Pamphlets Gallicans et Antipapistes (1510-1513)

When examining the great number of documents connected with the political constellation of the years 1510-1513, we discover in France two strongly opposite views regarding the personality and policy of Pope Julius II: “conciliarist” and “papalist” theories. These foster a climate of latent war, especially as Louis XII’s policies – both at home and abroad – were unanimously condemned, even by the loyal Bude. Among the pamphlets of that time echoing this double crisis, this article presents French and Gallican poet Pierre Gringore’s satirical work: the Chasse du Cerf des serfs – a play upon the Latin words, servus servorum Dei, as popes called themselves for humility –. This essay also refers to Erasmus’s Latin dialogue (which he never recognized as his own), Julius exclusus a coelis (Julius, expelled from Heaven [by St. Peter]), a dramatic work proving skillfully rhetorical and vengefully ironical against this “warlike pope.”

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