The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France

Humanism

Scholasticism and mysticism were only two components of Parisian thought at the close of the Middle Ages. The third was humanism. Parisian teachers of the fourteenth century were not ignorant of classical antiquity, but it was only gradually that Italian humanism penetrated the University of Paris. An early sign was the appointment of Gregorio di Città di Castello, also known as Tifernate, to a chair of Greek. Around 1470, Guillaume Fichet, who visited Italy several times, was the central figure of a group professing a love of ancient Rome. Its members keenly felt the need for accurate texts of the Latin classics, especially the works of Cicero, Virgil and Sallust. In 1470 the first Parisian press was set up in the cellars of the Sorbonne. It was entrusted to two young Germans, Ulrich Gering and Michael Friburger, who within three years printed several humanistic texts, including Fichet’s Rhetoric. Fichet’s aim was to introduce to Paris not simply the eloquence of humanism but also its philosophy. He and his followers combined a respect for the two traditions of Aquinas and Scotus with a love of Latin letters and an interest in Platonic ideas.

Among Fichet’s heirs in Paris the most important was Robert Gaguin (b. 1433), general of the the Trinitarian order. Around him gathered a small number of scholars sharing an interest in ancient letters. They discussed literary and ethical questions and, when writing to each other, tried to recapture the charm of Cicero’s letters. Yet they never allowed their enthusiasm for ancient letters to undermine their adherence to Christian dogma. Many were churchmen who retained a strict, almost monastic, ideal. They were helped in their labours by a number of Italian humanists. In 1476, Filippo Beroaldo, a young scholar from Bologna, came to Paris where he remained for two years, lecturing on Lucan. Paolo Emilio, who came to Paris in 1483, was patronized by Cardinal Charles de Bourbon, received at court and did a little teaching at the university. He was followed in 1484 by Girolamo Balbi, who soon became famous for his teaching, his Latin epigrams and his edition of Seneca’s tragedies. A vain and quarrelsome man, he became involved in a bitter dispute with Fausto Andrelini, another Italian who came to Paris. When Balbi took flight in January 1491 after being charged with sodomy, Andrelini celebrated his triumph in an elegy.

The early Parisian humanists also developed an interest in ancient philosophy, but, as they did not know enough Greek to read the original works of Plato and Aristotle, they had to obtain good Latin translations from Italy. A few were also published in Paris. These developments, however, were only first steps. Parisian teachers and students also needed to become acquainted with the philosophical speculations of the leading Italian humanists. One of them, Pico della Mirandola, visited Paris between July 1485 and March 1486. His major goal was to reconcile and harmonize Platonism and Aristotelianism. He was well acquainted with the traditions of medieval Aristotelianism, and also with the sources of Jewish and Arabic thought.

Parisian teachers and students needed to know Greek before they could become seriously acquainted with the ancient philosophers. In 1476, Greek studies received a boost when George Hermonymos, a Spartan, settled in Paris. For more than thirty years he lived by copying Greek manuscripts and teaching the language. His pupils included Erasmus, Beatus Rhenanus and Budé, who all complained of his mediocre teaching and avarice. In 1495, Charles VIII brought back from Italy an excellent Hellenist in the person of Janus Lascaris (c. 1445–1535) who taught Greek to a number of humanists, Budé being among his pupils. Lascaris also began organizing the royal library at Blois. After about 1504 excellent teachers of Greek were available in Paris. The first Greek printing there was in 1494, but until 1507 it consisted only of passages in a few works. The most significant were in Badius’s edition of Valla’s Annotationes in Novum Testamentum (1505). Greek typography began in 1507 with François Tissard’s edition of the Liber Gnomagyricus (published by Gilles de Gourmont). He stressed the necessity of Greek to men of learning and urged Frenchmen to combat Italian charges of barbarism. In May 1508, Girolamo Aleandro arrived in Paris recommended by Erasmus and began giving private lessons in Greek to people rich enough to afford the expensive books produced by the Aldine press. In 1509 he went public, and published three small works by Plutarch. His intention, as he grandly announced, was to edit all the works of Greek authors.

Despite the humanists, scholasticism remained firmly entrenched at the University of Paris in the early sixteenth century. Outstanding among the new generation of teachers was the Scottish theologian John Mair or Major (c. 1470–1550), who taught at the collège de Montaigu. He resented the charge of barbarousness levelled at the schoolmen by humanists, yet his works exemplified some of the worst traits of scholasticism, notably the endless chewing over of insignificant problems. Statutes drawn up for Montaigu by Noël Béda in February 1509 did not forbid humanistic texts, but they provided for the teaching of only Latin, not Greek. No attempt was made to develop an enthusiasm for the ancient world among the students.

In the autumn of 1495, Gaguin acquired a new disciple: Erasmus of Rotterdam. He first came to Paris in 1493 to study theology and entered the collège de Montaigu, where Standonck’s regime instilled in him a deep and lasting aversion to abstinence and austerity. His Colloquies contain a grim description of life at Montaigu: bad sanitation, poor and inadequate food, and infected water undermined the health of the students, some becoming blind, mad or leprous within a year. Many promising young minds were, according to Erasmus, blighted by such terrible privations. During his stay at Montaigu, Erasmus attended lectures on the Bible and the Book of Sentences, gave some lessons on Scripture, and preached a few sermons, perhaps in the abbey of Sainte-Geneviève. But he derived no satisfaction, intellectual or spiritual, from the teaching of the schoolmen. ‘They exhaust the mind’, he wrote, ‘by a certain jejune and barren subtlety, without fertilizing or inspiring it. By their stammering and by the stains of their impure style they disfigure theology which had been enriched and adorned by the eloquence of the ancients.’

The schoolmen, however, were not entirely to blame for Erasmus’s attitude: his mind was not well suited to philosophical or dogmatic speculation. For the present, he was interested in ancient letters, not in philosophy or theology. He attached himself to the circle of Gaguin whose Latin history of France, De Origine et gestis Francorum Compendium, was in the press. It was the first specimen of humanistic historiography to appear in France. The printer had finished his work on 30 September 1495, but two leaves remained blank. Erasmus helped to fill the gap by providing a long commendatory letter, his earliest publication.

By the spring of 1496, Erasmus had had enough of the rigours of Montaigu. He fell ill and returned to the Low Countries, but in the autumn he reappeared in Paris. This time, however, he gave the collège de Montaigu a wide berth and earned his living by teaching rich young men. Among them was William Blount, Lord Mountjoy, who took him to England in the summer of 1499. At Oxford, Erasmus met John Colet, under whose influence he broke with the theological systems of the Middle Ages and with the monastic ideal. But Colet’s intuitive interpretation of Scripture, without knowledge of the original languages, failed to satisfy him and he decided to improve his own knowledge of Greek. Following his return to Paris in February 1500, he completed the first edition of his Adages. In the preface, he castigated the schoolmen for their ignorance of ancient culture and their conceit.

While staying at Saint-Omer in 1501, Erasmus met Jean Vitrier, the warden of the Franciscan monastery, whom he grew to admire as much as Colet. It was under his influence that he composed his Enchiridion Militis Christiani, first published in Antwerp in February 1504. In this work Erasmus developed for the first time his theological programme, calling essentially for a return to Scripture. Every Christian, he argues, must strive to understand Scripture in the purity of its original meaning. Before he can do so, he must study the ancient orators, poets and philosophers, especially Plato. Avoiding the Scotists, he must follow the guidance of St Jerome, St Augustine and St Ambrose. Assisted by grammar and languages, he will seek the precise meaning, both literal and allegorical, of Scripture. Erasmus also develops his concept of the Christian life as a continual meditation on Scripture, not as a series of external observances. He no longer identifies Christian holiness with strict observance of the monastic rule, and rejects the notion that the perfect Christian needs to shun the world. Above all, he calls for the wider diffusion of the Gospel.

At the end of 1504, Erasmus returned to Paris after two years spent in Louvain. He set about restoring the New Testament to its original purity, and in March 1505, Badius printed Valla’s Annotationes as a kind of model for him. But in the autumn of 1505, Erasmus went back to England. Henry VII’s physician was looking for a master to accompany his sons to Italy. Erasmus accepted the post and in June 1506 found himself once more among his humanist friends in Paris. He translated two dialogues by Lucan and resumed work on his Adages. Two months later he continued his journey to Italy. As he crossed the Alps, he wrote a poem for Guillaume Cop in which he declared his intention to devote himself wholly to sacred studies.

In April 1511, Erasmus was back in Paris mainly in order to see his Encomium Morae (Praise of Folly) through the press. This famous work contains a satiric attack on current abuses, especially on worthless monks, vain schoolmen and warring popes. The message of the book is similar to that of the Enchiridion: we should look to realities rather than names, to a man’s life rather than his words, to the spirit rather than the letter of the law. Erasmus makes merciless fun of the schoolmen with their ‘Magisterial Definitions, Conclusions, Corollaries, Propositions Explicit and Implicit’, and of ignorant and conceited monks with their meticulous observance of tiny rules of dress and their total disregard of purity of life or apostolic example. The Praise of Folly was a huge popular success. Erasmus left Paris in June, never to return, but his influence lived on. His works continued to be published and read in the French capital for many years.

Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples

A leading French humanist of the late fifteenth century was Jacques Lefèvre. He was born at Etaples in Picardy about 1450, but we know little about his early life. After becoming an MA in Paris, he learnt Greek from Hermonymos while studying mathematics, astronomy and music. Like all keen scholars of his day he travelled to Italy, visiting Pavia, Padua, Venice, Rome and Florence. Wherever he went, he made friends with humanists and other scholars. After teaching in Paris for a few years, he returned to Rome, then visited Germany. On his return he took up a lodging at the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés under the protection of the abbot, Guillaume Briçonnet, the future bishop of Meaux.

At first Lefèvre devoted himself mainly to the study of philosophy. In his approach to the subject he combined mystical tendencies with the precision of a mathematician. In February 1499 he published an edition of the Mystical Theology of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, a work that describes the ascent of the soul to union with God. Lefèvre’s admiration for Dionysius was unbounded: ‘Never’, he wrote, ‘outside Scripture, have I met anything which has seemed to me as great and as divine as the books of Dionysius.’ In April he published some works by Raymond Lull expressing the horror which he himself felt for Islam and Averroistic materialism. By 1501, Lefèvre had fallen under the influence of the fifteenth-century German cardinal and philosopher Nicholas of Cusa, from whom he learnt that Truth is unknowable to man and that it is only by intuition that he can discover God wherein all contradictions meet.

Lefèvre gave himself heart and soul to Aristotle, whom he translated and explained with boundless enthusiasm and whose many texts he edited after careful expurgations. He wrote commentaries for nearly all the Aristotelian works on the curriculum of the Paris schools. His aim was to set Christian doctrine on the firm foundation of an Aristotelianism freed from scholastic sophism. Yet, even as he explained Aristotle, his mysticism expressed itself. ‘While Aristotle writes of things that are deciduous and transitory’, he explained, ‘he is also treating of the divine mysteries. All this philosophy of tangible nature tends towards the divine things, and, starting from elements that can be sensed, opens the way to the intelligible world.’

He also looked to Plato. During his visit to Florence in 1492 he fell under the influence of Marsilio Ficino (1433–99), founder of the Florentine Academy, who interpreted the contemplative life as a gradual ascent of the soul towards always higher degrees of truth and being, culminating in the immediate knowledge and vision of God. Closely related to Ficino’s moral doctrine were his theories of the immortality of the soul and of Platonic love. Another Florentine humanist much admired by Lefèvre was Pico della Mirandola (1463–94), who sought to reconcile ancient philosophy with modern doctrines and Christian dogma. With Pico, as with Marsilio, philosophical speculation was fused with divine love. Like many of his contemporaries, Lefèvre was fascinated by the Hermetic Books. Thus, in 1494, he published Ficino’s Latin translation of the Liber de potestate et sapientia Dei, attributed to the Egyptian priest Hermes Trismegistus.

The ideas and theories which Lefèvre drew from so many sources ancient and medieval turned him from a philosopher into a theologian, but he remained a humanist. He was firmly committed to textual purity, proclaiming that ‘one should only ascribe to God what Scripture teaches about Him’. Thus he looked for the precise meaning of Scripture after ridding it of the barbarous language and useless subtleties of the schoolmen. Yet Lefèvre’s command of Latin was always heavy and clumsy. He also condemned most pagan poets, even preferring Battista Spagnuoli to Virgil.

Lefèvre placed his learning at the service of religion. His purpose was ‘to give souls the taste for and understanding of Scripture’. He saw philosophy and learning not as ends in themselves but as assisting the triumph of a purer, more enlightened faith. In an edition of Aristotelian works (August 1506) he set out a complete educational programme, but one that was very different from that contained in Erasmus’s recently published Enchiridion. Lefèvre and Erasmus stood for different Christian ideals. Both wanted their students to write pure and correct Latin, but their attitude to ancient writers differed. Whereas Erasmus believed that their wisdom could lead to a reception of Christian revelation, Lefèvre regarded them simply as models of style. Whereas Erasmus found in Plato the most suitable introduction to the Gospel, Lefèvre regarded Aristotle as the superior teacher. Both men wanted to return to the Bible as interpreted by the church fathers, not by the schoolmen. But Erasmus was no mystic; he turned to Scripture for practical counsel. He ceased to believe in the virtues of monasticism, while Lefèvre wished that his health would allow him to enter a Benedictine or Carthusian monastery and neglected none of the traditional religious observances which Erasmus dismissed as useless.

In July 1509, Lefèvre published his edition of the Psalter. Like Erasmus, he insisted on the need for doctrine to be based on accurate editions of Scripture, but he was not content with a purely literal interpretation, believing that a reading of Scripture had to be prepared by meditation and prayer; also by a close familiarity with the writings of the prophets and apostles. In December 1512 his edition of St Paul’s Epistles was published. This set out to explain the apostle’s ideas simply, rejecting the scholastic notion that every passage in Scripture requires a quadruple interpretation. In Lefèvre’s opinion, Scripture has a literal and a spiritual meaning. Before this can be grasped, it is essential to enter the mind of St Paul, an exercise calling for divine inspiration. Lefèvre read St Paul as a mystic committed to the inner life rather than as a dogmatic theologian or logician. He did not deduce the idea of predestination from his work. His aim was to reconcile grace and free will; not to abolish the autonomy of the human will.

Lefèvre’s study of St Paul did not lead him to the same conclusions as those drawn by Erasmus or Luther. He remained loyal to Roman observances. Good works, he says, cannot save by themselves, but they are not useless: they attract, hold and enlarge grace. Nor does faith ensure salvation: it opens the way to God who alone justifies and absolves. Good works make us better men, faith converts us, justification illuminates us. At the same time, his interpretation of dogma was at times extraordinarily free. He denied the magical properties of the sacraments, seeing them rather as signs of spiritual grace, and viewed the mass not as a sacrifice but as a memorial of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Yet he timidly accepted the new doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and was surprisingly conservative regarding church reform. He did not suggest the abolition of clerical celibacy or the introduction of prayers in the vernacular.

Guillaume Budé

In 1497, Lefèvre’s circle of friends and disciples at the collège du cardinal Lemoine was joined by Guillaume Budé. He belonged to a family of the well-to-do Parisian bourgeoisie, which over three generations had risen to the highest offices in the royal chancery. About 1483 he had been sent to study civil law at Orléans. On returning to the capital he seemed only interested in hunting and other pleasures, but in 1491 he became disgusted with his way of life. Resuming his studies, he began to learn Greek. He also got to know Andrelini, who in 1496 dedicated a work to him. Even after becoming a royal secretary in 1497, Budé continued to read classical and patristic texts. He translated some works of Plutarch, dedicating one to Pope Julius II.

In November 1508, Budé published his Annotations on the Pandects which laid down the principle that Roman law can only be understood through the study of Roman history, literature and classical philology. It was also a scathing attack on scholastic jurisprudence as represented by the work of Accursius and Bartolus. Using both philology and history, Budé undermined their assumption that the Corpus Iuris was an authoritative system of law adaptable to the needs of all time. The effect of this onslaught on current legal thinking was comparable to that on theology of Valla’s exposure of the ‘Donation of Constantine’ (a document fabricated in the 8th–9th century to strengthen the power of the Holy See). Yet Budé was more interested in restoring the text of Justinian’s Digest as literature than in using it for legal education and practice. His polemic against contemporary jurisprudence was the first of many similar legal works of the sixteenth century, the best known being Rabelais’s caricature of legal terminology and practice. Almost the entire legal profession was attacked by Budé. He accused its members of using the law not to establish equity or justice but simply to sell and prostitute their words. Deploring the lack of public spirit among his compatriots and the loss of ancient virtues, he expressed the hope that a revival of letters would reawaken their consciences. A theme which assumed importance in Budé’s later work – his absolutist theory of the state – was already present in his Annotations. While refuting Accursius, he showed the invalidity of equating the parlement with the Roman senate.

The Annotations was France’s first great work of philology and its impact, notably on Alciati’s teaching of law at the University of Bourges, was considerable. Budé followed Valla in his use of a philological-historical method and in his opposition to the Bartolists, but he went further by reviving the Aristotelian concept of equity. This was to have a lasting effect on legal practice in France and elsewhere. Budé’s scholarship, though profound, was long-winded and undisciplined. His De Asse (1515), a treatise on ancient coinage, is full of absurdly patriotic digressions in which he seeks to elevate Paris above Athens as a centre of ancient learning.

Like Lefèvre d’Etaples, Budé repudiated the vocabulary and methodology of the schoolmen and wanted Christianity to rest solely on the correct study of Scripture. But he did not share Lefèvre’s mysticism. He despised devotions that were purely formal or smacked of superstition. He equated Christianity with obedience to Christ’s commands and the imitation of His life on earth. As a scholar Budé was well aware of errors in the Latin Vulgate and favoured a return to the original Greek text of the New Testament. His objective was to revivify religion by uniting the Christian faith and humanism. His admiration for the classics did not persuade him that compromise was possible between Hellenism and Christianity. Given the choice, he preferred the latter and in his last work, De transitu Hellenismi ad Christianismum, he even denied the value of ancient philosophy.

The Reuchlin affair

In 1514 the Faculty of Theology of the University of Paris was drawn into a conflict which had been raging for three years between the German humanist Johann Reuchlin (1455–1522) and the German Dominicans. Reuchlin had promoted the Talmud, the Cabala and other Jewish studies as essential to a true understanding of biblical revelation; he also believed that the Bible and all its traditional glosses and interpretations should be re-examined in the light of recent exegetical advances and of the new expertise in Greek and Hebrew. His programme, however, if implemented, was likely to disrupt the traditional curriculum of theological faculties. He was accordingly censured by a special inquisition at Mainz in October 1513, and by another in Cologne four months later. The bishop of Speyer, however, acting for the pope, cleared Reuchlin of all charges and ordered an end to the inquisition, whereupon the Cologne theologians decided to consult their colleagues in Louvain and Paris.

The Parisian doctors received the message from Cologne at the end of April 1514 and promptly set up a committee comprising representatives of the scholastic tradition and friends of humanism to examine extracts from Reuchlin’s Augenspiegel. Numerous meetings followed in the course of which the Cologne theologians sent another book by Reuchlin for examination. There was also an intervention by Duke Ulrich of Württemberg, who asked the faculty to drop its proceedings. On 2 August, however, the faculty decided against Reuchlin. His writings were described as ‘strongly suspect of heresy, most of them smacking of heresy and some actually heretical’. The faculty asked for the suppression of the Augenspiegel and the author’s unconditional retraction. What happened next is not clear. The faculty received a letter from the papal Curia in April 1515, which probably expressed surprise at the decision passed in August, and it ceased to discuss Reuchlin after 2 May. Traditionally, historians have seen the Reuchlin affair as marking a decisive break in the University of Paris between the ‘Old Learning’ and the ‘New’. It was the first serious conflict between schoolmen and humanists. Henceforth Erasmus and Lefèvre d’Etaples were seen by their friends as pursuing the same quest for a deeper faith, and by their enemies as sharing the same heresy.