Humanism in France

On the completion of the Hundred Years' War between France and England, the intellectual currents of Renaissance humanism began to spread.

The homage of royalty took in part the place among the literary men of France that the cult of antiquity occupied in Italy.

The University of Paris at the close of the 14th century was sunk into a low condition and Erasmus bitterly complained of the food, the morals and the intellectual standards of the Collège de Montaigu which he attended.

Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples studied at the Universities of Paris, Pavia, Padua and Cologne and, for longer or shorter periods, tarried in the greater Italian cities.

From 1492 to 1506 he was engaged in editing the works of Aristotle and Raymundus Lullus and then, under the protection of Guillaume Briçonnet, Bishop of Meaux, he turned his attention to theology.

In this work, he asserted the authority of the Bible and the doctrine of justification by faith, without appreciating, however, the far-reaching significance of the latter opinion.

The opposition to the free spirit of inquiry and to the Reformation, which the Sorbonne stirred up and French royalty adopted, forced him to flee to Strassburg and then to the liberal court of Marguerite de Navarre.