The Political Thought of the French League and Rome (1585-1589)

Since the nineteenth century, the political thought of the French Catholic
League (1585-1595) has been considered to be mere plagiarism of Calvinist
monarchomach texts written after the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre (1572).
Based on the original manuscript of the most important Leagueist treatise,
composed by the Sorbonne for the Council of the Sixteen and for Mayenne, and
sent to Pope Sixtus V in March 1589, this book shows that the real traditions
in which the Leagueist thought was rooted are the radicalized Thomism of the
school of Salamanca, Canon Law, Conciliarism and Gallicanism. It was in fact
the Calvinists who hid their Thomist legacy. The archives of the Vatican, of
the Inquisition, and in France reveal the new insight that De justa populi
gallici ab Henrico tertio defectione had first been a secret document serving
within the international relations between the League and the pope. Only after
the assassination of Henri III (August 1589), it was published in an expanded
version and became known as authored by Jean Boucher. The tyrannicide had been
actively embraced from March 1589 as part of the League ́s constitution. The
French crisis and intellectual developments in 1589 thus prefigure many later
Catholic-Protestant conflicts on the European scene, such as the controversy
between James I and Bellarmine around 1610 and even the Bohemian Revolt of
1618.


*[XVIIIe]: 18e siècle
*[ xix e]: 19e siècle
*[3e]: Troisième