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ABSTRACT
Historians often compare the relationship between humanists and scholastics in the early sixteenth century to a battle. In such accounts, the Parisian Faculty of Theology plays the role of a major combatant keeping humanists away from religious studies. This article paints a different and more harmonious picture of humanists and scholastics in the decade before the Reformation. It draws on hitherto little explored evidence from manuscripts authored by official orators at the University of Paris: their speeches to graduating students at the Faculty of Theology in 1510 and 1512. It will be argued that the speakers celebrated both humanist and scholastic competences and the speeches themselves demonstrate that eloquence had a role to play within the institution. In this way, the article adds nuance to our understanding of how the Faculty of Theology viewed humanists and introduces important new sources to the history of universities.
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Notes
1 Olivier de Lyon’s orations from 1510 survive in two manuscripts in the Biblioteca Apostolic Vaticana [BAV]: MSS Reg. lat. 701 and 1373. Louis de Lasseré’s orations from 1512 survive in three copies: British Library [BL] MS Harley 2536 and Bibliothèque nationale de France [BNF] MSS Latin 7812 and 7813. Some speeches by the unidentified orator of 1514 are found together with various sermons and letters in Metropolitan chapter MS 832 in Prague, see Kiss, “‘O Pragensis Achademia!’”. I am grateful to Dr. Kiss for sharing images of this manuscript with me. Besides these six manuscripts I am not aware of any further surviving paranymph orations from the first half of the sixteenth century.
2 Rummel, The Case Against Johann Reuchlin; Farge, “Noël Beda and the Defense of the Tradition”, 148.
3 See her discussion of the orations of Jean Le Vieil (1560) and those of Gabriel Naudé from the early 1600s in Siraisi, “Oratory and Rhetoric in Renaissance Medicine”; Siraisi, History, Medicine, and the Traditions of Renaissance Learning, 127–32.
4 Ouy, “Le Collège de Navarre”.
5 The popularity of this program is suggested by the grammarians’ expansion into a new, larger building in 1514. On this expansion and an estimate for student numbers during the sixteenth century, see Compère, “Navarre”, 280–82.
6 Farge, Students and Teachers at the University of Paris, 36; Farge, Biographical Register, 290–91.
7 Some later examples from the Faculty of Medicine are discussed in Siraisi, “Oratory and Rhetoric in Renaissance Medicine”.
8 Farge, Orthodoxy and Reform, 24–26.
9 Translation cited from Goulet, Compendium on the University of Paris, 60. On Goulet, see Farge, Biographical Register, 201–2.
10 Cited in Du Boulay, Historia Universitatis Parisiensis, 6:709. See also Farge, Farge, Orthodoxy and Reform, 25, n. 81.
11 Translation cited from Goulet, Compendium on the University of Paris, 59.
12 Goulet, 60.
13 Farge, Orthodoxy and Reform. Complaints about the “ingratitudo licentiandorum” were first raised at a Faculty meeting in February 1512. The affair can be followed in Clerval, Registre des procès-verbaux, 103–5.
14 Farge, Biographical Register, 218.
15 Farge, 65.
16 There is little modern literature on the topic but we now have a good starting-point in Nathaël Istasse’s work, see Istasse, Joannes Ravisius Textor; Istasse, “Pour une contribution à l’histoire de l’enseignement du latin à la Renaissance”.
17 Launoy, Regii Navarrae gymnasii Parisiensis historia, 1:676.
18 Lyon was submagister grammaticorum, as he writes in the “ex dono” in BAV Reg. lat. 1373. On Bolu, see Farge, Biographical Register, 50–51; Istasse, Joannes Ravisius Textor, 59–62.
19 Budé, Opera omnia, 1:392–93.
20 Kiss, “‘O Pragensis Achademia!’”, 163–64. Kiss discusses the graduation speeches alongside various other sermons found in this fascinating manuscript.
21 On what distinguished humanist epideictic from its scholastic counterpart, see O’Malley, Praise and Blame in Renaissance Rome, 50–76.
22 BAV Reg. lat. 1373, 80–85; BNF Latin 7812, 31v–37; Prague, Metropolitan chapter 832, 1r–v. The latter theme betrays the influence of Cusanus, possibly via his Parisian followers in the circle of Lefèvre, see Rice, The Prefatory Epistles, 342–48.
23 With very few exceptions, the candidates who received the license also received the doctorate and are included in Farge’s register of graduates, see Farge, Biographical Register.
24 Margolin, “La rhétorique d’Aphthonius et son influence au XVIe siècle”.
25 See O’Malley, Praise and Blame in Renaissance Rome, 57.
26 BAV Reg. lat. 1373, 107v.
27 BAV Reg. lat. 1373, 53r: “ … ad eam tibi comparandam in hoc longe beatior illis antiquis – anaxagora, byante, democryte – qui sese opibus sequestrarunt et tamen veram veritatis ymaginem assequi nunquam potuere, qua in orto theologo abste inventa inimicas ac anxias abiicere voluptates que animam sibi vinciunt, eterna preferre brevibus utila iocundis didicisti: proinde nichil gratum tibi est, nisi quod iuste, quod pie sit nichil auditu suave nisi quod animam teque meliorem reddit.”
28 BNF Latin 7812, 13v–14; BAV Reg. lat. 1373, 133v–134r.
29 BNF Latin 7812, 27v.
30 Moss, Printed Commonplace-Books and the Structuring of Renaissance Thought; Blair, “The Rise of Note-Taking in Early Modern Europe”.
31 Istasse, Joannes Ravisius Textor, 62–64.
32 Ong, “Commonplace Rhapsody: Ravisius Textor, Zwinger and Shakespeare”; Istasse, Joannes Ravisius Textor. See also Istasse’s discussion of a manuscript relating to Textor’s teaching at Navarre in 1516: Istasse, “Pour une contribution à l’histoire de l’enseignement du latin à la Renaissance”.
33 Farge, Orthodoxy and Reform, 55–114.
34 BAV Reg. lat. 1373, 99r.
35 Documents from the German Nation give a more positive view of Ensche’s personal finances, cf. Farge, Biographical Register, 155.
36 Compère, “Montaigu”; Bakker, “The Statutes of the College de Montaigu”.
37 BNF Latin 7812, 16r–17r, 55v–56r.
38 BAV Reg. lat. 1373, 100r. “ubi continuis lectionibus ingenium tuum ne torpesceret exercuisti modo philosophiam modo theologiam profitens, modo martinum de fortitudine; de temperanaia modo gabrielem altissiodorensis alias olkot interpretans.” De Lyon presumably meant to refer to the scholastic theologian Guillaume of Auxerre and not “Gabriel of Auxerre”.
39 BAV Reg. lat. 100v.
40 Farge, Biographical Register, 202–4.
41 BAV Reg. lat. 1373, 136r–140v.
42 BNF Latin 7812, 52v: “Nam labore assiduo, comite abstinentia laxantur gene, subintrant oculi, buxo pallidior caro contrahitur, frontis deperditur dignitas, ut te universum usque adeo iuverit libros heluari et indefessis animis chartis impalescere.”
43 BNF Latin 7812, 86 r–v. On the preference for visual description and language in humanist epideictic, see O’Malley, Praise and Blame in Renaissance Rome, 63.
44 BAV Reg. lat. 1373, 102v–103v.
45 BAV Reg. lat. 1373, 50v–51r.
46 BAV Reg. lat. 1373, 17v–18r.
47 BNF Latin 7812, 82v.
48 Prague, Metropolitan chapter 832, 6v.
49 BAV Reg. lat. 85v; BNF Latin 7812, 29v–30r.
50 BNF Latin 7812, 67v.
51 BAV Reg. lat. 1373, 33v.
52 BAV Reg. lat. 1373, 67v. Farge, Biographical Register, 318–22.
53 See Farge, Orthodoxy and Reform, 22–26.
54 A good overview of the use of disputation in medieval universities is Weijers, In Search of the Truth, 119–47.
55 Kristeller, Medieval Aspects of Renaissance Learning, 10.
56 See Weijers, In Search of the Truth, 189–91. See also Sayhi-Périgot, Dialectique et littérature.
57 Erasmus, Opus epistolarum Ep. 1111. “pro sophisticis argutationibus nunc sobrias ac sanas inter theologos disputationes”
58 A revised text was published in 1512, see Almain, Libellus de auctoritate ecclesie. On the version of Almain’s resumptiva published in 1518, see Almain, “Question at Vespers”.
59 de Grandval, Codex vesperiarum.
60 BAV Reg. lat. 1373, 31r.
61 BAV Reg. lat. 1373, 65r–v.
62 BNF Latin 7812, 27v. “Si futilem responsionem audires ringebas, stomachabare, labra mordebas, barbam vellebas, si minus frontem exporrigebas, fixis labris, immoto supercilio, confixis oculis, immotis vestigiis, responsionem laudabas, qui si respondentem per negationem assumpti erectum offendebas solerti probatione collisum confractumque reddebas ut aliter David … .”.
63 BAV Reg. lat. 1373, 31r: “Qui te audiebant alterum dionisium cicterciensis audire videbantur habes preter hanc fecundissimam doctrinam faceciam quandam urbanitatemque multis Iocis multa suavitate.” On the identity of Dionysius the Cistercian, see Brinzei and Schabel, “Les Cisterciens de l’université”.
64 BAV Reg. lat. 1373, 65r–v: “certamen quam brevissime finiveris in maiore ordinaria quem subtiliter antichristi adventum tractaveris; nemo est qui non norit ubi sensa abditasque apocalipsis interpretationes quasi divinus interpres mirificis sensibus enodabas admirantibus qui aderant ac si ioannem redivivum inspicerent aut guillermum parisiensem e terre visceribus ad superos redeuntem.”
65 See literature and bibliography in Farge, Biographical Register, 304–11. Among the more recent literature on John Mair, see Broadie, The Circle of John Mair; Slotemaker and Witt, A Companion to the Theology of John Mair.
66 For their publications, see Farge, Biographical Register. Cranston died in 1512, Crockaert in 1514, and Almain in 1515.
67 Broadie, “Dialogus de Materia Theologo Tractanda”.
68 On Mair’s (limited) sympathy with humanists, see Farge, Biographical Register, 307.
69 BNF Latin 7812, 87v.
70 BNF Latin 7812, 88v–89r: “ut nichil omnino dici possit duabus sorbonicis tuis apertius atque facilius.”
71 BNF Latin 7812, 14v.
72 BNF Latin 7812, 15v: “decantas non carmina ut Empedocles, non dyalogos ut Plato, non hymnos ut Socrates, modos ut Epicharmus, ut Xenophon historias, ut Xenocrates satiras, sed argutissimos meandros ut Aristoteles, salutaria monita ut Paulus.”
73 On this poem, see Provini, “La poésie héroïque”. In the printed edition from 1507, La Varanne included shorter verses composed for various people, including Gillis van Delft, Lefèvre d’Étaples, and Geoffrey Boussard.
74 BNF Latin 7812, 20v.
75 BNF Latin 7812, 20v–21r: “Theologum oportet preter theologiam multa nosse. […] Exurge igitur qui multiscius es et letare.”
76 On “the encyclopaedic paradigm” among French humanists in this period, see Pédeflous and Tournoy, “Juan Luis Vives and His Dialogue ‘Sapiens’”, 255–57. Encyclopaedism is also thematised in the speech to Jérome de Hangest in Prague, Metropolitan chapter 832, 6r.
77 Rice, “Humanist Aristotelianism in France”. On Lefèvre’s educational reform, see Oosterhoff, Making Mathematical Culture.
78 Farge, Biographical Register, 243.
79 Cited from Rice, The Prefatory Epistles, 179–80. “Mens tua dum assurgit, caelos introspicis et quod / Daedala naturae dextera fingit opus. / Ut propius verum subscribam, doctus es ipse / Abdita naturae, doctus es ipse Deum.”
80 Rice, 180. “Et nostram studiis auge melioribus urbem … ”
81 Prevost contributed verse to some of Lefèvre’s early Aristotelian editions, see Rice, 80 and 103. He was the dedicatee of another philosophical treatise during his three-month stint as rector of the University, see Francus Vimacuus, Tres Hecatonomie de conceptibus.
82 Rice, The Prefatory Epistles, 110–12.
83 BAV Reg. lat. 1373, 89r–v: “Cum enim initio formatus institutusque fuisses in illis scholiis ubi sophisticis captionibus captiosisque sophismatibus intentus eras, ubi verum aristotelem primoribus ut aiunt labris tantum degustabas; veram philosophiam fixam cordi: habens etiam trabalibus clavis penitentia ductus es et ad eruditissimum stapulensem qui aristotelicos libros, ut plautino utar verbo, amussitavit peripathethicumque aristotelem mean[r]dis griphisque quibusdam obtenebratum postlimino revocavit, conversus reconditissimos philosophie locos et sanctius illud orarium [aerarium] unde nihil communi percussum moneta, nihil triviale, nihil conculcatum effertur. Sed quasi ex aphrica semper aliquid novi prodit, adiisti tanto adhibito labore: ut inter eos qui ex stapulensibus umbraculis doctissimi prodiere tu peritissimus evaseris.”
84 De Lyon’s praise of Lefèvre’s philosophy is adapted from a letter from Francesco Pucci to Angelo Poliziano published in book VI of Poliziano’s correspondence. See Poliziano, Illustrium virorum epistolae sig. f3v–f4v.
85 Lamy was already dead in June 1513 when one of his students from Calvy sought to certify his studies, see Farge, Students and Teachers at the University of Paris, 392–93.
86 Lundberg, “The Making of a Philosopher”.
87 BAV Reg. lat. 1373, 131v–132r: “Atque tanquam infinibilis pater deus animum tibi ex sempiternis ignibus que nos sydera stellasque nuncupamus indiderit ad celos celestemque patriam semper intentum contemplationibus frequenter raptus in celo versari videris.”
88 BAV Reg. lat. 1373, 132r: “Quas ut licentius oportuniusque habere possis, religiones et conventus reformatissimos adiens cum ipsis religionis de summo deo de celesti curia sermonem facis: vel solus tecum raptus quasi in extasi rationaris. Hoc est exercitium tuum hec est animi oblectatio a studio et oratione in contemplationem rapi. et sic brevi fecisti ut religiosam animi devotionem litteraturamque non vulgarem, sed eminentissimam quod viaticum est senectutis tibi comparaveris. Quibus rationibus adducti socii sorbonici anno isto te in priorem suum elegerunt.” The ms says “rationaris” but this should surely be ratiocinaris. Themes of rapture and ecstasy are not uncommon in the orations, for another example see Reg. lat. 1373, 32v–33.
89 BAV Reg. lat. 1373, 108v–109r. “theologiam, inquam, que causam causarum discutiens, summa est philosophia; que virtutum officia suis circumstantiis diffiniens, summa est ethica; que veritatem docens incalunniabilem [sic] summa est logica.”
90 For the rankings, see the relevant entries in Farge, Biographical Register.
91 Moss, Renaissance Truth and the Latin Language Turn.
92 Farge, Orthodoxy and Reform, 33–37; Farge, Le Parti conservateur au XVIe siècle.
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Christa Lundberg
Christa Lundberg is Junior Research Fellow at St Catharine's College in Cambridge. She has published an article about the philosophical letters of Charles de Bovelles and is working on a monograph about printing and the study of theology in early sixteenth-century Paris.