Kitabı oku: «The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France», sayfa 13

SEVEN The New Learning and heresy(1483–1525)

The late fifteenth century was marked by a deep spiritual malaise throughout Christendom. It would be wrong, however, to imagine that the Renaissance had created a mood of scepticism among the laity in respect of the traditional teachings of the church. Piety still flourished. Pilgrimages and the cult of saints were as popular as ever. However, on a more sophisticated level, that of the theologians in the universities, sharp differences existed regarding the philosophical foundations of Christian belief. Three currents of thought existed simultaneously: scholasticism, mysticism and humanism.

The University of Paris on the eve of the Reformation

The University of Paris comprised four faculties: Theology, Canon Law, Medicine and Arts. The first three were graduate faculties, whose members had to be doctors. The Faculty of Arts was made up of those who had obtained the degree of Master of Arts, a prerequisite for doctoral study in the other faculties. The beginner in arts was usually about fifteen years old. He attached himself to a master, registered with one of four ‘nations’ and paid a means-tested fee. By 1500 nearly all the teaching took place in one of about forty secular colleges. The mendicants were taught in their own convents, while other religious orders maintained residential colleges (studia) where their members lived while pursuing the arts course. The usual period of study in arts was three and a half years, which was commonly followed by a trial regency of a year and a half, making five in all. Following this quinquennium, the student became a regent master. A Master of Arts who wished to become a doctor of theology had to study for another thirteen or fifteen years. The Bible and the Book of Sentences of Peter Lombard (c. 1100–64) formed the core of the long curriculum. Lectures took place in several colleges and in the studia of the religious orders. Each bachelor lectured in the college or convent to which he was affiliated.

In theory, doctors of theology were licensed to ‘read, dispute, deliberate, and teach’ in the faculty; in practice, few did all of these things. Many were content to give simply one annual lecture on the feast of St Euphemia. Their main function was to preside over the disputations and inaugural lectures of students. Another major duty was attendance at regular meetings of the faculty, especially those called to deal with important matters. From 1506 to 1520 the average number of meetings was 27 per annum and they normally took place in the chapel or refectory of the convent of Saint Mathurin. A doctor’s income, made up of fees from students and fringe benefits, barely compensated for his long years of training. The main attraction of the doctorate in theology was prestige: it enabled the holder to deliberate on the highest matters of faith and to help decide matters of religious and political significance. Both church and state were in the habit of consulting the university’s theologians on various issues. They were consulted about 70 times on matters of doctrine or morals between 1500 and 1542 and such deliberations sometimes led the doctors to challenge papal authority.

Scholasticism

The Faculty of Theology of the University of Paris was, by virtue of its teaching, the preaching of its masters and the doctrinal judgements of its assembly, the sovereign interpreter of dogma. All its learning was drawn from the Bible, the only source of divine knowledge, and Lombard’s Book of Sentences. However in the fifteenth century all notion of a critical study of Scripture had been lost. A decision of the council of Vienne of 1311 that oriental languages should be taught in the principal European universities had been ignored, so theologians were unable to read the Old Testament in the original Hebrew or the New in the original Greek. They were content instead with the quadruple method of exegesis: historical, allegorical, analogical and tropological. In applying this method they preferred the interpretations of medieval scholars, like Nicholas of Lyra, to those of the early church fathers. Above all they relied on the Book of Sentences, a compendium of answers to metaphysical and ethical problems written in the twelfth century.

The Faculty of Arts regarded Aristotle’s writings as the fount of all knowledge, but, as the Parisian masters knew no Greek, they had to rely on mediocre Latin versions. They used the gloss by Averroes, the twelfth-century Arab philosopher, to build up their own theories on the world and on man. Outstanding among thirteenth-century doctors at the university was St Thomas Aquinas, whose philosophy was largely shaped by Aristotle’s metaphysical writings. In his judgement, knowledge of God was attainable through reason with the assistance of Scripture and the traditional teaching of the church. However, the certainties inherent in his teaching were challenged by Duns Scotus (c. 1265–1308) and, more recently, by William of Ockham (c. 1285–1347). The latter denied that spiritual concepts could be grasped merely through reason. Divine truth, in his opinion, lay beyond the reach of the human intellect; obscurely expressed in Scripture, it was held in trust by the church and could only be apprehended through its teaching.

The new doctrine, called Nominalism as distinct from the Realism of Aquinas, seemed to demote knowledge into a mere study of ideas and for this reason it was twice condemned by the University of Paris, but during the second half of the fourteenth century it managed to gain dominance. The Nominalists, instead of building on Ockham’s ideas, were content merely to repeat them. They even narrowed their scope, withdrawing into a study of formal logic that was both abstract and sterile. They created a new philosophy, called Terminism, which became for the sixteenth-century humanists the epitome of intellectual backwardness and confusion. The triumph of Nominalism effectively paralysed the study of theology in the university. Christianity was reduced to a collection of affirmations that had to be accepted without thought or love, and the Christian life to the observance of formal practices and performance 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 and entered the collège de Montaigu, where Standonck’s regime instilled in him a deep and lasting aversion to abstinence and austerity. His Colloquies contain a grim description of life at Montaigu: bad sanitation, poor and inadequate food, and infected water undermined the health of the students, some becoming blind, mad or leprous within a year. Many promising young minds were, according to Erasmus, blighted by such terrible privations. During his stay at Montaigu, Erasmus attended lectures on the Bible and the Book of Sentences, gave some lessons on Scripture, and preached a few sermons, perhaps in the abbey of Sainte-Geneviève. But he derived no satisfaction, intellectual or spiritual, from the teaching of the schoolmen. ‘They exhaust the mind’, he wrote, ‘by a certain jejune and barren subtlety, without fertilizing or inspiring it. By their stammering and by the stains of their impure style they disfigure theology which had been enriched and adorned by the eloquence of the ancients.’

The schoolmen, however, were not entirely to blame for Erasmus’s attitude: his mind was not well suited to philosophical or dogmatic speculation. For the present, he was interested in ancient letters, not in philosophy or theology. He attached himself to the circle of Gaguin whose Latin history of France, De Origine et gestis Francorum Compendium, was in the press. It was the first specimen of humanistic historiography to appear in France. The printer had finished his work on 30 September 1495, but two leaves remained blank. Erasmus helped to fill the gap by providing a long commendatory letter, his earliest publication.

By the spring of 1496, Erasmus had had enough of the rigours of Montaigu. He fell ill and returned to the Low Countries, but in the autumn he reappeared in Paris. This time, however, he gave the collège de Montaigu a wide berth and earned his living by teaching rich young men. Among them was William Blount, Lord Mountjoy, who took him to England in the summer of 1499. At Oxford, Erasmus met John Colet, under whose influence he broke with the theological systems of the Middle Ages and with the monastic ideal. But Colet’s intuitive interpretation of Scripture, without knowledge of the original languages, failed to satisfy him and he decided to improve his own knowledge of Greek. Following his return to Paris in February 1500, he completed the first edition of his Adages. In the preface, he castigated the schoolmen for their ignorance of ancient culture and their conceit.

While staying at Saint-Omer in 1501, Erasmus met Jean Vitrier, the warden of the Franciscan monastery, whom he grew to admire as much as Colet. It was under his influence that he composed his Enchiridion Militis Christiani, first published in Antwerp in February 1504. In this work Erasmus developed for the first time his theological programme, calling essentially for a return to Scripture. Every Christian, he argues, must strive to understand Scripture in the purity of its original meaning. Before he can do so, he must study the ancient orators, poets and philosophers, especially Plato. Avoiding the Scotists, he must follow the guidance of St Jerome, St Augustine and St Ambrose. Assisted by grammar and languages, he will seek the precise meaning, both literal and allegorical, of Scripture. Erasmus also develops his concept of the Christian life as a continual meditation on Scripture, not as a series of external observances. He no longer identifies Christian holiness with strict observance of the monastic rule, and rejects the notion that the perfect Christian needs to shun the world. Above all, he calls for the wider diffusion of the Gospel.

At the end of 1504, Erasmus returned to Paris after two years spent in Louvain. He set about restoring the New Testament to its original purity, and in March 1505, Badius printed Valla’s Annotationes as a kind of model for him. But in the autumn of 1505, Erasmus went back to England. Henry VII’s physician was looking for a master to accompany his sons to Italy. Erasmus accepted the post and in June 1506 found himself once more among his humanist friends in Paris. He translated two dialogues by Lucan and resumed work on his Adages. Two months later he continued his journey to Italy. As he crossed the Alps, he wrote a poem for Guillaume Cop in which he declared his intention to devote himself wholly to sacred studies.

In April 1511, Erasmus was back in Paris mainly in order to see his Encomium Morae (Praise of Folly) through the press. This famous work contains a satiric attack on current abuses, especially on worthless monks, vain schoolmen and warring popes. The message of the book is similar to that of the Enchiridion: we should look to realities rather than names, to a man’s life rather than his words, to the spirit rather than the letter of the law. Erasmus makes merciless fun of the schoolmen with their ‘Magisterial Definitions, Conclusions, Corollaries, Propositions Explicit and Implicit’, and of ignorant and conceited monks with their meticulous observance of tiny rules of dress and their total disregard of purity of life or apostolic example. The Praise of Folly was a huge popular success. Erasmus left Paris in June, never to return, but his influence lived on. His works continued to be published and read in the French capital for many years.