Pierre d' Ailly (born with Compiegne in 1351 and died with Avignon the August 9th 1420) is a cardinal French extremely influential of its time and a prolix university author.
The academic
Born in 1351 in an easy middle-class family from Compiegne (his/her father was a prosperous butcher), Pierre d' Ailly made his studies at the university of Paris while being stock-broker with the Collège of Navarre as from 1364. He was graduate when the Great Schism burst, in 1378. At the beginning of the schism, Pierre d' Ailly made known himself by his Lettre of the demon Léviathan , which claimed the convocation of a general council to put an end to the schism. Doctor in Theology in 1381, large Master of the college of Navarre in 1384 then chaplain of the king Charles VI, he became an influential character. To be made an ally of it, Clément VII appointed it chancellor of the university of Paris in 1389. He was then the Master of Jean de Gerson which will be its preferred disciple and will become his friend and successor as a chancellor of the university.
The prelate
Having taken the party of the Antipape of Avignon Benoit XIII (in the context of the Great Schism of Occident), this last named it bishop Puy (1395) before transferring it to Noyon (1396) then with Cambrai (1397). Intervening in the conflict between the Burgundian ones and the Armagnacs, it attracted itself the hostility of the first which prohibited the access of the capital to him when they seized it (by devastating it) in 1418.
Named cardinal in 1411 by the antipape Jean XXIII, then pontifical Legate in Germany (1413), it did not hesitate however to give up its guard at the time of the Concile of Constancy (1414-1418) during which it plays a key role by supporting the nomination of Martin V (which restores the unit of the Church) and by obtaining the judgment of Jean Hus (of which the doctrines seem to him to threaten the Church as much that the civil society). In 1418, the new pope sends it to Avignon to be a pontifical legate there. It dies there the August 9th 1420.
Pierre d' Ailly was a champion of the office plurality of the ecclesiastical loads. He had obtained Benoît XIII the right to cumulate the benefit which he had already and those that he could have, and he held up to fourteen benefit at the same time. He was, successively or simultaneously, canon of Soissons, canon of Noyon, cantor of Noyon, chancellor of the university of Paris, canon of Saint-Clement of Compiegne, canon of Rouen, canon of Bayeux , cantor of Rouen, treasurer of Noyon, treasurer of the Ste Chapelle of Paris, bishop of Puy, Noyon, Cambrai, Limoges, Orange and canon of Cambrai. Pierre d' Ailly had moreover two benefit in Lorraine: he was of 1413 to 1420 canon and archdeacon of Port in the church of Toul, and starting from 1414 large provost of collegial of Saint-Dié.
Work
Its doctrines
If the importance of Pierre d' Ailly is undeniable in the history of its century, it is it perhaps a little less in that of the Philosophie (this report is undoubtedly not final because its enormous work still only partially is published and thus badly known). Untiring writer, one does not allot to him less than 174 works (books, treaties, letters, sermons, covering a large variety of subjects).
On the philosophical level and theological, Pierre d' Ailly is a representative of the Nominalisme ockhamist of the university of Paris of the 14th century. Its most interesting work in this field is its comment of the Sentences of Pierre Lombard ( Quæstiones super Sententias ) in which it subjects the Dogme S of the faith to an analysis Logique, while being pressed in particular on its predecessors Guillaume d' Ockham, Jean de Mirecourt and Gregoire de Rimini. It takes again there the distinction between the absolute power of God (only limited by the principle of non-contradiction) and his ordered power (in conformity with the order of the world wanted by Him). Also there are absolute obviousnesses, which are of small number, and of the conditioned obviousnesses, which are always subjected to the possible intervention of the absolute divine power.
Among philosophical works of Pierre d' Ailly, still let us quote the Tractatus of animated . However, most of its writings is relating to the Great Schism and the reform of the Church (like the Tractatus of materia concilii generatis and the Tractatus of reformatione Ecclesiæ , etc). It is there in favor of the primacy of the Concile on the Pape.
The scientific popularizer
Pierre d' Ailly is also the author of several writings of scientific popularization (primarily of Cosmographie), among which its famous work geographical and encyclopedic (in the tradition of those of Honorius Augustodunensis and Gossuin of Metz), the Imago mundi (about 1410), famous because of the role that he played in the discovery of the the Western Indies : Christophe Colomb indeed had of it a specimen which it annotated conscientiously. The eighth chapter of the Imago mundi , which insists on the narrowness of the Atlantic Ocean, particularly seems to have marked Christophe Colomb and to have strengthened it in its intention.Astrology
In addition, unlike his Master Nicole Oresme and of his pupil Jean Gerson, Pierre d' Ailly was persuaded of the astral influence on the course of the events. He was based on the theory of the great conjunctions to show the agreement between the Astrologie and the Histoire on the one hand, and between astrology and the Théologie on the other hand. Its Tractatus of concordantia theology and astronomy , composed with Toul in 1414, thus treats relationship between astrology and theology.The interpretation of certain passages of its astrological writings were worth in Pierre d' Ailly to be presented by certain authors like having announced the Reform Lutheran or the French revolution.
In the debate of his time on astrology, Pierre d' Ailly holds a moderate position. He estimates that the influence of the stars is not incompatible with the free will of the men and the any power of God. In his Of concordia astronomice veritatis and narrationis historice , the cardinal studies the agreement of the movements of the stars with the course of the history. He sticks in particular to Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. The conjunction of these three planets is extremely rare; it occurred in 1346, preceding by little the plague which fell down on the Occident, killing a third of the population. As for the Jupiter and Saturn conjunction in the sign of the Ram, it takes place the every nine hundred and sixty years. Pierre d' Ailly writes that it will occur towards 1693. The shortest cycle is that of the Saturn revolution, which lasts thirty years; Pierre d' Ailly makes correspond in particular the cycle of ten Saturn revolutions, that is to say three hundred years, with great events, in 889 and 1189. He announces great changes for 1489, and he notes for 1789: “If the world still lasts until this year, which God alone knows, there will be then large the, many ones and astonishing changes in the world, mainly in the law and the Peut-être religion that the Antichrist will come at this time, with his law and hateful doctrines, in any opposite with the law of Christ. Indeed, even if the man cannot know with certainty the exact moment of his arrival, as we said in addition, astronomy can allow however, without giving exact date, to conjecture with probability which it will come about this time”.
Reform calendar
Pierre d' Ailly was also interested in the reform of the Calendrier Julien. He proposed a reform to remove the shift between the calendar year and the astronomic year, but the Church had other urgent concern then and the reform of the calendar would be adopted only in 1582 by the pope Gregoire XIII.One still has to him letters, Sermon S (in Latin and French), like some poetic French works.
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