Nicolas Cop

Last updated

Nicolas Cop [1] (born circa 1501 in Paris and died 1540), rector of the University of Paris in late 1533, from 10 October 1533, was a Swiss Protestant Reformer and friend of John Calvin. Nicolas Cop and his brother Michel Cop, sons of the king's physician, had become Calvin's friends during their shared time at the Collège de Montaigu. They were sons of Guillaume Cop, a native of Basel who became physician to the king of France, Francis I.

Around 1533, when Calvin had returned to Paris, tensions were rising between the humanistic and religious reformers of the Collège Royal and the conservative senior faculty members. The Collège Royal was later to become the Collège de France. Nicolas Cop, one of the reformers, had been elected rector of the University of Paris although the institution generally condemned Martin Luther. On All Saints Day, November 1, 1533, Nicolas Cop as rector delivered his inaugural address, in which he revealed himself as being in sympathy with Luther. [2] Cop discussed the need for reform and renewal in the Roman Catholic Church and highlighted differences between the Beatitudes of the Gospels and the theology and practices of the Roman Catholic Church pre-Counter Reformation. Calvin certainly influenced but did not write Cop's address, which defended the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Calvin is thought to have been complicit because he had fled from Paris just before Cop's delivery of the inaugural address.

Nicolas Cop's inaugural address as rector of the University of Paris provoked a strong reaction from the faculty, many of whom denounced it as heretical. Within just two days, on 3 November 1533, two Franciscans filed a complaint in the Parlement de Paris against Cop for heresy. Cop appeared before the parlement [3] and, upon failing to obtain the support of the king or the university, was forced to flee. He fled in secret, arriving in time at Basel. Cop traveled until reaching Basel in February 1534 and then went to Freiburg with Erasmus and Ludwig Baer. He made contact with the reformers in Strassburg and Ludovicus Carinus or Ludwig Carinus, whom he had known well in Paris. King Francis I during the furor created by Cop's brief tenure as rector referred to "the cursed Lutherans." Calvin, implicated in Cop's offense, was himself forced into hiding for the next year.

Nicolas Cop was befriended by the King's sister Marguerite de Navarre. He used his post to rehabilitate her work "Le miroir de l'âme pécheresse" (The mirror of the sinful soul). In January 1535, Calvin joined Cop in Basel, a city that had come under the influence of the reformer Johannes Oecolampadius. Cop traveled again to Paris where he earned his medical licence in May 1536. In the following year he was called to Scotland, where illness had struck the newly married Madeleine of France. Nicolas Cop also taught medicine at the university of Paris, but died suddenly in the winter of 1539/1540. [4] Protestant relatives of Nicolas Cop eventually took refuge in the Rheinland where his surname became Germanized to "Kob," before soon being anglicized in the American colonies as Cope. [5]

Notes

  1. ↑ Also known as Nicolaus Cop, Nicolaus Copus; Kopp; Kob or Cope.
  2. ↑ Concio academica nomine rectoris universitatis Parisiensis scripta. CO 10b:30-36; OS 1:4-10. See also Eberhard Busch et al., eds., Calvin--Studien Ausgabe vol.1/1, Reformatorische Anfange (1533-1541). Neu Kirchen: Vly Vluyn 1994, pp. 10-25.
  3. ↑ This was a French institution not equivalent to the English parliament.
  4. ↑ Much of this paragraph is a translation from the German-language entry on Wikipedia.
  5. ↑ "The Cop / Kob /Cope Papers" in possession in 2009 of Marsha Cope Huie, LL.M. Cambridge Univ.(Cantab. Hons. 1986).

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Calvin</span> French Protestant reformer (1509–1564)

John Calvin was a French theologian, pastor and reformer in Geneva during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism, including its doctrines of predestination and of God's absolute sovereignty in the salvation of the human soul from death and eternal damnation. Calvinist doctrines were influenced by and elaborated upon the Augustinian and other Christian traditions. Various Congregational, Reformed and Presbyterian churches, which look to Calvin as the chief expositor of their beliefs, have spread throughout the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moses Amyraut</span> French Protestant theologian and metaphysician (1596–1664)

Moïse Amyraut, in English texts often Moses Amyraut, was a French Huguenot, Reformed theologian and metaphysician. He was the architect of Amyraldism, a Calvinist doctrine that made modifications to Calvinist theology regarding the nature of Christ's atonement and covenant theology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theodore Beza</span> French Calvinist theologian, reformer and scholar (1519–1605)

Theodore Beza was a French Calvinist Protestant theologian, reformer and scholar who played an important role in the Protestant Reformation. He was a disciple of John Calvin and lived most of his life in Geneva. Beza succeeded Calvin as the spiritual leader of the Republic of Geneva.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michel de l'Hôpital</span> French statesman and lawyer (1506–1573)

Michel de l'Hôpital was a French lawyer, diplomat and chancellor during the latter Italian Wars and the early French Wars of Religion. The son of a doctor in the service of Constable Bourbon he spent his early life exiled from France at Bourbon's and then the emperors court. When his father entered the service of the House of Lorraine, he entered the patronage network of Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine. Through his marriage to Marie Morin, he acquired a seat in the Paris Parlement. In this capacity he drew up the charges for the king, concerning the defenders of Boulogne who surrendered the city in 1544, before taking a role as a diplomat to the Council of Trent in 1547. The following year he assisted Anne d'Este in the details of her inheritance to ensure she could marry Francis, Duke of Guise.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">François Hotman</span> French lawyer and writer (1524–1590)

François Hotman was a French Protestant lawyer and writer, associated with the legal humanists and with the monarchomaques, who struggled against absolute monarchy. His first name is often written 'Francis' in English. His surname is Latinized by himself as Hotomanus, by others as Hotomannus and Hottomannus. He has been called "one of the first modern revolutionaries".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Farel</span> French reformer

William Farel, Guilhem Farel or Guillaume Farel, was a French evangelist, Protestant reformer and a founder of the Calvinist Church in the Principality of Neuchâtel, in the Republic of Geneva, and in Switzerland in the Canton of Bern and the Canton of Vaud. He is most often remembered for having persuaded John Calvin to remain in Geneva in 1536, and for persuading him to return there in 1541, after their expulsion in 1538. They influenced the government of Geneva to the point that it became the "Protestant Rome", where Protestants took refuge and dissidents such as Catholics and unitarians were driven out; some of the Catholics and Unitarians were even killed for their beliefs. Together with Calvin, Farel worked to train missionary preachers who spread the Protestant cause to other countries, and especially to France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amboise conspiracy</span>

The Amboise conspiracy, also called Tumult of Amboise, was a failed attempt by a Huguenot faction in France to gain control over the young King Francis II and to reverse the policies of the current administration of Francis, Duke of Guise and Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine through their arrest, and potentially execution. Malcontent factions of Huguenots had been chafing under the French crown since the reign of Henry II and with the arrival of a new young king, saw their chance to take power for themselves. However the plot was uncovered ahead of time, and the Guise were ready for them. As such hundreds would be arrested, and many killed. Louis I, Prince of Condé was suspected of involvement, however he was able to flee south, and it was only after some months that the Guise were able to put him on trial. Shortly thereafter, the sickly Francis II died, their hold on the administration collapsed, and with it the conviction of Condé. This tumult would be one of the key steps in the collapse of crown authority that led to the first French War of Religion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edict of Saint-Germain</span> 1562 French decree on religious tolerance

The Edict of Saint-Germain, also known as the Edict of January, was a landmark decree of tolerance promulgated by the regent of France, Catherine de' Medici, in January 1562. The edict provided limited tolerance to the Protestant Huguenots in the Catholic realm, though with counterweighing restrictions on their behaviour. The act represented the culmination of several years of slowly liberalising edicts which had begun with the 1560 Edict of Amboise. After two months the Paris Parlement would be compelled to register it by the rapidly deteriorating situation in the capital. The practical impact of the edict would be highly limited by the subsequent outbreak of the first French Wars of Religion but it would form the foundation for subsequent toleration edicts as the Edict of Nantes of 1598.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sebastian Castellio</span> French theologian (1515–1563)

Sebastian Castellio was a French preacher and theologian; and one of the first Reformed Christian proponents of religious toleration, freedom of conscience and thought.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parlement of Paris</span> French appellate court, 1200s–1790

The Parlement of Paris was the oldest parlement in the Kingdom of France, formed in the 14th century. It was fixed in Paris by Philip IV of France in 1302. The Parlement of Paris would hold sessions inside the medieval royal palace on the Île de la Cité, nowadays still the site of the Paris Hall of Justice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samuel Werenfels</span> Swiss theologian

Samuel Werenfels was a Swiss theologian. He was a major figure in the move towards a "reasonable orthodoxy" in Swiss Reformed theology.

The Cappel family was a French family which produced distinguished jurists and theologians in the 15th and 16th centuries. The family also took the Latin name Tillaeus based on the fief le Tilloy.

King Francis I of France issued the Edict of Coucy on July 16, 1535, ending the persecution of Protestants on the ground that heresy no longer existed in France. It also released religious prisoners and offered amnesty to exiles, providing they abjure heresy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christianity in the 16th century</span> Christianity-related events during the 16th century

In 16th-century Christianity, Protestantism came to the forefront and marked a significant change in the Christian world.

André de Gouveia was a Portuguese humanist and pedagogue during the Renaissance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diogo de Gouveia</span> Portuguese teacher and theologian

Diogo de Gouveia, known as Diogo de Gouveia, the Elder to distinguish him from contemporary homonyms such as his nephew, was a leading Portuguese teacher, theologian, diplomat and humanist during the Renaissance. With an extensive academic curriculum as rector at the University of Paris, he served King Manuel I and king John III of Portugal, whom he advised on the creation of captaincies in Brazil and the coming of the first Jesuit missionaries and notably Francis Xavier. First of a lineage of distinguished humanists and educators, he was the uncle of André de Gouveia, António de Gouveia, Diogo de Gouveia "the younger", and Marcial de Gouveia. During the Counter-Reformation he was a strong supporter of scholastic and Catholic orthodoxy, clashing with the liberal views of his nephew André de Gouveia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1562 Riots of Toulouse</span>

The 1562 Riots of Toulouse are a series of events that pitted members of the Reformed Church of France against members of the Roman Catholic Church in violent clashes that ended with the deaths of between 3,000 and 5,000 citizens of the French city of Toulouse. These events exhibit the tensions that would soon explode into full civil war during the French Wars of Religion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilhelm Heinrich Neuser</span>

Wilhelm Heinrich Neuser was a German Protestant theologian, church historian, professor and a leading scholar in John Calvin research, a founder of International Congress on Calvin Research.

Michel Cop was a Swiss Protestant Reformer. He was brother of Nicolas Cop and friend of John Calvin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edict of 19 April</span>

The Edict of 19 April was a religious edict promulgated by the regency council of Charles IX of France on 19 April 1561. The edict would confirm the decision of the Estates General of 1560-1 as regarded the amnesty for religious prisoners. The edict would however go further in an effort to calm the unrest that was sweeping France, outlawing the use of religious epithets and providing a pathway for religious exiles to return to the country. Despite not being an edict of toleration for Protestantism, the more conservative Catholics would interpret the edict as a concession to the Huguenots, leading to the Parlement of Paris to remonstrate the crown. The edict would be endorsed and furthered in the more sweeping Edict of July a few months later, before it in turn was superseded by the first edict of toleration, the Edict of Saint-Germain.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.