French jurist, Christian controversialist and historian (1520–1573)
"Francis Baldwin" redirects here. For the Exxon chief scientist, see
Francis P. Baldwin.
"Balduinus" redirects here. For other people with this name, see
Baldwin (name).
Portrait of François Baudouin, engraving by Léonard Gaultier
François Baudouin (1520 – 24 October 1573),[1] also called Balduinus, was a French jurist, Christian controversialist and historian. Among the most colourful of the noted French
humanists, he was respected by his contemporaries as a statesman and jurist, even as they frowned upon his perceived inconstancy in matters of faith: he was noted as a
Calvinist who converted to
Catholicism.
Life
He was born at
Arras, then part of the Empire, and educated in the convent school at
St. Vaast. Baudouin studied law in the
University of Leuven with
Mudaeus. He settled as an
advocate in
Arras, where he continued his studies, but was banned from the town in 1545 on charges of
heresy due to his Calvinist leanings. He went to the court of the
Emperor Charles V at
Brussels, and then travelled extensively.
After brief stays in Paris,
Strasbourg and
Geneva – where he met and became an enemy of
Calvin – he settled in 1549 in
Bourges as a doctor and then professor of law, as a colleague of
Baro and
Duarenus. Rivalries with the latter led him to move to Strasbourg and, 1555, to
Heidelberg, where his academic career reached its apogee.
Leaving his chair to engage in European confessional politics, Baudouin was unsuccessful in assisting with attempts to reconcile the
Roman Catholic Church and the
Reformation, for instance in the failed
Colloquy at Poissy, and in mediation efforts in the
Netherlands. In 1563, he re-converted to Catholicism and in 1569, he was called again to teach law at
Angers. Before he could accompany his patron,
Henry of Anjou – now
King of Poland – to
Kraków, he died 1573 in Paris of a fever.
Writings
Commentarii in libros quatuor Institutionum Iuris Civilis, 1554
Baudouin was a prolific writer on juridical and
ecclesiastical topics. As a jurist, he established the
palingenetic method of presentation of legal sources. His works include many substantial commentaries on
Roman law. He was the first to reconstruct the original legislation of
Justinian and to authenticate a text (the ‘Octavius’) of the early Christian writer
Minucius Felix (200-400). Baudouin had produced a monograph on the Emperor
Constantine in 1556.
He wrote a study of a major dispute between
Catholics and
Donatists (and the Emperor Constantine's first large-scale dealing with the Christian church), the episcopal election of
Carthage in 313.
Selected bibliography
Justiniani Leges De re rustica (1542)
Justiniani Institutionem seu Elementorum libri quattuor (1545)
Juris civilis Schola Argentinensis (1555), a teaching program for jurists
Constantinus Magnus, seu de constantini imperatoris legibus ecclesiasticis atque civilibus (1556/1612), a commentary on
Constantine's fragments from the
Codex Justinianus
Commentarius ad edicta veterum principium Romanorum de christianis (1557)
Minucii Felicis Octavius restitutus a Fr. Balduino (1560), as editor
De Institutionae historiae universae: libri II: et ejus cum jurisprudencia conjunctione (1561)
Fr. Balduini Responsio altera ad Ioan. Calvinum (1562)
S. Optati libri sex de schismate donatistarum, cum Fr. Balduini praefatione (1563), as editor
Discours sur le fait de la Réformation (1564)
Historia Carthaginiensis collationis inter catholicos et donatistas, ex rerum ecclesiasticarum commentaries Fr. Balduini (1566). Parisiis [Paris], Apud Claudium Fremy 1566. First edition. 8vo., fols. [xvi] 100.
Delibatio Africanae historiae, seu Optati libri VI, de schismate donatistarum et Victoris Uticensis libri III de persecutione Vandalorum cum Fr. Balduini annotationibus (1569), as editor
Francisci Balduini ... opuscula varia / collecta, et denuo ed. a Goswino Josepho de Buininck. - Dusseldorpii : Stahl, 1765.
digital
Holthöfer, Ernst (2001). "François Baudoin". In Michael Stolleis (ed.). Juristen: ein biographisches Lexikon; von der Antike bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (in German) (2nd ed.). München: Beck. p. 68.
ISBN3-406-45957-9.