LITMIR.BIZ

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of good works.

      By the second half of the fifteenth century the University of Paris no longer had the philosophical mastery which for three centuries had been its glory and pride. It seemed uninterested even in publishing the works of its greatest doctors. Scholars who wanted them had to turn to printers outside France. Biblical studies also languished. The first Bible to be printed in Paris appeared in 1476, twenty-five years after Gutenberg’s Mainz edition. Studying the Bible occupied less of the working time of teachers and students of theology than debating Lombard’s Sentences. Nor did patristic studies make up for the poverty of speculation. The Parisian presses largely neglected the writings of the Fathers. Theologians seemed interested only in the Immaculate Conception, a doctrine that had gained wide popular currency since the thirteenth century.

       Mysticism

      Terminism was too dry and formal a doctrine to satisfy many Christians; sooner or later it was bound to provoke a reaction. A strong mystical tradition existed in Paris, reaching back to such fourteenth-century teachers as Pierre d’Ailly and Jean Gerson, but it was in the Low Countries that late medieval mysticism underwent a remarkable flowering. A major ascetic movement which drew large numbers of laity was the Devotio Modema. Its followers, the Brethren of the Common Life, avoided formal vows while sharing a life in common dedicated to poverty, chastity and obedience. Their founder, Geert Groote (1340–84), wanted religion to be simple, devout and charitable. By the early fifteenth century the Brethren had numerous houses in the Low Countries, Germany and the Rhineland. Their ideals were best expressed in the Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis. The Brethren were closely associated with a house of Canons Regular founded at Windesheim in 1387. Rejecting the Nominalists’ dumb acceptance of the church’s teaching, they found the truth of Christianity in the Bible and liked to read St Augustine and St Bernard, the two great exponents of the inner life and divine love.

      An important link between the mysticism of the Low Countries and France was Jean Standonck, a pupil of the Brethren who eventually settled in Paris. After completing the arts course, he entered the collège de Montaigu to study theology and in 1483 became its principal. Though French was not his native tongue, he became a popular preacher. He relinquished the personal use of money and, chastising his body relentlessly, gave all he had to the poor. At Montaigu he imposed a harsh discipline on the students, hoping to develop among them an active and mystical piety. The rule he drew up for a college of poor students which he set up alongside Montaigu has been described as ‘one of the capital monuments of the Catholic reformation at the start of the sixteenth century’.

      While the Faculty of Theology continued its arid Nominalist teaching, many Parisian clergy turned to St Bernard and St Augustine for spiritual comfort. The mystical writings of d’Ailly and Gerson were also popular, as were books produced by the Brethren of the Common Life and the canons of Windesheim. However, it was mainly through the Imitation of Christ that theologians in Paris were influenced by Dutch religious thought. Many editions were available after 1490: a partial French version was printed in 1484 and a full translation in 1493. It was the antidote to the arid discipline of the the Terminists and Scotists; it sustained and satisfied the desire for a more personal faith which scholastic teaching threatened to stifle.

       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

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