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Polycarpe de la Rivière

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Dom Polycarpe de la Rivière was Carthusian prior of the 17th century, historian and scholar with a fertile imagination. Much of his life is unknown, and, although he wrote biographies on numerous personalities, he is generally considered to have been a fabricator of persons, names, dates, and documents. The date, place, and circumstances of his death are unknown. He disappeared in September 1639.

Life[edit]

Polycarpe de la Rivière, according to his own testimony,[1] was born in the village of Velay in the Languedoc, not far from Le Puy. On the title pages of his books, he is called "Vélaunois."[2] He was born around 1584.[3]

At the age of 20, he was in the service of a "great princess", probably Marguerite de Valois, who resided at the Château d'Usson until 1605.[4] After he left the service of the princess, he entered a Jesuit novitiate, though he did not remain for long. In his 21st year, in January 1608, he was received at the Grand Chartreuse by the Father General, Dom Bruno d'Affringues (1600–1631).[5]

He was Prior of Sainte-Croix-en-Jarez from 1618 to 1627. During that time, he published three works, Adieu du Monde, Angelique, and Le Mistère sacré de nostre rédemption.[6]

He was Prior of the Chartreuse of Bordeaux from 1627-1629. During this time, in 1627, he was co-visitor of the Carthusian province of Provence and the province of Aquitaine.[7]

He was made prior of Bonpas in 1630. At the General Chapter of 1632, he was appointed to present a discourse.[8] In 1633, he was visitor of the Carthusian province of Provence.[9] In September 1633, Polycarpe was in Marseille, for the laying of the cornerstone of the new Chartreuse.[10]

In 1638, Prior Polycarpe petitioned the General Chapter of the Carthusian Order, not for the first time, for release from some of his duties, so that he could devote his energies to his Annales Christianissimae Ecclesiae Gallicanae. Among other things, he was excused from choral attendance on ordinary days, and on festival days only required to attend at Lauds and Vespers. He was also granted leave at any time to move about the priory, and to travel to Avignon and other locations.[11]

In 1639, he asked to be transferred to the Chartreuse of Moulins for the sake of his health. He resided there for ten months, when, again for health reasons, he requested permission from the prior of Moulins to visit the baths at Mount Dore. In September 1639, he departed Moulins with a servant of that Chartreuse and two mules. On 13 December 1639, the Prior General, Just Perrot, requested the Prior of Moulins to provide information as to the whereabouts of Dom Polycarpe. He is known to have reached Clermont, but then he disappeared. Several rumors were pursued, and found to be without foundation.[12]

On 18 February and again on 28 February 1640, the Prior General wrote to the prior of the Chartreuse of Rome that Dom Polycarpe's manuscripts and papers had not been taken with him to Moulins; they had been deposited with a lawyer named Rabaud, in Arles.[13]

Biographical interests[edit]

Among the persons about whom he wrote are:

Works[edit]

Even in his own lifetime, his works were considered to be controversial, and remain so.[20] Many of his later works were refused permission to publish, or remained incomplete.

  • 1617: Recreations spirituelles sur l'Amour divin... (Paris: Chez Regnaud-Chaudiere 1617). 1619 and 1622.[21] "Spiritual Recreations on divine love and the good of souls." With an anagram of Polycarp appears an element showing a phonetic cryptography system that Polycarp seems boldly master.
  • Angelique des excellences et perfections immortelles de l'âme, "immortal excellencies and perfections of the soul." Only published in 1626: "Angelica" His superior accused Polycarpe of having written this book in French; he regrets that it was not written in Latin. This book contains interesting and innovative observations on natural history.[22]
  • 1619: L' Adieu du monde ("Farewell to the world, or the contempt of his vain and perishable magnitudes pleasures") (in French), second edition (Lyon, Pillehotte, 1621). The dedication is to Dom Bruno d'Affringues, Prior General of the Carthusian Order.[23]
  • 1621: Le Mistere sacré de nostre Redemption. "The Sacred Mystery of Our Redemption" (three volumes).[24]
  • 1618: Pensées sur le Cantique de Salomon. (in French). "The Eloquent Loving Thought, or, on the Song of Solomon." Written before he took his Carthusian vows on 1 March 1609.[25]
  • 1625: "The penitent soul from the Cross"
  • 1638 "Annales Ecclesiae Urbis et Avenionensis comitatus. " Manuscript in two volumes. "History of the city of Avignon." This book was banned by Rome, despite all the interventions of canon Maselli. It is filled with errors and fabrications.[26]
  • 1640: "Historia Ordinis Cartusiensis". Publication was refused by the Prior General, Dom Bruno d'Affringues.[27]
"Catalogus Priorum Majoris Cartusiae Gratinanopolitanae".
  • 1636: "Historia Ecclesia Gallicanae, seu Natilia Episcopatuum Galliae". Only three volumes of the planned seventeen have been made available. All are in manuscript or notes, and have never been published.[28]
  • "Chronique inédite des Evêques de Valence et de Die", derives from the mss. of Peiresc, material supplied to him by Polycarpe de la Riviere]. Valence: Imprimerie de Jules Céas et fils, 1891.
  • Polycarpe de la Rivière also left a number of prayers and sermons.[29]
  • Letters[30]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Adieu du Monde, preface: "il est né dans le Velay, petite province du Languedoc et l'un de ses vingt-trois diocèses, pays des plus froids et montueux qui soient."
  2. ^ "Polycarpe" was his name 'in religion', not his baptismal name. Vachez, pp. 120-121. De la Rivière is a family name; cf. Abbé Louis de la Riviere, a contemporary, with whom Polycarpe was sometimes confused (Vachez, p. 144).
  3. ^ Bayle, p. 313, or 1588 (Vachez, p. 127).
  4. ^ Adieu du Monde: "il nous apprend que ce fut dans le cours de sa vingt et unième année que Dieu lui donna la volonté, en même temps que le moyen de sortir du service d'une grande princesse, pour se donner au sien." Vachez, p. 122.
  5. ^ Vachez, p. 127, citing a letter of Dom Just Perrot, written on 18 February 1640.
  6. ^ Vachez, p. 112. Bayle, p. 310.
  7. ^ Vachez, p. 112.
  8. ^ Vachez, p. 112.
  9. ^ Nicolas Claude Fabri de Peiresc, Lettres de Peiresc aux fréres Dupuy [et autres], Volume 2 (Paris: Impr. nationale, 1888), p. 472.
  10. ^ Nicolas Claude Fabri de Peiresc, Lettres de Peiresc, Volume 4 (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1893), p. 357.
  11. ^ Bayle, p. 301, citing the decree of the General Chapter.
  12. ^ Vachez, pp. 142-146.
  13. ^ Vachez, pp. 146-147: "Il n'a avec lui, ni papiers, ni écrits." "Sortant de Bonpas, pour aller demeurer en la nouvelle Chartreuse de Moulins, il remit tous ses mémoires et documents en mains de personne qui lui est du tout confident."
  14. ^ Joseph-Antoine Bastet, Notice historique et archéologique sur Orange, (in French) (Raphel aîn, 1840), pp. 37-40.
  15. ^ Dominic Selwood, Knights of the Cloister. Templars and Hospitallers in Central–Southern Occitania (1100-1300) (Woodbridge 1999), p. 85. [forged charter]
  16. ^ Jean Columbi, Ioannis Columbi Manuscensis, ... Libri quatuor. De rebus gestis Valentinorum, et Diensium episcoporum, (in Latin) (Lyon: Typographia Iacobi Canier, 1652), pp. 78-79.
  17. ^ Joseph Cyprien Nadal, Histoire hagiologique, ou Vies des Saints et des Bienheureux du Diocèse de Valence, (in French), (Valence: Marc Aurel 1855), p. 56.
  18. ^ Lenain de Tillemont, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire ecclésiastique des six premiers siècles, (in French), Tome 6, troisième partie, p. 687,
  19. ^ Nadal, pp. 56-57. Cf. Félix Vernet, "Nicaise évêque de Die l'unique représentant des Gaules au concile de Nicée, II", (in French), in: Bulletin d'archéologie et de statistique de la Drôme, Volume 60 (Valence: Société d'archéologie et de statistique de la Drôme, 1926), pp. 257-265, at p. 259: "Or ni cette Vie, ni la Vie de S. Marcel en vers, ni toute une série de documents mirifiques annoncés par Dom Polycarpe ne virent le jour. Quand il fut mort, on eut beau fouiller les bibliothèques, on n'y trouva rien de pareil. En revanche, on découvrit, dans les manuscrits de Dom Polycarpe (conservés aux bibliothèques d'Avignon et de Carpentras) la preuve qu'il ne se contentait point de transcrire les documents qu'il livra ou qu'il projetait de livrer au public, mais qu'il les corrigeait et les complétait à sa guise et même qu'il les créait de toutes pièces."
  20. ^ Ulysse Chevalier (1919), pp. 163-164. Louis Duchesne, Fastes épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule Vol. 1: Provinces du Sud-Est, (in French), 2nd edition (Paris: Albert Fontemoing 1907), pp. vi-vii. Vachez, pp. 138-140. Barvajel, p. 343: "De Launoy [1603–1678] fut le premier qui accusa ouvertement D. Polycarpe de fausseté et d'imposture...."
  21. ^ Odon Claude Reure, Bibliotheque des ecrivains Foreziens, (in French), Volume 2 (Montbrison: Imprimerie Eleuthère Brassart, 1915), p. 32.
  22. ^ Reure, p. 34.
  23. ^ Reure, pp. 32-33.
  24. ^ Le Mistere sacré de nostre Redemption, contenant, en trois parties, la mort et Passion de Iesus Christ, (in French), Volume 1 (Chez Anthoine Pillehotte, 1621). The license to print was granted by Dom Bruno d'Affringues, Prior General of the Carthusian Order, on 15 September 1620. Reure, p. 33.
  25. ^ Vachez, p. 127.
  26. ^ Eugène Duprat, Les origines de l'église d'Avignon: (des origines à 879), (in French), (Paris: G. Ficker, 1909), pp. 46, 52, 69, 98, 100, 111, 116-117.
  27. ^ Vachez, pp. 140.
  28. ^ Denis de Sainte-Marthe, Gallia Christiana: ... Provinciae Albiensis, Aquensis, Avenionenses, Arelatensis, Auxitana, (in Latin), (Paris: Typographia Regia, 1715), p. 893 note (b), states concerning the early bishops of Carpentras: "Nescio utrum ad fidem Polycarpiani codicis debeamus admittere hos episcopos, in fastis Viennensibus, Arelatensibus, etc. prorsus incognitos. Idem sentio de aliis a Polycarpe suppeditatis, Marcio Carpentoractensi, Macilio Vindauscensi circa annum 303; Viviano, Superventore, Desiderio, et Carissimo Vindausensibus, quos Polycarpus partim ex manuscripto auctoribus, partim ex suis conjecturis invexit...."
  29. ^ Site-Catholique, "Prière de Dom Polycarpe de la Rivière". (in French) [self-published source]
  30. ^ Two letters of Polycarpe to Nicolas Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1634) are printed by Vachez, pp. 285-287.

Sources[edit]


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