Medieval France
(1350–1420). D’Ailly studied at the Collège de Navarre in Paris and received the master of arts degree in 1368. He lectured at the Sorbonne on Peter Lombard’s Sententiae in 1375 and promoted Ockham’s teaching. In 1381, he became doctor of theology and canon in Noyon. He was rector of the college from 1384 to 1389 and befriended Jean Gerson, his most celebrated pupil. In 1389, he was made chancellor of the University of Paris. From 1389 to 1395, he became influential in Charles VI’s court as the king’s confessor and almoner. Appointed bishop of Le Puy in 1395, he never entered the see; in 1397, he was made archbishop of Cambrai. He attended the Council of Pisa in 1409 but supported the newly elected Alexander V unenthusiastically. Alexander’s successor, the antipope John XXIII, utilized D’Ailly at the Council of Rome in 1411 and named him cardinal in 1412. The following year, he was appointed papal legate to Emperor Sigismund, subsequently playing a prominent role in the Council of Constance (1414–17). He presided over the first session without a pope in residence and supported the primacy of the general council over the pope. As president of the commission of faith, he examined John Hus and witnessed his condemnation in 1415. Martin V, elected by the council as the sole legitimate pope, appointed D’Ailly as legate to Avignon. He died there in 1420.
D’Ailly devoted most of his public life to ecclesiastical reform and to healing the Great Schism by means of a general council.
Nevertheless, his writings covered a wide range of topics, including Quaestiones on Lombard’s Sententiae (1390); a large collection of sermons; numerous ecclesiological and legal tracts (many of them later included with Jean Gerson’s works), such as De materia concilii generalis, Tractatus super reformatione ecclesiae, and Tractatus de ecclesiae autoritate; treatises on the soul and the sacraments; a concordance of astronomy; and his famous Imago mundi, later owned and annotated by Co-lumbus, who found it to confirm a western passage to India.
H.Lawrence Bond
[See also: CONCILIAR MOVEMENT; GERSON, JEAN; OCKHAM, WILLIAM OF; PHILOSOPHY; UNIVERSITIES]
D’Ailly, Pierre. De materia concilii generalis, Tractatus super reformatione ecclesiae, and Tractatus de ecclesiae autoritate. In Jean Gerson. Opera omnia, ed. Louis E.Dupin. 5 vols. Antwerp: Sumptibus Societatis, 1706, Vol. 2.
——. Ymago mundi de Pierre d’Ailly, ed. and trans. Edmond Buron. 3 vols. Paris: Maisonneuve, 1930.
Glorieux, Palémon. “L’œuvre littéraire de Pierre d’Ailly: remarques et précisions.” Mélanges de science religieuse 22 (1965).
Oakley, Francis. The Political Thought of Pierre d’Ailly: The Voluntarist Tradition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964.
Salembier, Louis. Le cardinal Pierre d’Ailly. Tourcoing: Georges Frère, 1932.
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