Antoine de Mouchy

Antoine de Mouchy (Antonius Monchiacenus Demochares) (b. 1494, at Ressons-sur-Matz, near Beauvais, in Picardy; d. 8 May 1574) was a French theologian and canonist, at Paris.

A traditional explanation of the French term mouchard, meaning police spy or informer, is that it derived from his use of intelligence-gathering networks, when working as an inquisitor.^[1] This folk-etymology was adopted by Voltaire, following François-Eudes de Mézeray.^[2] It has been plausibly contested, on the grounds that the word is found used in the fifteenth century. The derivation from mouche (fly) is preferred.^[3]

Life

In 1539 he was appointed rector of the University of Paris. He was also professor at the Sorbonne and canon Penitentiarius of Noyon. He was one of a group of Sorbonne doctors who in the 1550s began detailed scholarship on lists of bishops, to support the apostolic succession.^[4]

As inquisitor fidei he exerted his influence against the Calvinists, and was a judge at the heresy trial of Anne du Bourg.^[5] In a 1560 book he accused Calvinists of sexual libertinism, practiced after the end of religious services.^[6]

In 1562 he accompanied Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine to the Council of Trent, and in 1564 was present at the Synod of Reims.

Works

Mouchy wrote a work in defence of the Mass (Paris, 1562). His scholarly edition of the Corpus juris canonici^[7] is called "pioneering".^[8]

Notes

1. ^ fr:wikt:mouchard
2. ^ http://www.dicocitations.com/definition_littre.php?id_mot=18414&id_variante=66887
3. ^ E.g
4. ^ http://www.catho-theo.net/L-historien-et-la-theologie#nh24, in French.
5. ^ Nancy Lyman Roelker, One King, One Faith: The Parlement of Paris and the Religious Reformations of the Sixteenth Century (1996), p. 237; online.
6. ^ John Marshall, John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture: Religious Intolerance and Arguments for Religious Toleration in Early Modern and 'early Enlightenment' Europe (2006), p. 271.
7. ^ 3 vols. fol., including the glossa, Paris, 1561; 4 vols. 8vo, without the glossa, Paris, 1547-50; 7 vols. l2mo, Lyons, 1554).
8. ^ Donald R. Kelley, The Rise of Legal History in the Renaissance, History and Theory, Vol. 9, No. 2 (1970), pp. 174-194.

References

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed (1913). "Antoine de Mouchy". Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company.  The entry cites:
  • Scherer in Kirchenlexikon, s.v.

Persondata
Name	Mouchy, Antoine de
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1494
Place of birth
Date of death	1574
Place of death