Project of Alexandre Rodrigues Kerestes

In this research will be analyzed the legal dispute that occurred in 1565 in the

parliament of Paris. In this contend were involved the Society of Jesus and the

University of Paris and was due to the Company's request for entering the university

walls to teach there, but the university council opposed the request taking the matter to

the legal halls of Paris1.

To defend the Company there was Pierre Versoris and with the University was

Étienne Pasquier2. Due the university winning, questions arises related to how was it

possible that in a Catholic country the Society of Jesus was prevented from putting

down roots in one of the most important knowledge places in France, a country where

Protestantism was outlawed and persecuted during much of the sixteenth century, a

company that was considered one of the main Catholic orders of the Counter-

Reformation. How does all this was possible knowing that the dispute was initiated and

sustained largely by Calvinist Protestants?

The hypothesis defended in this paper is that the question was not only religious.

For this time there were other issues at stake: a power struggle between French

Catholicism and Roman Catholicism3; the hegemony of knowledge that belonged

almost exclusively to the University of Paris4; the dissemination of knowledge, as the

company's education was free and the University turned to an intellectual elite 5; the

1
Pasquier, Étienne. Ruines publiques par la France, sous le pretexte de la Religion in Le lettres d’Étienne
Pasquier, Les edition du Graal, 2005, pág.145-149. Disponível na Word Wilde Web em:
http://www.uqac.ca/graal/textes/pdf/Pasquier.pdf
2
Idem, pág. 148
3
Conscience nationale et sentiment religieux en France au XVIe siècle. Essai sur la vision gallicane du
monde, Paris, Presses un, 2002.
4
Le goff, Jacques. Por uma outra idade média, Editora Vozes, Petrópolis, 2013. Pág. 251.
5
See Jacques Le Goff, Op. Cit. e FRANCA, Leonel. O método pedagógico dos Jesuítas. O “Ratio
Studiorum”. Rio de Janeiro, AGIR,1952.
ratio of the real power and Protestants, for the crown began an attempt to pacifist policy

and the Jesuits did not see the acceptance of Protestants in Catholic territory welcome6.

As long as the question was not only religious, religion also had importance in

this dispute. Thus questions such as: the war of religions and the existence of Huguenots

within the university are also important for understanding the legal dispute in question.

In view of this, we aim to show that Étienne Pasquier only managed to win the case

against the Jesuits because Catholicism and the Counter-Reformation movement were

not the only part to be concidered, and perhaps were not even the main, that influenced

the decision of the parliament of Paris.

As methodology will be used the proposal of John Pocock who in his book

Politics, Language and Time: Essays on political thought and history7 there is a very

detailed explanation of his method. He proposes a history of speeches where a particular

author, delimited by the language of the time, uses various terms, symbols and other

language types to develop his thought, his action, etc.

The historian who works with this method must learn the language (langue) in

question, to then determine the acts of enunciation that were developed within it

(parole) 8. From this point he (the historian) will pursue the consequences of enunciative

acts through a search for the effects of these actions on other agents who were exposed

or made use of parole.

"Certain consequences causes following points. First: the

histoire that our historian writes will be heavily événementielle
because he is interested in the acts performed and the context within
which they were made. The Moyenne durée appears as linguistic

6
For further information is of great value to read the Company's Constitution of Jesus and additional
rules [Constituição da Companhia de Jesus e normas complementares, Loyola, Sao Paulo, 2004]. In this
book in Chapter II-B p. 83, we find some consideration of people born in heretics countries (Protestants)
and the understanding that these countries are in collective sin.
7
Pocock, John G. A. Linguagens do ideário político, Edusp, SP, 2003.
8
Pocock, John G. A. Linguagens do ideário político, Edusp, SP, 2003, pág. 66.
 context, but is not confined to it. In longue durée he is interested only
9
inasmuch as it is voiced and thus enters the durée moyenne " ..

So the goal is to analyze the histoire événementielle based on moyenne durée,

because the aim is the history of speech.

However, within this perspective we can see that the historical moment that we

propose to consider has many circulating discourses: the Jesuit discourse, Huguenot,

academic, political, legal, among others. To articulate each of these various types of

speeches, there are terms, signs and symbols. This shows us that the langue is

heterogeneous because it allows several types of thoughts to be developed. Thoughts

that sometimes influence each other. Just by reading the analysis of the various

speeches (Letters, exhortations, plaidoyés, among other genres) the debate that

circulated among the Jesuits, Protestants, Catholics and the University of Paris can be

reassembled, as how they related and influenced the understand each other with the

intention of identifying why the speech winner, in the dispute between the university

and the Jesuits, was the speech of Étienne Pasquier.

In order to complete the goals the need of analysing extensive documentation

produced as other speeches, written books of the time, the opinion of the parliament to

the present case, etc. arises.

So the following fonts are available at this point: the discourse of Étienne

Pasquier10, an exhortation produced by the author11, the speech of Pierre Versoris, an

9
Pocock, John G. A. Linguagens do ideário político, Edusp, SP, 2003, pág. 66.(Freely Translated)
10
Pasquier, Étienne. Le lettres d’Étienne Pasquier, Les edition du Graal, 2005. Disponível na Word Wilde
Web em: http://www.uqac.ca/graal/textes/pdf/Pasquier.pdf
11
Pasquier, Étienne. Exhortation aux princês et seigneurs Du Conseil prive du Roy pour obvier aux
seditions qui occultement semblent nous menaer pour le fait de la Religion, 1561, Source gallica.bnf.fr /
Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon Part-Dieu.
anonymous booklet reporting the massacre in Amboise12, a book of Petrus Ramus

published in 155513, a text produced by the Jesuits for teaching in Clermont college14, a

list of all the edicts granted by the kings of the sixteenth century, the edict of

Chateaubriand (which contains the list of banned books and an introductory text

produced by the theology faculty at the University of Paris) among other sources of

minor relevance.

Finally it would be of great value to stay in Frankfurt at the Max Planck

Institute, that has teachers who could help me a lot in my research, since this institute

has highly reputed historians on the history of law, while at UNIFESP (University

where I perform my masters) this area of research has very few teachers, among then

my advisor, Rafael Ruiz Gonzales. In addition, the methodological discussion proposed

for the analysis of the project has few renowned researchers in Brazil, while in Europe,

this methodological approach is much debated and discussed, especially when we talk

about the history of ideas, mentality, speech, concepts, etc. Going to the Max Planck

Institute will help me a lot with the area of researching, history of law, and with the

methodology I apply, history of speech.

12
L. Cimber et F. Danjou. Archives curieuses de l’histoire de France depuis Luis XI jusqu’a Louis XVIII,
Tome 4, Beauvais, Paris, 1835. pág. 20-52. Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon Part-
Dieu.
13
Ramus, Pierre. Dialetique, 1555, Chez André Wechel, Paris, avec privilege du Roy. Source gallica.bnf.fr
/ Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon Part-Dieu.
14
Maldonad, Juan; Valentinus, Jacobus. Transcriptions, prepared by Mauritius Enk (1538-1575) of the
Abbey of St. Gall and an unknown fellow student, of lectures presented by the Spanish Jesuit
Johannes Maldonatus (Juan Maldonado, professor of philosophy from 1564 to 1565 and of theology
from 1565 to 1569 at the College de Clermont) and Jacobus Valentinus (Jacques Valentin, professor of
theology at the College de Clermont from 1565 to 1569). St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1117 –
University Lecture Notes from the Jesuit Collège de Clermont in Paris (http://www.e-
codices.unifr.ch/en/csg/1117)