THE MEDICAL FACULTY OF PARIS SUE VILLANOVANUS FOR LECTURING ON JUDICIAL ASTROLOGY.

Servetus’s fate on starting in life was opposition; and how should it have been otherwise?—he found himself through superior endowment and higher culture antagonistic to almost all he saw around him in the world. We have already had him met as a trespasser on their domain by the Reformers of Basle and Strasburg, and we have now to find him looked on as an intruder by the Medical Faculty of Paris. The lecturer on Geography and Astrology had attracted a large amount of public attention, and the author of the book on Syrups began to get into vogue as a practitioner of medicine. The book had in fact been as well received as the lectures; it was extensively read, much commended at the time, and reprinted oftener than once in after years. No wonder, therefore, that Michel Villeneuve M.D. had now as many eyes upon him in Paris as Michael Servetus had had in other days in Switzerland. Before he could well look about him, the whole faculty of Physicians and the heads of the University of Paris were in array against him.

It seems that he had gone out of his way in his lectures to say something disrespectful of the doctors, his contemporaries, accusing them of ignorance of many things necessary to the successful practice of their profession, particularly of Astronomy, or more properly Astrology, a science in which Villeneuve plumed himself as being a master. The doctors naturally enough complained of such impropriety, and had him cited before their council. There he was told that something more of respectful bearing was due from him to men who had been his masters; and above all that he was transgressing the boundaries of true science and common sense in making so much of Astrology. The Dean of the Faculty is even said to have had him several times privately before him, and warned him of the difficulties he would inevitably fall into, if he continued casting nativities and prescribing for the ailments of his patients from the aspects of the stars; for this, it appears, was the principal element in his medical practice. Servetus, unhappily for himself, was not one of those who could take even friendly advice in good part. As credulous as he was sceptical, and believing implicitly in himself and in stellar influences, he not only made no submission, but said that his ill-wishers should rue their opposition.

The doctors on their part not only gave no heed to his threats, but publicly denounced him from their chairs as an impostor and wind-bag; with the consequence of arousing him to self-defence, and with his ready pen setting him to work upon a pamphlet, in which he did not fail to lay bare some of the sore places in the persons of his adversaries, characterising them as mannerless and unlettered, and even holding them up in their ignorance as very pests of society. Once in the hands of the printer, Villeneuve’s purpose to expose his detractors through the dreaded press became known; and such alarm does his meditated attack appear to have excited that the Faculty of Physicians, calling the Senate of the University to their side, petitioned the Parliament of Paris to forbid the publication of the pamphlet, as well as to interdict its author from continuing to lecture on Astrology, which they now characterised as Divination.

The Parliament, with becoming judicial impartiality, would take no step in the matter until they had heard Villeneuve in his defence and had something tangible, such as the pamphlet which it was sought to suppress, before them. Nothing more was done, consequently, than the issuing of a summons to Villeneuve to appear at the bar of the house on a certain day and give an account of himself. This gave him all he required: time to have his pamphlet printed. Keeping the compositors at work, with a promise of higher pay if they used despatch, it was not only ready before the day of citation came round, but had been distributed gratis in numbers to the public as well as to the members of the medical profession. They reckoned without their host who thought that Michel Villeneuve was to be cowed by opposition, however imposingly headed.

The doctors were naturally excessively wroth with this daring move on the part of the man they desired to crush. He had not awaited the decision of the Parliament; and neither now did they pause; for believing they had a hold upon him on the score of heresy, implied in the practice of judicial astrology or divination, they had him summoned before the Inquisitor of the king as an enemy to the Church, and contemner of its statutes. There was no regularly established Inquisition at this time in France; but papal inquisitors, often Italians by birth, were commonly enough found accredited by the Holy See, with the sanction of the Sovereign, to the large towns of the country. There they held courts before which cases of imputed heresy were tried and adjudged—the decisions come to, however, being always made subject to revision by the civil tribunals of the realm. Nay, there was a right of demurrage to the jurisdiction of the inquisitor, at the option of the party incriminated, were he minded to be tried by the ordinary civil, rather than the extraordinary ecclesiastical, court.

We might have imagined that Michael Servetus, with the experience he had had of ecclesiastical incapacity to hear reason and ‘true judgment give,’ as he interpreted it, would have paused before venturing to appear before the inquisitor of the king; but so safe must Michel Villeneuve have felt against a charge of heresy at this time, and so secure in his new designation, that he did not hesitate to obey the summons; although we learn that had he been so minded, he might as a member of the Faculty of Physicians have even disregarded it entirely. He appeared accordingly at the proper moment; and so well did he play his part, so thoroughly did he satisfy the inquisitor of the king that he was a good Christian, that he left the court with flying colours, absolved of all suspicion of heresy, to the utter discomfiture of his accusers, who had now nothing for it but patiently to wait the award of the Parliament.

Before this tribunal, acting it would seem as a court of justice, a suit was regularly instituted, with the Rector of the University of Paris and the Dean and Faculty of Physic of the same as pursuers, on the one part, and Michael Villanovanus as defendant, on the other. For the University and Faculty, it was alleged that judicial astrology, otherwise to be styled divination, is forbidden by various statutes, as well canonical and divine as civil, the penalty for practising the same being death by fire, and that the defendant, a man of learning, and so incapacitated from pleading ignorance of these statutes, had notoriously lectured both in public and private on certain books of divination, among others, on the works entitled ‘De Aleabiticis’ and ‘De Divificationibus,’ both of which are full of divination.

It was alleged further, that he had been known to make forecasts for various persons in respect of their fortunes from their nativities, on the assumption that according to the day and the hour of a man’s birth, and the aspect of the heavens at the time, would fortune of a favourable or adverse kind befal him; all of which by the Faculty of Theology is held highly reprehensible. That for his lectures and lessons, moreover, he takes money and attracts numerous auditors, who, seduced by the pleasantness of the poison he sells, have been debauched and led to forsake the true philosophy of Pico de Mirandola, who declares divination to be the most pestilent of frauds, degrading philosophy, invalidating religion, strengthening superstition, corrupting morals, and making men miserable slaves instead of free men.

Not stopping short at such public and private misdeeds, continue the pursuers, he has written and had printed a certain apology or defence of divination,47 with his name attached, which is of a highly objectionable character in every respect; the Theological Faculty declaring in addition that the concluding sentence of this apology has an extremely suspicious appearance, couched as it is in these words: ‘On the following night Mars is eclipsed by the moon, near the star called the King, in the constellation of Leo; whence I predict that in the course of this year the hearts of the Lions, i.e. the princes, will be greatly moved; that with Mars in the ascendant war will prevail, and much havoc be done by fire and sword; that the Church will suffer tribulation, several princes die, and pestilence and other evils abound. To languish, to mourn, to die—all of good or ill that comes to man proceeds from heaven.’

The petition of the pursuers on the above showing therefore is, that the defendant, Villanovanus, be interdicted for the future from professing and practising judicial astrology, whether in public or private; that he be forbidden further to circulate his pamphlet against the Faculty, and commanded to call in all unsold copies; that for what has passed he own himself to blame, and be enjoined for the future to bear himself respectfully towards the Faculty of Physic, to which he belongs.

In his address to the court on behalf of his client, Villanovanus’s counsel opined that the Faculty of Physic had descended somewhat from the dignity that became so great a body in taking steps against one, a stranger, who had been attracted to Paris by the science that distinguished it, of which he had heard so much. The cause of the hostility of the Faculty against his client, he said, was owing to his having insisted on the necessity of a knowledge of astronomy to the Physician. This had been turned into a knowledge of judicial astrology by his enemies; but there were many of his hearers who were ready to testify that he had never even mentioned judicial astrology. As to the paragraph about the Lions, he had only given it as illustrating the rules of astrological science, and the knowledge he has of the possible influence of the stars; but he would by no means insist that events of the kind named must happen as matter of necessity. In all this, however, he is ready to submit himself to the judgment of the court, and on his words being pronounced objectionable, he is willing to be set right. With regard to what he says in his apology about physicians being the plagues of society, he of course only aims at the ignorant and unskilful among them; the saying, indeed, is none of his, but Galen’s, who speaks of the ignorant practitioners of medicine of his day in precisely the same words.

The judgment of the court is nearly in the terms of the counsel’s address for the prosecution. His statements appear to have been taken as trustworthy without further evidence adduced. Villanovanus is ordered to call in his pamphlet and deposit the copies with the proper officer of the court; to pay all honour and respect to the Faculty of Physic in its collective and individual capacity, saying and writing nothing unbecoming of it, but conducting himself at all times peacefully and reverently towards its members; the doctors, on their part, being enjoined to treat Villanovanus gently and amiably, as parents treat their children. Villanovanus is then expressly inhibited and forbidden to appear in public, or in any other way, as a professor or practitioner of judicial astrology, otherwise called divination; he is to confine himself in his discussions of astrological subjects to the influence of the heavenly bodies on the course of the seasons and other natural phenomena, and not to meddle with questions or judgments of stellar influences on individuals or events, under pain of being deprived of the privileges he enjoys as a graduate of the University of Paris.

Done this 18th of March, 1538.