Jean de Boyssoné

Jean de Boyssonné (c. 1505 – c. 1559) was a law professor at the University of Toulouse, poet, and the mainteneur of the Jeux Floraux of Toulouse. Friend of Rabelais, he remains known today for his correspondence with other humanists of his time.

Biography

Jean de Boyssoné was born in Castres around 1505, into a family that was probably rich and aristocratic (according to one of his descendants, Richard de Boysson, who wrote his biography). He studied law at the University of Toulouse and prepared a double doctorate: civil law and canon law. In 1526, he received the chair of law at the University of Toulouse, which his uncle (also named Jean de Boyssoné) held. He took minor orders, but was never ordained a priest.

The university of Toulouse was then in the grip of serious troubles in the face of the rise of Protestantism in the South of France. Hostility was expressed not only towards the new religion, but also towards the new pedagogical methods and the new conception of culture. The faculty of law was particularly affected.

Jean de Boyssonné was endowed with a "somewhat rough character". He was a humanist above all in his pedagogical methods: he put philology and history to work in the study of law and he disapproved of the traditional teaching based on the strict gloss of medieval jurists. He was jealous and suspected of being attracted to the new religion — due to his personal friendship with the "mal sentiants", Clément Marot, François Rabelais, but especially Étienne Dolet, who finished his law studies in Toulouse, and the German reformer Philip Melanchthon, who was visiting Toulouse.

On March 31, 1532, accused of heresy along with 32 other defendants, Jean de Boyssonné was condemned to the confiscation of his house, a fine of 1000 livres and public abjuration on a scaffold erected in front of the Cathedral of Saint-Etienne, during a ceremony organized by the Inquisition. One of his students, Jean de Caturce, who refused to recant, was burned at the Salin square.

Jean de Boyssonné went to Italy, and during the year 1533, he visited Padua, Bologna, Venice, Modena, Rome and Padua, where he found his former Toulouse colleagues du Ferrier, Daffis and Pierre Bunel; he became friends with Maurice Scève. He then went to Turin, before returning to Toulouse and becoming regent at the university. He actively participated in the celebrations given for the entry of King Francis I into Toulouse, and in the special reception given by his university on August 1, 1533. His friend Guillaume Budé entrusted him with the education of his nephew. In 1534, he was again accused of fomenting student violence, at the instigation of Étienne Dolet; he was sentenced to prison by the Parliament of Toulouse. But he won the appeal to the Grand Council of François I.

In 1539, he was offered the position of secretary to the French ambassador in Venice; but he preferred to become a counselor in the new Parliament of Chambéry — Savoy had just been occupied by France. He returned only occasionally to Toulouse, to sit at the Jeux Floraux of which he is maintainer. But he was again prey to accusations from the public prosecutor in Chambéry: on September 1, 1550, he was again imprisoned, in Dijon, with twelve colleagues. The following year, in August 1551, the Parliament of Dijon withdrew his seat as councilor and condemned him to pay a very heavy fine.

From 1551 to 1555, he became a professor again, but at the University of Grenoble, while awaiting the review of his trial at the Parliament of Paris. The decision was not rendered and confirmed until October 15, 1557, but Jean de Boyssonné was cleared of his conviction, and the prosecutor of Chambéry was ordered to pay the costs. Boyssonné resumed his seat in the parliament of Chambéry.

He died in Chambéry, probably in the second half of 1558 or 1559.

References

• Ferté, Patrick (2003). "Toulouse et son Université, relais de la Renaissance entre Espagne et Italie (1430-1550)." In: Les Échanges entre les Universités Européennes à la Renaissance. Genève: Droz, pp. 217–30.
• Jacoubet, Henri (1930). Jehan de Boyssoné et Son Temps: Étude Historique et Littéraire. Toulouse: Privat/Paris: Didier.
• Margolin, Jean-Claude (1998). "Au temps de Barthélémy Aneau: Jean de Boyssonné et l'humanisme lyonnais d'après sa correspondance." In: Bulletin de l'Association d'Étude sur l'Humanisme, la Réforme et la Renaissance, Vol. XLVII, pp. 11–24.
• Mugnier, François (1897). La Vie et les Poésies de Jean de Boyssoné, Professeur de Droit à Toulouse et à Grenoble, Conseiller au Parlement de Chambéry. Paris: H. Champion.

External links

• Works by Jean de Boyssoné at Gallica