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The Blind ‘Doctor Scotus’1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Monsignor Hubert Jedin
Affiliation:
Professor of Church History in the University of Bonn, Germany

Extract

On the 10th November 1540 considerable attention was excited in the imperial city of Worms by the arrival of a blind Scot. He came with Bishop Tommaso Campeggio of Feltre, Papal Nuncio Extraordinary, to take part as a papal theologian in the discussion between Catholics and Protestants arranged by the Emperor Charles V. The German theologians, who were already there awaiting the opening of the discussion, had difficulty in concealing their surprise, and a jest—‘Legatus caecus oculatis Germanis’—was soon coined.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1950

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References

page 76 note 2 Nuntiaturberichte aus Deutschland, vi. 23, 34. For another, laudatory, epigram about Vauchop, composed probably by the Dominican Conrad Necrosius, see Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 50 (1931), 445Google Scholar; ‘Plurima mente videns, sed caecus natus ab annis.’

page 76 note 3 Nuntiaturberichte, v. 476. Although we are well informed about Vauchop's last twelve years, yet we know hardly anything about his life before 1540. The sketch of his life in Bellesheim, A.'s Geschichte der katholischen Kirche in Irland, ii (Mainz, 1890), 6979Google Scholar, is based on sources available at the time of its publication, especially on the twelve letters reprinted by Moran, P. F. in Spicilegium Ossoriense (Dublin, 1874), pp. 1332Google Scholar. This sketch has been rendered obsolete by the publication of new sources. Apart from the Nuntiaturberichte aus Deutschland, the following are relevant to the subject: Duhr, B., ‘Ungedruckte Briefe des Erzbischofs Dr Vauchop und seines Gefährten, des Jesuiten Claudius Jajus,’ in Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie, 21 (1897), 593621Google Scholar; Friedensburg, W., ‘Beiträge zum Briefwechsel der katholischen Gelehrten Deutschlands im Reformationszeitalter,’ in Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 23 (1902), 438–77Google Scholar (this includes twenty-eight pieces between 1540–4); for the years 1545–8, information in the Concilium Tridentinum volumes published by the Görresgesellschaft, Freiburg, 1901 et seq.; further details in Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu, Epistolae mixtae, i. 121, 126, etc.

page 77 note 1 Contarini to Farnese, 28th April, 1541, in Historisches Jahrbuch 1 (1880), 371. For Vauchop's complaint about Campeggio, report of 7th January 1541, cf. Laemmer, H., Monumenta Vaticana (Freiburg 1861), 321Google Scholar; and Moran, op. cit., 23–4.

page 77 note 2 Laemmer, op. cit., 356.

page 77 note 3 Friedensburg, Beiträge, 453.

page 77 note 4 Dittrich, F., Regesten und Briefe G. Contarinis (Braunsberg, 1881), 194Google Scholar; and Dittrich, F., Gasparo Contarini (Braunsberg, 1885), 725Google Scholar.

page 77 note 5 Vauchop took Contarini's letter of 27th July 1541 to Rome; cf. Dittrich, Regesten …, 345.

page 78 note 1 The Schottenklöster were religious houses on the Continent originally founded for Scottish and Irish monks. The Abbot of St James's at Ratisbon was President of the Congregation which the Scottish houses in Germany had formed in the thirteenth century and the house was the last to survive, not being suppressed until 1862.

page 78 note 2 Vauchop to Cervini, dated Salzburg 1st October 1542, in Conc. Trid., iv. 248 ff; reprinted in Friedensburg, op. cit., 463 ff.

page 78 note 3 B. Duhr, Geschichte der Jesuiten in den Ländern deutscher Zunge, i. 16 ff.

page 78 note 4 Raynald, Annales eccl. a. 1543, n. 30.

page 78 note 5 Mederer, J. N., Annales Ingolstadiensis Academiae i. (Ingolstadt, 1782), 188Google Scholar. Vauchop's nephew Henry Hay matriculated in Ingolstadt in the same year 1543 (op. cit., 184).

page 79 note 1 Vauchop to Leib, 6th December 1544, printed in J. Schlecht, Kilian Leibs Briefwechsel und Diarien (Münster, 1909), 47 ff.

page 79 note 2 Friedensburg, Beiträge, 444.

page 79 note 3 Monumenta Hist. Soc. Jesu, Epp. Salmeronis, i. 8.

page 79 note 4 Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII (ed. Gairdner and Brodie), xix. 1, n. 57; xix. 2, n. 759.

page 79 note 5 Nuntiaturberichte, viii. 51 ff., 61; Friedensburg, op. cit., 467. The payments to Vauchop during the session of the Council were put down in the accounts of the Council's trustee, Mannelli, and are reprinted in G. Calenzio, Documenti inediti sul Concilio di Trento (Roma, 1874), 96, 110, 122 et sq.

page 79 note 6 Conc. Trid., i. 187; on May 11th he was ‘vicino’ (cf. Conc. Trid., x. 78).

page 79 note 7 Conc Trid., i. 234.

page 80 note 1 op. cit., iv. 428. For Vauchop's accident in the vicinity of Florence, see op. cit., ii. 367.

page 80 note 2 op. cit., v. 60 (on the Vulgate, and on translations of the Bible); 115–16 (on the preaching of sermons and readings from Scripture); 172 (on Original Sin); 492–3, 679, 724 (on Justification); 987 (on the Sacraments in general, and on Baptism and Confirmation in particular); 1010 ff. (on the Holy Eucharist).

page 80 note 3 op. cit., v. 340, 398–9; i. 560, 564.

page 80 note 4 op. cit., i. 593; v. 704.

page 80 note 5 op. cit., i. 601; v. 708, 724, 733, 734, 764, 779.

page 80 note 6 op. cit., v. 780–4.

page 80 note 7 op. cit., x. 787–8; on January 13th he congratulated the Pope on the success of the sixth session and announced his visit; Moran, op. cit., 29–30.

page 80 note 8 Conc. Trid., i. 616.

page 80 note 9 op. cit., v. 977 ff.

page 80 note 10 op. cit., v. 1016; for the vote in the session, 1033.

page 81 note 1 Text in Moran, op. cit., 30–1. An extract in Conc. Trid., v. 1037, n. 2. Regarded, however, as lost by Buschbell, in Conc. Trid., xi. 147. For his relations with Cervini, cf. Conc. Trid., i. 380; x. 952; xi. 409, n. 1.

page 82 note 1 Moran, op. cit., 31–2.

page 82 note 2 Conc. Trid., xi. 151; i. 633.

page 82 note 3 On the 3rd of June 1547 the legates recommended him to Cardinal Farnese, Conc. Trid., xi. 210, n. 2; on 4th September he had returned, op. cit., i. 689; xi. 262. The matter may conceivably have been his pension on Dunkeld, cf. op. cit., x. 712.

page 82 note 4 op. cit., i. 723; xi. 313.

page 82 note 5 op. cit., v. 747.

page 82 note 6 op. cit., xi. 327.

page 83 note 1 op. cit., xi. 379–80, and n. 3; 386.

page 83 note 2 op. cit., xi. 345.

page 83 note 3 op. cit., xi. 449, n. 1. On the 28th July 1548 he asked for permission to depart; on 22nd August he had already left, xi. 459.

page 83 note 4 op. cit. xi. 483, n. 4.

page 83 note 5 Duhr, Ungedruckte Briefe, 618–19.

page 83 note 6 Bellesheim, Geschichte der katholischen Kirche in Irland, ii. 694 ff.; cf. Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, i. 106.

page 83 note 7 Shirley, Original Letters, p. 38: The blind bishop ‘lyes in Dyrre in o donylls contry’, writes Dowdall in March 1550, cf. Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, i. 107.

page 83 note 8 Buschbell, G., Reformation und Inquisition in Italien (Paderborn, 1910), 262Google Scholar; Grechetto, writing to Farnese on 27th February 1547, accuses Vauchop and the Bishop of Fiesole of conciliar ideas. On 31st August 1546 he had denounced Vauchop's doctrine on Justification as Lutheran; op. cit., 256.

page 84 note 1 Conc. Trid., ii. 367.

page 84 note 2 op. cit., i. 234.

page 84 note 3 op. cit., x. 712.

page 84 note 4 Dittrich, Regesten …, 345.

page 84 note 5 Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, i. 106.