Baluze, Etienne
Baluze, Etienne
(1630 -1718 ) Historian, born Tulle, France ; died Paris, France . A critical student of the origins, customs, and institutions of the French nation, his writings were. based solely on genuine documents and original sources, and stimulated a scientific spirit in historical research. While librarian to Colbert he amassed a quantity of material of the greatest use to 19th century historians. His chief writings are: The Capitularies of the Frankish Kings; The Works of Marius Mercator; and Lives of the Avignon Popes.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Baluze, Etienne
French scholar and historian, b. at Tulle, 24 December, 1630; d. in Paris, 28 July, 1718. His education was commenced at the Jesuit college of his native town, where he distinguished himself by his intelligence, his constant devotion to study, and his prodigious memory. Obtaining a scholarship on the recommendation of his professors, he completed his classical courses at the College of St. Martial, which had been founded at Toulouse, in the fourteenth century, by Pope Innocent VI for twenty Limousin students. Resolved to devote himself to the study of literature and history, Baluze set to work with great zeal, perseverance, and success. Critical and painstaking in the investigation of facts, he undertook to study the origins of the French nation, its customs, laws, and institutions, using for this purpose only genuine documents and original records instead of fanciful legends and fabulous stories, thus introducing a scientific spirit into historical research, philology, and chronology.
At the age of twenty-two he wrote a remarkable work of historical criticism. A Jesuit, Father Frizon, had just published a book, “Gallia purpurata”, containing the lives of the French cardinals, which met with great success until Baluze gave out (1652) his “Anti-Frizonius” in which he pointed out and corrected many errors made by Father Frizon. In 1654, Pierre de Marca, Archbishop of Toulouse, one of the greatest French scholars in the seventeenth century, appointed Baluze his secretary. Upon the death of his patron, in June, 1662, Baluze published the “Marca Hispanica”, a remarkable historical and geographical description of Catalonia. This work made him known to Colbert, who appointed him his librarian, a position he held for thirty years, many years, that is, after Colbert’s death. The excellent collection of manuscripts and books which was found in the latter’s library was the fruit of his care and advice. His own collection was also very important; it comprised about 1100 printed books, 957 manuscripts, more than 500 charters, and seven cases full of various documents. Baluze is to be ranked among those benefactors of literature who have employed their time and knowledge in collecting form all sources ancient manuscripts, valuable books, and state papers. He annotated them with valuable comments, being very well acquainted with profane and ecclesiastical history as well as with canon law, both ancient and modern.
The number of works Baluze published is considerable; we shall mention the most important among them: (1) “Marii Mercatoris opera” (1684), collated with manuscripts and enriched with notes illustrative of the history of the Middle Ages. (2) “Regum Francorum capitularia” (1677). This collection contains several capitularies never published before. Baluze corrected them with great accuracy and in his preface gave an account of the original documents and of the authority of the several collections of the capitularies. (3) “Epistolae Innocentii Papae III” (1682); not a complete collection, as Baluze was refused the use of the letters preserved in the Vatican. (4) “Conciliorum nova collectio” (1683), containing such pieces as are wanting in Labbe’s collection. (5) “Les vies des papes d’Avignon” (1693), in which he gave a preference to Avignon over Rome as the seat of the Popes. (6) “Miscellanea” (1680), of which Mansi published a new edition in 1761. (7) “Historia Tutelensis” (1717), or the history of Tulle. This was Baluze’s favourite work. He wrote it out of love for his native place, “ne in nostrâ patriâ peregrini atque hospites esse videamur”. It embraces a period of eight centuries, from the founding of the city (900), to the episcopate of Daniel de Saint-Aulaire (1702). The history of Tulle is divided into three books, the first dealing with the counts, the second with the abbots, and the third with the bishops.
In 1670, Baluze was appointed professor of canon law at the Collège de France, of which he became director in 1707, with a pension awarded by the king. But he soon felt the uncertainty of courtly favours. Having attached himself to Cardinal de Bouillon, who had engaged him to write the history of his family, he became involved in the cardinal’s disgrace. Baluze was accused of having used spurious papers in his patron’s interest. Consequently he received a lettre de cachet ordering him to retire to Lyons. Being expelled from the university and deprived of his personal fortune, he wandered from Rouen to Blois, from Blois to Tours, and later to Orléans, where he lived until 1713. After the peace of Utrecht, the family of Cardinal de Bouillon recovered the favour of the king, and Baluze was recalled, but never again employed as a professor or as a Director of the Collège de France. He lived far from Paris and was engaged in publishing St. Cyprian’s works at the time of his death. Baluze, together with Luc d’Achéry, Mabillon, Sainte-Marthe, Ducange, Montfaucon, and others, gathered an immense quantity of rich materials which the historians of the nineteenth century, such as Sismondi, Guizot, Augustin and Amédée Thierry, Michelet, Henri Martin, Fustel de Coulanges, were to use with the greatest skill.
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Page, Etienne Baluze, sa vie, ses ouvrages, son exil, sa defense in Bulletin de la societe des lettres, sciences, et arts de la Correze (Tulle, 1898), V, 20; Michaud, Biographie universelle, II, s. v.; Fage, Les oeuvres de Baluze cataloguees et decrites; Memoire de l’Academie des Inscriptions, XVIII; Delisle, Le cabinet des manuscrits, Baluze, Colbert, I.
JEAN LE BARS Transcribed by Susan Birkenseer
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Baluze, Etienne
an eminent canonist and historian, was born at Tulle, in Limousin, December 24th, 1630. He studied first among the Jesuits at Tulle, and in 1646 was sent to the college of the company at Toulouse, where he remained for eight years. He soon acquired a high reputation in ecclesiastical history and the canon law. Not wishing to serve as a priest, but desirous of opportunity to pursue his studies quietly, he received the tonsure, and put himself under the patronage of Peter de Marca, who brought him to Paris in 1656, and made him the associate of his labors. Upon the death of De Marca in 1662, the chancellor of France, Le Tellier, took Baluze under his protection; built in 1667 he attached himself to Colbart, who made him his librarian, and it was by his care that the library of that eminent man acquired its richest treasures, and attained to such great celebrity among the learned. He left the family of Colbert in 1670, and afterward Louis XIV made him director of the royal college, with a pension. This situation he held until his eightieth year, when he was banished for having published the Genealogical History of the House of Auvergne, in 2 vols. fol. (170-), by order of the Cardinal de Bouillon, who had fallen into disgrace at court.
He obtained a recall in 1713, after the peace of Utrecht, without, however, recovering his appointments, and died July 28th, 1718. His library, when it was sold after his death, contained 1500 MSS., which were purchased for the Bibliotheque Royale. Baluze left as many as forty-five published works, of which the most important are- Regnum, Francorum Capitularia (1677, 2 vols. fol.; also, edited by Chiniac in 1780, 2 vols. fol. a superb edition): Epistole Innocentii Papa III (1682, 2 vols. fol. This collection is incomplete, owing to the unwillingness of the Romans at the time to give him free access to the pieces in the Vatican library. Brequiny and De la Porte du Theil, in their Diplomatca, Charta, etc., 1791, have given the letters which Baluze could not obtain): Conciliorum Nova Collectio (1683, vol. 1, fol. This work was intended to embrace all the known councils which Labbe has omitted in his collection, and would have filled many volumes; but Baluze abandoned his first design, and limited himself to one volume): Vitae Paparum Avinionensium ( Vies des Papes d’Avignon, 1693, 2 vols. 4to, an admirable refutation of the ultramontane pretensions. He maintains that the holy see is not necessarily fixed at Rome): Miscellanea (7 vols. 8vo. A new edition, considerably enlarged and improved, was published by Mansi at Lucca in 1761, in 4 vols. fol.). A complete list of his works may be found at p. 66 of the Capitularia. See Dupin, Eccl. Writers, 17th cent.; Vie de Baluze, written by himself, and continued by Martin.