Humanists and scholastics in early sixteenth-century Paris: new sources from the Faculty of Theology

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Humanism
• University of Paris
• academic oratory
• Faculty of Theology

In February 1510, twenty-five theology students gathered for one of the final rituals before the doctoral disputations. Over four days, they met in theological colleges to receive the official “call to the licence.” In charge of the ceremony was Olivier de Lyon, an orator appointed by the university chancellor. He addressed each student in turn, praising his learning, diligence and character in front of a large audience. De Lyon ended by formally inviting the candidate to attend another ceremony at the chancellor’s residence, where he would receive the licentiate. It was a celebration of the accomplishments and qualities that made the candidates worthy future members of the Faculty of Theology.

The surviving graduation orations from 1510, 1512 and 1514 are previously untapped resources for considering the intellectual culture of the Faculty of Theology.¹ The speeches illuminate the faculty’s perspective on theological competence – what capacities bestowed special honour on individual candidates for the doctorate – and ideas about the history and social role of theology were celebrated. Composed during the pivotal years when the Reuchlin affair was deepening the controversy between graduate theologians and secular scholars, these orations provide a rare insight into the changing faculty.² Furthermore, they have the potential to counteract a source of bias against scholastics – namely, the efficacy of humanist rhetoric – as a distinctly humanist style of epideictic was used to praise the candidates from the Faculty of Theology. Beyond eroding this particular source of bias, I shall argue that the speeches constitute a close parallel with a phenomenon observed by Nancy Siraisi in early modern faculties of medicine: humanist rhetoric contributed to reshaping the self-image of academic disciplines by celebrating their knowledge and history in new ways.³

Olivier de Lyon and Louis de Lasseré were the appointed orators in 1510 and 1512, respectively. The two men shared certain characteristics that made them suitable for the task. First, they were both active at the Collège de Navarre, which was one of the largest theological colleges. In the previous century, the college had become an important humanist centre, with authors such as Jean de Montreuil, Nicolas de Clamanges and Jean Gerson affiliated.⁴ Navarre offered a programme of preparatory studies in grammar and rhetoric and even provided bursaries to support students in these subjects.⁵ De Lyon was submagister in grammar for several years, including in 1510, when he served as orator. He additionally studied theology, achieving the bachelor’s degree before 1512 and the doctorate in 1518.⁶ Lasseré had become a bachelor in theology before delivering the graduation speeches in 1512. However, he did not take any higher degrees but instead devoted himself to the governance of the Collège de Navarre, where he was provisor from 1508 until 1546. De Lyon and Lasseré were both deeply entrenched in the theological community and involved in the Navarrist approach to studia humanitatis.

I. The ceremonial “Call to the licence”

Before moving to the graduation orations, it is worth setting the scene in more detail, especially as concerns the function and audience of the signeta ceremony. As already mentioned, the licentiate ceremony was one of the very last steps of the long path towards a doctoral degree in theology at the University of Paris. The Faculties of Law and Medicine both had equivalent ceremonies.⁷ In the case of theological candidates, the students had already completed their master’s in arts, their bachelor’s degree in theology and various examining disputations. The lower age limit for this degree was thirty-five years, which reveals just how long the doctoral training was. Having passed many hurdles, it was time for the candidate to receive the licentia, the papal permission to teach theology, which was bestowed by the chancellor of the university.⁸

In the days before the licence ceremony, the chancellor sent an orator to invite the candidates. One faculty member summarised the procedure as follows in his Compendium universitatis parisiensis (1517): “on the day preceding the ceremony of the License the Paranymphus delegated by the Chancellor invites in a polished speech the attendance of the candidates individually.”⁹ The designation of the orator as a “paranymph” (groomsman) reflects the metaphorical understanding of the licence as the candidate’s wedding to his discipline. The paranymph played the role of a ceremonial master, delivering a large number of speeches. As we shall see in the next section of this article, these speeches were no stock celebrations but strongly personalised remarks on the students’ characters and achievements, commenting on individual performance in disputations, academic specialisms and piety. After being praised in this way, the student in turn thanked teachers and the faculty.

The ceremony was divided over multiple days at different locations within Paris. The records from 1510 and 1512 suggest that the celebration migrated between four colleges: the two dominant theological colleges, Navarre and Sorbonne, and two monastic colleges, the Dominican Couvent de Jacobins and the Franciscan Couvent des Cordeliers. That this was a standard arrangement is supported by later evidence. On 18 January 1570, twenty-seven students from the Faculty of Theology came to Parlement to invite members to attend the paranymph’s orations and outlined the schedule: Thursday at the Jacobins, Friday at the Cordeliers, at the Sorbonne on Saturday, and Navarre on Sunday.¹⁰

The invitation from 1570 raises the question of who was present at the ceremonies in the early 1510s. Although Goulet’s account from 1517 does not answer this question, he claimed that other graduation ceremonies were well attended by the general public. When the university chancellor ranked and licensed the theological candidates, according to Goulet this event attracted “nearly the whole population of Paris, not to mention the University, and a great multitude from elsewhere.”¹¹ Similarly, the ceremony where the “Doctorate and the round magisterial biretta” were awarded attracted not only the members of the faculty but also a variety of dignitaries, including bishops, sometimes the king, cardinals, royal counsellors, and magnates and nobles invited by the doctoral candidates.¹² These comments suggest that the graduation ceremonies was not a purely internal affair.

Throughout the sixteenth century, controversies regularly arose from inappropriate orations or unfitting replies from students. As James Farge discovered, one of the students graduating in 1512 was criticised by the faculty for failing to thank his teachers properly in his reply to Lasseré’s oration.¹³ In 1514 the doctoral candidate Jerome de Hangest was accused of having satirised the faculty member Nicolas Le Clerc.¹⁴ The same year Nicolas Cappelly was accused of insulting his regent master Jean Girard in his response to the paranymph.¹⁵ The scandals caused by inappropriate behaviour by the paranymph or students highlight the social significance of the ritual. The praise they received, as well as their behaviour, needed to reflect that they were deserving of becoming full members of an important scholarly community.

II. Humanist epideictic at the Faculty of Theology

De Lyon and Lasseré were both involved in organising the grammatical education at Navarre, which was currently in an expansive phase.¹⁶ Lasseré had taught humaniores litterae before becoming provisor of the College in 1508.¹⁷ De Lyon taught grammar for many years and assisted the principal of the grammarians, Jean Bolu, even after embarking on his own studies in theology.¹⁸ De Lyon was particularly engaged in the project of effecting a humanist turn in the curriculum, as we see in an undated letter from Guillaume Budé addressed to him. Budé wrote that he was filled with joy upon hearing about educational reforms in the grammar school at Navarre and, in particular, De Lyon’s effort to teach eloquence. Budé wrote with encouragement, advising De Lyon to primarily teach ancient authors and grammarians.¹⁹

The humanist revival at Navarre provides, I shall argue, a crucial context for the interpretation of De Lyon and Lasseré’s orations. Farkas Gábor Kiss makes two relevant observations concerning the rhetoric of the paranymph orations from 1514. The first observation concerns the style of the speeches, which, as Kiss points out, is closely aligned with the epideictic ecclesiastical oratory studied by John O’Malley. The second point is about particular influences: Kiss found echoes of Erasmus’s Adages and the Praise of Folly in the graduation speeches, where the orator used irony and paradoxical praise.²⁰ Drawing on the orations from 1510 and 1512, I shall next expand and contextualise these observations.

Like the paranymph orations from 1514, the earlier ones fit well into the model of humanist epideictic oratory described by O’Malley. Unlike in scholastic “thematic sermons,” there was no rigid division of the topic, or argumentative scheme. Instead, they relied on classical rhetorical models for structure and focalised a single point of praise, supported by many loci.²¹ The similarities to epideictic sermons are most striking in the speeches in praise of theology – prime examples of the genre laus disciplinae – which the paranymph delivered before turning to individual candidates. Nine such orations survive from 1510–1514: four by De Lyon, three by Lasseré and two by the unknown orator of 1514. The variety of material in these speeches shows that there were no set topics: the paranymph chose which aspects of theology to praise and how. Some orations lack obvious connection to the context of graduation. For example, there are speeches on the positive impact of theology on society (1510), the soul’s immortality (1512), and analogies between different kinds of theology and flat, concave and convex mirrors (1514).²² However, most of the speeches were directly concerned with theology as a form of erudition and an academic discipline.

After speaking in praise of theology, the paranymph called each candidate to the licence in a personalised speech.²³ The orator praised the students’ hard work, learning, virtue and a myriad of other merits. The orations vary in length, but the general range is between 600 and 900 words. These speeches followed, roughly, the loci recommended by classical rhetoric for such speeches. They might well have used guides such as Aphthonius’s Progymnasmata.²⁴ This manual suggested that encomia should discuss the person’s parental and geographical origins, upbringing, excellences of mind, body and fortune, and provide favourable comparisons. This model, as we shall see later, resulted in individualised speeches that not only provide biographical information on the graduating students but also reveal the diversity of their characters.

One common feature of the general speeches in praise of theology and of the orations to particular graduates is the frequent references to classical antiquity. De Lyon regularly employed one of the main figures of humanist sacred epideictic that O’Malley calls “quanto magis.” In short, the orator speaks about ancient culture before turning to consider how much better the Christian equivalent is.²⁵ For example, De Lyon showed how much glory and honour was associated with learning in antiquity to stress how much more theological study ought to be honoured.²⁶ In the same spirit, De Lyon’s oration to the candidate Nicolas Helm stated that he was “far happier than those ancients – Anaxagoras, Byante, Democritus – who surrendered their riches and yet could never follow the true image of truth, which you [Nicolas] found in the garden of theology.”²⁷ Most orations to candidates made comparisons between the candidate’s qualities and ancient characters in this way. To mention only two among very numerous examples, Lasseré claimed that Pierre Crockaert worked as hard at his studies as Pliny the Younger and in De Lyon’s speech to Jacobus Pasqueti, the candidate was compared to Caesar’s friend Labienus.²⁸ Lasseré also mentioned Old Testament figures in this context – for example comparing David Cranston with the David who defeated Goliath.²⁹ De Lyon, however, remained completely within the realm of classical antiquity.

The many classical anecdotes not only inform us about De Lyon’s and Lasseré’s humanist reading preferences but also indicate what strategies they might have used in composing the speeches. The orators probably used material from reference books such as Valerius Maximus’s Facta et dicta memorabilia. We also have reason to believe that De Lyon and Lasseré kept their own commonplace books.³⁰ One of the most successful commonplace book authors of the early sixteenth century, Johannes Ravisius Textor (c.1493–1522), was a colleague of theirs at Navarre. Textor, who specialised in rhetoric, regarded De Lyon as a role model and had perhaps studied with the older humanist.³¹ Textor published several encyclopaedic tools with excerpts from ancient literature, including Epithetorum opus (1518) and Officina (1520). The latter work contained lists of ancients (real and fictional) sharing a specific virtue, vice, childhood experience, type of name, profession, cause of death etc.³² This is precisely the type of material De Lyon and Lasseré were using in their speeches. The Navarre grammarians’ effort to teach literary elegance and engage with ancient authors, which Budé had praised in his letter to De Lyon, shone through in the speeches that De Lyon and Lasseré presented to the Faculty of Theology.

III. Vitae scholasticae

In their written form, the paranymph speeches constitute collective biographies of the graduating classes of 1510 and 1512. James Farge’s prosopography of the members of the Faculty of Theology in 1500–1536 illuminated the graduates’ geographic and social origins, religious affiliations, educational background and their activity in faculty deliberations, teaching and publishing.³³ The graduation orations present important additional insight into the mentality of students graduating in these same years and allow us to address questions relating to scholastic education and culture. What virtues and skills were highly valued in this community? What intellectual specialisms were represented?

The brief biographies included in the graduation orations vary in the amount of detail but generally cover most of the loci recommended by rhetorical handbooks for speeches praising a person. As an example of the typical coverage, we can take De Lyon’s speech dedicated to Nicolas Ensche. First, De Lyon mentioned his place of birth near Trier, which De Lyon located at 27 degrees from the Pillars of Hercules and 99 degrees from the equator.³⁴ According to De Lyon, Ensche was born to destitute parents. He nevertheless managed to reach the Collège de Reims, where he studied philosophy before eventually joining the Collège de Montaigu.³⁵ We know from other sources that Ensche at the time of his graduation was a close collaborator of the theologian Noël Beda at Montaigu, where Jan Standonck in the previous decade had instituted a community for poor scholars.³⁶ This circumstance helps explain the focus on poverty in De Lyon’s oration – a phenomenon encountered in orations to other students associated with Montaigu, including Gaspard Andree and Michael Guytard.³⁷ At Montaigu, De Lyon tells us, Ensche constantly lectured on philosophy and theology. He commented on both recent and older texts: Martin Le Maître’s treatises De fortitudine and De temperantia from the fifteenth century as well as earlier scholastic authors such as Guillaume d’Auxerre and Robert Holcot.³⁸ Lastly, De Lyon reported on the topics selected by Ensche for his recent disputations: the passion and poverty of Christ.³⁹

Associated with Montaigu and lecturing on scholastic theology, Ensche is in many ways a traditional candidate. In his graduating cohort, we also encounter men like Diogo de Gouveia – diplomat, later principal of the Collège de Sainte-Barbe and an early supporter of Ignatius of Loyola.⁴⁰ According to De Lyon’s speech to Gouveia, he had first been trained as an astrologer and served the Portuguese king in this capacity before being sent to Paris for further studies. After an eventful sea voyage, where Gouveia was nearly taken captive by pirates, he arrived in Paris. Like Ensche, he studied philosophy at Collège de Reims and, after another stint in Portugal, he returned to study theology.⁴¹ According to De Lyon, Gouveia performed well in the final stage disputations while all the same remaining devoted to literature and good conduct and continuing to develop his knowledge of astrology.

Through these biographical narratives, the orators introduced and commended candidates to the university chancellor. The speeches generally highlighted the candidates’ piety, virtue and industry. If we are to believe De Lyon and Lasseré, theology students worked day and night, filling any free time with extra reading, prayer and writing. One candidate who particularly fits this bill was Noel Godefroy, whom Lasseré characterised as “more solitary than a Carthusian.” Lasseré further described the toll that hard work had taken on Godefroy’s body – stating that his eyelids were now drooping, his eyes retreating, his flesh contracted and pale like boxwood, and the dignity of his brow was, apparently, destroyed.⁴² This description of Godefroy’s appearance is an unusually ruthless example of the orators’ habit of remarking on the physical appearance of the candidate standing before them – in one case even commenting on the candidate’s expected embarrassment.⁴³

The life stories of candidates and the paranymphs’ reports from their disputations illustrate one further aspect of their oratory style – namely, they based their praise of the candidates on argument and testimony. De Lyon and Lasseré clearly attended most disputations. Both also reported on various candidates they had heard preach.⁴⁴ In some cases, they referenced personal conversations with the candidate.⁴⁵ Additionally, they reported the opinions of others or described how an audience had reacted to the candidate’s preaching or teaching.⁴⁶ In a few cases, the testimony came from the candidate’s students.⁴⁷ Publications, such as philosophical textbooks, were also invoked as evidence of the candidate’s skill.⁴⁸ If a candidate had received a scholarship or honour from an ecclesiastical or royal benefactor, this was reported. Other stories must have ultimately originated with the candidates themselves, such as the not infrequent accounts of childhood poverty, the loss of parents and illness. The detailed knowledge concerning each candidate conveyed in these speeches is witness to the strong social and intellectual connections among advanced students of theology. A decade of studying the same texts, debating one another, and gathering for religious and academic ceremonies created a strong community.

The orations demonstrate the diversity of academic specialties in the faculty. We learn that one candidate was an avid reader of Thomas Aquinas,⁴⁹ that another lectured on the difficult writings of the “subtle doctor” Duns Scotus,⁵⁰ while yet another was an expert on the work of Bonaventure.⁵¹ Martial Mazurier, whose preaching repeatedly gave rise to controversy and accusations of heresy in the coming decades, was introduced as an avid student of Augustine, Jerome and Gregory.⁵²

Whilst information concerning intellectual preferences is included in only a minority of cases, all orations comment on an essential aspect of theological education: the candidate’s performance in the late-stage disputations before the licence.⁵³ Disputation was central to scholastic universities for both pedagogical and intellectual reasons. Student examinations at all levels – from the bachelor’s degree in arts up to the doctorate in theology – were conducted in this way. Moreover, this highly structured and essentially collective mode of argumentation was also considered the superior method for finding the correct answer to a question.⁵⁴

As Olga Weijers points out, there are still many gaps in our understanding of how or to what extent disputation techniques changed in early sixteenth-century universities. Humanists raised various concerns about the disputation as a mode of truth-seeking, although perhaps not as unanimously as they criticised scholastic logic.⁵⁵ For example, both Juan Luis Vives and Guillaume Budé thought that disputation was an important exercise albeit in need of modification – in particular as concerned what evidence was allowed.⁵⁶ Other points of criticism regarded the specialised and technical vocabulary used in scholastic disputation as well as the inherent orientation towards conflict. This perspective is summed up well by Erasmus, when he expressed his hope that “sober and sane discussion” would replace “sophistical and subtle disputations” in the theological faculties.⁵⁷

It remains unclear to what extent such criticism changed the practice of disputation. The problem is, in part, the paucity of sources. For the Faculty of Theology in Paris, only a few published disputations survive. These include Jacques Almain’s resumptiva, argued in connection with the vesperia of his colleague Ludwig Ber in 1512.⁵⁸ A third student from the same cohort, Marc de Grandval, published a version of his own vesperia the following year.⁵⁹ Almain’s and Grandval’s disputations were published because they dealt with a highly controversial and topical issue: the pro-papal arguments of Thomas Cajetan. The published disputations detail the arguments over ecclesiastical authority put forward by Almain and Grandval. However, they say little about the nature of the discussion – whether it was “sane” or “sophistical,” to use Erasmus’s terms. The paranymph orations, by contrast, are a rich source on the subject.

In the first place, the paranymph orations inform us about some of the topics treated in disputations. I have already mentioned Ensche’s disputations on the passion and poverty of Christ. We also learn that the Cistercian monk Jean de Burrey during his tentativa discussed human perfection in relation to intellect, will, synderesis, charity and merit.⁶⁰ Guillaume Amery’s ordinaria dealt with Revelation and the coming of the Antichrist.⁶¹ These examples highlight how topics relating to New Testament texts and moral theology were selected alongside the themes of ecclesiastical authority treated by Almain and Grandval.

Almost all the orations praise the candidates’ sharp arguments and subtle responses – commonplaces that tell us little about what actually took place during the disputations. Some, however, describe revealing details. The speech to David Cranston depicts the aggressive vibe disliked by many humanists. Lasseré described Cranston’s strong physical reaction to respondents during disputations:

If you heard a feeble response, you showed your teeth, fumed, bit your lips, tore your beard. If not, you smoothed your brow and with your lips fixated, your brow unmoving, your gaze fastened, and soles unmoving, you praised the response.

According to Lasseré, Cranston crushed any weak responder like David vanquished Goliath.⁶²

This was, however, not the only way that disputations were portrayed in the paranymph orations. Commenting on Burrey’s disputation, De Lyon said that “those who heard you seemed to hear a new Dionysius the Cistercian and besides these very rich teachings, you also had a certain sophistication (urbanitas) with many jokes and great charm.”⁶³ De Lyon’s report about Amery’s performance was similarly colourful:

No one missed how you untangled the senses and hidden interpretations of Revelations like a divine interpreter of marvellous meanings. Those present even saw John himself revived, or William of Paris, returning from the interior of the earth to the heavens.⁶⁴

In these two cases, De Lyon did not represent the disputation as a combative exchange, instead praising the candidates’ solid knowledge and eloquence. These appear, in principle, like discussions of which Erasmus would approve.

IV. Scholastics and humanists in the student body

The paranymph orations from 1510 to 1512 demonstrate the coexistence of scholastic approaches to theology with other traditions that were more amenable to humanists. To further explore the relationship between these different groups, this final section focuses on the orations dedicated to students of clear scholastic or humanistic leanings. The former group is best exemplified by students from the circle of John Mair (c.1467–1550). Mair was one of the most active teachers of nominalist philosophy and theology at the University of Paris in this period. He had studied theology with Jan Standonck and remained associated with Montaigu after receiving his licence in theology in 1506.⁶⁵ Six years later, three of Mair’s students received the licence: David Cranston, Jacques Almain and Pierre Crockaert. Their success at the Faculty of Theology is indicated by the ranking that teachers at the faculty made of the candidates in the licentiate class. The official ranking of candidates in 1512 placed all three highly: Almain was ranked second in the class (after Ludwig Ber), Cranston fifth and Crockaert sixth. Association with one of the leading scholastic theologians was clearly correlated with success in the Faculty of Theology.

The three candidates had all published works in the scholastic tradition of philosophy. Cranston had published on logic and physics; Almain on logic, physics and ethics; and Crockaert had written works on logic and Thomist philosophy. In this activity too they followed Mair, who published many books throughout his career. His early publications focused mainly on logic, but he later wrote commentaries on the Sentences (from 1509 onwards), a Gospel commentary (1518) and a work on British history (1521). It seems likely that the three candidates presented to the university chancellor in 1512 would have followed in Mair’s footsteps as prolific writers in the scholastic tradition, had not all three died in the years immediately following their graduation.⁶⁶

We have already seen that Lasseré’s speech to Cranston thematised his combative performance in disputations. This portrait of Cranston resonates with how Mair himself depicted his student as a staunch defender of traditional scholastic method. In 1510, Mair made Cranston one of the interlocutors of a short dialogue published as a preface to his own commentary on the first book of the Sentences. In the dialogue, Cranston undertook discussion with a humanist critic of Mair’s method. Cranston defended the use of Aristotle and philosophical concepts in theology. Furthermore, he argued that for solving complex questions it is necessary to pay sustained attention to arguments pro and contra according to the scholastic method.⁶⁷ The willingness to dialogue with humanists is telling of Mair’s openminded attitude. It has been pointed out that Mair attended some classes in Greek and that he in part sympathised with the views of humanist educational reformers. In 1528 Mair himself suggested that theologians had perhaps spent too much time on philosophy and that it was time to engage more closely with Scripture.⁶⁸ The early dialogue ends openly, without a clear sign that Cranston successfully convinced his opponent. Yet the methodology employed in Mair’s Sentences commentary made his own preference abundantly clear.

The awareness of Mair’s circle as a bastion of scholastic traditionalism is evident in Lasseré’s orations to Almain and Crockaert. Lasseré’s speech to Almain focused almost exclusively on his intellectual achievements. The orator praised Almain’s capacious memory, his successful teaching at the Collège de Coqueret and the dialectical works written on sleepless nights.⁶⁹ In describing Almain’s work, Lasseré emphasised his ability to resolve complex problems and explain the most obscure and difficult matters lucidly: “nothing could be said more clearly or easily than in your Sorbonic disputations.”⁷⁰ In his speech to Crockaert, Lasseré thematised Crockaert’s turn to Thomist philosophy following his entry into the Dominican order, praising his ability to explain both vias – the nominalist and the realist – and comparing him to Thomas as well as Durand de Saint-Pourçain.⁷¹ Lasseré furthermore remarked that Crockaert did not write in frivolous genres like poetry, history or satire but “in subtle windings like Aristotle, and salutary warnings like Paul.”⁷² Lasseré’s speeches to theologians of the scholastic camp incorporated praise sympathetic to their point of view.

The same is true of Lasseré’s speeches to candidates with clear humanistic allegiances. Among the candidates celebrated in 1512 was Valerand de La Varanne, an accomplished poet. Lasseré especially praised La Varanne’s patriotic Carmen de expugnatione genuensi from 1507.⁷³ His speech, however, opened with a more general defence of the liberal arts, arguing that “the theologian should know many things besides theology.”⁷⁴ In the speech, Lasseré presented various traditional arguments for why grammatical and rhetorical knowledge was relevant for the theologian. First, the seculares scientiae add ornamentation to divine letters. Second, liberal disciplines had been essential to authors like Lactantius and Augustine. Their erudition had allowed Lactantius to “tear down” the superstitions of pagans, and Augustine to artfully erect the “city of God.” Therefore, we should not listen to people who “having finished their study of theology strive to dissuade people from the knowledge of liberal arts.”⁷⁵ Lasseré ended his speech to La Varanne with an exhortation for the multiscius to rise and rejoice – echoing the ideal of encyclopaedic knowledge embraced by many French Renaissance authors.⁷⁶

Several students and orators had connections to the philosopher and humanist educational reformer Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (c.1460–1536).⁷⁷ La Varanne probably knew Lefèvre through common friends at the Collège de Boncourt or from the Picard nation.⁷⁸ In 1508, he published a poem in Lefèvre’s honour. The poem highlighted the religious implications of Lefèvre’s approach to philosophy, which La Varanne characterised as a kind of natural theology. By investigating the creation – in particular “its hidden corners” (abdita) – Lefèvre was learning about God.⁷⁹ La Varanne ended by encouraging Lefèvre’s contributions to learning in Paris.⁸⁰

De Lyon similarly praised Lefèvre’s approach to philosophy in an oration, highlighting again that theology students with humanistic interests were not averse to these ideas. This segment is found in De Lyon’s speech to Philippe Prevost. Prevost had originally studied with a different teacher but after gaining the master’s degree, he taught philosophy alongside Lefèvre at the Collège de Cardinal Lemoine, where he was also a bursar in theology.⁸¹ In 1503 Prevost had received a friendly dedication from Lefèvre’s close collaborator Josse Clichtove, designating him a “companion in the study of philosophy” (in philosophiae studio commilitonus).⁸² Reflecting on Prevost’s path, De Lyon told this story as a passage from sophism to true philosophy:

… at the beginning you had been taught and shaped in those schools where you encountered sophistical fallacies and fallacious sophisms, where you tasted Aristotle, as they say, “with the edge of your lips.” Having true philosophy fixed to your heart with great spikes, with regret you were led towards the most learned Lefèvre who – if I may use the words of Plautinus – set a ruler to Aristotle’s books, and brought back home the peripatetic Aristotle, which had been obfuscated by certain labyrinths and puzzles … . You applied yourself with so much effort that you emerged most skilled among those who stepped out of Lefèvre’s shadow.⁸³

De Lyon’s speech to Provost thus presented sympathetically the Fabrist narrative concerning humanist philosophy. He discussed the philological project of cleansing the text, and the approach that was more generally concerned with avoiding the tricky sophistical problems associated with certain branches of scholasticism. Moreover, he said, this approach to Aristotle uncovered the “most concealed places of philosophy” – a line of praise borrowed from Francesco Pucci’s letter regarding Angelo Poliziano’s encyclopaedic Miscellanies.⁸⁴

Two further passages from De Lyon’s orations contain close parallels to Lefèvre’s ideas concerning the relationship between philosophy and theology. One is found in his oration to the otherwise little-known theologian Nicolas Lamy. Lamy had taught philosophy for many years at the Collège de Calvy and particularly studied natural philosophy and mathematics, including Archimedes’s spheres, Democritus’s atoms and Pythagoras’s numbers.⁸⁵ Like Charles de Bovelles and other members of Lefèvre’s circle, Lamy paired his philosophical study with contemplative practices.⁸⁶ Playing on the Platonist notion of the soul’s celestial origin, De Lyon said:

Just as the endless God the Father gave you a soul from the eternal fires, which we call stars and constellations, so it seems that you, always attending to the heavens and the celestial fatherland, are frequently raptured into heavens through contemplation.⁸⁷

According to De Lyon, Lamy’s capacity for rapture and ecstasy made him a welcome visitor in reformed monasteries, where he would preach about God and the “council” of the heavens. The same combination of devotion and erudition explained, according to De Lyon, why Lamy had been made prior of the Sorbonne.⁸⁸

De Lyon’s description of Lamy’s contemplation echoes Fabrist views on the relationship between philosophical knowledge and religious insight: studying and looking towards the “blessed region” might invite divine illumination. We unfortunately have no surviving writings by Lamy to corroborate that he shared their outlook. De Lyon himself, however, was clearly sympathetic to Lefèvre’s views. In one of his orations on theology, De Lyon addressed the question of how theology related to philosophy:

 … the theology that investigates the cause of causes is the highest form of philosophy; the theology that defines the obligations of virtues in their circumstances is the highest form of ethics; the theology that teaches indestructible truth is the highest form of logic … .⁸⁹

In sum, De Lyon’s orations show that Lefèvre’s vision of theologising philosophy gained support beyond his closest students and members of his college, even reaching students at the Faculty of Theology.

I shall conclude with two points relating to the scholastic and humanist students at the Faculty of Theology. The first relates to the ranking of students. I have already mentioned the high rankings achieved by the students from John Mair’s circle. Cranston, Almain and Crockaert were among the top students at the faculty. By contrast, Lamy ranked 19/29 and Prevost 26/29.⁹⁰ While all these students were praised for their philosophical skill by the paranymphs, it is clear that the masters of the faculty preferred Mair’s students.

Second, the graduation speeches from the Faculty of Theology in 1510–1512 open up a new perspective on the relationship between humanists and theologians other than the confrontational narrative embraced by most recent studies. For example, Ann Moss argues that humanists and scholastics in Paris and elsewhere belonged to separate linguistic spheres, between which little, if any, communication or compromise was possible.⁹¹ James Farge argues that the members of the Faculty of Theology shared a conservative mentality that put them completely at odds with humanist innovators and reformers.⁹² These narratives fit well with the testimony of some, for whom a humanistic education appeared incompatible with the culture of the faculty. However, many students saw no obvious contradiction between the academic study of theology and humanist learning. In the decade before the Reformation, studia humanitatis still played an important and constructive role within the Faculty of Theology.

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Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Arts and Humanities Research Council: [Grant Number AH/L503897/1].

Notes on contributors

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.

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.