Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-lvwk9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-05T23:54:44.107Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Clovis and Constantine. The Uses of History in Sixteenth-Century Gallicanism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2011

J. H. M. Salmon
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A strong case has been made for the appearance of a new kind of history in late sixteenth-century France. Whether or not it deserves the label ‘historicist’, it has been credited with a desire to discover the objective face of the past, with a critical approach to sources, and even, though more rarely, with attempts to explain historical process. Prominent among the new brand of historians are Jean du Tillet, Charles du Moulin, Pierre and François Pithou, Claude Fauchet and Etienne Pasquier. All these men of the robe are also celebrated as defenders of the liberties of the Gallican Church. The Gallican tradition shared an attitude towards the past that was quite contrary to the new history. It did not accept change for its own sake, nor did it see change as improvement pointing towards the present.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 41 , Issue 4 , October 1990 , pp. 584 - 605
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks, trans. Thorpe, Lewis, London 1974, 144.Google Scholar The Latin reads: ‘Rex ergo prior poposcit se a pontifeci [pontifice] batizare [baptizan]. Procedit novus Constantinus ad lavacrum’: MGH Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum i/1, Gregorii Episcopi Turonensis Libri Historiarum X, 11. xxxi. 77. The parallel became traditional. Cf. Aimon of Fleury late in the tenth century, ‘Exornatur baptisterium; descendit rex, veluti alter Constantinus, in sanctificatum fontis alveum’: PL cxxxix. 655. The first recorded example occurs in a letter to Clovis from Bishop Avitus of Vienne, Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., The Long-haired Kings and Other Essays, London 1962, 170–1.Google Scholar

2 Huppert, George, The Idea of Perfect History, Urbana 1970Google Scholar; Kelley, Donald R., Foundations of Modem Historical Scholarship, New York 1970.Google Scholar

3 Martin, Olivier, L'Assemblee de Vincennes de 1329 el ses conséquences, Rennes 1909, 77–8, 86.Google Scholar Martin prefers the spelling ‘Cuignières’, although most sixteenth-century Gallicans used ‘Cugnières’.

4 Ibid. 117, 119. Posthumus Meyjes, G. H. M., Jean Gerson et l'Assemblée de Vincennes (1329), Leiden 1978, 60.Google Scholar Prescription was a technical Roman law term requiring long bona fide usage to establish rights through custom. Various periods of time were mentioned in the Code of Justinian (Code vii. 33–9), but in France in the fourteenth century the lapse of a century was needed to give custom the status of law. Meyjes points out that Cuignières also asserted the Roman law principle that prescription was invalid against the fisc (Digest xli. 3. 18).

5 Martin, , L'Assemblee, 127Google Scholar, 174. Cf. Corpus juris avilis iii, ed. Eduard Osenbrüggen, Leipzig 1848, cols 539ff.

6 Watt, J. A., ‘Spiritual and temporal powers’, in Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought, c. 350-c. 1450, ed. Burns, J. H., Cambridge 1988, 422.Google Scholar Watt cites Quillet, J., La Philosophie politique du Songe du Verger, Paris 1977, 126.Google Scholar

7 Meyjes, , Jean Gerson, 60.Google Scholar

8 Ibid. 80–8, 110.

9 Remonstrances faites au Roy Louis XI sur les liberiez de l'Eglise Gallicane l'an 1461, in Traitez des droits et liberiez de l'Eglise Gallicane, ed. Pierre Dupuy, n.p. 1651, i. 14–27. Other editions of this collection, begun by Pierre Pithou, were published in 1639, 1715 and 1731.

10 Ibid. 19.

11 Ibid. 14.

12 Ibid. 19. Cf. Corpus juris canonici pars prior: Decrelum Magistri Gratiani, ed. A. Friedberg, repr. 1959, dist. lxiii, cap. xxxiv, col. 246.

13 Remonstrances, 15.

14 Doutrepont, Georges, Jean Lemaire de Belges et la Renaissance, Brussels 1934, 117.Google Scholar Doutrepont makes an exhaustive analysis of Lemaire's sources and observes that he did not fully accept Valla's proof of forgery because he wished to show the donation to be the source of papal ambition, 120.

15 Lemaire, , Tracté la différence, in Oeuvres, ed. Stecher, J., Louvain 1885, iii. 272, 277.Google Scholar

16 Mémoires dressez pour le Roy Tres-Chrestien et l'Eglise Gallicane, in Dupuy, , Traitez des droits, 28.Google Scholar On Cappel and his family see Salmon, J. H. M., Renaissance and Revolt: essays in the intellectual and social history of early modern France, Cambridge 1987, 54–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Memoires, 30.

18 For a summary of the debate about the earliest precursor of Bartolus to state this principle see Tierney, Brian, ‘Some recent works on the political theories of the medieval canonists’, Traditio x (1954), 594–625.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Mémoires, 28.

20 Martin, , L'Assemblée, 57.Google Scholar

21 Douaren, , De sacris Ecclesiae ministeriis ac beneficiis libri VIII…Item pro libertate Ecclesiae Gallicanae adversus Románam aulám defensio Parisiensis curiae Ludovico XI Gallorum Regi quondam oblata, Paris 1557.Google Scholar See Kelly, Donald R., ‘Fides historiae: Charles Dumoulin and the Gallican view of history’, Traditio xxii (1966), 361–2Google Scholar, for an account of the edition of 1551.

22 Kelly, , Foundations, 228.Google Scholar

23 Jean du Tillet, bishop of Meaux, Libelli seu decreta a Clodoveo et Childeberto et Clothario prius aedita acpostremum a Carolo lucide emendata, n.p., n.d. [1540?]. This pioneering collection also contained fragments of the Salic and other Germanic bodies of law.

24 Mémoire et advis de M. lean du Tillet, Prolonotaire et Secrétaire du Roy, et Greffier de sa cour de Parlement sur les liberiez de l'Eglise Gallicane, 1551, in Dupuy, , Traitez des droits, 72.Google Scholar

25 E.g. Pierre de Bellqy, Apologie Catholique contre les libelles, declarations, advis et consultations faictes, écrites et publiées par les Liguez perturbateurs du repos du Royaume de France, n.p. 1585, 411.

26 Miranda, Bartholomaeus Carranza, Summa Concilium et Pontificum a Pelro usque ad lulium Tertium, Paris 1555, 206v–8v.Google Scholar The standard modem text of the canons of the Council of Orléans is in MGH Concilia Aevi Merovingia, 1–14. Accounts of the council are provided by Hefele, Carl-Joseph, Histoires des Conciles d'après les documents originaux, ed. and trans. Leclerq, H., Paris 1908, ii/2. 1,005–15Google Scholar; and Duchesne, Louis-Marie-Olivier, L'Église au VIe siècle, Paris 1925, 500–2.Google Scholar Duchesne, 497, suggests that the Visigothic king Alaric authorised the Council of Agde in 506 and that Clovis was following his example. For Ado and Aimon on Clovis see PL cxxiii. 97–106 and cxxxix. 649–55.

27 Tillet, Du, Mémoire et advis, 71.Google Scholar

28 Kelley, , Foundations, 179.Google Scholar See also Kelley's more detailed consideration of Du Moulin as historian, ‘Fides historiae’.

29 Thireau, Jean-Louis, Charles du Moulin, Geneva 1980, 320–1.Google Scholar

30 Kelley, , Foundations, 176Google Scholar, citing Annotaliones ad jus canonicum. Cf. Thireau, , Du Moulin, 205.Google Scholar

31 The following works by Du Moulin were issued separately in 1603 without place of publication: Ad Jus pontificium seu canonicum annotaliones: Ad Sextum librum decretalium per Bonifacium VIII…editum annotationes: Ad Clementinas quas dementis V constitutions vocant annotaliones; Ad Libros V decretalium Gregorii noni pontifias annotationes.

32 du Moulin, C., Commentario ad edictum Henrid secundi contra parvas datas et abusus curiae Romani, Lyon 1552Google Scholar; idem, Commentaire sur l'édit du Roi Henri second contre les petites dates et abus de la Cour de Rome, Lyon 1554; idem, Abus des petites dates, reservations, preventions, annales et autres usurpations et exactions contre les édictz et ordonnances des Roys de France, Lyon 1564; idem, La Première partie du Tracte de l'origine, progrez et excellence du royaume et monarchie des Françoys et couronne de France, Lyon 1561; idem, Conseil sur lefaict du Concile de Trente, Lyon 1564.

33 Traicté, item 99; Commentaire, item 5. Cf. Thireau, , Du Moulin 330.Google Scholar

34 Conseil sur le faict, 14r, item 34.

35 Ibid. 23v, item 57.

36 Ibid. 15V, item 38; 16r, item 40; 19v, item 48.

37 Kelley, , ‘Fides historiae’, 376.Google Scholar

38 Thireau, , Du Moulin, 273, 279.Google Scholar

39 Conseil sur le faict, 37, item 93.

40 Cited by Thireau, op. cit. 221, from Du Moulin's Apologie contre un livret.

41 Conseil sur lefaict, 32V, item 80.

42 Cited by Thireau, op. cit. 223, from Tratelé de l'origine, item 83.

43 Conseil sur le faxet, 3r, item 6.

44 Ibid. 24r, item 58.

45 Ibid. 13r, item 34. Sec above n. 34.

46 Ibid. 23, items 56, 57.

47 Ibid. 38r, item 93.

48 Mémoires dressez par M. Baptiste du Mesnil par le commandement du Roy Charles IX sur les procedures faites à Rome contre la Reine de Navarre, in Dupuy, Traitez des droits, 89.

49 Ibid. 91. Cf. Gregory of Tours, History, 275–82Google Scholar, 285 and 291. See above n. 46.

50 (Pierre de Belloy), Moyens d'abus, entreprises et militez du rescrit et bulle du Pape Sixte Ve du nom en date du mois de septembre 1585 contre le sérénissime prince Henry de Bourbon, n.p. 1586, 53, 314 and 318. The decrees of Symmachus are attributed to his successor Hormisdas, in Miranda's compilation (n. 26 above), 205v.

51 Moyens d'abus, 319.

52 (Louis Servin), Vindiciae secundum libertatem Ecclesiae Gallicanae, et r egli status Gallo-Francorum sub Henrici IIII rege Francorum et Navarrae, Tours 1590.

53 (François de Clary), Philippiques contre les bulles et autres pratiques de la faction d'Espagne, Tours 1611 [1592], 132V.

54 Charles Faye, Discours des raisons et moyens pour lesquels Messieurs du cierge assemblez à Chartres ont decláreles bulles monitoriales décernées par le Pape Grégoire XIV contre les Ecclésiastiques et autres, tant de la noblesse que du tiers Estat, qui sont demeurez en la fidelité du Roy, nulles et injustes, et contre les droicts et liberiez de l'Eglise Gallicane, in Dupuy (1731 edn), Traitez des droits i. 101.

55 See n. 9. Pithou's treatise appears at the start of the 1639 and 1651 editions. Dupuy's interlinear commentary is to be found in the 1731 edition.

56 Pithou, François, Traicte' de la grandeur, droicts, preeminences, et prérogatives des Roys et du Royaume de France, in Dupuy, Traitez des droits (1731), i. 121–31.Google Scholar

57 Kelley, , Foundations, 293–5Google Scholar, citing Fauchet's Antiquitez gauloises and his Origines des dignitez.

58 Claude Fauchet, Traicté des liberiez de l'Eglise Gallicane, in Dupuy, , Traitez des droits (1651), 110.Google Scholar

59 Ibid. 113.

60 Ibid. 125.

61 Kelley, , op. cit. 300.Google Scholar

62 Loisel, Antoine, Pasquier, ou Dialogue des avocats du parlement de Paris, Paris 1818.Google Scholar Cf. Pegues, Franklin L., The Lawyers of the Last Capetians, Princeton 1962, 3–4.Google Scholar

63 Huppert, , Perfect History 47.Google Scholar

64 Pasquier, Etienne, Les Recherches de la France, Paris 1633, 11.Google Scholar i. 41.

65 Ibid. 111. ii. 240.

66 Ibid.

67 Ibid. 243.

68 Pasquier, Étienne, Linres familières, ed. Thickett, D., Geneva 1974, 368.Google Scholar For the context of the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1594 and the associated polemics see Salmon, , Renaissance and Revolt, 173.Google Scholar

69 Pasquier, , L.s Recherches 111. vi. 171–3.Google Scholar

70 Ibid. vii. 174.

71 Ibid. iii. 156.

72 Ibid. vii. 176–7.

73 Ibid. xxii–xxiv. 967–74. Cf. Wallace-Hadrill, , Long-haired Kings, 71–94Google Scholar, ‘Fredegar and the history of France’.

74 Pasquier, , Les Recherches 111. x. 192.Google Scholar

75 Ibid. xii. 200–1.

76 Ibid. preface, 146.

77 Ibid. vii. 179.

78 Cromé, François, Dialogue d'entre le Maheustre et le Manant, ed. Ascoli, Peter M., Geneva 1977, 63–4 and 66–7.Google Scholar

79 Sirmond, Jacques, Concilia Antiqua Galliae tres in tomos ordine digesta cum epistolis Pontificum, Principum constitutionibus, et aliis Gallicanae rei Ecclesiasticae monument?, Paris 1629, i. 177–84, 601.Google Scholar