Baluze, Étienne

BALUZE, ÉTIENNE. - French scholar, b. at Tulle on 24 Nov. 1630, d. at Paris on 28 June 1718. He first studied civil law without passion and without success, to please his father; but then he found his vocation as a canonist and ecclesiastical historian, when in 1656 he became secretary and collaborator of the archbishop of Paris, Pierre de Marca (d. 1662). In 1667 Colbert entrusted him with the direction of his library, and in 1689 Louis XIV appointed him professor of canon law at the Collège de France. In 1710, for having published a Histoire généalogique de la Maison d'Auvergne (Paris 1708) that offended the sovereign's self-esteem, he had to leave Paris and was authorized to return only in 1713. From his youth he had received the tonsure: which allowed him to hold several ecclesiastical benefices. B. was a tireless worker, an incomparable scholar, so devoted to the truth as to compromise his personal interests in order to defend it, a good-natured man of humorous character, a faithful and delicate friend. Contact with Pierre de Marca had imbued him with Gallican prejudices, which showed through all too often in his writings and more than once drew Roman censures upon him. He would have wished to bring the Roman court back to the observance of the ancient canons without taking into account historical evolution and the exercise of the primacy.

Besides the works of St. Cyprian, of Marius Mercator, of Salvian of Marseilles, of Servatus Lupus, of the bishops of Lyon Agobard, Leidrad and Amulo, of 14 homilies of St. Caesarius of Arles, of the De ecclesiasticis disciplinis of Regino, abbot of Prüm, our scholar published: the work of Pierre de Marca entitled: Concordia sacerdotii et imperii (1st ed., Paris 1663), placed on the Index (2nd ed. in 1669, without taking the condemnation into account); Nova collectio conciliorum, I (ibid. 1707), a supplement to the Collectio conciliorum of the fathers Labbe and Cossart; Vitae Paparum Avenionensium, 2 vols. (ibid. 1693), placed on the Index in 1698; new edition revised and improved by G. Mollat, 4 vols. (ibid. 1914-28); Histoire généalogique de la maison d'Auvergne, 2 vols. (ibid. 1708); Historiae Tutelensis libri tres (ibid. 1717); Les conciles de la Gaule Narbonnaise (ibid. 1668).

Martino Jugie