The influence of humanism on Post-Reformation Catholic preachers in France.

Prior to the reformation, most sermons given in France were structured according to the "modern method" of division and subdivision, which proceeded in rather artificial fashion from theme to protheme, then to the elaboration of theological points and exempla. Those who deviated from this form, such as Jean Vitrier, were lavishly praised by humanists such as Erasmus, but were often sufficiently heterodox in other respects to attract the attention of the Paris Faculty of Theology.(1) In the first decade after the outbreak of the Reformation in France, the modern method persisted, but by the 1530s it had been replaced almost completely by a much freer and more expressive rendering of theological and Biblical material. This was accompanied by an equally major change in the language of printing: by the mid-sixteenth century, almost all popular sermons were primed in French, whereas their earlier counterparts had been printed exclusively in Latin. Many of these changes can be attributed to the effects of the Protestant Reformation, when Catholics changed their style and structure out of a positive realization of the need for simplification, and more negatively to combat the Protestants on their own turf. But to see the changes in sermons as simply a result of the Reformation is to ignore the rich intellectual heritage of the last decades before the Reformation in France. The seeds of change were first sown in a group of men born roughly between 1490 and 1510, whom I will refer to as the "generation of 1490." They were the intellectual elite, most of whom studied in Paris, and whose lives and outlooks were permanently changed by a conjuncture of political, cultural and intellectual events that began in the last decade of the fifteenth century. Although I would not call these men "prereformers" for a variety of reasons, my debt to Augustin Renaudet and some of the themes he first enunciated are substantial.(2)

The French Renaissance did not simply happen during the reign of Francis I (1515-47), for many of the "new" literary and artistic currents had been present since the fourteenth century. But the pioneering efforts of the Savoyard Guillaume Fichet (d. 1480) and Robert Gaguin (d. 1501) truly introduced Italian humanist thought to the University of Paris. In the 1490s, several developments took place that would permanently mark off a new generation from its predecessors. The monastic Observantine movement made important progress in France especially after 1494, through the work of such religious reformers as Olivier Maillard, Jean Cleree, Jean Raulin and Jan Stan-donck. In that same year, the Italian Wars began, exposing a whole generation of princes, nobles and soldiers to the cultural achievements of the Italian Renaissance. And last, but certainly not least, a 29-year-old scholar named Erasmus came to Paris in 1495. I will show that humanism, especially the Christian humanism espoused by Erasmus, had a critical effect even on men whom we would not call humanists, and who might have been expected to be hostile to it in view of two factors: humanism's early, albeit tenuous, links to Protestantism, and its emphasis more on human potentiality than soteriological concerns. It is significant that the two most inveterate opponents of humanism at the University of Paris, Noel Beda and Pierre Cousturier, were both born in the 1470s and died in 1537. Most of those born after 1490, even when they publicly disavowed humanism, were nevertheless changed by it in ways that separated them inexorably from the formal scholastic past.

I will examine these changes in the lives of four men whose careers as popular preachers reached their peak in the years between 1530 and 1560. The first three will be discussed briefly: Jean de Gaigny (1495-1549), the king's librarian and chancellor of the church of Paris and the University of Paris; Claude Guilliaud (1493-1551), canon and theologus of Autun cathedral, for whom there is one funeral oration and an inventory of his 1500-volume library; and Etienne Paris (1495-1561), a provincial of the Dominican order and auxiliary bishop of both Rouen and Orleans, who has left twenty homilies. I will then explore in greater detail the influence of humanism on Francois LePicart (1504-1556), canon and dean of St-Germain l'Auxerrois, for whom there is far greater documentation and over 300 extant sermons. I have not chosen these men to illustrate my point; for reasons discussed elsewhere,(4) they are among the only preachers born after 1490 for whom we have printed sermons in the period between the Reformation and the Religious Wars. I have excluded self-described humanists such as Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples and Josse Clichtove.(5)

The dates of my group coincide with what Jean-Claude Margolin considers the heyday of French humanism, 1480-1540.(6) For Margolin, the humanist movement was marked by "an emphasis on the study of authors and texts, [and when] certain historical traditions were called into question, myths were scrutinized, and a critical approach was adopted in all areas of research, including sacred biblical texts."(7) Northern [Erasmian] humanism was characterized by a resurgence of interest in gospel-centered apostolic simplicity (or what people of the time conceived of as "apostolic simplicity"), and a whole new way of "doing theology"(8) that would prove fatal to scholasticism. Peter Matheson describes the humanist anthropology as "confident, individualistic and moralistic,"(9) features that appear in abundance in Catholic sermons after 1530. Contrary to recent studies that have emphasized pessimism and a sense of eschatological foreboding throughout the sixteenth century,(10) I will argue that the sense of hope, confidence, and intellectual excitement that characterized the generation of 1490 could not be dimmed even by the most serious challenge the Roman Catholic church had ever faced. Among the cultural and religious elite, humanism was a key factor in this positive outlook, and the printing of sermons and commentaries in large numbers by this generation of 1490 had a major influence on their contemporaries, who used such works in their own preaching.

Jean de Gaigny was born in the last decade of the fifteenth century, and received his doctorate from the University of Paris in 1532. He is the only one of this group of preachers who could remotely be termed a humanist. From 1516-20, he studied under the renowned humanist Pierre Danes, and even before receiving his terminal degree was accomplished in Hebrew, Greek and Latin.(11) By 1532-33, Gaigny was lecturing and writing on the epistles of Paul,(12) and James Farge speculates that at this time he was engaged in a rather acrimonious dispute with Erasmus.(13) In 1536, Gaigny composed a eulogy for the deceased dauphin, and was promptly rewarded with numerous benefices and made the king's chaplain. Later, as king's librarian, he enthusiastically acquired manuscripts for the royal collection, and became so enamored with the possibilities offered by printing that he set up a press in his house, which left him deeply in debt at the time of his death in 1549.(14) Despite these interests, however, Gaigny seems to have taken part along with Francois LePicart and Jean Guyencourt in the heretical proceedings against the royal printer Robert Estienne that resulted in his flight to Geneva.(15)

The three extant manuscript homilies by Gaigny date from very early in his career, in 1521, and were addressed to Francis I and his son Charles, duc d'Orleans, at their military encampment at Hesdin. The mere fact of using the homiletic form speaks volumes: as the simple explication or exegesis of a Biblical text, the homily had never completely disappeared during the Middle Ages, but was seldom used in comparison with the modern method. But in the 1490s, this form experienced something of a revival under the influence of Vitrier and Standonck.

In the first of the three homilies, Gaigny explicitly invokes his knowledge of Hebrew and Greek in a rather self-congratulatory manner, by explaining the etymology of the French Piques from the Hebrew pesah and Greek paska.(16) The simple structure of the sermon is not accompanied by any deviation from basic Catholic theology, and despite its early date of delivery offers some clear responses to the Lutheran challenge. "If the buds do not come first, the fruit will not follow," he writes. "If grace and virtue are not first present, glory and happiness will not follow."(17) He defends church ceremonies and admonishes his listeners: "You must believe in your heart. And to be saved, you must confess with your mouth."(18) Elsewhere he tackles sola scriptura and affirms the perpetual virginity of Mary against her detractors.(19)

In short, Gaigny found no contradiction between humanism on the one hand and Catholic faith and tradition on the other. He used humanist thought and techniques to enrich his life and his preaching, and advocated clerical knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, even when this was an unpopular opinion. He attacked Cardinal Cajetanus in the meetings of the Paris Faculty of Theology for commenting on scripture without any knowledge of Hebrew or an even adequate knowledge of Greek.(20) Like Luther, he commented extensively on the Pauline epistles - especially the Letter to the Romans - but came to very different conclusions. Gaigny used humanistic techniques to buttress Catholic doctrine.

Claude Guilliaud was born in 1493 in the diocese of Lyons and also received his doctorate in theology in 1532. Guilliaud too was a Pauline scholar who published numerous commentaries on the epistles as well as sermons,(21) and like Gaigny served as a librarian, in this case for the Sorbonne. As theologus of Autun cathedral, he was responsible not only for the reform and education of the clergy in his diocese, but also for teaching scripture. When Guilliaud was called to court to preach Lenten sermons in 1550, these took the form of brief, simple commentaries on the texts of the gospels.(22) Interestingly, his piety contained clearly ecumenical elements. Although his position as penitentiary required him to root out heretics and preach at executions, he seems to have been drawn to the views of Martin Bucer, also known for flexibility in matters of dogma. In addition, Guilliaud actively collaborated with Michel Servetus (then known as Michel Villeneuve) in the annotation of a six-volume Bible published by Hugues de la Porte in Lyons in 1540.(23) Most interesting for the historian is Guilliaud's library, which originally contained some 1500 volumes (in 1790, an inventory was taken of the remaining 1200 books).(24) Although all of the standard works that might be expected in the library of a Catholic theologian and preacher are present, there are also numerous volumes by Erasmus, Bude, Reuchlin, Gaguin, Clichtove, Lefevre d'Etaples, Lorenzo Valla, and even Philip Melanchthon. Guilliaud's interests and activities often put him at odds with the Faculty of Theology, which frequently censored his books, but most were eventually authorized and published, oddly enough, during the Religious Wars. Yet in spite of his broadmindedness, Guilliaud preached his one extant funeral sermon for Claude de Lorraine, duc de Guise. In it, Guilliaud attacks the "Lutherans," comparing them unfavorably to Goths, Vandals, Ostrogoths and other barbarians,(25) but the sermon itself is written in a very simple format. Simplicity of form, admiration for learning, and openness to new ideas coexisted with the rather unhumanistic ability to preside and preach at the burning of a heretic.

The Dominican Etienne Paris was born in Orleans and received his doctorate in theology from the University of Paris in 1530. Although relatively little is known of his early life, one of his first recorded acts as regent in the Faculty of Theology was to conduct the doctoral examination of Pierre d'Ivolle,(26) the fiery Dominican whose inflammatory preaching in the months before the outbreak of religious war has been immortalized by Claude Haton.(27) In 1552, Paris was appointed auxiliary bishop of Rouen, where he was very active in preaching against heresy.(28) Besides everyday preaching, he delivered two funeral sermons for Francis I's son Charles, an oration for a procession of the relics of Saints Rusticus and Eleutherius in Paris in 1551, and a sermon for the foundation of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament. When he died in 1561, his renown had spread beyond the Alps to Italy.(29)

Paris's homilies bear the unmistakable imprint of humanism, and the elegance of his style is something new in French popular preaching. Even though he preached to ordinary people, these sermons display an entirely new consciousness of the power of language and eloquence that cannot be translated from the French without loss of its unique flavor:

Sainct Iehan, de plume bien taillee, en stile profond, & grave, fidelement descript la genealogie de Iesuchrist, selon la deite, qu'il n'a pas devinee ou inventee de son cerveau, & ne la tient de luy: mais dormant sus la poictrine de son maistre, souef, & mol oreillier, son esprit a veu un huys au ciel ouvert, ou est entre iusques en la chambre de monsieur, de la en son contoir, sa guarderobe, & son cabinet, & de tels lieux a emprunte ce hault scavoir. Ce grand aigle avec ses aeiles legeres & mobiles, a vole iusques au plus haut cedre du mont de Liban, & ne s'est attache a l'escorce de l'arbre, ains l'a vivement enfonce, succe, & tire la movelle du dedans, qu'il nous presente pour nourriture & engressement, quand il dict, in principio erat verbum. Et la par son discours, nous monstre, que Iesus de la substance de Dieu est engendre par eternite, c'est a dire, sans commencement, & sans fin, sans hier, sans demain, sans limites & bornes, soit de lieu ou de temps.(30)

Further into the same Christmas Day sermon, Paris describes the Word of God in the context of Platonic Ideas.(31) Although the situation in France was clearly taking a turn for the worse in the 1550s, he urged his listeners to be joyous and full of hope: "People, cry no more, torment yourselves no more, do not despair, but rejoice and be full of good cheer!"(32) In the sermons of Paris, Catholic preaching has thus undergone a major transformation that brought at least some popular preaching closer to the kind of sermons given at Italian courts and before the popes, as John O'Malley has described.(33) Simplicity of form is accompanied by sophisticated eloquence; one can only wonder how many members of Paris' audience would have understood him.(34)

Except among seiziemistes, the name Francois LePicart is virtually unknown today, though in his time he was quite famous. In 1533, his name was closely associated with that of the Catholic firebrand Noel Beda and other conservative colleagues in the Paris Faculty of Theology who were unalterably opposed to the spread of humanism and "its pernicious effects" on doctrine and preaching.(35) LePicart was beloved by Parisian Catholics, spurned and exiled by Francis I for his outspoken denunciations of Gerard Roussel(36) (and by extension Roussel's patron, Marguerite de Navarre), and reviled by Protestants who experienced the full fury of his pulpit oratory, not infrequently at executions. For these very reasons, LePicart is the perfect subject for a study of the influence of humanism on Catholic preachers. His sermons bear the full imprint of the new learning.

Born in 1504, LePicart was one of fifteen children in a well-to-do Parisian family of royal servitors. His family connections were of great importance in his upbringing and education. The LePicarts were extraordinarily fecund, and through marriage were related to many of the most prominent families in Paris. The sister of LePicart's grandfather Martin, Catherine, married Jean Bude, father of the great humanist Guillaume Bude, making Francois LePicart and Guillaume Bude second cousins.

Despite positive prescriptions by church councils, the study of Greek had remained virtually unknown in Paris until the last quarter of the fifteenth century, when Andronic Callistos (1476) and Georgius Hermonymus (1494) briefly tutored students in the capital.(37) According to David McNeil, Bude considered the latter "an old Greek . . . who knew just enough of the vernacular to appear literate . . . [and who] tortured me by unlearning whatever he taught me."(38) Fortunately, Bude then made the acquaintance of the Hellenist Janus Lascaris, who taught a number of French scholars, helped to organize the royal library at Blois, and was responsible for extensive acquisitions of Greek manuscripts. As a result of Lascaris's work, Paris became the earliest center for Greek studies outside of Italy,(39) and Guillaume Bude its leading exponent.

The Bude connection was to prove of great importance in Francois LePicart's formation. At the behest of Francois's father Jean, Bude took a personal interest in the education of Francois and his younger brother Christophe. The first historical note of record about Francois is a letter from Bude to the sixteen-year-old arts student recommending the study of philology and literature, and ending with passages in Greek exhorting the boy to persist in his Hellenistic studies.(40) Francois's aptitude for and interest in Greek was apparently strong, which led him, like Gaigny, to study with Danes.

LePicart's public career began even before he was awarded the license and doctorate in 1535 during the aforementioned preaching at St.-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie in 1533, after which he was detained in the monastery prison of Saint-Magloire in Paris and then exiled to Reims.(41) Interestingly, he spent his time at Saint-Magloire explicating and preaching on Paul's epistles.(42)

The influence of Christian humanism and the renewed interest in Pauline studies is everywhere in evidence in LePicart's sermons. All of his sermons, like the others in this survey, were primed in French. Prior to the Reformation, sermons given in the vernacular had been translated into Latin for printing, at least partially so that the laity would not be able to read them. It is noteworthy that when LePicart's sermons were compiled after his death by his printer and publisher Nicolas Chesneau, LePicart's successor at St.-Germain l'Auxerrois, Rene Benoist, expressed his pleasure at their publication, since it meant that people who had never had the opportunity to hear LePicart preach might read his sermons at their leisure.(43)

LePicart's sermons are simplified in structure and straightforward in their message and doctrine. In his use of sources, he differs dramatically from pre-Reformation Catholic preachers in France. Based on references counted in 237 sermons, the following changes can be noted. He uses the New Testament three times as often as the Old,(44) whereas among pre-Reformation Catholic preachers the Old Testament had been a slight favorite.(45) Although the gospels of Matthew and John are still the most quoted New Testament sources, Paul's Letters to the Romans and Corinthians occupy a much more significant place than they had in earlier sermons.(46) Even more significant is the change in his use of other, non-Biblical sources. These sources, which had comprised one-quarter of all references used by pre-Reformation French preachers,(47) had come under attack from both humanists and Protestants, and LePicart takes only eleven percent of his quotations from sources other than the Bible. Even more striking is the fact that while pre-Reformation preachers had, almost to a man, chosen Augustine as their primary source, the great Latin Father is a distant second for LePicart. LePicart's sermons quote the Greek Father John Chrysostom (357-407) more than twice as frequently as they do Augustine.(48) Chrysostom had, of course, been used often by late medieval preachers, but seldom comprised more than 5% of all "other' references.(49) LePicart's heavy reliance on him is therefore something new. Did LePicart's knowledge of Greek add to his interest? Was it Chrysostom's fight against the Arian heresy that provoked LePicart's interest?(50) Was it the moral stance of the Bishop of Constantinople and his efforts to reform his clergy? Or was it Chrysostom's unjust exile at the hands of his prince that struck a responsive chord?(51) There was a great deal in LePicart's life and mission that would have made identification with the "golden-tongued" Greek preacher and bishop likely.

LePicart's sermons, eloquent in their simplicity, evince the confident, moralistic humanist anthropology posited by Matheson. Although reading written sermons undoubtedly produces subjective responses in the historian that can make interpretation difficult, I believe it is possible to discern an overall tone and mood from such a large corpus. Denis Crouzet calls LePicart a predicateur panique, "a preacher of the violence of God and of the end of time,"(52) and a true precursor of the militant preachers of the coming wars.(53) This view is not supported by a thorough reading of LePicart's sermons. As with all sermons, the reader must bear in mind the preacher's intent, as he generally sought not to praise, but to instruct, correct and rebuke; especially during Lent - the time for atonement and satisfaction - one must expect a certain amount of negativity in any preacher's sermons. However, we must also distinguish the preacher from his publisher. Crouzet's prophet of doom is not LePicart, but his publisher Chesneau, whose prefaces and dedications to the sermons, written after the beginning of the wars, exhibit apocalyptic tendencies.(54) Although Crouzet extracts certain statements from the sermons that appear to suggest the imminence of the Last Judgment,(55) similar phrases can be found, often in greater abundance, in sermons of other periods.(56) Certainly LePicart was deeply concerned with the progress of heresy in the realm, and there are few sermons that make no mention of the deep divisions within his country and all of Christendom. But does he draw from these problems signs of the end? The answer is a resounding no. Instead, he sets out a program whereby errors can be corrected, the morals of the people and especially the clergy improved, and society can live according to Christ's precepts. These are first and foremost the concerns of this world, and his major role in helping the Jesuits gain a foothold in France in these years supports the view that he did not see the end of the world as likely to happen any time soon.(57)

More importantly, LePicart's outlook, unlike that of later preachers during the Religious Wars, is overwhelmingly one of hope and confidence. He tells his audience: "Here are the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Can one who has tranquillity of conscience be other than joyous? There are some who are sad inside, and do not feel assured, insofar as they don't believe. If they were firm in their faith, they would have no fear."(58) In another sermon, he tells his audience "the first doctrine is to understand that God loves us, like his well-beloved children. It's a great thing that when a disciple knows his master loves him, he takes courage from it . . . . Jesus Christ our master has such goodwill toward us, such great affection, that he endured the passion for our sake."(59) In another family analogy, he claims: "We are the adopted family of God, and we are made his children, because through the inspirations given us by the Holy Spirit, we cry for God, as the baby for its father."(60)

LePicart admits that "sometimes [our Lord] speaks to us with terror and menace: he is terrible, and his voice promises only menace, vengeance and death. That voice is intended to make us fearful. The other voice is the voice of charity, pity and clemency, and this is the voice through which he speaks to us today . . . . He does this to win us over. Rigor doesn't win hearts, but love and charity. Terror and menace hardly ever win anyone over."(61) Elsewhere he reiterates the view that "God is much more prompt to exercise compassion than he is to punish."(62)

LePicart even tells his listeners that they must not be too hard on themselves, especially when they go to confession:

If you confess the same thing two or three times, you will only be more upset. You repeat these things in order to find a remedy and some peace, but it only makes you feel worse. So don't repeat your sins, but confide yourself to and lean on our Lord Jesus Christ, and believe in the good advice he gives you. Believe that God is good. Do you really think that he wants to damn you if you do your duty and the best that you can in view of human weakness? Do you really think that the justice of God is more cruel than the justice of humans?(63)

In another sermon, he says, "Be assured that your sins will be pardoned. If you doubt this, you are an infidel and will die in your sins. Do you really think God is a tyrant?"(64) Interestingly, during the normally harsher Lenten sermons, he takes the part of Jesus, telling the audience: "God my Father didn't send me to judge the world but to save it; to redeem the world and to attract each and every one to salvation through true penitence. And so I will defer my judgment to another time."(65) His optimism is palpable: "There is no spiritual malady in this world, nor sin that is incurable."(66) Here he remains faithful to the medieval doctrine of facere quod in se est (doing the best that is in one), as he seeks to reassure the women and men before him to recognize that God is the loving and caring father and that that is all he asks of them.

In a treatise dedicated to Abbess Renee of Lorraine at St. Pierre-des-Dames of Reims - the convent where he preached during his exile - LePicart exhorts the abbess and her nuns to "take Jesus as your companion on pilgrimage; he will be with you so that your heart will not waver on this road. For those who keep company with him in the way of this world will not find it difficult, but pleasant and easy."(67) His emphasis on human companionship with Jesus and even God the Father takes the medieval imitation of Christ motif further. He asks, "If we have God on our side, how can we fear any creature? Don't be afraid of portents, or the stars in the sky. . . If the master loves me, who can hurt me?"(68)

In a series of sermons on the Eucharist, which LePicart seeks to defend in view of Protestant assaults, the preacher states that "up until the time that our Lord comes visibly, at the day of Judgment, the holy sacrament will always continue in the celebration of the mass, as a commemoration and sign of the death and passion of our Lord. . . In some place, wherever it may be, the mass will always be said and celebrated until the end of the world."(69) In view of what he is trying to do in these sermons - make people understand the crucial importance of the mass - it does not seem likely that LePicart saw the end of time as happening any time soon.

In one sermon of particular interest, LePicart implicitly connects humanism with both Lutheranism and Calvinism by discussing both movements in the same paragraph. After a passage warning against the corrupt and poisonous influences emanating from Geneva, he then satirizes Erasmus for his "pretty and delicate Latin."(70) He goes on to ask, "What do you think when today grace is said in Greek to a small child?"(71) He hastens to add, however, that "to praise God in Greek or Hebrew is good,"(72) but challenges its inappropriate usage. This is a general theme throughout the sermons for LePicart believed, as did most preachers, that men and women had to be taught and preached to according to their ability to understand. He was worried that both humanists and reformers were literally speaking Greek to le menu peuple and thereby leading them into potentially dangerous errors.

LePicart exemplifies, in my view, the humanistic non-humanist. He had been raised and educated in a setting imbued with the new learning and had benefitted personally by learning Greek and classical Latin. Yet his attitude toward humanism reveals a deep ambivalence. Too often he had observed the humanistic association with Protestantism; the early efforts to promote Christian humanism by Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples and Bishop Guillaume Briconnet of Meaux had certainly spawned some noteworthy heretics. But whatever his feelings about humanism, LePicart's preaching and sermons were marked indelibly by the experience of his youth. Simplicity of style, changing use of sources, and a spirit of hope and confidence mark off a man changed by his contact with this new learning. Likewise, in their separate ways, Jean de Gaigny, Claude Guilliaud and Etienne Paris all were changed by the cultural climate of Paris that began in the 1490s and continued to exercise its influence even on orthodox Catholics until at least 1561. Through their own preaching and writing, as well as their involvement with the Paris Faculty of Theology, they influenced countless others who made humanism part of their teaching.(73) The violence that dominated French life after the beginning of the Religious Wars was both influenced by and itself affected sermons. Although they still bear some of the imprints of humanism, the hopeful, confident humanist spirit that had imbued Catholic preaching in the first half of the century, and which even confessional disputes had been unable to dampen, found it much harder to survive in an atmosphere of bellicosity and war.(74)

COLBY COLLEGE

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Society for French Historical Studies, Chico, CA, March 1993. Funding was provided by a National Endowment for the Humanities Travel-to-Collections Grant. I am grateful to the following for their comments and criticism: Barbara Diefendorf, Nancy Roelker, Larry Bryant and Mark Konnert.

1 Godin, 31; Duplessis d'Argentre, 1:340-41.

2 Renaudet, 1916.

3 Renaudet, 1969, 69.

4 Taylor, 211-12.

5 Clichtove reversed many of his views after the Paris Faculty of Theology condemned many of the humanist positions in 1521, but his close association with the movement makes him less appropriate for this study than the preachers I will examine.

6 Margolin, 164.

7 Ibid., 167.

8 Matheson, 32.

9 Ibid., 33.

10 Crouzet; Delumeau.

11 Farge, 1980, 178.

12 Ibid., 182.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid., 179-80.

15 Ibid., 180.

16 Gaigny, fol. 2.

17 Ibid., fol. 3.

18 Ibid., fal. 6.

19 Ibid., fol. 21.

20 Farge, 1985, 180.

21 Farge, 1980, 215-16.

22 Ibid., 214.

23 Ibid., 215.

24 Pellechet; Gillot and Boell.

25 Guilliaud, fol. 21.

26 Farge, 1980, 357.

27 By 1560, when d'Ivolle preached in Provins, conditions had deteriorated, and pessimism and foreboding dominates many of the sermons of the period. Haton reports of his preaching: "Et davantage predist le mal prochain qui, en brief temps, seroit faict par eux en la France; comment ilz s'esleveroient par armes et seditions contre le roy, son estat et le repos public, desolant les villes, saccageant les eglises et les temples, maltraitant les prebstres, taschant a abolir tout vraye religion, toutes lois ecclesiasticques, politicques et civilles, tous sacremens et service divin; comment par leur orgueil ilz prendroient les armes au poing pour exterminer le roy et son estat, ensemble tout le peuple catholicque; enseignant aux catholicques qu'ilz seroient contrainctz de prendre les armes deffensives contre eux et leurs armes offensives, et que de ce faire il leur estoit permis de Dieu, non pour aasaillir iceux huguenotz, mais pour deffendre seullement recommandant tousjours auxdictz catholicques qu'ilz ne commencassent poinct les premiers a assaillir, mais qu'estans assaillis, ne feissent difficulte de se deffendre . . . . Et pour conclure, il prophetisa a la France sa ruyne et desolation prochaine, et il l'appella par plusieurs fois et en plusieurs sermons, miserable, desolee et de Dieu mauldit . . . ." Haton, 1:137-38; d'Ivolle.

28 Quetif and Echard, II:1:180.

29 Farge, 1980, 357.

30 Paris, fols. A-Aii.

31 Ibid., fol. Av.

32 Ibid.

33 O'Malley.

34 In Paris's case, LeGoff's comments seem appropriate: "[T]he humanists abandoned one of the primary tasks of the intellectual, which was to have contact with the masses, to connect their knowledge with teaching." LeGoff, 165.

35 Burke, 17. Febvre, 35, aptly termed Beda "the sworn enemy of the humanist race." Beda's attacks on Erasmus were so virulent that the latter appealed successfully to Francis I for protection. Farge, 1980, 120. Another doctor, Pierre Cousturier, was lampooned for his conservatism in chapter 7 of Rabelais's Pantagruel. Ibid.

36 LePicart complained that so many people were attending Roussel's sermons at the Louvre that only old women came to hear him preach. Herminjard, 3:161.

37 McNeil, 9.

38 Ibid., 10.

39 Ibid., 10-11.

40 Guillaume Bude to Francois LePicart, in Bude, fols. 768-69.

41 Farge, 1980, 262-63.

42 Doumergue, 1:240.

43 Benoist remarked, "Or voyant iceux livres en peu de temps tellement eatre multipliez par la Chrestiente, qu'ils commencoient estre frequens es mains des sinceres fideles & Chrestiens, tant doctes que indoctes, lesquels les avoient en prix & bonne estime, affermans tous qui lea lisoient, y trouver grande consolation, & y prendre edification . . . . que n'oyant plus ce cler son de cette Trompette Evangelique, ils peuvent en leurs maisons, ou ailleurs a leur aise & commodite estre participans de la meame parole de Dieu." Benoist, quoted in Hilarion de Coste, 304-05.

44 Out of 7516 total references, 5004 (67%) come from the New Testament, 1684 (22%) from the Old, and 828 (11%) from other sources.

45 Taylor, 76-79.

46 Of 5004 New Testament sources, 877 (18%) come from Matthew, 754 (15%) from John, 624 (13%) from Romans, 611 (12%) from Luke, 606 (12%) from I and II (Corinthians) and 1532 (30%) from other books and letters.

47 Ibid., 75-76.

48 Of 828 other sources, Chrysostom is referred to 259 times (31%), Augustine 125 times (15%), Jerome 100 times (12%), Ambrose 44 times (5%), Bernard of Clairvaux 39 times (5%) and others 261 times (32%).

49 Ibid., 75-76.

50 Gregory, 46.

51 Ibid., 58-62.

52 Crouzet, 1:208.

53 Ibid., 1:209.

54 In his dedication to the Advent series, Chesneau states, "Nous attendions quelque apparence d'equite, & voicy tout trouble & oppression. Nous attendions iustice, & voicy crieries, meurtres, massacres, sacrileges, pilleries, & tous actes crians & demandans vengeance a Dieu, aux Anges, & aux hommes. Voyla que lors en moymesme ie pensois: puis en me consolant, de rechef ie disoit: Courage, il ne se fault pour tout cecy desesperer. Mais au contraire, d'autant que ces choses nous ont este predites par la bouche de nostre Seigneur Iesus Christ, d'autant plus tout bon Chrestien, doit tenir bon & virilement resister a ses assaults sans s'esbransler ny ca ny la." Chesneau, in LePicart, [1566.sup.1], fol. 3, dated 19 June 1563.

55 Crouzet, 1:209.

56 Taylor, 97-101.

57 Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu, 1:253-55; Schurhammer, 1:247,251,258, 264

58 LePicart, 15662, fol. 13.

59 Ibid., fol. 20.

60 LePicart, 1557, fol. 15.

61 LePicart, [1566.sup.3], fols. 128-29.

62 LePicart, [1566.sup.1], fol. 216.

63 Ibid., fol. 157.

64 LePicart, [1566.sup.3], fol. 90.

65 Ibid., fol. 92.

66 Ibid., fol. 158.

67 LePicart, 1564, fol. 21.

68 LePicart, 1557, fols. 73-74.

69 LePicart, 1560, fol. 81.

70 LePicart, [1566.sup.3], fol. 346.

71 Ibid.

72 Ibid.

73 See Higman.

74 Simon Vigor, who received his doctorate only five years after LePicart, is a good case in point. Although he was educated in a similar tradition, the radicalization of rhetoric and a climate changed by the experience of war, marked his preaching as definitively as humanism had LePicart's. See Diefendorf, 1987.

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