not from the Church and that, for all that, the pontiff does not rule Christians in a despotic manner”80. Richer was wrong, as was William Barclay, in thinking that the pope was necessarily a tyrant.81

76 77 78 79 80 81

Ibid., 103–104. Ibid., 106. Ibid., 113–114. Ibid., 136–137. Ibid., 150–151. Ibid., 143.

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As can be seen, the lines were clearly drawn. Duval, whose standpoint inspired the majority of later commentators of Richer’s work, suggested that the pope’s authority was absolute and that he answered only to God. Granting him supreme doctrinal authority was the only way of combatting heresy and ensuring the perpetuity of the Church. For his part, Richer insisted on the upheavals which unlimited papal authority could cause and had faith in the conciliar dynamics to guarantee the smooth functioning of the Church. According to him, the pope was capable of exercising authority within the Church but this authority had to be limited. But – and it is here that things become complicated – both men claimed to be disciples of the School of Paris. As close as he was to the Ultramontane movement, Duval thought and wrote as a doctor of the Sorbonne. To counteract Richer’s position, he applied himself to showing that the Parisian masters had granted the pope the right to publish canons independently of the council. In this regard, he referred to the authority of Gerson who, according to him, had stated that the pope had the right to decide upon a doctrine except when it could be shown that he was manifestly in the wrong.82 However, contrary to his custom, Duval did not cite any text from the chancellor of Paris. The fact is, as has already been shown, that Gerson attributed the plenitude of ecclesiastical power simultaneously to the person who held the highest rank in the ecclesiastical hierarchy as well as to the council, which represented the Church. The Church could impose laws upon the pope but the inverse was not true83. Duval also referred to Almain from whom he quoted, as he had done before, the De potestate ecclesiastica et laica, a reply to Ockham which affirmed papal authority in a more extensive way than in the De auctoritate ecclesiae. Richer’s opponent quoted as well from the bishop of Avranches Robert Ceneau, a Catholic controversialist from the middle of the sixteenth century, who had written that ‘for the consensus in the faith to be achieved there must be a pontifical monarchy’.84 The reason for mentioning this once famous theologian, present in Trent in 1547 and known as a conciliarist,85 was that he was a doctor of the Sorbonne and thus a representative of the School of Paris. And what about the Council of Constance of which, Duval said, with a touch of annoyance, that Richer was an ‘ardent defender’ (accerrimus propugnator)? The Parisian doctor quoted Martin V’s bull Inter cunctas (22 February 1418), an ambiguous text to which the conciliarists referred in order to prove that this pope

82 83 84 85

Duval, Elenchus, 107. Gerson, De potestate ecclesiastica, consideratio 4, ed. Glorieux, vol. 6, 217. See Duval, Elenchus, 107. Farge, Orthodoxy and Reform, 79–84.

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approved of the council as a whole but which was also used by the Ultramontanes to demonstrate that Martin V had only approved the decrees which confirmed the authority of the pope.86 All in all, Duval’s demonstration, although clever, lacked force. Making people like Gerson and Almain out to be supporters of the exclusive authority of the pope regarding doctrinal matters was not an easy task! Richer clarified his position with reference to the respective rights of the pope and the council in the Demonstratio and, in greater detail but with much repetition, in the Defensio. He explained that when he declared the authority of the pope to be necessary he was doing nothing but following the Council of Constance which had condemned the mistakes of Wyclef regarding the pope. Contrary to what Duval said, he had never believed that the Church could exist without a pope. But if the state of the Church was ‘monarchical as far as the pope was concerned’ this [did] not mean that the pope [could] govern the Church like a monarch.87 The ‘rule’ (principatus) of the pope was not absolute. In order to describe the pope’s power to rule Richer used the term ‘primacy’ (primatus). It was because he had denied the pope’s primacy that Wycliffe was condemned by the Council of Constance during its eighth session.88 Primacy was what distinguished the pope from the bishops. In a council, the bishops participated in the priesthood of Christ jointly with the pope who ‘weigh[ed]’ and ‘evaluate[d]’ their opinions. He implemented the communion of the saints ‘gently’ and not in an imperious manner. ‘There is a world of difference between primacy and an absolute monarchy’.89 Primacy, he added in the Defensio, was a moral and political reality and not a metaphysical reality. It should not be seen as indispensable but it was necessary for the control of discipline and for unity of faith.90

Richer, theologian of reception The discussion on the respective powers of the pope and the council in matters of doctrinal definition incited Richer to develop a point of view on the reception of the law within the Church which, without being original, was innovative because

86 Ibid., 107–108. On the debate regarding the ratification of the Council of Constance by Pope Martin V, see Congar, L’Église de saint Augustin à l’époque moderne, 324–326. 87 Richer, Demonstratio, 13. 88 Ibid., 54. 89 Ibid., 104–105. 90 Richer, Defensio, vol. 1, 312.

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of its elaborateness and the precision of the vocabulary which its author used.91 The syndic was one of the first if not the very first to use – in a later work – the term receptio with regard to canonical legislation.92 The idea that the decisions of the pope and the councils concerning doctrine, liturgy and the canons of the Scriptures only fully take effect once they are received and implemented by the whole Church, including the faithful, has gained a wider acceptance amongst theologians, in the context of the ecumenical dialogue, since the Second Vatican Council.93 From the seventeenth century it had been regarded with a certain suspicion by the Roman authority.94 Yves Congar, one of the theologians who made the greatest contribution to the development of the doctrine of reception, defined it as ‘the process whereby an ecclesial body truly takes as its own a determination which it did not give to itself, by recognising, in the regulation that has been promulgated, a rule which suits its life’.95 Reception may be seen from a literary, theological or, in the case of medieval canonists, conciliarist theologians and Gallican writers, legal point of view. Historians, particularly the German ones, have been studying the reception of Roman law since the nineteenth century. But, since Gratian’s Decretum in the twelfth century96 there has been a long line of theologians and canonists who defined a doctrine, more often than not without using the word itself, with regard to the reception of ecclesiological law.97 According to them, the reality of reception was evident from the beginning of the patristic period.

91 On consent and reception in Richer’s thought see Frédéric Gabriel, ‘Entre unité et communauté ecclésiales: la question du gouvernement mixte dans les débats catholiques au début du XVIIe siècle’, in Marie Gaille-Nikodimov (ed.), Gouvernement mixte. De l’idéal politique au monstre constitutionnel en Europe (XIII–XVIIe siècle), Saint-Étienne, Publications de l’Université Saint-Étienne, 2005, 196–197. 92 A theologian like Thomas Aquinas often used the word receptio but in other contexts. 93 See particularly A. Grillmeyer, ‘Konzil und Rezeption. Methodische Bemerkungen zu einem Thema des ökumenischen Diskussion’, Theologie und Philosophie, 45, 1970, 321–352; Yves Congar, ‘La réception comme réalité ecclésiologique’, Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques, 56, 1972, 369–403, reprinted in Église et papauté. Regards historiques, Paris, Cerf, 1994, 239–266; James Coriden, ‘The canonical doctrine of reception’, The Jurist, 50, 1990, 58–82; William Rusch, Ecumenical Reception: Its Challenge and Opportunity, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2006. 94 See article 28 of the decree of the Inquisition of 24 September 1665, approved by Pope Alexander III and included in H. Denzinger and A. Schönmetzer, Enchiridion symbolorum, definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, Friburg-in Brisgau, 1981, nº 2048, quoted in Coriden, ‘The canonical doctrine’, 71. 95 Congar, ‘La réception comme réalité ecclésiologique’, 240. A well-known example of nonreception is the encyclical Humanae Vitae of Pope Paul VI (ibid., 246). 96 Luigi De Luca, ‘L’accettazione popolare della legge canonica nel pensiero di Graziano e dei suoi interpreti’, Studia Gratiana, vol. 3, Bologne, 1955, 193–276. 97 In the article quoted, Coriden mentioned twenty-five theologians from between the twelfth and the nineteenth centuries who spoke of reception. However, he did not mention Richer.

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In the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate Richer referred to reception, without however using the word receptio, on two occasions. Firstly, in one of the introductory articles, he declared that if the collation of offices and episcopal elections had remained under the authority of local churches until the fourteenth century, this was because ‘every principality, regarding coactive force, depend[ed] on the consensus of the people’.98 He returned to the subject in the fifth ‘principle,’ which dealt with the necessity, in accordance with the decree Frequens of the Council of Constance, of regularly convening councils so as to ensure the good governance of the Church. He first noted that, in the early Church, in order for bulls to ‘obligate’ they had to be ‘conform to the canonical discipline and the councils previously received and approved’.99 Here, the mention of reception was indirect: the pope had the right only to interpret council decisions and not to create new laws. Only the conciliar decisions which had been ‘received’ might be considered. Richer then referred to the actual doctrine of reception: Given the fact that the Roman Pontiff, who is the ministerial head, cannot impose anything to the universal Church without its knowledge and its consent or against its will and wishes, laws come into force only through homologation and are confirmed by the approval of those who make use of them, as S. Augustine witnesses. In this for the most part consists the freedom of the Catholic Church and of the aristocratic government; it is the most effective and the most gentle of ways to prevent or to repair schisms.100

In this passage, Richer merely restated a remark made by Gerson in the De potestate ecclesiastica101 and, in almost the same terms, one made by Almain in the De auctoritate ecclesiae.102 These two authors quoted, word for word, an extract from the canon In istis of Gratian: ‘Laws are instituted when they are promulgated, confirmed and approved by the conduct of those who apply them’ (Leges instituuntur, cum promulgantur, firmantur, cum moribus utientium approbantur).103 Gerson and Almain attributed this text to Augustine as did Richer. In truth, all three were mistaken. Gratian did quote a passage from the De vera

98 99 100 101

[Richer], De la puissance ecclésiastique et politique, art. 2. Ibid., art. 8. Ibid. Gerson, De potestate ecclesiastica, consideratio 4, in Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 6, 217–218. 102 Almain, De auctoritate ecclesiae, chapter 7, ed. Burns, 164. 103 Gratian, Decretum, distinctio 4, canon 3.

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religione of Augustine104 in this canon but as proof of the idea that a judge might not change an already established law and note that a law came into effect only once it had been received. At this stage of his reflections, Richer had not introduced anything new. He was doing nothing more than following what Congar called the ‘Christian tradition with regard to advice and consent’.105 During the Middle Ages, the king made laws with the advice and consent of his subjects. The principle of consent of the faithful was also practiced in the Church in spite of the latter’s obvious hierarchical structure.106 The doctors of the University of Paris, not only Gerson and Almain from whom Richer seemed to take his inspiration but also Major,107 not to mention Francesco Zabarella108 and Nicholas of Cusa,109 followed this tradition at the dawn of the modern era. As could be expected, Duval was of a completely different opinion. Expecting the application of laws to depend upon the consent of those to whom they applied was to ruin, according to him, any form of government. In his reply, the Parisian doctor mixed considerations on political power – we shall return to this in the next chapter – and on ecclesiastical power. He rendered the doctrine of reception meaningless by stating that ‘if, according to theologians, laws which are not received do not oblige one to obey them, subjects who refuse to receive them with no reason are committing a serious sin’.110 In order to reinforce this point of view, he quoted a passage from Almain against Ockham. The young Parisian doctor had effectively declared: ‘No one can force another without his consent’. But he had also added: ‘or by the injunction and wishes of his superiors’.111 Richer returned to the question of reception in the Demonstratio in reply to a point in Duval’s argumentation. In order to prove that the pope had the right to 104 Augustin, De vera religion, chapter 31, in Aurelii Augustini Opera, Pars IV (Corpus Christianorum, Latin Series XXXII), Turnhout, Brepols, 1962, 225. 105 Yves Congar, ‘Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus tractari et approbaro debet’, Revue historique du droit français et étranger, 36, 1958, 221. 106 Ibid., 223–224. 107 John Major, In Quartum Sententiarium, distinctio 15, quaestio 3, f. lxxv, quoted in Coriden, ‘The canonical doctrine’, 65. 108 Francesco Zabarella, Lectura super Clementinis, Vienna, 1487, quoted in Congar, ‘La réception comme réalité ecclésiologique’, 247. See also Brian Tierney, Foundation of Conciliar Theory. The Contribution of the Medieval Canonists from Gratian to the Great Schism, new ed., Leiden, Brill, 1995, xxv, 204. 109 Nicholas of Cusa, De concordantia catholica, lib. II, c. 10 and 11, quoted in Congar, ‘La réception comme réalité ecclésiologique’, 247; Coriden, ‘The canonical doctrine’, 64; Tierney, ‘Religion, law and the growth of constitutional thought’, 66–71. 110 Duval, Elenchus, 51. 111 Almain, Exposito circa decisiones Magistri Guilielmi Occam super potestate ecclesiastica et laici De auctoritate papae, chapter 4, in Gerson, Opera Omnia, ed. Du Pin, vol. 2, col. 1019 A, quoted in Duval, Elenchus, 50.

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promulgate canons, Duval had said that it was difficult, if not impossible, to convene councils at regular intervals mainly because of the obstacles put in place by princes regarding the participation of bishops at conciliar gatherings.112 Richer agreed with his opponent on this question and suggested a change regarding reception which took this objection into account. The pope, Richer wrote, could make laws in actu primo, when the Church was not assembled in council, but not in actu secundo, in other words formally and in a way that would compel implementation. Such an outcome would require the ‘consent’ (consensus) of the Church. The distinction between the ‘first act’ or the ‘essence’ of the law and the ‘second act’ or its ‘existence’ allowed Richer to grant the pope a real power of government in the intervals between conciliar assemblies, – which could be protracted, he was obliged to admit – and a more basic legislative power, which belonged to the entire church, represented by the council. This power found full expression in the act of reception. The first act of the law, Richer explained, consisted of in establishing the law and promulgating it. It was not a negligible form of power. The legislator – the pope in intervals between conciliar assemblies – had the right, according to Richer, to ‘command the subjects’ (imperare subditis). But decreeing a law did not mean that this law would be applied. It had to change the behaviour of the people. It is here that the second act of the law, which according to Richer was the more important, intervened. So as to be effective, the law had to be ‘approved’ and ‘received’ by the people. For this to happen, the prince was not allowed to govern in a despotic manner but rather as a father who was mindful of the education of his children. In this connection, Richer quoted Aristotle according to whom ‘a republic of slaves repels nature’. In order for them to be obeyed, laws had to be just.113 Richer’s philosophy of law was summarised in the Demonstratio in a simple phrase, in which reception is mentioned by name: Three elements are essential for the essence and the perfection of the law: the authority of the one who makes the law; the promulgation of the law; its reception and approbation through use114.

This passage from the Demonstratio is important for two reasons. Firstly, it shows that, in reply to Duval’s objections, the former syndic adjusted and clarified his position. Henceforth, he gave the pope a genuine power, an executive power for

112 Duval, Elenchus, 105–106. 113 Richer, Demonstratio, 78–79. 114 Ibid., 79. For another use of the term receptio in the same meaning, see ibid., 54.

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sure, but nevertheless a true power of government. Certain expressions used in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate give the impression that, in practice, Richer accepted only a limited papal power. The second significance of this text is its contribution to the theology of reception. Fundamentally, Richer did not differ from his conciliarist predecessors Zabarella, Gerson, Almain and Major. Like them, he based his arguments on Gratian’s canon In istis and, generally speaking, on the patristic and medieval tradition. However, in a way which was more clear-cut than his predecessors, he developed a proper doctrine of reception. And in particular he used – perhaps for the first time – the noun ‘reception’ (receptio) in the context of a discussion on the implementation of ecclesiastical law.

The participation of priests in the government of the diocese As the first part of this work has shown, a deeply-rooted tradition which goes back to Duval and which continues up to the twentieth century presents Richer as the advocate of the rights of priests in the face of bishops. Radical for the time, his views would have influenced several generations of theologians and jurists. From Richer one would have moved onto Richerism, a movement which purportedly prepared the way for the Civil Constitution of the Clergy during the French Revolution. An examination of the sources undermines this theory. In the first place, Richer did not have much to say on the subject in his most widely read treatise, the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. What he wrote in this work was not new: as with other ecclesiological themes he depended on Gerson and Almain. The source of Richerism was Duval who, in fact, invented the word:115 he distorted Richer’s thinking on the question of the rights of the priests by investing it with a radicalism which was alien to his thought. The former syndic attempts to defend himself but, as he is forbidden to publish, he is not heard. The works of Oakley on conciliarism and those of Batts on Gerson’s political thought leave no room for doubt: the theologians of the ‘golden age’ and of the ‘silver age’ of conciliarism, to use Oakley’s terms, declared acceptable, based on the precedent of the early Church,116 the participation of minor prelates and

115 Histoire du syndicat, 62. 116 Gerson, Propositio facta coram Anglicis (1409), in Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 6, 127.

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priests in councils with the right to vote. Differing opinions on this subject were expressed but all had in common the idea that the government of the Church had to adapt itself to current circumstances.117 Influenced by Pseudo-Dionysius, Gerson saw the Church as a pyramid or rather as the lower part of a pyramid of which God was the top. ‘The hierarchical order’, which comprised cardinals, bishops and priests, formed one of the layers of this pyramid with the lowest level being the laity. Priests and bishops shared the power of ordination but they did not have the same power of jurisdiction. On this issue there existed between them a difference of degree and not one of nature.118 In the De ecclesiastica potestate, a work which Richer knew well, Gerson stated that if the right to vote naturally belonged to bishops and higher clergy, there did not ‘seem to be any ambiguity’ (neque videtur ambiguitas esse) as to the fact that it was also given to minor prelates, in other words to priests and ecclesiastical dignitaries such as abbots, deans and episcopal vicars in charge of souls.119 The right to vote at council, he further said with reference to a decree of the Faculty of Theology of Paris concerning the rights of minor prelates, could be attributed to ‘a large number or a more restricted number’ (in pluribus vel paucioribus) depending on the time and the circumstances.120 Almain, another of Richer’s sources, repeated what Gerson says. Arguing that the twelve apostles and not just Peter had convoked the multitude of disciples (Acts 6, 2), he wrote that it was possible to give the right to vote at council not only to members of the episcopal order but ‘also to the order of parish priests who are the successors of the disciples’.121 According to Oakley, Pierre d’Ailly went even further by recommending that the right to vote be given to kings, princes, ambassadors as well as to doctors in theology and in canonical law.122 Richer, whose intention was to give a general overview of the doctrine of the School of Paris, believed that he was correct by evoking, following the model of the early Church, the possibility that members of the second order could be 117 On the right to vote at council as dealt with in the writings of the conciliarists, see Francis Oakley, ‘Figgis, Constance and the Divine of Paris’, American Historical Review,75, 1969, 379–381; Mary Christine Davenport Batts, Jean Gerson: Politics and Political Theory, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Ottawa, 1976, 195–197. 118 Olivier de la Brosse, Le pape et le concile. La comparaison de leurs pouvoirs à la veille de la Réforme, Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 1965, 116–117; H. M. Posthumus Meyjes, Jean Gerson, Apostle of Unity: His Church Politics and Ecclesiology, Leiden, Brill, 1999, 254, 284. 119 Gerson, De potestate ecclesiastica, consideratio 3, in Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 6, 241–242. See also Gerson, Ambulate dum lucem habetis (1415), ibid., vol. 5. 44. 120 Gerson, De potestate ecclesiastica, consideratio 12, in Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 6, 242. This extract is quoted in Edmond Richer, Vindiciae doctrinae majorum Scholae parisiensis, Cologne, Balthasar ab Egmond, 1683, 4. 121 Almain, De auctoritate ecclesiae, chapter 13, ed. Burns, 198. 122 Oakley, ‘Figgis, Constance and the Divine of Paris’, 379.

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involved in the government of the Church. On his side, he had the authority of Gerson and Almain. But times had changed. The supporters of the supremacy of the pope had become more vocal. What was earlier seen as acceptable was now judged to be dangerously innovative. Insisting on the prerogatives of the college of priests in the early Church, as the Gallican jurist Jacques Leschassier did in 1607 during a conflict between the cathedral chapter of Senlis and the bishop Antoine Rose,123 was understood as a questioning of the necessity of the Tridentine reform, which relied, precisely, on the authority of the bishops. By mentioning, albeit incidentally, the issue of the respective authority of priests and bishops, Richer betrayed his proximity with the Politiques. The question of the rights of priests was broached three times in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. This was done in passing without an entire article ever being devoted to the issue. The first allusion was in the second article, at the beginning of the work. Like Gerson, Richer believed that the bishops and the priests were called, at Christ’s invitation and consequently by divine right, to govern the Church together. However, this they did ‘proportionately’ and ‘subordinately’, in other words, each according to his level and in keeping with a hierarchical order. Richer did not confuse bishops with priests: he associated them while distinguishing between them: Now, Jesus Christ sent all the apostles and disciples who were connected to the episcopal and presbyteral order, immediately, individually and collectively just as he had been sent by the Father with the just and spiritual power to govern the Church. He thereby affirmed that the entirety of this order which consisted of the episcopal and sacerdotal order immediately, proportionately but subordinately could assume its authority and jurisdiction such as the right to govern the Church of Jesus Christ.124

The second time the rights of priests were mentioned was in the fifth article which differentiated, as we have seen, between the state of the Church, which was monarchical, and its government, which was aristocratic. At all levels, the head, who represented unity, governed along with a council according to the aristocratic model. In the same way, the bishops governed with the pope on the level of the universal Church, and the bishops governed with the priests on the level of the diocese. Provincial councils corresponded to general councils. In both cases it was necessary to moderate the ‘absolute power’ of heads of government: And for this reason we read that it has been decreed by the ancient fathers that provincial councils gather every second year. The relationship which exists between the ecumenical council and the Roman Pontiff is the same as that between specific synods and their bishops because specific churches must be controlled by their bishops ac123 Thierry Amalou, ‘Jacques Leschassier, Senlis et les libertés de l’Église gallicane (1607)’, Revue de l’histoire des religions, 226, 2009, 455–457. 124 [Richer], De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, art. 2.

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cording to the same rule and not by absolute power. What we call the Senate or the natural council of the Church as instituted by the Lord, is not constituted only of bishops but also includes priests who are charged with the care of souls: the former having taken over from the apostles and the latter from the 70 disciples: for in the past the priests together governed the Church, says Saint Hierosme.125

The third mention, in the eleventh article, related to the power of excommunication. Here Richer defended the idea that, within the Church, the power of censure was exclusively of a spiritual nature. It was based on persuasion and not on force. In this regard, he noted in passing that in the early Church priests could give their opinion regarding excommunication: Because evangelical law has eternal life as its aim and the human soul as its concern and actual subject, everything should be devoted to the guidance of the internal movements of the conscience, not to retaining and preventing force and external violence, and yet it decides on the means which are required for beatitude conforming to the essential spiritual proceedings of the Christian religion, means such as persuasion and direction through the preaching of the word of God, the ministering of the sacraments and, when appropriate, through the exclusion from the communion of the Church by means of censure, a spiritual arm of the Church, which, in the past, could not be used without the aristocratic consent and moderation of the presbytery, which we have dealt with above, as is required by the nature of aristocratic government.

The question of the rights of priests was not accorded major attention in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. If it attracted the attention of contemporaries, it was less because of the three passages which we have highlighted than by Richer’s re-edition, which was seen as a provocation, of the censure of the Dominican Jean Sarrazin by the Faculty of Theology of Paris in 1429.126 The umpteenth episode in the quarrel between secular and religious, this condemnation was pronounced in an emotive context because, at the time, the Sorbonne had rallied to the English who were occupying Paris. Sarrazin was forced to recognise that minor prelates, priests and bishops obtain their authority directly from God and not from the pope, in conformity with the teaching of the Council of Constance.127 By exhuming this old quarrel, the syndic embarrassed the Ultramontanes. They

125 Ibid., art. 5. Richer is referring to Gratian’s Decretum, distinctio 93, canon 23, quoting a letter by Jerome to Rusticus of Narbonne. 126 Decreta Sacrae Facultatis Theologiae Parisiensis, de Potestate Ecclesiastica, & primate Romani Pontificis, contra Sectarios huius seculi, Paris, Apud Felicem Blanvileum, in vico Sancti Victoris, 1611. This small book of twelve pages also contains the six articles of confession of the anti-Lutheran faith of 1543 and a decree against the Protestant Philippe Du PlessisMornay. 127 Du Plessis d’Argentré, Collectio, vol. 1, 2nd pagination, 227–229.

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hesitated to openly contradict the teaching of the Faculty of Theology of Paris; their sole argument was that the condemnation of Sarrazin had only a limited impact as it had been made by people who had betrayed France.128 From all Richer’s declarations regarding the rights of priests Duval, in the Elenchus, retained only one thing: he placed priests and bishops on an even footing. This idea, as far as he was concerned, was absurd. The indictment of the Parisian doctor was based on the last sentence of the second of three texts quoted above, the one in which Richer stated that, according to a letter by Jerome mentioned in Gratian’s canon legimus, priests together ruled the Church. The issue at stake was the use of the history of the early Church in the debate concerning ecclesiastical government. Like many Gallican writers, Richer used the ancient practices as an argument to criticise the growing centralisation of the Church. But Duval went further: he attributed to the syndic the wish to implement in seventeenth century France an institutional regime modelled, from all aspects, on that of the early Church. From there onwards, it was easy to demonstrate the futility of the project. Duval conceded that bishops and priests carried out the same functions when the Church was first founded. But, he added, it was a mistake to claim that priests and bishops were equal as regards the power of jurisdiction unless they were delegated in specific instances. The bishops were the successors of the Twelve, the priests of the Seventy. Bishops alone had the right to vote at ecumenical councils with the exception of the Council of Basel, which the pope had, in any case, quit together with many of the bishops. Even if some of the decrees of this council were taken up again in the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, the council itself was never sanctioned by a pope. One could call upon experts to take the podium when it came to questions on which they were knowledgeable, but only bishops had to right to vote. Parish priests had jurisdiction, in most cases, only in matters which concerned them and nothing more.129 In this passage of the Elenchus and in another one that dealt with the priests’ power of excommunication,130 Duval referred to Gerson and Almain, with an interpretation of these authors which we can only describe as selective. He also commented on Richer’s use of the censure of Sarrazin by the Faculty of Theology of Paris. He was not challenging this censure, he assured the reader, because it was never condemned by a pope or a general council. He noted however a problem: if, as the censure stated, the inferior magistrates held their power from God, Richer, who cited this censure, contradicted himself when he said that their

128 Histoire du syndicat, 85–86. 129 Duval, Elenchus, 65–68. 130 Ibid., 115–119.

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power came from the Church. Or else, which was even more problematic, he meant that the power of inferior magistrates, which came from God, was higher than that of the popes, which came from the Church.131 What is important for the purpose of this study is that, by crediting Richer with the idea that priests and bishops were on an equal footing, Duval introduced a hint of suspicion with regard to his orthodoxy. If he was correct, the syndic could be considered to be a Presbyterian. But was the Parisian doctor being honest? Did he really believe that his colleague envisaged an egalitarian model of ecclesiastical government? It is impossible to answer this question. One thing only is certain and that is that Duval – who had Cardinal du Perron’s ear and whose reading of Richer’s treatise inspired generations of critics – disqualified, on a long term basis, the former syndic in the milieus which were favourable to Tridentine reform. Three subsequent writings by Richer throw light on his standpoint regarding the question of the power of bishops and priests. The first of these would seem, at a first reading, to confirm Duval’s interpretation of the former syndic’s thought. It is the Apologia pro Ioanne Gersonio pro suprema Ecclesiae et conciliis Generalis Auctoritate,132 a redrafting of Gerson’s defence published without permission in Venice in 1607, which can be dated to the years 1615–1617.133 There it was stated, in a somewhat provocative manner, that ‘the hierarchical order is of the same kind in the apostolic Church and in the Church of today’ and that ‘bishops and priests are descended by divine right from the apostles and the seventy disciples,’ that they ‘constitute the senate of the Church’ and that ‘priests should govern the Church together with the bishops’.134 In the same way that the Roman Curia had deprived bishops of all power, Richer commented, the bishops had ignored the opinions of priests in charge of souls and of cathedral chapters. The episcopate was ‘a dignity and a primateship’ and not an ‘order’.135 This particular utterance provided the key to the passage: Richer acknowledged – like his master Gerson – the pre-eminence of the bishop in the government of the diocese but he added that priests had the right to be involved in it. To act in any other way would smack of ‘tyranny’.

131 Ibid., 151–152. 132 Edmond Richer, Apologia pro Ioanne Gersonio pro suprema Ecclesiae et Conciliis Generalis Auctoritate, Leiden, Paulus Moriaen, 1676. 133 The De potestate ecclesiae in rebus temporalibus libri IV. Numquam antehac editi by Richer (Cologne, Bernardus Hestingh, 1691), which was written in 1617, refers in several places (eg 70) to the ‘axioms’ of the Apologia pro Ioanne Gersonio. These cannot be the ‘axioms’ of the first edition of the treatise, published without permission in 1607, for they are completely different. 134 Richer, Apologia pro Ioanne Gersonio, 175 (axiom 34). 135 Ibid., 178.

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In the Demonstratio, a treatise which was not widely diffused because of the ban on publication placed on its author, Richer returned to the subject. He firmly refuted Duval’s remarks. ‘Malicious people’, he stated without naming his accuser, ‘have claimed that I want to make priests and bishops equal, as if they were not differentiated by divine right. This is wrong (falsissimum) and is not to be found anywhere in my treatise’.136 He never cast doubt on the difference between the twelve apostles and the seventy disciples for this is clearly stated in the Scriptures. That priests participated in the management of the dioceses at their level (proportionatim) was made abundantly clear in the Acts of the Apostles, the Church Fathers, the acts of councils and the ecclesiastical writers.137 In the Traité des appelations comme d’abus, a work written between 1623 and 1626 in the context of a controversy surrounding the rights of the chapter of the cathedral of Angers,138 Richer asserted once again that, in accordance with the discipline of the early church, bishops were obliged to consult their chapter with regard to the government of their diocese. Bishops, he lamented, ‘retain absolute power over those who are subject to them, controlling the affairs of their diocese without any synod, or even without seeking the opinion of their chapters which are their usual council’.139 By asking that bishops consult the priests in the government of their diocese Richer was not suggesting anything fundamentally new. But his contemporaries did not see it that way. They were unaware of – or pretended to be unaware of – the idea that giving the priesthood a place, subordinate but nevertheless confirmed by divine right, in the government of the Church had its origin in Gerson and not Richer. He was seen, despite his denials, as the inventor of the rights of the second order. This is how the myth of Richerism was born. We may add that Richer hardly discussed the question of whether the bishops held their power directly from God or were to be considered at mere ‘vicars of the pope’. This issue was raised at the Council of Trent by a group of French bishops, influenced in some way by the conciliarist tradition of the Faculty of Theology of Paris,140 as well as, this time with no reference to the conciliarist movement, a group of Spanish bishops led by the archbishop of Granada Pedro Guerrero, who

136 Richer, Demonstratio, 57. 137 Ibid., 57–58. 138 Edmond Richer, Traité des appellations comme d’abus, vol. 1, s.l., 1763, 57–60. On this treatise see Philippe Denis, ‘Le Traité des Appellations comme d’Abus d’Edmond Richer (1623–1626). Contexte rédactionnel et propos ecclésiologique’, in Anne Bonzon, Caroline Galland (ed.), Justices croisées. Histoire et enjeux de l’appel comme d’abus (XIVe–XVIIIe siècles), Presses Universitaires de Rennes, forthcoming. 139 Ibid., vol. 1, 57. 140 Alain Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente (1518–1563), Rome, École française de Rome, 1997, 705–707.

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stated the divine right of bishops.141 However, following the about-face of the Cardinal of Lorraine who, for tactical reasons, had rallied the Roman position, the matter of the respective powers of the pope and the bishops never became the object of a doctrinal decision at the council. It would not be until the second half of the seventeenth century that would appear, at the Assemblies of the Clergy of France, the first episcopalist pronouncements in reaction to the assertions of the Ultramontanes who claimed that the bishops were nothing more than ‘vicars of the pope’.142 Contrary to what Puyol and Préclin stated, Richer’s doctrine cannot be described as episcopalist. The syndic was more anxious to limit the ‘monarchical’ power of the bishops in their dioceses than to affirm their rights in the face of the pope. He defended the prerogatives of the cathedral chapters, which the proponents of what Alain Talllon has called a ‘pragmatic episcopalism’143 tried precisely to curtail. At best he declared, in a passage of the Demonstratio, that bishops, like priests in fact, held their authority directly from God in their capacity as successors of the apostles.144 In this he merely followed the opinion of Gerson for whom it was the entire ecclesiastical hierarchy and not only the pope which had received from Christ the responsibility to direct the Church.

141 Ignasi Fernández Terricabras, Philippe II et la Contre-Réforme, l’Église espagnole à l’heure du concile de Trente, Paris, Publisud, 2001, 116–122 ; id., ‘As Spanish as it was ecumenical: Was the Catholic Reformation a Spanish Event?’ in Peter Opitz (ed.), The Myth of Reformation, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 45–46. 142 Pierre Blet, Le Clergé de France et la Monarchie. Étude sur les Assemblées Générales du Clergé de 1615 à 1666, Rome, Université Grégorienne, 1959, vol. 2, 232–251. 143 Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente, 715–724. 144 Demonstratio, 22.

Chapter 3. Richer’s political thought

The prince and the pontiff In the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate Richer offered the reader a summary, in eighteen articles, of the doctrine of the School of Paris. His intention, as the title of the treatise suggested, was ecclesiological and political. In a context dominated, since Trent, the League and the turmoil following the assassination of Henry IV, by the growth in the Ultramontane movement, he affirmed the need to return to the statu quo ante: a form of church government and a mode of relation between church and state such as those which had existed before the Council of Florence, the Concordat of Bologne and the Council of Trent. Gerson was the symbol of this period which was considered to be a golden age. In the previous chapter, we noted Richer’s strong dependence on the chancellor of the University of Paris in ecclesiological matters. Whether it was a question of the relationship between the pope and the Church, the ministerial role of the pope, the consent of the faithful, the reception of canons or the position of priests in the government of the diocese, Richer merely repeated formulations used by the masters of the School of Paris, Gerson and Almain in particular, and Pierre d’Ailly and Nicholas of Cusa to a lesser extent. The difference was the language which was used. Because he felt the need to systematise the thoughts of his predecessors, Richer gave them a sharpness and a rigidity which they had not formerly had. However, in reply to Duval’s objections, he toned down his remarks in later works. In this chapter, we will examine another aspect of the same problem: how, whilst retaining the spirit of the Parisian masters, Richer saw the relation between church and state as well as the question of the origin of political power. Here we will also ask ourselves to what extent he was an innovator when compared with his predecessors, something of which he has been accused by his adversaries. In ecclesiastical matters, Richer was a conciliarist. In political matters, he can rather

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be called Gallican. Although quite different, the two movements were closely linked by their common origins and by a shared dismissal of pontifical pretentions regarding ecclesiological and political matters. The context of the period must also be taken into account. Significantly, the Apologia pro Ecclesia & Concilii auctoritate, this treatise of Richer which was published in Venice in 1607 without his authorisation, said nothing about the popes’ indirect power, a theme however addressed in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. In the interim, as we have seen, Bellarmine published a work on this subject in reply to a treatise of William Barclay which dealt with the unlimited power of kings. For jurists and parliamentarians of Gallican persuasion, not to mention Sarpi in Venice or the theologians at the court of James I in London, the principle of papal intervention in royal matters appeared not only scandalous but dangerous. In less than a quarter of a century, two kings had been assassinated by people claiming to act in the name of the pope. Quantitatively, political questions were of secondary importance in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. Except for a fleeting mention of the right to confer benefices and to make episcopal nominations,1 the introduction to the treatise, which comprised three articles, said nothing about civil power. Of the eight ‘principles’ which formed the greater part of the treatise, only one, the eighth, had a political slant. Four articles – out of a total of eighteen – dealt with this subject.2 As for ‘opposite opinions’ which the final part of the treatise endeavoured to refute, one only – out of five – dealt with political power. Here the Bellarminian doctrine concerning the indirect power of Popes was particularly targeted.3 The tenth article of the treatise set out, in succinct terms, the principle of the separation of the spiritual and the political and, consequently, the church and the state: The seventh teaches that the Church, understood as the assembly of the faithful or as the Christian republic, is content with a single and unique head and founder who is Jesus Christ, the Lord. Nevertheless, with regard to the exercising and execution of government, it is governed by two, namely the Roman pontiff and the political prince, according to the commandment of the Lord, in Matthew 22, ‘Render unto Cesar that which is Cesar’s and to God that which is God’s’. And the Lord, by this mutual link of obligation and benevolence, wanted to restrain the Church by means of the secular constitution, so that the princes and the clerics would have nothing to disentangle: and

1 [Richer], De la puissance ecclésiastique et politique, art. 3. 2 Ibid., art. 10–13. 3 Ibid., art. 18.

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those who ignore, hide or confuse this salutary distinction encounter pernicious stumbling blocks and make the clerics suspect to the political princes as if they wanted something new.4

This is not, as some critics suggested, a foreshadowing of modern secularism. Richer’s view of the world was firmly Christocentric. Christ was the head of the ‘Christian republic’ just as he was of the Church. The political domain and the spiritual domain had the same ‘foundation’ which was Christ. The difference was to be found at the level of ‘execution’, in other words of government: a single Christ and two governments. Ruled by the pope, the first was exclusively of a spiritual order and was based on persuasion. Ruled by the prince, the second concerned itself with worldly realities and was based on coercion. In order to practice its mission, the Church preached the Word of God, administered the sacraments and, when a sinner showed himself to be recalcitrant, practiced excommunication as a form of spiritual pressure. It does not practice the power of the sword and does not possess any territory: Evangelical law having eternal life as its aim and the human soul as its material and subject matter, it must be wholly dedicated to the management of the internal workings of the conscience, not to retaining and preventing external force and pressure, and yet it adjudicates means necessary for beatitude, in conformity with the essential spiritual causes of the Christian religion, by persuasion and counsel through the preaching of the Word of God, the dispensation of the sacraments and, when necessary, the exclusion from the communion of the Church by means of censures, which are spiritual weapons of the Church.5

We should note the restrained tone of Duval’s reply. The thrust of his criticism concerned the designation of Christ as the essential head of the Church, which according to him made the pope useless and the sacraments devoid of meaning. As we saw in the preceding chapter, this was not what Richer meant.6 For the rest, Duval discussed Richer’s interpretation of two canons of Gratian’s Decretum on the respective roles of the pope and the emperor.7 He concluded by declaring that by restricting the competence of the Church to the domain of the conscience, Richer was ‘throwing the entire episcopal jurisdiction overboard’.8 Nowhere in the Elenchus did the Parisian doctor touch upon the indirect power of the pope in temporal matters. Nor did he say anything about the appel comme d’abus. In many respects, Richer’s remarks on the relation between the spiritual and the political evoke Luther. In his treatise On the papacy in Rome the reformer had 4 5 6 7 8

Ibid., art. 10. Ibid., art. 11. Duval, Elenchus, 112–114. Ibid., 114–115. Ibid., 115.

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said that the kingdom of Christ was not of this world and that for this reason one had to distinguish between spiritual and internal Christendom (Christenheit) and its worldly and external equivalent.9 Mindful of preserving the integrity of the spiritual domain, he entrusted the management of ecclesiastical matters to princes, thereby strictly separating the two domains. What was remarkable was that Duval, who had no hesitation in accusing Richer of Lutheranism in other respects, did not use this argument here. The reason for this is that the distinction between the spiritual and the temporal planes was used in theological literature before Luther. Of Thomist origin, one of its most detailed developments was to be found in the De potestate regia et papali of Jean Quidort, known as John of Paris, at the beginning of the fourteenth century. It was not in vain that Richer paid a vibrant tribute to this author in the final paragraph of De ecclesiastica et politica potestate.10 Lector at the University of Paris and with close ties to the royal court, the Dominican theologian had opposed the theocratic aims of Pope Boniface VIII by showing that the distinction between natural and supernatural applied to the distinction between temporal and spiritual. Both powers were autonomous in their respective domains. John of Paris had anticipated certain aspects of conciliarism and Gallicanism by affirming that if the pope could depose the king when there is was serious abuse of power, not directly but by communicating with the inhabitants of the kingdom, the king could, in the name of a kind of reciprocity of indirect power, chastise the pope after having duly warned him, when he had committed a misdemeanour of a civil or political nature.11 One of the most important articles in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate was the one which dealt with civil power.12 It was this article, which earned the syndic the reputation of being the leader of the Gallican party. Richer was less shocking by reason of what he withdrew from ecclesiastical authority than by what he gave to political authority. ‘God’s vicar in civil and temporal matters,’ as he put it in the Demonstratio,13 the prince was, according to this article, the protector of the Church and watched over the enforcement of canons. This was a sensitive point. Where there was a dispute between the kingdom of France and the Roman See or, at diocesan level, between the bishop and his 9 Martin Luther, On the papacy in Rome (1520), in Eric Gritsch and Helmut Lehmann (ed.), Luther’s Works, vol. 39, Philadelphia, Fortress, 1970. 10 [Richer], De la puissance ecclésiastique et politique, art. 18. 11 On John of Paris’ ecclesiology, see Jean Leclerq, Jean de Paris et l’ecclésiologie du XIIIe siècle, Paris, Vrin, 1942 ; Brian Tierney, Foundations of the Conciliar Theory: The Contribution of Medieval Canonists from Gratian to the Great Schism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1955, 157–178; Yves Congar, L’Église de saint Augustin à l’époque moderne, Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 1970, 283–285. 12 [Richer], De la puissance ecclésiastique et politique, art. 12. 13 Richer, Demonstratio, 83.

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chapter, civil power, according to the Gallican point of view, was authorised to intervene. This procedure, which was in the hands of Parliament or the Royal Court, was known as appel comme d’abus. Of all the ‘natural liberties of the Catholic Church’,14 more often called the ‘liberties of the Gallican Church’, that which related to the appel comme d’abus was doubtless the most important because it illustrated, in the everyday life of the Church, the confrontation between a traditional form of Christian rule eager to retain its national specificity and a reform-prone ecclesiastical authority which wanted to lead a pastoral movement without having to worry about the opinions of courts of justice and Parliaments. Richer saw in the interventions of the Holy See at national level and those of bishops at diocesan level a lasting risk of abuse. The Ultramontanes, especially those who were engaged in implementing the Tridentine reforms, saw in the independence of spiritual authority from civil authority a guarantee of efficient functioning. When Richer wrote the De ecclesia et politica potestate, the defenders of the ‘liberties of the Gallican Church’ had two advantages over their adversaries. The first and most obvious was that of ancientness. Duval did not touch upon the subject in the Elenchus for he knew that, on this point, Richer could, quite rightly, call upon the most ancient tradition. He was not an innovator. We know what Richer’s sources were thanks to a later work, the Traité des appellations comme d’abus, written between 1623 and 1626.15 Unsurprisingly, one of these sources was Gerson, with no less than four of his works being quoted in the treatise. Two of these texts were those which Paolo Sarpi published in Italian at the beginning of 1607 at the height of the Interdict of Venice. Through the Venetian ambassador to Paris, or by some other means, Richer must have learnt of these publications. The texts in question were the Resolutio circa materium excommunicationum et irregularitatum which examined the theme of the abuse of the power of the keys16 and the De sententia pastoris semper tenenda, which called on the Gallican Church ‘in itself and in its members’ to observe ‘its ancient and legitimate liberties’ (suas antiquas et legitimas libertates) concerning everything that affected the conferment of ecclesiastical stipends and episcopal elections.17 The other two were the De potestate ecclesiastica and a lesser known small treatise, the De statu praelatorum. As Joseph Lecler pointed out, the expression ‘liberties of the Gallican Church’ was in common usage from the beginning of the fourteenth century.18 The 14 15 16 17 18

[Richer], De la puissance ecclésiastique et politique, art.13. Richer, Traité des appellations comme d’abus, vol. 1, 67–68, 135–140. Gerson, Œuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, vol. 6, 294–296. Ibid., vol. 6. 291–293. Joseph Lecler, ‘Qu’est-ce que les libertés de l’Eglise gallicane?’, Recherches de sciences religieuses, 23, 1933, 401.

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conciliarists then made it their own. ‘With a tendency to remind the pope of the intangible nature of the ancient rules and of the canons of the councils’, the Jesuit historian wrote, ‘one sees the beginning of the theory which will be dear to the pure Gallicans according to which the superiority of the council over the pope is the very basis of our liberties’.19 Guy Coquille and Pierre Pithou, who elaborated a discourse on the liberties of the Gallican Church at the beginning of the reign of Henry IV, did no more than systematise a doctrine which was already in existence during Gerson’s time. By referring to the liberties of the Gallican Church, Richer was aware of the fact that he followed the legacy of the School of Paris. But the liberties of the Gallican Church were not only valid because of their ancientness. During the regency of Marie de’ Medici and for many years after that – we have only to think of Bossuet! – they appeared intangible because of the support of political authority. When, in March 1612, the bishops of the archdiocese of Sens announced their intention to ban the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, the regent insisted that they included in their declaration a clause on the rights and immunities of the Gallican Church. By making the king the protector of the Church with, in this regard, the right to intervene in the affairs of the Church, Richer was doing nothing more than sanctioning a practice which was largely accepted. Richer proposed nothing new but, because of the clarity of his style and the authoritativeness of his statements he contributed to the consolidation of the Gallican doctrine. With great skill he associated conciliarism and Gallicanism. His reflections on ecclesiastical power and on political power had in common the problem of the abuse of power, confidence in intermediary bodies and a wholehearted rejection of the ‘abuses’ of the Roman Curia. In the absence of a general council, he explained in the Traité des appellations comme d’abus, it is necessary to turn to civil courts: At that time, because the School of Paris was founded on Gerson’s maxims or, to put it more clearly, on the masters of the School of Paris amongst whom Gerson was in the first ranks, when there appeared some bulls, emanating from the plenitudo potestatis papae, contrary to the decrees of the councils and the liberties of the Gallican Church, it declared them to be abusive and against the holy canons: this gave ground for calling comme d’abus and having the abuses tried by Parliament because the appeals to the Council could not be judged. This is where the appels comme d’abus had their origin towards the end of the fifteenth century and at the beginning of the sixteen century during the reigns of Louis XI, Charles VIII, Louis XII and François I.20

19 Ibid., 404. 20 Richer, Traité des appelations comme d’abus, vol. 1, 69.

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The corollary of the appeal to civil power to judge the abuses of ecclesiastical power was the rejection of any intervention of spiritual power even in situations where actions by the prince could endanger the faith. Richer rejected all reciprocity between the sanctioning of royal and pontifical abuses. On this point – and it can be stressed, on this point alone – Richer distanced himself from his masters. Doubtless because he did not wish to become involved in such a thorny issue, Duval did not contradict him. Richer pointedly criticised Bellarmine’s theory of the popes’ indirect power in temporal matters in the fourteenth article of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. As the pope was only the ministerial head of the Church, he argued, his power was necessarily limited. He therefore had no authority in temporal matters: Those who support the contrary standpoint, that of absolute authority, are firstly confusing the state of the church with the government. And because Christ accepted Saint Peter as pastor and vicar of his church, he himself being the king and absolute monarch of the Church, they infer that the monarchical government belongs absolutely and totally to Saint Peter. Consequently, the Roman pontiff has not only all the ecclesiastical jurisdiction but also, at least indirectly, authority over temporal matters as well as those that are spiritual, as is taught by the illustrious Cardinal Bellarmine.21

In the eighteenth and last article of his treatise, Richer returned to the topic by refuting the arguments drawn from the Old Testament, the Fourth Council of Lateran and the history of Childeric, which Bellarmine and his friends had used to defend the temporal power of popes.22 This discussion, which followed a fairly classical pattern, owed much to John of Paris’ De potestate regia et papali. Five years later, provoked by Cardinal du Perron’s defence of the indirect power of popes in his Harangue to the Third Estate, Richer further clarified his position in the treatise De ecclesiastica potestate in rebus temporalibus. Apart from the fact that the language used was more scholastic, his argument remained unchanged. Political power, the former syndic wrote, came from God and was controlled by natural law. In the final count, only God had the power of life and death over his creatures, whatever the form of government which had been adopted. For all time, the kingdom of France had received from God the power to direct and control the citizens who fell under its aegis. The royal rights were not exempt. The donation of Constantine, which was used to grant temporal power to popes, was a myth.23 When he dealt with the indirect power of popes, Richer quoted neither Gerson nor Almain and with good reason. As we have seen in an earlier chapter, whilst

21 [Richer], De la puissance ecclésiastique et politique, art. 14. 22 Ibid., art. 18. 23 Richer, De ecclesiastica potestate in rebus temporalibus, 65–148.

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they warned about the danger of the abuse of pontifical power, these two authors allowed for papal intervention in temporal matters in the case of dire necessity. Their position was not fundamentally different from that of Bellarmine. This was the only point on which the syndic’s opponents could have justifiably accused him of distancing himself from the doctrine of the School of Paris. The reason for this break was clear. Between Almain and Richer there had been the Wars of Religion as well as the troubles of the League. Monarchomach theories, to use a neologism coined by William Barclay, were in fashion. Richer himself, in his youth, had been won over by Jean Boucher’s arguments in favour of regicide. He had later joined the camp of the Politiques for whom a strict separation of the spiritual and the political was imperative for the return to peace and prosperity. Gerson and Almain wrote during a period when the monarchy felt itself to be less threatened. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, there was a real danger of royal assassination as could be seen with Henry IV. In the context of the times in which he lived, Richer saw nothing good in bestowing on the pope the right to intervene in the affairs of the kingdom of France, even in exceptional circumstances.

A government born of the people It is somewhat ironical to see Richer who defended the monarchy against papal pretentions being accused of sedition by the supporters of pontifical supremacy. Nevertheless, this is what Duval and du Perron did, not without success for the regent constrained Richer to authorial silence after the publication of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. This apparent paradox must be examined. That Richer, after a brief period as a supporter of the League, when he was a student at the Sorbonne, became a supporter of strong royal authority is obvious. His opposition to the doctrine of indirect power of popes, shared by jurists and parliamentarians, stemmed from this. But, as we have seen earlier, contrary to what, by a surprising volte-face, du Perron accused him of saying in his Harangue to the Third Estate, Richer in no way supported the theory of the divine power of kings. In political theory as well as in ecclesiology, the syndic confined himself, for the main part, to what has been said by his masters. If he was innovative, perhaps unwittingly, it was because he gave more substance to the aristocratic component of power than his predecessors did. Like them, he adhered to the theory of the popular origin of political power. According to an idea which was commonly accepted up until the Wars of Religion, power

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came from God and belonged to the community. But the community itself did not wield power: it entrusted it to the prince. However, it could retract this power if his reign were to degenerate into a tyranny.24 Presenting Richer’s ideas on political power is somewhat difficult because the declarations which he made in this regard were not numerous and were often dictated by circumstances. The accusations levelled against him by his opponents were based on brief statements which were often taken out of context. In order to grasp the former syndic’s political ideas, his entire work must be taken into account. If the Apologia pro Ecclesia & Concilii auctoritate, a treatise which was published in Venice without the author’s permission, did not mention the relationship between the prince and the pontiff, on the other hand it contained numerous ‘axioms’ regarding political power. Richer began by declaring that all power and all jurisdiction came from God and had been instituted for the common good without partiality for place or person. Power was given ‘for edification and not for destruction’, a Pauline expression which was often used by the conciliarists and which reappeared in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate.25 Political power belonged to the entire people (populo universo) to the extent that even if it were to choose to entrust this power to an aristocratic or monarchical government, it retained the right to ensure its protection and that of its possessions in all cases. In politics as in science or arts, Richer argued, a single individual could never impose his will on the multitude.26 A ‘despotic and absolute’ monarchy went against natural law and divine law. Neither nature nor God wished for a ‘republic of slaves’ (Rempublicam servorum).27 The best form of government (principatus) was a monarchy tempered by aristocracy. In it an aristocratic council and directorship and a monarchical instance of execution and government were associated. If a single individual was best placed to implement a decision, it was preferable to have several people to make this decision.28 This seminal text, which was not widely diffused, provided the context of the passages from De ecclesiastica et politica potestate which related to political power. The subject was mentioned merely in passing for the aim of the work was to discuss the relationship between the ecclesiastical and political powers and not political power as such.

24 25 26 27 28

Victor Martin, Le Gallicanisme politique et le Clergé de France, Paris, Picard, 1929, 43. [Richer], Apologia pro Ecclesiae & Concilii auctoritate, 13 (axiom 9). Ibid., 13 (axiom 10). Ibid., 14–15 (axiom 12). Ibid., 15 (axiom 14).

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The first of these passages consisted of a single sentence. In order to explain why the conferment of benefits and episcopal elections remained under the control of the local church and not that of the Holy See up until the fourteenth century, Richer referred to a general principle: The reason, is that any principality, with regard to the power of coercion, depends on the consent of people: as divine law and natural law confirm, which neither the passage of time, nor the privileges of places, nor the dignity of persons could prescribe.29

In the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate Richer applied the principle of popular consent to ecclesiastical government. We have seen that, in this connection, he developed a doctrine which, if not new, was certainly more detailed than that of his predecessors. In his reply Duval considered, before anything else, the application of the principle of popular consent to political government. Without realising it, Richer provided him with a formidable weapon. His intention, which in the final count was quite traditional, regarding acceptance of the law was, in practice, interpreted as a questioning of royal authority. If government depended on the consent of its subjects, Duval wrote in the Elenchus, the king of France could not use force to impose his authority on his subjects. If he wished to impose laws upon them, even laws which were just, he had to ask them their opinion. Making the judicial power of the prince dependent upon the consent of his subjects was to nullify his power completely. It was true, the Parisian doctor continued, that ‘according to accepted practice in France’ (iuxta receptam Galliae consuetudinem) the king’s edicts had to be verified but they did not draw their force from this verification. It was the intention and the desire of the king which invested them with their authority. Richer’s mistake, Duval concluded, was to oppose constraint and consent in such a way that compliance with the law was forced upon people and consent appeared as a form of freedom.30 Another passage of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate was singled out by Richer’s opponents. In the definition of the Church which he gave in the third article of his treatise, the point was made that the aristocratic regime was ‘the best of all and the most in conformity with nature’ (omnium optimum, & naturae convenientissimum).31 Strangely enough, this clause was omitted in the French version of the work. Was this in order to avoid polemics? When this translation appeared, the accusation of sedition had already become widespread.

29 [Richer], De la puissance ecclésiastique et politique, art. 2. 30 Duval, Elenchus, 48–51. 31 [Richer], De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, art. 3.

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Like du Perron, Pelletier, Boucher and other opponents, Duval accused Richer of placing the monarchy in danger. As in the passage that dealt with people’s consent, he saw in the eulogy of the aristocracy not only an ecclesiastical statement by also a political one. Richer, he stated, was ‘behaving like a true monarchomach’. ‘He challenges the king’s estates who, when they publish edicts, are exercising their authority without caring over much about the opinions of the nobles’.32 By stating that the aristocracy was the best form of government the syndic, was undermining the authority of the regent and was favouring the design of the nobles in the kingdom. The Elenchus also challenged a passage in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate which stated that ‘a legal government is more acceptable than an absolute empire’.33 The comparison that Richer drew between law and government (imperium), Duval declared, was ‘seditious’.34 Kings and judges could carry out the same tasks as the law, namely, preventing, permitting, punishing and rewarding. But they did it better because the law was a dead thing. ‘A judge is like a living law’.35 The law depended upon the lawmaker and the judge in order for it to be effective. There were so many interpretations and exceptions in the law that a judge was needed for it to work. What was the purpose of rights if there was no one to protect them? It was true that the Scriptures spoke of the law as being ‘immaculate, enlightening and opening the eyes’,36 but it was known that it could also be used to justify heresies. It was for this reason that the apostles had left a double legacy, written and oral. Heretics wanted to stick to the dead law so as to escape judgment from the sovereign pontiff. When the apostles were alive, heresies were judged without recourse to the written law. This proved that it was ‘better to be ruled by a king or a prince rather than by the law’.37 By undermining the authority of the sovereign pontiff, Duval concluded, Richer was also diminishing the authority and the dignity of princes because, according to him, laws were more efficient than kings and their judgment.38 Duval referred to a medieval tradition according to which a good judge was better than a good law, as a disciple of Thomas Aquinas, Giles of Rome, had said.39 But, even during the Middle Ages, this conception of the law was not

32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Duval, Elenchus, [vii]. [Richer], De la puissance ecclésiastique et politique, art. 8. Duval, Elenchus, [vii]. Ibid., 87. Psalm 37, 31 Ibid., 89. Ibid., 91. On this point see Russell Hittinger, ‘Thomas Aquinas on Natural Law and the Competence to judge’, in John Goyette et al (ed.), St. Thomas Aquinas and the Natural Law Tradition: Contemporary Perspectives, Washington DC, Catholic University of America Press, 2004, 273.

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unanimously accepted. Thomas Aquinas, whom Richer took pleasure in quoting in the Demonstratio,40 expressed the view that an inanimate judge – the law – was better than an animate one.41 Richer’s reply was given in several phases. In the Demonstratio he recalled that Bellarmine and Duval himself had been in favour of a monarchy tempered by aristocracy for church government. In the treatise De romano pontifice, the very one which the young Richer considered to be the ‘fifth gospel’, the Jesuit controversialist had invoked the authority of Thomas Aquinas, Torquemada and a few others in order to affirm, in the context of a refutation of Calvin and Brenz, that the Church was a monarchy tempered by aristocracy and democracy.42 The former syndic also quoted a passage from Duval’s De suprema Romani Pontifice in ecclesia potestate, where it was stated that one should temper the monarchy with aristocracy so as to avoid tyranny.43 On the question of the origin of political power a more detailed point of view was put forward in the Apologia pro Ioanne Gersonio pro suprema ecclesiae et conciliis generalis auctoritate, the revised version of Gerson’s defence which was originally published in Venice in 1607. In the seventh ‘axiom’ Richer, referring to Aristotle, gave his conception of the popular origin of power. Civil society, he declared, was defined by natural law. People were born ‘as free as sovereign’ (aeque liberi, & aeque potentes), but as the majority of them were not capable either of leading or of following, God gave them the power to ‘co-opt’ according to their natural wishes, a monarchical, aristocratic or democratic government. This government came into being by the election of the people ‘explicitly, indirectly, expressly or tacitly’ (explicite, aut interpretative, expresse aut tacite). Legitimate power stemmed from ‘the common consent of the people’ (communi consensus populi). It was for this reason that the kings of France, albeit that they were free of all bonds regarding their subjects, had their edict and their laws recorded by Parliament. This body was, in a way, an intermediary between the king and the people (velut medium inter regem et populum). Royalty might be hereditary, as in France, or it might be elective. Without questioning the legitimacy of the French monarchy, Richer showed a marked preference for this second form of designating kings.44 40 Richer, Demonstratio, 71. 41 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ilallae, qu. 95, art. 1, ad 2um, quoted in Hittinger, ‘Thomas Aquinas on Natural Law’, 274. 42 Robert Bellarmine, Disputationum … de controversiis Christianae fidei adversus huius temporis haereticos tomus primus, Lyon, Jean Pillehotte, 1609, col. 459. See Richer, Demonstratio, 41–42. 43 André Duval, De suprema Romani Pontificis in ecclesia potestate disputatio quadripartite, Paris, Dionysius Langlaeus, 1614. See Richer, Demonstratio, 42. 44 Edmond Richer, Apologia pro Ioanne Gerson pro suprema Ecclesiae et Conciliis Generalis Auctoritate, Leiden, Paulus Moriaen, 1676, 28–29 (axiom 7).

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But what was to be understood by the consent of the people? Did it take the place of the monarchy? In the eighth axiom, which dealt with the self-sufficiency of political constitutions, Richer replied, in advance, to the objections of his opponents concerning the dangers of a popular government. His demonstration was based on the distinction between the state and the government to which reference was made in the previous chapter. It was applied in the same way to ecclesiastical authority and political power. In the Church, according to Richer, the ‘state’ was monarchical and the ‘government’ aristocratic. In the political regime he was favouring, the state or rather, as he said in the Apologia pro Ioanne Gersonio, the ‘domination’(dominium) was in the hands of those who voted, that is to say, the people, whilst ’the use, the exercising and the execution’ (usum, exercitium & exequutionem) of power, in other words, government, was in the hands of the king.45 Richer in no way envisaged a popular government. The ‘domination’ of the people – one is tempted to says its sovereignty – was practiced ‘according to the habitual state’ (quoad habitum) and ‘by an intentional act’ (in actu signato).46 According to Aristotle, the habitual state was an intermediary stage between the pure uncertainty of potentiality and the perfect determination of the act. An intentional act (actus signatus), as opposed to a direct act (actus exercitus), was an act which deliberately targeted its purpose. These scholastic expressions allowed Richer to clarify the role of the people. The people did not exercise power; it is what allowed power to be exercised. Without the people power would not exist but this did not imply that it exercised it. In the same passage, Richer explained what he meant by an elective monarchy. In the two examples he gave, the Holy German Empire and the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania – also known as the Republic of Two Nations or the PolishLithuanian Union,47 – the king’s electors retained their power after the election.48 The elective principle remained active but this did not prevent the king from exercising real power. This form of government resembled what is today known as a constitutional monarchy. This is what Richer called for in the church as much as for the state. A passage in the Demonstratio completed the discussion. Here Richer explained the difference between the elective monarchy and the hereditary monarchy. In France, where kings were not elected, there was a ‘pure’ monarchy in which the state and the government overlapped. The king consulted only when he wished to do so and he was not obliged to follow the advice of his councillors. In 45 Ibid., 30. 46 Ibid., 29–30 (axiom 8). 47 Satoshi-Koyama, ‘The Polish-Lithuanian Commenwealth as a Political Space: its Unity and Complexity’, Acta Slavonica Iaponica, 15, 2008, 137–153. 48 Richer, Apologia pro Ioanne Gersonio, 30 (axiom 8).

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the German Empire and the kingdom of Poland, on the other hand, the prince was obliged to consult his councillors. In the one case the state and the government were the same thing, in the other they were distinct.49 As can be seen, Richer had no affinity for the monarchy by divine right. In passing, he expressed his feelings in this regard in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate by equally dismissing, in the eleventh article of the treatise, the supporters of the indirect power of popes and those of the divine right of kings.50 As we have seen in the first part of this book, Cardinal du Perron was incorrect in attributing to him the article of the Third Estate which was the first public expression, hesitant though it was, of the theory of the monarchy by divine right. The publication by Marco Antonio De Dominis of a treatise which supported the divine right of kings forced Richer to return to the subject for the archbishop of Spalato was said to be close to the Gallican party. The former syndic appended to the De potestate ecclesiae in rebus temporalibus, a work which aimed at replying to du Perron’s statements in his Harangue to the Third Estate, a section dealing with De Dominis’ propositions. According to the archbishop of Spalato, Richer reported, the worst evils happened when power was invested in the people. For this reason, De Dominis was opposed to ‘the shared opinion of theologians and particularly the Parisians’ according to which God had given power to the people who, according to their choice, had entrusted it to a monarchical, aristocratic or democratic government. People had been created to be free and happy, Richer replied, returning to a theme dealt with in his earlier works. It would be abusing nature if one were to envisage a republic of slaves ‘such as is found amongst the Turks and in all oriental kingdoms’. No one could be happy unless he was free. A leader had certainly to be chosen so that life in society could be possible but, for this, the consent of those who are governed was necessary. Richer denied that God had ‘regularly’ (regulariter) given power to certain people. Kings obtained their power through the ‘tacit or explicit’ election of the people. If, as De Dominis had accused the supporters of the popular origin of power of thinking, the exercising of power necessarily pertained to the people, only democracies would exist, which was obviously not the case. The entire argument of the archbishop of Spalato collapsed, Richer concluded by using a turn of phrase already found in the Apologia

49 Richer, Demonstratio, 53. On the difference between the elective monarchy and the hereditary monarchy, see also Richer, Defensio, vol. 2, 13–15. 50 Richer, De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, art. 11.

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pro Ioanne Gersonio, if one distinguished between power ‘according to the habitual state’ (quoad habitum) and ‘according to the act and the exercise’ (quoad actum et exercitium).51 An examination of these texts allows us to draw two conclusions. The first is that Richer was consistent regarding the question of the popular origin of power. In all his works, from the Apologia pro Ecclesiae & Concilii auctoritate to the Defensio, he said the same thing. Political power belonged to the people but it did not exercise it. There was no question of a popular government. The best form of government was the elective monarchy because it avoided the risk of an absolute monarchy which was open to all kinds of abuse. The king’s councillors served as an aristocratic counterbalance to monarchical power. But the hereditary monarchy, such as existed in France, was an equally acceptable form of government. However, and this is a second observation, neither Duval, nor du Perron nor Richer’s other opponents accepted this line of reasoning. For them, the syndic was and remained a monarchomach. He made seditious claims. As proof of this, they held against him the mention of the consent of the people in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate and the choice of aristocracy as the best form of government. The fact that Richer’s doctrine was, for the most part, in conformity with the commonly held opinion of theologians did not count for them. One should not exclude the fact that consideration of a political nature came into play in this instance. Richer had close contacts with the milieus of parliamentarians which claimed to have control over the exercise of power. Du Perron, with whom Duval was in constant contact, was a member of the Regent’s Council. To his opponents, Richer appeared to undermine the efforts made to consolidate the monarchy at the beginning of Louis XIII’s reign.

Richer and Bodin The stated intention of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, the work which put an end to Richer’s academic career, was to give an overview of the doctrine of the School of Paris. The syndic said that he was doing nothing other than summarising the teachings of the Faculty of Theology of Paris and, in particular, that of his master Jean Gerson. The preceding pages have shown that Richer 51 Richer, De potestate ecclesiae in rebus temporalibus, 148–151. Puyol believed that, whilst rejecting the positions of De Dominis and James I of England regarding the divine right of kings, Richer nevertheless supported this doctrine, although in a ‘subtle’ way. His demonstration, which was based on a passage of the De potestate ecclesiae in rebus temporalibus (72– 73) in which Richer explained that if the people entrusted power to sovereigns, this power was already determined by God in one of three forms, monarchical, aristocratic or democratic which the people could accept (Edmond Richer, vol. 2, 112–113) is far from convincing.

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indeed took his inspiration from the Parisian masters, notably John of Paris, Gerson and Almain, in the eighteen articles of his treatise. Concerning ecclesiastical government as well as the question of the origin of political power, Richer, as we have seen, directly or indirectly quoted these various masters. The sole exception was the doctrine of the pope’s indirect power in temporal matters which Gerson and Almain accepted, albeit without great enthusiasm, and which Richer rejected. So, from where does the fierce hostility which the majority of theologians, bishops and royal office-bearers of his time demonstrated towards him come? In order to answer this question we need to examine the modalities of the return to the early history of the kingdom of France to which Richer had effected, together with those who Roger Zuber called the ‘erudite Gallicans,’ from the time of his doctorate.52 Like Coquille, Pithou and Servin but with greater interest in ecclesiological problems than these had shown, Richer presented a coherent body of doctrines which purportedly reflected the teachings of the School of Paris. He painted a picture of the past which, as a picture, was quite new. He was not content, if we may say so, to collect old furniture. He restored it. Or, to use another image, he used the writings of his masters as construction material to build a new house in the old-style fashion. In order for the stones of the house to bond, cement was needed. So as to build the theological and political doctrines which he had unearthed from ancient texts into a coherent system, Richer made extensive use of scholastic categories which he had learnt to master perfectly since the days of studying philosophy and theology at the Sorbonne. A large part of his conceptual apparatus was Aristotelian, sometimes directly borrowed, although he did not mention it, or barely did so, from Thomas Aquinas. However, if Richer’s toolbox had been exclusively of scholastic origin, how could one explain the accusations of novelty that were repeatedly levelled at him by his opponents who had been educated in the same schools of thought? Where did the force and strength of his statements come from? An examination of certain expressions – the distinction between state and government, in particular, and the idea of sovereignty – makes one think that a part of the conceptual cement of Richer’s work was not scholastic. Like many of his contemporaries, including Roman theologians, the syndic participated in the reception of the work of Jean Bodin53. 52 Roger Zuber, ‘Cléricature intellectuelle et cléricature politique: le cas des érudits gallicans (1580–1620)’, in Travaux de linguistique et de littérature, Strasbourg, Centre de philologie et de littérature romanes, XXI/2,1983, 121–134. On this theme see also Kelley, Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship; Parson, The Church and the Republic. 53 On this point see the excellent work by Howell Lloyd and his co-authors, The Reception of Bodin, Leiden, Brill, 2013.

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Let us explain what we mean here. Bodin did not play the same role in the work of Richer as Gerson. The latter was his main inspiration, ecclesiologically, spiritually and pastorally. Bodin, who, with one exception, always remained anonymous, helped Richer to clarify a key aspect of his theory of ecclesiastical and political power: how the essence of power – what Bodin called sovereignty – and the form of government related to each other. The only treatise in which Richer mentioned the Angevin jurist by name was one of his earliest ones, the Obstetrix animarum, a pedagogical manual for teachers published in 1600. While distancing himself from Bodin’s ideas on the importance of climate in the shaping of a people’ character,54 he ranged him – together the humanists Aldus Manutius and Marc-Antoine Muret and a range of Greek, Latin and medieval authors – among those who ‘have been born to the noble arts, and especially eloquence, and to the setting of the right policy’.55 It thus appears that, even though he carefully avoided mentioning Bodin’s name in the rest of his work, Richer had read him.56 But this does not imply that he borrowed from him all his ecclesiological and political conceptions. Drawing from a doctrine does not mean that one reproduces it in an identical way. As Peter Burke has shown, referring to Paul Ricoeur and Michel de Certeau, reception is re-appropriation, recreation and adaptation.57 Speaking in the manner of anthropologists, it is a matter of bricolage. Bodin’s work experienced a remarkable diffusion at the end of the sixteenth century and in the first half of the seventeenth century.58 However, few authors explicitly laid claim to him. His being put in the index of prohibited books – donec corrigatur in 1593 and in omnino in 159659 – partly explained this silence. But the main reason was that those who – like Richer – received Bodin were happy to borrow his methods, his conceptual tools and his manner of envisaging politics but not his entire political system. 54 Edmond Richer, Obstetrix animorum, hoc est brevis et expedita ratio docendi, studendi, conversandi, imitandi, iudicandi, componendi … Ad iuventutem Galliae, optimarum atrium studiis deditam, Paris, Ambroise Drouart, 1600, 52v. 55 Ibid., 56r. 56 I owe this insight to the author of an article to be published under the title ‘Edmond Richer (1559–1631), Jean Bodin and the Transformation of the Gallican Political Tradition’, in History of Political Thought. 57 Peter Burke, ‘The History and Theory of Reception’ in Lloyd (ed.), The Reception of Bodin, 21–37. 58 There were thirty-seven ‘editions’ to Bodin’s République up until 1641. See Howell Lloyd, ‘Conclusion’ in Lloyd (ed.), The Reception of Bodin, 412, note 18. On Bodin’s reception in France on the eve of the Estates General of 1614, see Denis Richet, ‘La polémique en France de 1612 à 1615’ in R. Chartier and D. Richet (ed.), Représentation et vouloir politique. Autour des États Généraus de 1614, Paris, 1982, 154–155, 175. 59 Michaela Valente, ‘The works of Bodin under the lens of Roman theologians and Inquisitors’, in Lloyd (ed.), The Reception of Bodin, 231.

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One of the most remarkable aspects of Bodin’s conception of political government was the rejection of the theory of a mixed government. Since Plato and Aristotle, the question which authors who were interested in political matters asked themselves was that of the best form of government. In Antiquity and, even more so, in the western Christian world from the thirteenth century, the opinion which prevailed was that the best government was mixed in the sense that it blended, in a manner as balanced as possible, the government by a single person (monarchy), by a small number (aristocracy) or by a large number (timocracy or democracy).60 Bodin changed the question: instead of questioning himself about the best form of government he asked what a state would need in order to function well. As far as he was concerned, the question of government was secondary or rather a corollary. In order for a state to function a person or a group of persons imperatively needed sovereignty. This sovereignty was ‘indivisible’: it could not be shared. State and government did not necessarily overlap. A monarchical state could choose an aristocratic or a democratic government just as an aristocratic state could elect a monarchical government.61 In a manner which begs for an explanation, Richer used exactly the same language. The distinction between ‘state’ and ‘government’ was already signalled in a text inserted by Richer in his edition of Pierre d’Ailly’s De ecclesiae et cardinalium auctoritate liber unicus in 1606.62 It was also flagged in the Apologia pro Ecclesiae & Concilii auctoritate of 1607.63 It was used, this time in a way that was perfectly clear, in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate with reference to the government of the Church. Let us once again quote the beginning of the fifth article: The third principle distinguishes between the state of the Church and its government, for its state is monarchical either for the order which brings about its unity or for the

60 Blythe, Le gouvernement idéal et la constitution mixte au Moyen Age, 32. 61 Bodin, Les six livres de la République, book 2, chapter 2, Paris edition of 1583, 272–273. 62 Pierre d’Ailly, De ecclesiae et cardinalium auctoritate liber unicus, part 2, in [Edmond Richer, ed.,] Ioannis Gersonii doctoris et cancellarii Parisiensis opera, multo quam antehac auctiora & castigatoria, Paris, [Compagnie de la Grand’ Navire,] 1606, vol. 1, col. 908 : ‘Concilium generale, nihil habet in dignitatem Pontificiam, quae iuris est divini, sed in abusum dignitatis Pontificiae : & iccirco, status Monarchicus Ecclesiae regimine Aristocraticae & democratico temperatur.’ The author of the article on ‘Edmond Richer (1539–1531), Jean Bodin and the Transformation of the Gallican Political Tradition’ that is mentioned in note 56, pointed out that Richer’s insertion was mistaken for d’Ailly’s words until Ellies Louis Du Pin 1706 reedition of Gerson’s work. 63 The statement in axiom 14 gave the impression that Richer had a mixed government in mind: ‘Optimus principatuum est Monarchia, regimine Aristocratica temperate’. Without differentiating clearly between the two terms, however, he nevertheless spoke of a ‘monarchical state’ (axiom 22) and of a ‘government and council’ aristocratic (axiom 23).

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execution of the canons which depend upon the Roman Pontiff as ministerial chief: but the administration is aristocratic, by virtue of providence, with the support of an efficient Council and in line with the constitutions of the same canons.64

Duval having found the distinction between state and government to be novel and false,65 Richer defended its use in the Defensio in reference to Aristotle.66 He moreover applied it to political government although in a different way. In the Church the state was monarchical and the government aristocratic. In the political realm, the state was aristocratic and the government monarchical.67 Why did Richer distinguish between the state – or in another article of his treatise the constitution (politia)68 – and the government at the risk of appearing as an innovator? Regardless of his mentioning Aristotle, Duval was correct. This way of speaking was novel. The reason was that Richer had been reflecting on the question of authority. He understood that, in order for an institution to work – be it the Church, in which he was particularly interested, or political authority – it was necessary to determine who, in the final count, wielded power. Like Bodin, he believed that the main attribute of sovereignty was the power to enact laws. The Bodinian concept of sovereignty was not entirely new. The expression plenitudo potestatis, much used during the Middle Ages, was similar. But, as used by Bodin who spoke of an absolute and undivided sovereignty, it had a consistency, a coherence which it did not have before. Significantly, Richer also used the expression sovereignty. Here are two examples. The first is taken from the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. Speaking of the Synagogue, which he differentiated from the Church in the eighteenth article, he explained that the former possessed a ‘territory’ which was not the case for the Church. The territory was what characterised civil authority. Associated with this, Richer added, was a ‘right to sovereignty ‘.69 Without much extrapolation, it can be said that, for the syndic, sovereignty was what defined authority. The second example is taken from the Traité des appelations comme d’abus. Here Richer explained that, through his doctrine of the indirect authority of

64 [Richer], De la puissance ecclésiastique et politique, art. 5. See above, part 2, chapter 2. 65 Duval, Elenchus 55. On the same subject see [Jean Boucher], Advis sur l’appel interiecté par me Edmond Richer, docteur et cy-devant syndic de la Faculté de Théologie à Paris, de la censure de son livre intitule De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, Paris, F. Théophile, 1612, 62, quoted in Puyol, Edmond Richer, vol. 1, 235: ‘C’est une ânerie de dire que l’Etat de l’Eglise est autre que le gouvernement.’ 66 Richer, Defensio, vol. 2, 11–12. 67 Richer, Apologia pro Ioanne Gerson pro suprema Ecclesiae et Conciliis Generalis Auctoritate, 30. 68 [Richer], De la puissance ecclesiastica et politique, art. 3. 69 Ibid. art. 18.

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popes, Bellarmine had compromised the sovereignty of the monarchical state. ‘Sovereignty and political majesty,’ he argued in a language that brings Bodin to mind, remained ‘immutable and inalienable’: When Bellarmine contends and insists that the royal state can be changed into another form of state and that he who is king can cease to be king, he is correct but political majesty always remains immutable and inalienable in whatever form of government it subsists; because the aristocratic and democratic state is no less sovereign than the monarchical state even though the form of government is different. Thus, the clerics, in whatever state they live, always remain subject to political sovereignty and majesty and can justifiably receive capital punishment, if circumstance so demand.70

Bodin is sometimes seen as the precursor of the doctrine of absolute monarchy, a form of government which Richer categorically refused for the Church as much as for the state. But this is to misunderstand the thinking of the Angevin jurist. He certainly stated that the sovereign was ‘absolved from the power of the laws’ (solutus legibus).71 This is what distinguished him from his subjects. However, the author of the Six livres de la République did not deny that the sovereign was obliged to respect the natural law and the customs of the kingdom.72 According to him, sovereignty was not at all despotic. Therefore, there is no fundamental difference between the political ideas of Bodin and those of Richer. The former showed a marked preference for a hereditary monarchy, which he viewed as more inclined to stability;73 the latter called for an elective monarchy such as was found in the kingdom of Poland, for he wanted to restrict the king’s power. But this difference of views was not insurmountable. In any case, Bodin was only speaking of a preference. For him, as was the case for Richer, it was permissible to choose between different forms of government. We have seen that by 1600 Richer has already read Bodin. On the distinction between ‘state’ and ‘government’, another author in whom the syndic may have found an inspiration was Pierre Grégoire, the jurist from Pont-à-Mousson. Like Bodin he drew a distinction between sovereignty (summa potestas) and the government (modus administrandi) and rejected the theory of mixed government.74 The only link – according to our sources – between Grégoire and Richer is tenuous: in his Harangue to the Third Estate, Cardinal du Perron stated that the theologians in the king of England’s entourage quoted Grégoire together with

70 71 72 73 74

[Richer], De la puissance ecclésiastique et politique, art. 3. Ibid., art. 18. Richer, Traité des appellations comme d’abus, vol. 1, 270–271. Bodin, Les six livres de la République, Book 1, chapter 8, Paris edition, 1583, 120. Pierre Grégoire, De Republica, book, 5, chapter 1, 145.

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Almain and Major in order to prove that heretics and renegades were part of the Christian religion.75 By doing so, he associated the author of the De Republica with the conciliarists and, by extension, with Richer. Furthemore, the syndic had certainly read the De potestate papae of William Barclay, the successor of Pierre Grégoire at Pont-à-Mousson, for it was in order to refute this work that Bellarmine had published, in 1610, his Tractatus de potestate Romani Summi Pontificis in rebus temporalibus, the work which Richer would challenge, the following year, in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. Ideas thus flew between Pont-à-Mousson and Paris. It can be assumed, without taking much risk, that Richer knew of Bodin through the work of Pierre Grégoire. But Bodin, who died in Laon in 1596, also had connections in Paris. Perhaps a Protestant in his youth, briefly a member of the League like Richer at the end of the 1580s,76 he ended his life as a free thinker. Achriste mais théiste (without Christ but theist), in the words of Pierre Mesnard, he nevertheless remained in the lap of the Catholic Church.77 During the last years of his life he was close to the Politiques, especially the Gallican jurist Jacques Gillot, who was purportedly his friend.78 Richer belonged to the same circle, if not during the early years of the reign of Henry IV, at least during the first decade of the seventeenth century. Sarpi, whom Richer knew of course, had probably read Bodin although there is no proof of this.79 That the author of De ecclesiastica et politica potestate had read and even knew Bodin is therefore quite probable. Was Richer a faithful reader of the masters of the University of Paris? Yes indeed. He took his inspiration from them in every single page of his works. His intention was to illustrate the doctrine of his predecessors in a political and ecclesiastical climate which had changed. It was the Ultramontanes and not him who betrayed the spirit of the School of Paris. This last section has shown that, without necessarily invalidating this view of the situation, one should qualify it. Richer was more systematic than his masters. In order to give an account of their doctrine, he made use of new concepts. And this is where Bodin intervened. Although the Angevin jurist was only quoted in one of his earlier works, it would appear that the latter borrowed some of his

75 Harangue du cardinal Du Perron, 48. 76 Paul Lawrence Rose, ‘The Politique and the Prophet: Bodin and the Catholic League, 1589– 1594’, Historical Journal, 21, 1978, 783–808; Howel Lloyd, ‘Introduction’ in Lloyd (ed.), The Reception of Bodin, 7. 77 Pierre Mesnard, ‘La pensée religieuse de Jean Bodin’, Revue du seizième siècle, 16, 1929, 120. 78 François Berriot, ‘La fortune du Colloquium Heptaplomeres’ in Jean Bodin, Colloque entre sept sçavans qui sont de different sentimens des secretz cachez des choses révélées’, ed. F. Berriot et al., Geneva, Droz, 1984, xxii. 79 Jasla Kainulainen, ‘Paolo Sarpi and the Colloquium Heptaplomeres of Jean Bodin’ (2003), available on line on the website of Storia di Venezia.

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language in order to characterise ecclesiastical power and political power. In this way, and probably unwittingly, he also deformed, although in a different way, the doctrine of the Parisian doctors.

Conclusion

This book asks a question: should Catholicism, in the form that it began to take in the Western world after the fracture of the Reformation, necessarily adopt a monarchical form of government? Since the First Vatican Council the answer would appear to be affirmative. The constitution Pastor Aeternus, which was solemnly adopted on 18 July 1870, declared that the pope had ‘plenary and sovereign power of jurisdiction over the entire Church, not only regarding matters which affected faith and morals but even over the discipline and government of the Church throughout the entire world’. The debates of the Second Vatican Council concerning collegiality and the implementation of an ecclesiology of communion led one to believe that, a century later, a Church which called itself Catholic and Roman could, after all, practice a certain form of power sharing. However, by asking the fathers of the Council, at the last minute and without prior debate, to add to the third chapter of the constitution Lumen Gentium a Nota praevia explicativa reaffirming the ‘plenitude of power’ of the Roman pontiff and his right to exercise power ‘at all times and according to his will’, Pope Paul VI reaffirmed the exclusively and radically monarchical nature of the Catholic Church. Seven years later, he put an end to the discussion by refusing to take into consideration the report of one of the subcommittees of the International Theological Commission on collegiality and by withdrawing this item from the agenda of the Synod of Bishops in September 1971.1 The indignant declarations of the theologian André Duval against Edmond Richer who was accused of undermining the foundations of the Church by imposing clear limits on the power of the pope show that, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, a consensus was beginning to emerge on the monarchical 1 Jan Grootaers, Heurs et malheurs de la « collegialité ». Pontificats et Synodes face à la réception de Vatican II, Louvain, Peeters, 2012, 21–59. As Joseph Ratzinger, then peritus of the archbishop of Cologne, pointed out in his relation of the third session of the Council, it was ‘by superior order’ that a preliminary explanatory note ‘which seemed to reduce the doctrine of collegiality to a mere theoretical teaching’ was appended to the constitution on the Church (Theological Highlights of Vatican II, London, Paulist Press, 1966).

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Conclusion

nature of ecclesiastical government. The pope’s absolute power ad intra and, up to a certain point, ad extra, was considered, in circles favourable to the Roman See, as one of the marks of the Catholic Church. Pierre-Édouard Puyol, who devoted two heavy volumes to Richer six years after the First Vatican Council, shared and expanded on Duval’s indignation. As was shown in the introduction of this book, with the notable exception of Francis Oakley, all the authors who subsequently wrote about Richer, often in a superficial way for that matter, viewed the author of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate in a negative light: for them, he was the man who was opposed to the Holy See. In the words of Sylvio De Franceschi he was anti-Roman. How can one be a Catholic and impose a limit on the authority of popes? However, another interpretation is possible. Is one not falling into the trap of a history written from the point of view of the victors by asserting that the government of the Catholic Church necessarily shows the characteristics of an absolute monarchy? Numerous studies have shown that conciliarism, a movement of thought whose origins went back to the thirteenth century if not earlier, far from being an accident of history, had a marked impact on minds up until the eve of the First Vatican Council.2 The conciliarists saw the Church as a body directed but not dominated by the pope. For them, the pontiff was part of the Church but not above it. With the king of France having ratified, for the most part, the decrees of the Council of Basel, the turbulent successor of the Council of Constance, the conciliarist tradition was particularly vigorous in the kingdom of France. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the future of Catholicism was still uncertain. At Trent, let us recall, the matter of the power of the pope had not been resolved. It was the Roman Curia and not the conciliar assembly which promoted this particular form of conciliar reception, based on the pivotal role of the Holy See, which would come to be known as Tridentinism.3 For a man like Richer who steadfastly placed himself within the Catholic camp, loyalty to the thousandyear-old tradition of the apostolic and Catholic Church was not incompatible with a critical view, not of the primacy of the pope, which he accepted, but of the absolute authority of the Roman Curia, which he saw as a threat to the faith. The novelty, according to him, was on the side of the Ultramontanes. He intended demonstrating his loyalty to the ancient tradition of the Church. The ambition of this book is to judge Richer for what he was without a priori proving right his Ultramontane opponents but without brushing their opinion 2 For a summary, see Francis Oakley, The Conciliarist Tradition. Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church 1300–1870, New York, Oxford University Press, 2003. 3 Giuseppe Alberigo, ‘Du Concile de Trente au tridentinisme’, Irenikon, 54, 1981, 192–210; John O’Malley, Trent: What Happened at the Council, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Belknap Press, 2013.

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aside either. After a brief spell as a Leaguer, the young doctor of the Sorbonne sided, as did many of his contemporaries, with Henry IV and joined the camp of the Politiques. Involved in the reform of the University of Paris, he drew closer to the circles of Gallican lawyers and parliamentarians and, in the whirl, discovered conciliarist thinking. He was particularly fascinated by Jean Gerson whose works he edited. For thirty years, up until his death in 1631, he presented himself as the restorer of the past grandeur of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Paris or, to put it succinctly, the School of Paris. The De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, the work which brought Richer both fame and condemnation, was nothing more, according to him, than a summary of the doctrine of the School of Paris. Can Richer be trusted? Was he, as he claimed to be, a faithful disciple of the early doctors of the University of Paris, notably John of Paris, Pierre d’Ailly, Jean Gerson, Jacques Almain and John Major? Duval and du Perron who, like the majority of French Catholics, even the Ultramontanes, claimed to accept, as least formally, the doctrine of the School of Paris, accused Richer of having betrayed this doctrine. As far as they were concerned, his ideas were new and therefore bad. An examination of the texts shows that on all points bar one – the question of the indirect power of popes regarding temporal matters – Richer was essentially correct. He took his inspiration from the Parisian doctors, particularly Gerson and Almain. It was from them that he inherited the idea that full power belongs to the ‘hierarchical order’, in other words to the pope, the bishops and the priests, each at his own level, and ultimately, to the council. From them he borrowed the distinction between ‘essential head’ and ‘ministerial head’ of the Church as well as the idea that it was the pope’s duty to exercise executive power within the Church with the power to decree laws belonging to the council. Contrary to what his opponents claimed, Richer recognised the pope’s right to take command of the churches scattered throughout his domain, during the intervals, which were sometimes extended, between council meetings. Like Gerson, he believed that, as a person, the pope was the highest authority in the Church but that, in spite of this, he could not impose his domination on the Church when it met in council. On a much debated point, Richer also followed the teaching of Gerson. He declared, taking his cue from the chancellor of the University of Paris, that priests had a role to play in the government of the diocese and that, when necessary, some of them might exercise the right of vote at the council. This matter was addressed only in passing in the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. Richer returned to it in other works. It is inaccurate to make the claiming of the rights of the clergy a ‘Richerist’ doctrine as Duval and many other anti-Jansenist writers did. Richer was doing nothing more than following Gerson. By spreading the idea of Richerism his enemies were attempting to give substance to the idea that he was the inventor of a new doctrine. No more so than Gerson, Richer had in mind a

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diocesan government managed by the priests. All he asked was that the bishops conferred with their priests, and particularly the cathedral chapter, when it came to important matters. The only point on which Richer differed from his Parisian masters was that of the question of the indirect power of kings in temporal matters. This doctrine is present, although in a veiled form, in the writings of John of Paris, Gerson and Almain and found its definitive expression in those of the Jesuit Robert Bellarmine. It said that in normal times political power was autonomous but that, in extreme cases, when the salvation of souls was at stake, spiritual power, in other words the pope, could censure a prince and even remove him from his office. During Gerson’s time, such a step was purely theoretical. Two centuries later, the situation had changed. The memory of the Wars of Religion and of the troubles of the League was fresh in people’s memories. Two kings, Henry III and Henry IV, had been assassinated by fanatics claiming to act in the name of the pope and, in London, King James I had escaped an attempt on his life. The distinction between the direct and indirect power of popes was tenuous. Significantly, neither Duval nor du Perron criticised Richer for having moved away from the doctrine of the School of Paris on the subject of the indirect power of popes in temporal matters. The matter was sensitive. Supporters of pontifical power did not want to be seen as enemies of the monarchy. Richer’s archaism, which was evident in ecclesiology, was also manifest in political theory. Since Thomas Aquinas, scholastic theologians had considered that political power stemmed from the people who, by means of an implicit contract, conferred it upon princes for the common good. People as different as Gerson and Bellarmine when it came to the question of the power of the pope and the council, agreed on this point. Richer was of the same opinion. According to him, power was the result of the consent – tacit or explicit – of those who were governed. He declared himself to be in favour of a monarchical regime, whilst expressing a preference for an elective monarchy such as was found in the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania or the German Empire. How does one explain the relentlessness of the Ultramontane theologians, the bishops, the nuncio, Queen Marie de’ Medici’s entourage and, later, Cardinal de Richelieu against Richer? If it was a question of nostalgia, why not leave him alone to dream of the past grandeur of the School of Paris? On the contrary, for these people he appeared dangerous to the point that they never ceased to try and silence him and to prevent his ideas from circulating. The opposition towards the author of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate had two reasons. The first was the political context. Richer wrote at an inopportune moment. In the short term, the emotions roused by the assassination of Henry IV might have led him to believe that a broad public felt the same as he did. The Ultramontanes were in an awkward position. But, in political as much as

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ecclesiastical matters, things were changing. The doctrines of the divine right of the monarchy and of the raison d’Etat – two distinct principles at the outset but which ended up being one4 – were gaining ground in minds and institutions. They made the doctrine of the popular origin of power obsolete. It was only later, under the influence of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, that medieval constitutionalism would find a new relevance. Richer, who was a man of the Middle Ages in political matters, was on the defensive. His opponents did not miss the opportunity to depict him as an enemy of the monarchy. And it worked! It was on the orders of the Conseil de Régence that the Faculty of Theology dismissed him from his position as syndic in September 1612 in spite of the support he had in Parliament. And it was for fear of political sanctions – and not ecclesiastical ones – that, except for rare occasions, he gave up publishing his works during his lifetime. Richer’s success – and his failure, at least for the moment – stemmed from another source. If, as we have just seen, his body of ideas was essentially Gersonian with, regarding certain points, borrowings from John of Paris, Pierre d’Ailly, Nicholas of Cusa and Jacques Almain, the way in which these ideas was presented was novel. He spoke a different language. He can be compared to the Gallican jurist Pierre Pithou who gave an unprecedented echo to the theme of the liberties of the Gallican Church by defining them in eighty-three articles. Richer proceeded in the same way but as a theologian. His conceptual clarity, his gift for the right word, his judicious interpretation – although at times tendentious – of biblical, canonical and historical sources imbued the conciliarist doctrine with a new relevance. Quite rightly, Francis Oakley saw in him the main representative of what he called the bronze age of conciliarism. In his writings, Richer gave the ideas of the School of Paris a coherence and a homogeneity which they did not previously have, ignoring, for which his opponents reproached him, opinions held by the Parisian doctors which did not tally with the idea he had of them. His work of compilation had an objective which was both doctrinal and political. This being said, he did not lack critical rigour. Heir of the humanist tradition, he looked for original texts and was careful to study them in the context in which they had been written. At the heart of this systematisation figures a clear distinction between state and government. This allowed Richer to declare that the constitution of the Church – or its police – was ruled by a monarchical principle but that its government was aristocratic. The monarchy of the Church was not absolute: the real power was exercised by bishops and other delegates of the Church, assembled in council. This language, as we have seen, was Bodinian. Equally Bodinian was the 4 Luc Foisneau, ‘Sovereignty and reason of state: Bodin, Botero, Richelieu and Hobbes ’, in Howell Lloyd (ed.), The Reception of Bodin, Leiden, Brill, 2013, 323–342.

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rejection of the model of mixed government. In Richer’s works, one glimpses the idea of a sovereignty which, applied here to the Church, reminds one of that set out by the author of the Six livres de la République. This allowed him to formalise an idea already found in the writings of Gerson and Almain: if the pope, as an individual, exercised a supreme form of power, real power – in other words sovereignty – belonged to the council, which represents the Church. Ancient or modern? Studying Richer entails returning to the basic question underlying historical research. Through which mechanisms does a return to the past create modernity? What is meant by new? Richer claimed to be faithful to the ancient world. His sole intention was to restore the legacy of the formers doctors of the University of Paris, and, beyond them, the traditions of the early Church. He added nothing, he invented nothing. However, from an ecclesiastical point of view as much as from a political one, he evolved in a new context. In order to accomplish his task of restoration he set out to give the School of Paris a unity and a consistency that it did not have at the outset. He developed a new language to defend the doctrines of the Parisian doctors against the attacks which threatened them. By doing so, without being aware of the fact, he anticipated future developments as has been shown by Dale Van Kley.5 If Richerism is a myth, it must be stated that Gerson’s ideas, which Richer disseminated and championed, met with profound echoes in French society during the decades preceding the Revolution. Similar remarks hold true for the Protestant Reformation. How then must one deal with the accusation of crypto-Protestantism levelled against Richer by the Ultramontanes? The fact that he felt obliged to publish the censure of Philippe Duplessis-Mornay’s Mystère d’iniquité at the same time as his De ecclesiastica et politica potestate demonstrated his desire to distance himself from the Reformed camp. There is a dividing line between conciliarism and Protestantism. Luther appealed to the council but, as far as he was concerned, the latter’s decisions were not of divine right. We do not know whether Richer had any links with Protestant circles in Paris. What is certain, however, is that the entourage of James I in London and the remonstrant milieus in the Netherlands saw him as an ally in their project of reunion of the churches.6 The idea that the primate of Rome could preside over the meeting of the representatives of various churches without imposing his wishes on them appealed to them. This led to the translation into English and Dutch of the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. In the quest for a via media between Rome and Geneva Richer had a role to play. This argument must, however, not be taken too far. Richer was Catholic. He was profoundly 5 Dale Van Kley, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution. From Calvin to the Civil Constitution, 1560–1791, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1996. 6 This point is developed in Philippe Denis, ‘An ecumenical momentum. Reunion talks among Anglicans, Gallicans, Arminians and Huguenots in early seventeenth century Europe’, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 81, 2019, 43–63.

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attached to the sacraments of his Church. If homologies can be found between his doctrine and that of the Protestants, one needs to be wary of making him an unwitting follower of Luther.7 The importance of a biography on Richer does not lie here. It is in showing that, in the materiality of lives and institutions, Catholicism – and Protestantism as well – was more diverse than a teleological view of history would lead one to believe. The ultimate success – and the final one, until proven otherwise – of a monarchical ecclesiology in the Catholic Church should not lead one to lose from sight, in the long run, the existence of other ecclesiological currents. One of these is conciliarism, which Richer championed at the beginning of the seventeenth century. He acknowledged the central role of the pope and bishops in the Church but, aware of the abuses which absolute power could engender, he imposed constitutional limits on this power. Who, today, would deny the validity of such a stance? But for all that we should not canonise Richer. He too had blinkers. Thus, obsessed by the battle against the excesses of Roman power, he did not grasp the necessity for pastoral reform, which Rome, in the aftermath of the Council of Trent, purported to carry out. Not that he himself was devoid of the zeal of a reformer. He successfully undertook the renovation of Cardinal Lemoine’s college and worked towards the reform of the University of Paris. But his fierce opposition towards the new religious orders, the Jesuits in particular, raises questions. Did he ever ask himself why the Company had been founded? On a pastoral level, Richer appeared as a conservative. In this matter he differed from Gerson who combined a burning pastoral zeal with a desire to limit the abuses of power within the Church. Another of Richer’s limitations, which his Ultramontane adversaries did not hesitate to point out, was his tendency to turn to the organs of state, Parliament in particular, for the management of the internal affairs of the Church. Where there was conflict between a bishop and his clergy, for example, it was Parliament or the King’s Council who had the final word. Because he lacked pastoral experience, Richer does not seem to have realised that, in this domain as well, abuses were possible. The basis of the Gallican doctrine, which Coquille and Pithou undertook to expound in the 1590s, was that the king was the protector of the Church and that it behoved him to ensure that the canons are enforced. In the name of this principle, a limit was placed on external interventions, that of the Roman See in particular. What was one to do when the interests of the Church and the state 7 I follow up here on comments made in the essay ‘Edmond Richer, protestant malgré lui’ in M. Magdelaine, M–C Pitassi, R. Whelan and A. McKenna (dir), De l’humanisme aux Lumières, Bayle et le protestantisme. Mélanges en l’honneur d’Elisabeth Labrousse, Paris, Universitas and Oxford, Voltaire Foundation, 1996, 343–358.

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were confused? In defence of Richer it can be noted that the majority of his contemporaries, including the Ultramontanes, saw all kingdoms as being Christian. They all thought in terms of Christendom. In spite of these limitations, the life and works of Richer deserve to be reexamined. The attacks his opponents never ceased to make on his character and the repetition of commonplaces on his purported Gallican radicalism and on the impact on minds the Richerism he supposedly created have long been an obstacle to a serene and dispassionate scrutiny of his work. May this book reopen the debate.

Sources and Bibliography

1.

Manuscript sources

BnF, ms. fr. 2109, Adrien Baillet, Vie d’Edmond Richer. BnF, ms. fr. 10561, Notes sur le recueil sur Richer. BnF, ms. lat. 9943–9948, Historia academiae parisiensis, 6 t. en 7 vol. BnF, ms. lat. 13639, Historia rerum gestarum in Facultate theologica Parisiensi, pro et contra censuram libri Antonii Sanctarelli jesuitae: quem librum memorata Facultas censuram notavit anno 1626. BnF, ms. lat. 15441, Livre des prieurs de la Sorbonne. BnF, ms. lat. 16060–16061, Edmond Richer, De potestate ecclesiae in rebus temporalibus.

2.

Printed sources

Works by Edmond Richer 1600

Edmond Richer, Quinti Septimii Florentis Tertulliani Liber de Pallio, notis latinis et interpretatione gallica interpretatus…, Paris, Ambroise Drouart, 1600. [Edmond Richer], Obstetrix animorum, hoc est brevis et expedita ratio docendi, studendi, conversandi, imitandi, iudicandi, componendi … Ad iuventutem Galliae, optimarum atrium studiis deditam, Paris, Ambroise Drouart, 1600. New editions: Amberg, Johannes Schönfeld, 1608; Frankfurt, Johannes Bringerus, 1617.

1601

Edmond Richer, De Analogia, causis eloquentiae et linguae patriae locupletandae methodo, Paris, Claude Morel, 1601.

1603

Edmond Richer, Apologia pro senatusconsulto, adversus Scholae Lexoveae paranomum, s.l., 1603. Edmond Richer, De Optimo Academiae statu libri duo, s.l., 1603.

282

Sources and Bibliography

1605

Edmond Richer, De Arte figurarum et causis eloquentiae, Paris, Pierre Pautonnier, 1605. Other emission: Paris, Adrien Beys, 1605.

1606

[Edmond Richer (ed.)], Ioannis Gersonii doctoris et cancellarii Parisiensis opera, multo quam antehac auctiora & castigatiora, Paris, [Compagnie de la Grand’ Navire], 1606, 4 vol.

1607

[Edmond Richer], Apologia pro Ecclesiae et Concilii auctoritate adversus Ioannis Gersonii obtectractore, [Venice], 1607. [Edmond Richer], Grammatica obstetricia, Paris, Pierre Louis Febvrier, 1607.

1608

[Edmond Richer], Obstetrix animorum, hoc est brevis et expedita ratio docendi, studendi, conversandi, imitandi, iudicandi, componendi …, Amberg, Johannes Schönfeld, 1608.

1611

[Edmond Richer (ed.)], Decreta Sacrae Facultatis Theologiae Parisiensis de Potestate Ecclesiastica, & primatu Romani Pontificis, contra Sectarios huius seculi, Paris, Heureux Blancvillain, 1611. [Edmond Richer], De ecclesiastica et politica potestate liber unus. Ecclesia, est politia monarchica, ad finem supernaturalem instituta: regimine aristocratico, quod omnium optimum & naturae convenientissimum est, temperata à summo animarum pastore Domino nostro Iesu Christo, Paris, [Heureux Blancvillain], 1611. [Edmond Richer (ed.)], Decreta Sacrae Facultatis Theologiae Parisiensis, de Potestate Ecclesiastica, & primatu Romani Pontificis, contra Sectarios huius seculi. Ecclesia, est politia Monarchica, ad finem supernaturalem instituta: regimine aristocratico, quod omnium optimum, & naturae convenientissimum est, temperata à summo animarum pastore Domino nostro Iesu Christo, Paris, s.n., 1611.

1612

[Edmond Richer], De ecclesiastica et politica potestate liber unus, Ecclesia est politia monarchi[c]a ad finem supernaturalem instituta: regimine aristocratico, quod omnium optimum & naturae convenientissimum est, temperata pastore Domine nostro Iesu Christ, Paris, Jean Petitpas, 1612. [Edmond Richer], De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, liber vnvs. Ecclesia, est Politia Monarchica, ad finem supernaturalem instituta: regimine Aristocratico, quod omnium optimum, & naturae con venientissimum est, temperata a summo animarum pastore Domino nostro Iesu Christ[o], Troyes, [Pierre Chevillot], 1612.

Printed sources

283

[Edmond Richer], De la puissance Ecclesiastique et Politique. L’Eglise est une police Monarchique, instituée à une fin supernaturelle: Conduite d’un gouvernement Aristocratique, par le souverain Pasteur des ames nostre Seigneur Jesus-Christ, Paris, [Heureux Blancvillain?], 1612 [Edmond Richer], De ecclesiastica et politica potestate. Liber vnvs. Ecclesia, est politia Monarchica, ad finem supernaturalem instituta: regimine aristocratico, quod omnium optimum & naturae convenientissimum est, temperata à summo animarum pastore Domino nostro Iesu Christo. De la puissance Ecclesiastique et Politique. L’Eglise est une police Monarchique, instituée à une fin supernaturelle: conduite d’un gouvernement Aristocratique, par le souverain Pasteur des ames nostre Seigneur Iesus Christ, Caen, [Jacques Mangeant], 1612. [Edmond Richer], A Treatise of Ecclesiasticall and Politike power. Shewing the Church is a Monarchicall government, ordained to a supernaturall and spirituall end, tempered with an aristocraticall order, (which is the best of all and most conformable to nature) by the great Pastor of soules Iesus Christ. Faithfully translated out of the Latin originall, of late publikely printed and allowed in Paris. Now set foorth for a further warrant and encouragement to the Romish Catholikes of England, for theyr taking of the Oath of Allegiance; seeing so many others of their owne profession in other Countries doe deny the Popes infalibility in iudgement and temporall power over Princes, directly against the doctrine of Iesuits, Londres, W. S[tansby], 1612. [Edmond Richer], Vande kerckelicke ende politiicke macht. De kercke is een Monarchklicke Politie, inghestelt tot eene overnatuerlijcke eynde, beleyt door een Aristocratijcksche Regieringhe, door den oppersten Heerder der Zielen, onsen Herre Iesum Christum. Wt het Francoys int Nederduytsch overgheset, The Hague, Hillebrant Jacobsz, 1612.

1617

[Edmond Richer], Obstetrix animorum, hoc est brevis et expedita ratio docendi, studendi, conversandi, imitandi, iudicandi, componendi …, Frankfurt, Johannes Bringerus, 1617.

1622

[Edmond Richer], Demonstratio libelli de ecclesiastica et politica potestate. Ecclesia, est politia Monarchica ad finem supernaturalem instituta regimine Aristocratico, quod omnium optimum, & naturae convenientissimum est, temperate a summon animorum pastore Domino nostro Iesu Christo, Paris, aux frais de l’auteur, 1622. Edmond Richer, Declaratio … super editione libelli sui de Ecclesiastica et politica potestate, s.l.n.d. Edmond Richer, Déclaration … touchant l’édition de son livre De la Puissance ecclésiastique et politique, s.l.n.d.

1627

Edmond Richer (ed.), Statuta Collegii cardinalitii, cum aliquot senatus-consultis, pro eorumdem statutorum interpretatione factis…, s.l., 1627.

284

Sources and Bibliography

1628

Timothée François, catholique [Edmond Richer], Considérations sur un livret intitulé Raisons pour un désadveu faict par les évesques de ce royaume, etc. mis en lumière sous le nom de Me François, cardinal de La Rochefoucault, contre les vrais schismatiques de ce temps, s.l., 1628.

1629

Edmond Richer, De Arte et causis rhetoricae, ac methodo eam ad usum vitae civilis revocandae liber unus, Paris, Mathurin Du Puis, 1629. [Edmond Richer] Relation véritable de ce qui s’est passé en Sorbonne les XV de mars, I d’avril, II de mai MDCXXVI, le II de janvier et le I de février MDCXXVII, s.l. 1629.

1630

Edmond Richer, Testamentum, Paris, Impensis Auctoris, 1630.

1660

Edmond Richer, Libellus de ecclesiastica et politica potestate, nec non ejusdem libelli … demonstratio, Cologne, Balthasar ab Egmond, 1660.

1676

Edmond Richer, Apologia pro Joanne Gersonio pro suprema Ecclesiae & concilii generalis auctoritate… adversus scholae Parisiensis, & ejusdem doctoris christianissimi obtrectatore, Leiden, Paulus Moriaen, 1676.

1680–1681

Edmond Richer, Historia conciliorum generalium, in quatuor libros distributa, Cologne, 4 vol., Bernard Hetsingh, 1680–1681.

1683

Edmond Richer, Historia conciliorum generalium, in quatuor libros distributa, 3 vol., Cologne, Bernard Hetsingh, 1683. Edmond Richer, Libellus de ecclesiastica et politica potestate, nec non ejusdem libelli … demonstratio, Cologne, Bernard Hetsingh, 1683. Edmond Richer, Vindiciae doctrinae majorum scholae Parisiensis, seu Constans et perpetua scholae Parisiensis doctrina de authoritate et infaillibilitate Ecclesiae in rebus fidei et morum, contra defensores monarchiae universalis et absolutae curiae Romanae, … Accesserunt notae in censuram hungaricam quatuor propositionum cleri gallicani. Accessit etiam Summa eorum quae acta sunt Parisiis in disputationibus capituli generalis Dominicanorum, die 26. maii 1611, Cologne, Balthasar ab Egmond, 1683. Edmond Richer, Testamentum, Cologne, Balthasar ab Egmond, 1683.

1691

Edmond Richer, De potestate ecclesiae in rebus temporalibus libri IV. Numquam Antehac Editi, Cologne, Bernard Hestingh, 1691.

Printed sources

285

1693

[Edmond Richer], Obstetrix animorum, seu prudens docendi et discendi methodus, cum Clar. Virorum opusculis non dissimilis argumentis, & praefatione Adami Rechenbergi, Leipzig, Johannes Georg Lipper, 1693.

1701

Edmond Richer, Defensio libelli de Ecclesiastica et politica potestate, in quinque divisa libros, 2 vol., Cologne, Balthasar ab Egmond, 1701. Other emission: 2 vol., Paris, s.n., 1701.

1753

Edmond Richer, Histoire du syndicat d’Edmond Richer, Avignon, Alexandre Girard, 1753.

1755

Edmond Richer, Demonstratio libelli de Ecclesiastica et politica potestate…, Paris, s.n., 1755.

1763

Edmond Richer, Traité des appellations comme d’abus ; que c’est un remède conforme à la loy de Dieu, lequel a donné aux roys et princes chrétiens l’Église en protection et pareillement tous les subjects qui vivent en leurs esats, sans nul excepter, pour leur faire guarder la loy divine, naturelle et canonique, et en rendre compte à Dieu seul, et juger souverainement de toutes sortes de faits qui peuvent naître en l’Église, comme de chose appartenante à la discipline extérieure, 2 vol., s.l.n.d.

1911–1912

Edmond Richer, Histoire de la pucelle d’Orléans. Texte collationné et publié d’après le manuscrit de la Bibliothèque Nationale, Fonds français, cote 10448 par Philippe-Hector Dunand, 2 vol., Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1911–1912.

2014

Edmond Richer, De la puissance ecclésiastique et politique. Texte de la première édition latine (1611) et française (1612), introduit et annoté par Philippe Denis. Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 2014.

Other printed sources Arber, Edward (ed.), A Transcript of the Register of the Company of Stationers of London, 1554–1640, 3 vol., Londres, 1877–1894. Bellarmin, Robert, Disputationum … de controversiis Christianae fidei adversus huius temporis haereticos tomus primus, Lyon, Jean Pillehotte, 1609.

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Index of Names and Places

Acquaviva, Claudio 119 Aguesseau, Henri-François d’ 178 Ailly, Pierre d’ 16, 41, 44 seq., 55, 58, 113, 163, 178, 191, 193, 195, 207, 214, 225, 232, 244, 251, 268, 275, 277 Aire 109 Aix-en-Provence 106, 157 Albert the Great 207 Almain, Jacques 16 seq., 41 seq., 44 seq., 55, 58, 63, 69, 71, 74, 113, 133, 136, 141, 152, 163, 169, 178, 182, 184, 191, 193, 195, 198–201, 203 seq., 210 seq., 213 seq., 218, 223–226, 229, 232–235, 237 seq., 240 seq., 243–245, 247, 251, 257 seq., 266, 271, 275–278 Andrewes, Lancelot 85, 94, 97 Angeli, Jean 142 Angers 24, 54, 145 seq., 249 Anne of Austria 101 Antwerp 143, 148, 204 Aquitaine 131 Aristotle 58 seq., 113, 122, 141, 202, 207, 209, 211, 221, 228 seq., 231, 233, 236, 242, 262 seq., 266, 268 seq. Arminius, Jacobus 87, 93 seq., 96, 235 Arnauld, Antoine 132, 169 Augustine 218, 240 seq. Avignon 12, 21, 166, 181 Avranches 237 Baillet, Adrien 11, 21–25, 34–36, 46 seq., 52, 106, 119, 130, 149, 151, 157, 159, 163, 174, 179, 184 Balthazar, Christophe 100, 119

Barberini, Maffeo 52, 57 seq. Barclay, John 89, 107, 160 Barclay, William 45, 68, 89, 107, 205, 212– 214, 236, 252, 258, 271 Barny, Pierre 34 Baronius, Caesar 52, 79, 116, 218 Barruel, Augustin 11, 183 Basel 41, 43, 45 seq., 49, 87, 122, 191, 194, 197, 199 seq. Basnage, Jacques 165 seq., 177 Basson, Thomas 96 Beauvais 106, 110 Becanus, Martin 115, 127 seq. Bellarmine, Robert 9, 16, 27–31, 33, 41, 45, 49, 51–53, 56 seq., 59, 66, 68 seq., 75, 78 seq., 85–87, 89–91, 94, 99, 104, 111, 114, 127, 131, 138, 141, 150, 175, 190– 192, 194, 198, 201–205, 210 seq., 213 seq., 218, 220 seq., 252, 257 seq., 262, 270 seq., 276 Bellièvre, Nicolas de 103, 105 Belloy, Pierre de 204, 213 seq. Benedict XIII 196 Benoist, René 24, 111 Bentivoglio, Guido 134, 137 seq., 140, 161 Bérenger, Olivier 111 Bern 110 Bernard of Clairvaux 30, 50, 63, 218 Bertin, Claude 73–75, 128 Bérulle, Pierre de 34, 128 seq. Beza, Theodore 124, 204, 211 Billius, Johannes 135 Blackwell, George 85–87, 212

304 Blancvillain, Heureux 23, 79–81, 134, 140 seq., 189, 227 Blois 32, 53, 111 Blondel, David 174 Bockstad, Johann 83 Bodin, Jean 18, 45, 192, 211–213, 228, 265– 271, 277 Boileau, Nicolas 173 seq. Bologne 198, 239 Boncourt 25 Boniface VIII 59, 150, 190, 192, 202, 254 Bonnaud, Jacques-Julien 164, 167, 183 seq. Bonsi, Jean de 106, 141 Borghese, Scipione 70–72, 78, 100, 102– 105, 108, 124, 127, 137 seq. Boucher, Jean 28, 30, 33, 35, 110, 115 seq., 120 seq., 125, 211, 258, 261, 269 Bougival 23 Bouju de Beaulieu, Théophraste 116, 121– 123 Bourbon, Charles de 111, 121 Bourbon-Condé, Henri II de 64, 104 Bourdin, Bernard 49, 86 seq., 192, 204, 207 Bourges 140, 150, 197 Bouthilier, Claude 109 Bouthilier, Sébastien 109 Bouvard 23 Bouwsma, William 16, 49, 52, 83, 191 Bozzio, Francisco 202, 218 Breyer, Nicolas 164 seq., 167 Bronckart, Jean-François 167 Brûlart de Sillery, Nicolas 52, 75, 77, 90, 103, 144 Brussels 116, 135, 142, 167 Buchanan, George 46, 85 Caen 80–82, 123, 150 Caetani, Enrico 28 Cajetan, Thomas 16, 41, 71, 74 seq., 152, 192, 194, 198 seq., 203, 218, 224, 232, 234 Calvin, John 14, 33, 39, 92, 117–119, 124, 160, 171, 180, 222, 235, 262, 278 Canaye, Philippe de 43, 52 Cano, Melchior 74 Capmartin de Chaupy, Bertrand 179 seq.

Index of Names and Places

Cardinal Lemoine College 23, 25, 35 seq., 39, 47, 57, 62, 108, 110, 127, 130, 139, 156, 159, 161 seq., 165 Carreri Alessandro 202, 218 Casaubon, Isaac 26, 30 seq., 50, 53–56, 84, 87, 91, 93–97, 104, 111, 113, 118, 141, 219 seq. Cellaia, Jean de 113 Ceneau, Robert 113, 237 Chaource 22 seq. Charenton 81 Charlas, Antoine 170 seq. Charles III of Lorraine 45 Charles VI 200, 209 Charles VII 112, 142, 152, 154, 197 Chartres 27 seq., 148, 167 seq. Chastel, Jean 33 Chesley 22 seq. Chesnard, Guillaume 35 Chevillot, Pierre 80, 82, 123 Childeric 257 Church Fathers 30, 34, 47, 87, 112, 124, 141, 174, 217 seq., 249 Church of Rome 88, 168 Ciminnita, Pietro 181 seq. Civil Constitution of the Clergy 12, 183 seq., 243 Clement, Jacques 31, 175 Clement VII 193 Clement VIII 76, 85 seq., 112 Coëffeteau, Nicolas 72–74 College of Arras 136 College of Bourgogne 25 College of Clermont 34, 68 seq., 99 seq., 119, 168 College of Lisieux 39 Cologne 24, 44, 57, 72, 79, 90, 111, 123, 132–135, 138, 141, 151 seq., 159 seq., 162, 166 seq., 171, 174, 179, 191, 202, 244, 248, 273 Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania 263, 276 Compagnie de la Grand’Navire 41, 46 seq., 55, 153 Concordat of Bologne 63, 114, 199 seq., 225 seq., 251

Index of Names and Places

Congar, Yves 15, 115, 138, 182, 190 seq., 193, 202, 222 seq., 225, 230, 233, 238 seq., 241, 254 Conseil de Régence 69, 75, 104, 106, 108 seq., 116, 156, 277 Conseil du Roi 145 seq., 156 Conseil Privé 36 Constance 41, 43, 45 seq., 49, 67, 74, 87, 191, 193–195, 199 seq., 211, 215, 222, 244 Constantine 257 Coqueau, Léonard 78, 218 Coquille, Guy 43 seq., 256, 266, 279 Coton, Pierre 66–70, 89 Council of Basel 122, 197, 199 seq., 247, 274 Council of Constance 9, 13, 41, 45, 65–67, 70 seq., 73 seq., 78, 122, 142, 170, 194, 197 seq., 200, 209, 237 seq., 240, 246, 274 Council of Lateran IV 257 Council of Lateran V 198 Council of Sardique 181 Council of Siena 197 Council of Trent 10, 33, 42 seq., 45, 54, 59, 61 seq., 75, 95, 148, 249, 251, 279 Council of Vatican I 273 Council of Vatican II 273 Court of Rome 92, 136, 139 Courtney Murray, John 205 Critton, Georges 23, 39 Curet 160 Cusa, Nicholas of 16, 218, 226, 234, 241, 251, 277 De Dominis, Marco Antonio 133–138, 178, 264 seq. Descimon, Robert 27, 33 Dominicans 15, 27, 31, 71–73, 75 seq., 78, 83, 99, 107, 111 seq., 115, 121, 128, 143, 167, 192, 194, 198, 208, 246, 254 Domrémy 152 seq. Dona, Leonardo 53 Dordrecht 83, 177 Du Moulin, Pierre 116, 121, 123 seq. Du Pin, Louis Ellies 11, 21, 48, 115, 127, 166 seq., 173, 178 seq., 184, 195, 203 seq., 224–226, 241, 268

305 Du Puy, Baptiste 47 Du Puy, Jacques 47, 212 Dubois de Brigode, Arnout-Joseph 164 Duc, Fronton du 119, 169 Duguet, Jacques-Joseph 174 Duplessis-Mornay, Philippe 79, 81, 107, 111, 119, 121, 278 Dupuy, Pierre 152, 168, 170, 177 Durand, Claude 50, 81, 115–117, 122, 213 Duval, André 11, 17, 29 seq., 34 seq., 52, 57–59, 62 seq., 70, 78, 80, 102, 105–107, 110, 113–117, 121–123, 125, 128 seq., 135–137, 139–141, 144, 151, 156–161, 163, 168, 184, 189 seq., 200, 203, 217, 219–232, 235–238, 241–243, 247–249, 251, 253–255, 257 seq., 260–262, 265, 269, 273–276 Edelinck, Gérard 164 Edict of Nantes 78 Edmondes, Thomas 68, 90 Egmond, Balthasar ab 138, 152, 162, 167, 191, 244 Elizabeth I 48 England 45 seq., 69, 82, 84–95, 97, 113, 115, 118, 134, 191, 194, 214, 270 Episcopus, Simon 134 Erasmus of Rotterdam 37, 94 Escoubleau de Sourdis, François de 106 Estampes, Léonor d’ 148 seq., 167 Estates General 27, 32, 119, 130–132, 145, 149, 182, 209, 211, 267 Eugene IV 197 Evrard, Philippe 164 Evreux 111, 123 Fabri de Peiresc, Nicolas-Claude 89 Faure, Giovanni-Batista 11, 182 Fawkes, Guy 48 Faye d’Espesse, Jacques 32 Feller, François-Xavier de 11, 168 Felletin 116 Fénelon, François de 178, 221 Filesac, Jean de 80, 101–103, 108, 128 seq., 136, 167 Fontainebleau 87, 111

306 Forgemont, Joachim 70, 103, 115 seq., 123 seq., 137 Fortin, Nicolas 70 Fourment, Antoine 156 Foxe, John 46 François I 79, 199, 256 Frankfurt 37, 45, 55, 83 seq., 119, 135, 148 Frémiot, André 106 French Revolution 11, 15, 33, 163, 171– 173, 178, 180 seq., 183 seq., 222, 243, 277 seq. Froger, Georges 107, 115, 128, 135, 139, 157, 228 Galamina, Agostino 73 Gamache, Philippe de 78, 155 Gauthier, Jacques 120, 221 Gazil, Raoul de 70 Génébrard, Gilbert 113 German Empire 263 seq., 276 Germany 37, 82, 107, 147, 235 Gerson, Jean 9–11, 13, 15–17, 41–58, 63, 65–67, 69, 71, 86, 92, 113, 115, 125, 132, 136, 141–143, 153, 163, 167, 169, 171 seq., 174 seq., 178 seq., 182, 184, 189, 191, 193–198, 200 seq., 203 seq., 207–209, 211, 213 seq., 218 seq., 221–226, 229, 232–235, 237 seq., 240 seq., 243–245, 247–251, 255–258, 262, 265–269, 275 seq., 278 seq. Giles of Rome 191 Gillot, Jacques 45, 50, 92, 271 Gimont d’Esclavolles, Paul de 120 Goldast, Melchior 83 Gomarus, Franciscus 96 Gonzague, Ferdinand 117 Gorel, Jean 142 Granada 249 Grand Conseil 122 Grandin, Martin 161 seq. Gratian 16, 191 seq., 218, 239–241, 243, 246 seq., 253 seq. Great Schism 15 seq., 51, 191, 241, 254 Gregory the Great 171 Gregory XIV 29

Index of Names and Places

Grisons 147 Groslot, Jerôme 82 seq. Grotius 93–97, 174, 191, 222 Guarande, Pierre 145 Guerrero, Pedro 249 Guise, Henri de 27 Hanau 84, 235 Hardivilliers, Pierre 99 Harlay, Achille de 64, 77 Harlay, François de 91, 107, 130 Hébert, Roland 61, 139 seq. Hénault 22 Henry II of Bourbon-Condé 64, 104 Henry IV 10, 29, 32–35, 38, 43–45, 50, 52, 54, 57, 61, 64, 66–69, 73, 76, 81, 87, 89–91, 94, 101, 104, 111–113, 147, 201, 205–207, 251, 256, 258, 271, 275 seq. Henry of Navarre 27–29, 204 Hérouval, Paul-Antoine d’ 48 Hincmar of Reims 133 Holy Office 114 Hooker, Richard 46, 84 Hotman, François 44, 204, 211 Hurault de l’Hospital, Paul 106 Hus, John 183, 194 Ignatius of Loyola 11, 57, 81 Innocent III 202 Innocent X 169 Interdict of Venice 48 seq., 71, 97, 206, 255 International Theological Commission 273 Irenaeus of Lyon 173 Jacobsz, Hillebrant 95 seq. James I of England 46, 48 seq., 68, 78, 82, 85–94, 96 seq., 113, 131, 192, 205, 207, 214 seq., 252, 265, 276, 278 James VI 45 seq., 54, 85, 215 James VI of Scotland 214 Jansenius 143 seq., 169, 171, 174, 176 Jesuits 11, 13, 22, 27, 34–36, 38–40, 47 seq., 52, 57, 63–70, 77 seq., 80–82, 84–86, 95, 99–102, 108, 112 seq., 115–117, 119, 123,

Index of Names and Places

127 seq., 132, 143, 148–151, 156, 160, 165 seq., 168 seq., 173, 176, 178–180, 182 seq., 210, 220, 256, 262, 276, 279 Joan of Arc 112, 152–154, 165 John of Paris 41, 44, 55, 183, 191–193, 202, 207 seq., 218, 221, 254, 257, 266, 275–277 Johnson, Richard 84 Julius II 71, 198 seq., 203 Jurieu, Pierre 178 Kopff, Petrus

83

La Borde, Vivien de 177 seq. La Fontaine, Jacques 11 La Guesle, Jacques de 44 La Martelière, Pierre de 99, 102 La Rochefoucault, François de 149 La Tour d’Auvergne, Henri de 91 Lafitau, Pierre-François 11, 180 Lallemant, Jacques-Philippe 178 Languet de Gergy, Jean-Joseph 178 Laon 271 Laromiguière-Lafon, E.-J. 12 Launoy, Jean de 164, 168 Le Bret, Cardin 72, 73 Le Fau, Jean 123 Le Gros, Nicolas 172, 177 seq. Le Noble, Eustache 174 seq., 179 Le Prestre, Claude 132 Le Tellier, Michel 11, 176 seq., 179 League 9 seq., 12, 16, 24, 27–29, 31–33, 43 seq., 81, 92, 111 seq., 120 seq., 184, 200, 204, 207, 213 seq., 251, 258, 271, 275 seq. Lefèvre, Nicolas 58 Leiden 16, 25, 30, 42, 46, 50, 52, 56 seq., 65, 96 seq., 166, 191, 195, 200, 212, 222, 235, 241, 244, 248, 262, 266, 277 Lemos, Tomàs de 167 Leon X 199 seq. Leschassier, Jacques 53 seq., 82 seq., 245 L’Estoile, Pierre de 89–91 Lichfield 85 Liège 11, 21, 167, 171 Lisieux 39 Loches 130

307 Loiseau de Tourval, Jean 89–91, 97 Lombard, Pierre 26 Loménie, Henri-Auguste 145 London 15, 17, 32 seq., 44, 48, 56, 62, 84– 87, 89 seq., 93 seq., 96, 111, 134 seq., 190, 214, 252, 273, 276, 278 Lorraine, Henry of 45, 86, 118, 200, 213, 250 Louis IX 133, 146 Louis XII 71, 198, 203, 225, 256 Louis XIII 58, 64, 79, 91, 112, 116 seq., 119, 130, 140 seq., 144, 156, 168, 265 Louis XIV 165, 171, 176–178 Luther, Martin 39, 86, 92, 119, 160, 180, 183, 200, 232, 235, 253 seq., 278 seq. Lyon 67, 145, 153, 157, 304 Lys, Charles de 132 Major, John 16, 42, 45 seq., 55, 58, 71, 85, 113, 136, 178, 191, 193, 199 seq., 210, 214, 218, 241, 243, 271, 275 Mangeant, Jacques 80–82 Manutius, Aldus 267 Marca, Pierre de 170, 182 Mariana, Juan 56, 66–68, 70, 89 Marseille 72 Marsilio, Giovanni 52 Martin V 74, 194, 197, 237 seq. Mary Tudor 46, 138 Mauclerc, Michel 26, 29, 157 Maultrot, Gabriel-Nicolas 12, 183–185, 190 Mayer, Thomas 16, 46, 191 Meaux 109 Medici, Marie de’ 10, 54, 64, 68 seq., 76, 79, 104, 107 seq., 112, 117, 130, 256, 276 Merz, Aloysius 11, 182 Micanzio, Fulgenzio 50 Miron, Charles 145 seq. Montholon, François de 137 Montpellier 144 Morange, Edmond 22 More, Thomas 10 seq., 46, 104, 143, 171 Morelles, Cosme 72, 74 seq. Morisot, Claude-Barthélémy 130, 160 seq. Moses 208

308 Mouchy, Antoine de 218 Muret, Marc-Antoine 267 Nantes 24 Nassau, Maurice of 94 Netherlands 82, 91, 93 seq., 97, 120, 181, 278 Nivelle, Sébastien 28, 47, 124 Nogaret, Jean-Louis 129 Norton, John 87, 90 Oakley, Francis 14, 16, 41 seq., 45 seq., 50 seq., 55 seq., 58, 71, 87, 152, 172 seq., 178, 180, 190–195, 198 seq., 203 seq., 210 seq., 215, 222, 243 seq., 274, 277 Ockham, William of 55, 199, 202, 224–226, 233, 237, 241 Oldenbarnevelt, Johan van 94 Optatus of Milevis 218 Oratory 34, 127–129, 202 Orleans 65, 106, 110, 146, 148, 152–154 Overall, John 85, 94, 97 Padua, Marsilius of 102, 202, 233, 235 Panvinio, Onofrio 218 Paris 9–12, 14–16, 18, 21–30, 32–40, 42–48, 50–55, 57, 61–73, 75, 78–85, 87–91, 93, 97–101, 103–107, 109–111, 113, 115–124, 127–132, 134 seq., 137 seq., 140–153, 157, 159–161, 163–173, 176–184, 189– 191, 194 seq., 198, 200 seq., 203 seq., 207, 209–215, 218–222, 227, 237, 239, 244, 246 seq., 249 seq., 254 seq., 259, 262, 265, 267–271, 278 seq. – School of Paris 10–12, 15, 17, 32, 41, 44–47, 53, 57, 59, 62, 65, 71 seq., 74, 78, 80, 102, 113, 115, 121, 125, 136, 139, 144, 159, 161, 163, 171, 174, 181, 185, 189– 191, 194, 207, 210, 214, 217, 221, 232, 237, 244, 251, 256, 258, 265 seq., 271, 275–278 – University of Paris 9, 11, 17, 25, 28, 34, 38, 41 seq., 46–48, 50 seq., 55, 61, 67, 72, 74, 86, 100 seq., 104, 109, 132, 142, 144, 150, 153 seq., 164 seq., 172, 175, 181, 191, 193, 198, 200, 205–207, 222, 232, 234, 241, 251, 254, 271, 275, 278 seq.

Index of Names and Places

Parsons, Robert 16 seq., 33, 43 seq., 48, 50, 54, 61, 71, 76, 108, 115, 128, 131 seq., 145 seq., 148, 191, 195, 201 Pasquier, Estienne 24, 44, 62 Patin, Guy 156 Paul V 9, 49, 52 seq., 55, 86, 107, 128 Paul VI 239, 273 Pelletier, Thomas 116–118, 122, 261 Périon, Joachim 229 Perron, Jacques Davy du 10, 26, 30 seq., 33, 44 seq., 52, 55, 59, 72, 74–76, 87, 91 seq., 100–106, 109–113, 116–118, 121, 123, 125, 128, 131–133, 140 seq., 145, 154, 183, 189, 219 seq., 248, 257 seq., 261, 264 seq., 270 seq., 275 seq. Pétau, Denis 11, 55, 169, 174 Petit, Jean 47, 65–67 Philip the Fair 190–192, 208 Pighius, Albert 46, 190 Pisa 41, 45 seq., 49, 87, 191, 194, 198 seq. Pistoia 15, 181 seq. Pithou, François 82 Pithou, Pierre 44, 58, 62, 82, 119, 170, 177, 201, 206, 256, 266, 277, 279 Pius VI 15, 182 Plato 59, 268 Plutarch 37 Polish-Lithuanian Union 263 Politiques 12, 32 seq., 39, 43, 69, 111, 127, 213 seq., 245, 258, 271, 275 Poland 263, 264, 270, 276 Polybius 208 Pont-à-Mousson 45, 68, 86, 89, 213 seq., 270 seq. Pontoise 180 Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges 63, 197, 199 seq., 247 Préclin, Edmond 14, 16 seq., 21–23, 26, 36–40, 47, 56, 68, 75, 109, 132, 138, 152 seq., 163, 165, 169, 171–177, 180 seq., 184, 250 Priuli, Pietro 53–56, 58, 97 Pseudo-Dionysius 195, 244 Puyol, Pierre-Edmond 12–14, 16, 21–23, 25 seq., 30 seq., 33, 35–37, 40, 50, 56, 106 seq., 109, 119, 124, 128–130, 132–

Index of Names and Places

134, 138, 142, 146, 149, 151 seq., 157, 159, 163, 165, 168 seq., 172, 177, 190, 250, 265, 269, 274 Quesnel, Pasquier Quintilian 37

164, 172, 175–178

Ramus, Pierre 38 Rapin, René 11, 168 Ravaillac, François 64 seq. Raymond, Florimond de 182 Ribier, Guillaume 53, 206 Ricci, Scipione de 181 seq. Richelieu, Alphonse de 157 Richelieu, Armand-Jean du Plessis of 22– 25, 32 seq., 35, 38, 65, 72, 92, 106, 144, 147–150, 156–158, 160 seq., 167 seq., 184, 212, 276 seq. Richeome, Louis 123 Richer, Jean 9–19, 21–27, 29–42, 44–48, 50, 52–59, 61–97, 99–110, 112–125, 127–185, 187, 189–195, 197–199, 201–203, 206– 208, 212, 214 seq., 217–271, 273–281 Rodrigues, Manuel 143 seq. Roguenant, Nicolas 107 Rome 9 seq., 15, 27 seq., 42, 49, 51 seq., 59, 65, 68, 70, 74, 80, 88, 95, 100, 102, 104, 107–109, 123, 128–131, 134 seq., 148, 150, 160 seq., 167, 170 seq., 174, 176, 178 seq., 181 seq., 191, 193, 197, 200, 202, 249 seq., 253 seq., 261, 278 seq. Rose, Antoine 66, 67, 245 Rose, Étienne 25 Rose, Guillaume 25 Rosenbach, Guibert of 72, 74, 128 Rouen 107, 152, 166 Saint-Amour, Louis-Gorin de 169 seq., 176 Saint-Cyran, Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, abbot of 169, 171, 176 Saint-Germain-des-Prés 165 Saint-Jacques’ priory 72, 75 Saint-Malo 116 Saint-Victor 75, 107, 130 Sainte-Beuve, Jacques de 169, 176

309 Sanders, Thomas 218 Santarelli, Antonio 150 seq., 155–157 Sardique 182 Sarpi, Paolo 9, 38, 41, 43, 45, 49–53, 55, 57, 82 seq., 87, 94, 102, 252, 255, 271 Sarrazin, Jean 78 seq., 81, 112, 141, 154, 246 seq. Saulmon, Jean 129 Savary de Brèves, François 104, 107 seq. Scaliger, Joseph Justus 55, 89, 174 Scappi, Alessandro 103, 123 Séguier, Pierre 34 seq., 66, 102 Selden, John 84 Senlis 25, 54, 245 Sens 10, 30, 91, 104, 106, 109–111, 124, 158, 173, 220, 256 Servin, Louis 38, 53 seq., 65, 69, 72, 77, 92, 100, 103, 111, 117, 123, 266 Siena 197 Sigismond 193 Sirmond, Jacques 11, 110, 116, 119 seq., 173, 218 Sixtus V 28 Sonnius, Michel 44, 47 Sourdet, Pierre 123 Spain 34, 91 Spalato 134, 264 St. Germain, Christopher 45 Stansby, William 84, 90 Steuco, Agostino 218 Stuart, Henry 85, 87 Sutcliffe, Thomas 46 Sweden 147 Synod of Dordrecht 93 Talon, Charles 83, 92 seq., 157 seq. Ternois, Charles 159 Tertullian 37 seq. The Hague 66, 95 seq., 156 Thévet, André 43 Thomas Aquinas 133, 141, 160, 197, 202 seq., 207–210, 220, 226, 229 seq., 239, 261 seq., 266, 276 Thou, Jacques-Auguste de 32, 38, 44, 50, 66, 78, 83, 91 seq. Thuillier, Charles 146, 165

310 Torquemada, Tomàs de 194, 218, 262 Torti, Matteo 52, 90 Tostato, Alonso 218 Toulouse 45, 78, 86, 150, 167, 204, 213 Tournai 110, 120, 142 Tours 106, 110 Trent 42, 45, 53, 61, 75, 85, 191, 200, 230, 233, 237, 249–251, 274 Troyes 22, 80, 82, 123, 164 Turquet de Mayerne, Louis 118 Ubaldini, Roberto 70–72, 78, 100–105, 108, 124, 127, 135, 189 Urban VI 193 Uytenbogaert, Johannes 93 seq. Valence 150 Valois, Marguerite de 76 Valteline 147 seq. Van Espen, Zeger 182 Vatican I 273 Vatican II 273 Veith, Lorenz 11, 160, 182

Index of Names and Places

Venice 9, 17, 41, 45, 49–56, 58, 82 seq., 92, 94, 102, 117, 134, 191, 205, 217, 236, 248, 252, 259, 262 Verdun, Nicolas de 75, 77 seq., 99, 104 seq., 108 Viaixnes, Thierry de 164–167 Vigor, Simon 16, 107, 114, 116, 121–123, 141, 164 Villeroy, Nicolas IV de Neuville de 75, 77 Vincennes 164 Vitoria, Francisco de 74, 203 Vorstius, Conrad 235 Wimpfeling, Jacob 41, 47 seq., 153, 203 Winchester 85 Wittenberg 232 Wycliffe, John 194, 238 Ysambert, Nicolas Zaberella, Francesco Zosimus 171

137, 167 241

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

Index of Subjects

abuse of power 62, 183, 199, 254, 256, 279 appel comme d’abus 80, 105 seq., 108, 145– 147, 249, 253, 255 seq. aristocracy 9, 58, 65, 68, 80, 117 seq., 122, 125, 131, 179, 207–210, 228, 259, 261 seq., 265, 268 Arminianism 85, 93, 97, 278 billets de confession 180 bons Français 10, 39, 82 Calvinism 33, 93, 96, 117 seq., 124, 183 seq. catholiques dévots 18, 39 catholiques zélés 10, 18, 27, 32, 47, 135, 140 Christendom 16, 45 seq., 54, 83, 85, 89, 93– 96, 134, 190, 193, 200, 202, 206, 215, 254, 280 collation of benefices 225, 235 collegiality 273 common good 207 seq., 210, 234, 259, 276 concord 94 seq. consent 61, 68, 88, 114, 177 seq., 225–227, 233 seq., 239–242, 246, 251, 260–265, 276 constitutionalism 16, 58, 172, 179, 182 seq., 191, 209, 211, 222, 274, 277 constitutional monarchy 179, 197, 263 democracy 118, 180, 208, 210, 262, 268 direct power of popes 202 divine law 147, 211, 213 seq., 218, 259 seq. donation of Constantine 257

ecclesiastical hierarchy 106, 169, 196, 237, 250 episcopal elections 114, 225 seq., 240, 255, 260 episcopalism 13 seq., 172, 250 erudite Gallicans 119, 266 essential head 122, 175, 231 seq., 235 seq., 253, 275 excommunication 9, 29, 43, 50, 113, 146 seq., 224, 234 seq., 246 seq., 253 Gallicanism 9, 11–18, 21–23, 30–35, 38–40, 42–45, 47 seq., 50 seq., 53–55, 57 seq., 61–65, 69–71, 76 seq., 82 seq., 85 seq., 92 seq., 95, 97, 99–101, 104, 106 seq., 109–112, 114, 117, 119–121, 123 seq., 128, 130, 133, 135, 137 seq., 140, 142–144, 146–150, 152 seq., 157–164, 166–180, 182 seq., 190–194, 198, 200–204, 206, 211, 213–215, 224 seq., 239, 245, 247, 252, 254–256, 259, 264, 266–268, 271, 275, 277–280 Gallican liberties 27, 31–33, 170 Gomarism 87 heresy 33, 68, 74, 91, 104 seq., 114, 124, 138 seq., 142, 144 seq., 152, 166, 169, 184, 189, 192, 194, 199 seq., 228, 232, 234, 236 seq. hierarchical order 142, 152, 172, 222 seq., 226, 244 seq., 248, 275 Indirect power of popes 133, 150, 204, 252, 257 seq., 264, 275 seq.

312 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

infallibility 59, 75, 84 seq., 115, 170, 175, 179, 219, 233 Jansenism 11 seq., 142, 160, 163–165, 167, 169, 171–177, 179–184, 275 law of nations 210 seq. liberties of the Gallican Church 10, 18, 33, 54, 64, 73, 91, 100 seq., 104 seq., 110, 147, 170 seq., 177, 197, 200, 205, 255 seq., 277 libertins spirituels 156 Lutheranism 79, 81, 118, 124, 141, 221, 246, 254 ministerial head 175, 231 seq., 235 seq., 240, 257, 275 mixed government 192, 197, 207–213, 228, 231, 268, 270, 278 monarchomachs 204, 214, 258, 261, 265 monarchy of divine right 131, 133 natural law 133, 204, 209–211, 213, 225, 257, 259–262, 270 oath of allegiance 46, 48 seq., 68, 84–91, 115, 131, 205, 214 parochialism 14, 172 seq. parti dévot 65, 78, 102, 128 seq., 147 passive election 152, 226 plenitude of power 196, 233, 273 pontifical primacy 84, 96, 109, 112 pontifical supremacy 18, 64, 79, 83, 92, 99, 115, 123, 131, 193 seq., 200, 218, 234, 258 popular origin of power 204, 206 seq., 209, 211–214, 262, 264 seq., 277 power of jurisdiction 78 seq., 114, 122, 142, 152, 169, 172, 177, 183, 195 seq., 210, 221–226, 234, 244, 247, 273 power of order 195

Index of Subjects

power of the keys 9, 58, 70, 102, 113, 115, 136, 173, 176, 219, 223, 255 Presbyterianism 14, 142, 173 Puritanism 87, 94 reception 10, 42, 44, 93, 114 seq., 152, 167, 179, 200, 212, 238–243, 251, 266 seq., 271, 274, 277 regalism 14 regicide 27, 31, 35, 67, 70, 89, 110, 112, 120, 133, 183 seq., 258 Richerism 12, 14, 163, 170–173, 176, 179, 181–185, 189, 243, 249, 275, 278, 280 schism 41, 57, 74, 76, 99, 101, 104, 112, 117, 120, 130, 136, 189, 193 seq., 240 second order 142, 166, 171–173, 175, 183, 185, 194, 244, 249 secret of confession 100 sovereignty 51, 87, 92, 94, 122, 124, 211, 212, 213, 235, 263, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 278 state Catholicism 65, 148 superiority of the Council over the pope 45, 57, 71, 122, 136, 152, 170, 197, 200, 214 seq., 256 timocracy 208 seq., 268 translatio 18, 38, 53, 55, 71, 81, 84 seq., 88– 92, 95–97, 116, 153, 160, 198, 205–207, 212, 226, 260, 278 tyrannicide 28, 31 seq., 64 seq., 67 seq., 206 seq. tyranny 67, 94 seq., 133, 208, 236, 248, 259, 262 Ultramontanism via media

17, 61, 191

85 seq., 94, 278