Jean Petit (theologian)

In April 1407, he formed part of the embassy sent by Charles VI of France to urge Antipope Benedict XIII and Pope Gregory XII to abdicate and thus reunite Christendom.

This embassy had just returned to Paris, after a fruitless journey, when an event took place that gave Jean Petit a great notoriety in history.

The Duke of Burgundy, on the contrary, was very popular, regarded as a friend of the commoners and an opponent of abusive taxation, while the university supported him in opposition to the Avignon antipope.

Excluded from the royal council after the assassination, he withdrew to his estates in Flanders, raised an army, and called around him several of the university professors, including Jean Petit, who for three years had been attached to his suite and was receiving a pension from him.

The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia summarizes his argument as follows: Whosoever is guilty of high treason and becomes a tyrant, deserves to be punished with death, all the more so when he is a near relative of the king; and in that case the natural, moral, and divine laws allow any subject whatever, without any command or public authorization, to kill him or to have him killed openly, or by stealth; and the more closely the author of the slaying is related to the king the more meritorious the act.

but the Duke of Burgundy was present with his troops, ready to suppress any attempt at reply, and further he was in the good graces of the university; so he had no difficulty in obtaining letters of pardon from the king.

Shortly afterwards the king asked Gerard de Montaigu, Bishop of Paris, and the inquisitor of France to examine them and to take whatever action they judged proper — without however mentioning the name of Jean Petit.

After several sittings the speech of Jean Petit and nine propositions, said to have been extracted from it, were condemned (23 February 1414) by decree of the Bishop of Paris and of the inquisitor, and the book containing them was publicly burnt three days later.

At this juncture, John XXIII left Constance (20 March 1415) and withdrew from the council, while the King of France and the Duke of Burgundy made peace by the Treaty of Arras (22 February 1415).

Gerson broke the agreement by trying to obtain from the council a declaration that the writings of Jean Petit contained numerous errors in matters of faith.