Читать книгу The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France - R. Knecht J. - Страница 49

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.