AILLY, PIERRE d' (PETRUS DE ALLIACO). - French scientist, philosopher, theologian, confessor to Charles VI, politician, bishop and cardinal, he was one of the most illustrious figures of the Church of France in the 14th and 15th centuries, indeed of the entire Middle Ages. He was called "Aquila Franciae" and also "aberrantium a veritate malleus indefessus". Born in 1350, according to most at Compiègne, into a well-to-do but not noble family originally from Picardy, he died at Avignon on 9 August 1420, after having made great donations to churches, to the poor, to hospitals and to the College of Navarre. His body, transferred in 1422 to Cambrai, rested in the tomb that he had prepared for himself since 1399 within the choir of the cathedral, until the French Revolution, during which his ashes were scattered to the wind by the Jacobins.
In 1363, at the age of thirteen, having obtained a scholarship, he was admitted as a pupil to the College of Navarre; on 11 April 1381 he received his doctorate and became a professor of theology; in 1384 he was appointed rector of the College of Navarre and in 1389 chancellor of the University of Paris; in 1391 the king wished him to be his almoner. The cathedrals of France vied with one another in offering him well-paid honours and canonries: thus he was a canon at Soissons (1375), at Noyon (1381), at Compiègne (1391), at Cambrai (1391), at Rouen (1394), at Bayeux (1394), and he obtained several benefices, which he accumulated throughout his entire life, even gathering 14 of them in his hands at the same time. On 2 April 1395 he was elected by Benedict XIII, who had known him personally and greatly esteemed him, bishop of the diocese of Le Puy. In March 1397 he was transferred to the more important one of Cambrai. Later he was also administrator of the dioceses of Limoges and of Orange. Finally, on 19 December 1412, he was appointed by John XXIII cardinal of the title of St. Chrysogonus.
A. was a man of study and a man of action.
As a man of study, amid his many occupations, he found a way to write numerous works of a scientific, philosophical, theological and ascetic character. At present 174 of them are known, and it is not said that this catalogue is complete.
1. In his scientific writings, following in the footsteps of Roger Bacon, A. dealt with physics, cosmology, geography, astronomy and even astrology: Imago mundi; De legibus et sectis contra superstitionos astronomos; De falsis prophetis tractatus duo; Vigintilogium de concordia astronomicae veritatis cum theologia; Epilogus mappae mundi; Apologia defensiva astronomiae... are the principal titles. Among other subjects he also envisaged, anticipating his times, the correction of the calendar and prepared the Gregorian reform; he further dealt with the rotation of the earth around its own axis, described its spherical shape and pointed out the means of travelling, across the seas, to the Far East. The Imago mundi was certainly in the hands of Christopher Columbus and confirmed him in his ideas, as he, it seems, declared to the king after his third voyage: a copy which, annotated by the great navigator, is found in the Columbian Library of Seville, bears witness to this besides.
2. In his philosophical writings, A. was inspired by the principles of nominalism: in his youth he had nominalist masters and his favourite books were the works of William of Ockham, whose teachings he followed, particularly in the questions of universals and in the notion of causes. In the library of Antwerp there exists a manuscript of A. (414 pages), which reports the complete catalogue of the works of the English philosopher.
3. In his theological writings he had the merit of defending the privilege of the immaculate conception of Mary and the merit of making excellent observations concerning biblical exegesis, especially in the Epistola ad novos Hebreeos; but he also had the fault of almost completely neglecting the value of tradition and of pontifical documents, and of following the trend of nominalist circles. Hence the inaccuracies, the rash and paradoxical opinions, the errors that are found in them: a) errors concerning God (he denies the demonstrability with evidence of the existence, the unity and the fundamental divine attributes, such as omnipotence and freedom); b) concerning the Most Holy Trinity (he affirms that the Trinitarian doctrine is not contained with evidence either in the Old Testament or in the New); c) concerning the ultimate end (he affirms that the existence of an ultimate end of man is not evident); d) concerning Christian morality (he claims that there is neither an act essentially good, nor an act essentially evil, nor essentially meritorious, nor essentially demeritorious: "nullum est ex se peccatum, sed praecisse quia lege prohibitum"); e) concerning the Sacraments (he admits in the Eucharist, as possible, impanation); f) but, above all, he falls into many errors concerning the organization of the Church, because of his marked tendency to diminish the papal authority, a tendency that can perhaps be explained if one reflects on the sad times in which he lived - he indeed entered public life during the great Western Schism - and in whose events he took an active part. He maintains that Jesus Christ did not found his Church on Peter. "Quis enim in Petri infirmitate Ecclesiae firmitatem stabilit?". The Pope is only the principal minister of the Church, "principalis inter ministros"; jurisdiction to bishops and priests comes directly from Christ, not from the Pope, who is not necessarily bishop of Rome, since the primacy was at Antioch before being transferred to the capital of the Roman Empire. It follows that the Pope is not infallible, that he is subject to the general council, that he can be deposed by the ecumenical council, which, although it can in turn err, so that one may appeal from the one to the other, must nevertheless be held superior to the Supreme Pontiff. Only the universal Church is infallible. These errors, which practically prevailed in the Council of Constance, had very grave repercussions in later centuries. Luther, who claimed to have learned the books of A. by heart, certainly drew from him the system of eucharistic impanation; the reformers of the 16th century claimed to have been inspired by him for several of their doctrines, contrary to Catholic teaching; the Gallicans (v. GALLICANESIMO) then, and not wrongly, regard him as a precursor of theirs; even the philosophers of the 18th century sometimes have recourse to him.
As a man of action A. sincerely loved the Church and laboured indefatigably for it. He promoted useful reforms in his diocese of Cambrai; he condemned a sect of false mystics, which recognized as its head a certain William of Hildernissem; he fought the exaggerations of the flagellants; he was a commissioner in the affair of the Dominican Matthew Grabow; but the work for which he used his best energies was the ending of the schism. Although obeying Clement VII, cousin of the king of France, A., following the example of the entire nation and of the University of Paris, spared no effort to obtain this goal.
More than 30 of his writings had this aim; particularly the Epistola diaboli Leviathan, the Inversiva Ezechielis contra Pseudopastore, the De materia concilii generali, the Tractatus de potestate ecclesiastica; the Tractatus agendorum in concilio generali de Ecclesiae reformatione; the Tractatus super reformatione Ecclesiae in concilio Constantiensi. First of all, in the Epistola diaboli he indicated, around 1381, the "tres viae" of exit from the schism, that is: "l'arbitralis concordia", the "resignatio utriusque contendentis" and the "futurum concilium generale", although leaning towards the third, which in fact proved victorious.
In the very lively discussions that followed on this subject in France, he always worked for conciliation, avoiding extreme positions, opposing the forced cession that it was sought to impose on Benedict XIII (1395), as well as the refusal of obedience (1398), and, after this was agreed to, proposing a settlement that was accepted (30 May 1403), thanks to a shrewd distinction between essential papal rights and accidental papal rights. Still to this end A. undertook several embassies: as extraordinary ambassador of Wenceslaus, King of the Romans, he was sent to the court of Avignon; in 1403 he was again sent to that city as legate of his king; subsequently he was a member of the embassy that went to the two contending popes to induce them to cede, and in 1413 he was legate of John XXIII in Germany. Finally, still in order to put an end to the division that was tearing the Church apart, he took part in the Council of Pisa (1409) and in that of Constance (1414). He arrived at Pisa on 7 May and recognized the newly elected Alexander V, but he played no important part. At Constance, on the other hand, where he arrived on 17 Nov. with a retinue of 44 persons, his influence made itself strongly felt. He succeeded in making his principles of conciliar doctrine prevail in the council, definitively abandoned John XXIII, approved the abdication of Gregory XII, cooperated in the deposition of Benedict XIII and adhered to Martin V. Thus he was able to see crowned with success what had been the constant concern of his life.