John Calvin, the Jurisconsults and the Ius Civile

Basil Hall

doi:10.1017/S042420840000454X

John Calvin, the Jurisconsults and the Ius Civile

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016

Basil Hall

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The first brief writing of Calvin to appear in print was the epistle to the French jurisconsult François de Connan, which preceded the short treatise Antapologia issued by Calvin’s fellow student Nicholas Duchemin against the Italian jurisconsult Alciati. In this epistle, headed Ioannes Calvinus Francisco Connano iuris studiosissimo, Calvin wrote ‘. . .our friend Duchemin who, as you know, is a man most careful in his studies, of perspicacious mind, and what is of the first importance, of the most penetrating judgement; and who is abundantly learned in the best literature has now become engaged upon, and has already been engaged upon, legal studies. . .’: every word here could have been applied to himself. The occasion of this dedication, written in March 1531, when Calvin was a young law student of twenty-two at Orléans, was the eagerness of Duchemin and Calvin to support their admired master, Pierre de l’Estoile, against the devious method of attack by Alciati at Bourges, who had published a criticism, under the name of a pupil or under a pseudonym, of l’Estoile’s interpretation of a point of civil law wherein he had shown that Alciati on this point had borrowed from the greatest of French classical scholars, Guillaume Budé, without acknowledgment.

Type: Research Article
Information: Studies in Church History , Volume 3: Papers read at the third winter and summer meetings of the Ecclesiastical History Society , 1966 , pp. 202 - 216

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S042420840000454X [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1966

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^{Page 202 of note 1} Ioannis Calvini opera quae superstmt omnia: Baum, Cunitz, Reuss, 1863ff., IX, col. 785.

^{Page 202 of note 2} op. cit. col. 786. ‘. .. Cheminus noster, homo ut seis lucubrationum patientissimus, perspicacis ingenii, et quod est inprimis egregium exactissimi iudicii, qui quum sit in literis melioribus ad unguem expolitus feliciter nunc versatur et antea diutissime versatus est in legalibus studiis.’

^{Page 203 of note 1} J. Bohatec, Budé und Calvin, Studien zur Gedankwelt des französischen Frühhumanismus, 1950.

On a somewhat smaller scale: A. M. Hugo, Calvijn en Seneca. Een inleidende studie van Calvijns Commentaar op Seneca, De clementia, anno 1532, 1957. Quirinus Breen, John Calvin: A study in French humanism, 1931.

^{Page 203 of note 2} E. Doumergue, Vie de Calvin, 1899, Tome I, livre second.

^{Page 203 of note 3} F. Wendel, Calvin: sources et évolution de sa pensée religieuse, 1950, 9.

^{Page 204 of note 1} Calvini. . . opera omnia, XXXI, col. 22.

^{Page 204 of note 2} W. Modderman, De receptie van het romeinsche regt, 1874. C. A. Schmidt, Die Rezeption des römischen Rechts in Deutschland, 1868.

^{Page 205 of note 1} Savigny, Geschichte des römisches Rechts, III, V, 279-305; for Bartolus, op. cit. VI, 161-168.

^{Page 206 of note 1} Petrarch, Lettere delle cose familiari, ed. Fracasetti, IV, letter IV, lib. 20. Cited in P. E. Viard, André Alciat, 1926.

^{Page 206 of note 2} Laurentii Valla viri tam Graecæ, quam Latinœ doctissimi, Elegantiarum Libri omnes opprimi utiles, scholiis quibusdam ubi hactenus mendosi fuere illustrati per G. Longolium, 1539, Lib. IV, cap. 104, 370.

^{Page 207 of note 1} F. Rabelais, Oeuvres complètes: Pantagruel, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1951, 238.

^{Page 207 of note 2} Op. cit., 238.

^{Page 208 of note 1} Francisci Connani Parisiensis consiliarii Regii ac supplicum libellorum in regia magistri, commentariorum Iuris Civilis, 1553, 149.

^{Page 208 of note 2} Ms. circa 1519, referred to in Louis Delaruelle, Guillaume Budé, Paris 1907, 184.

^{Page 208 of note 3} Calvini. . . opera omnia, V, col. 54.

^{Page 209 of note 1} Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami (ed. P. S. and H. M. Allen), I, 312. ‘Quanquam ad remigrandum iamdudum tum Musae me hortantur meae, quae quidem hic inter Accursium, Bartolum, et Baldum misere frigent. .. ’

^{Page 209 of note 2} Rabelais, op. cit. 211.

^{Page 210 of note 1} P. E. Viard, André Alciat, 1926, 82.

^{Page 210 of note 2} Alciati’s preface (vol III) to his commentary on the Codex contains his account of the incident: Omnium Do. Alciati Mediolanensis, Iureconsulti clurissimi operum in sex tomos Digestorum, Basle, 1571.

^{Page 210 of note 3} Viard, op. cit, 69.

^{Page 210 of note 4} Caivini. . . opera omnia, V, col. 146.

^{Page 211 of note 1} E. Doumergue, I, livre second, chap. 2.

^{Page 211 of note 2} J. Bohatec, ‘Calvin et la procédure civile à Genève’, Revue historique de droit français et étranger, LXII (1938).

^{Page 212 of note 1} Calvini opera ... omnia, X, col. 125.

^{Page 212 of note 2} Op. cit., 255-7.

^{Page 213 of note 1} Op. cit., 294

^{Page 213 of note 2} Calvini opera . . . omnia, XXVII, col. 409 ff.

^{Page 213 of note 3} Op. cit., IX, col. 445.

^{Page 214 of note 1} Connan, op. cit., Preface.

^{Page 214 of note 2} Connan, op. cit., p. 6.

^{Page 215 of note 1} Mattbaei Gribaldi Iurisconsulti Cheriani De Ratione Studiendi, 1544.

^{Page 215 of note 2} Op. cit., 10.

^{Page 215 of note 3} Op. cit., 54 and 55.

^{Page 215 of note 4} Calvin, Commentary on Romans. Cited from edition in Calvin Translation Society, 1849, XXIII and XXIV.

^{Page 216 of note 3} Calvini. . . opera omnia, I, col. 230.

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