Everything about Odet De Coligny totally explained
Odet de Coligny (
10 July 1517 -
14 February 1571),
cardinal of
Châtillon,
bishop of Beauvais, son of
Gaspard I de Coligny and
Louise de Montmorency, and brother of
Gaspard and
François, Seigneur d'Andelot.
Life
Birth
His birth at Chatillon, as his parents' second son, was recorded in his mother's
book of hours.
Catholic career
He occupied high church offices during this initial part of his career. He became prior of Saint-Stephan in Beaume in
1530. At the papal consistory of
November 7 1533 (at 16 and whilst still a layman) he was created cardinal deacon, receiving the red hat and the
titular church of
Santi Sergio e Bacco three days later. Soon afterwards he became Abbot of
Saint Bénigne de Dijon, of
Fleury, of
Ferrière and of
Vaux de Cernay.
In
1534 he became a Canon in Paris, participated in a papal conclave, and was made administrator of the
metropolitan see of Toulouse on
April 29, despite not yet having been ordained a priest. This he held until his resignation from that role on
October 20 1550. Meanwhile, on
October 20 1535, he'd become administrator of the see of
Beauvais, and Abbot of Saint-Lucien de Beauvais from
1537.
He opted for the deaconry of S. Adriano on February 25, 1549 and participated in the
papal conclave of 1549-1550. He was placed in charge of the library of France's Royal Privy Council and, using this and his other offices, he protected his friends
Ronsard and
Rabelais (in
1550 obtaining for the latter a ten year monopoly on book-printing - Rabelais dedicated his
Quart Livre to Odet in gratitude).
In
1556 he became abbot of
Ferrières on the recommendation of
Pope Pius IV and
Henry II, and
four years later, Pius named him
grand inquisitor of France, though the French parliament's opposition to the inquisition prevented him taking up the post.
Sometime after 1560 he also became abbot of Grandchamps, of Quincy and (from
1560) of Vézelay. In sum, then, he was Abbot of St. Euvertius, of Fontainejean, Ferrières, and St. Benoît, and from 1554 to 1560
prior (and after 1560
provost) of
St-Pierre de Mâcon.
Protestant career
However, under his family's influence, he continued reforms and even eventually went over to the Protestant camp himself, becoming a
Calvinist Huguenot in April 1561. Indeed, this is said by some to be little surprise since his long church career was more motivated by ambition than Catholic piety, though he wasn't the only French prelate to convert to Calvinism in this period (one other example is
Jean de Monluc, bishop of
Valence). Gathering a faction around himself, he greatly helped those of the Huguenot party. He participated with his brother in the religious wars and acted as a mediator between the Protestants and Queen
Catherine de' Medici.
In 1562 the
Inquisition declared him a heretic. He escaped to
Lyon, relinquished his title of cardinal and called himself the count of Beauvais (comte de Beauvais), after his old bishopric. In the secret
consistory of
March 31 1563,
Pope Pius IV and the French parliament declared him a heretic, excommmunicated him and deprived him of all his offices. In December 1564, he married his mistress Isabeau/Isabelle de Hauteville (also known as Elizabeth de Kanteville or Mme. la Cardinale) at
Montataire, without a Catholic ceremony. and wearing, at the Huguenots' request, his cardinal's robe.
Fighting at the
Battle of Saint-Denis, his position as a self-proclaimed Protestant leader made him vulnerable to Catherine's persecutions, forcing him to flee to England in 1568. In London, he requested monetary support for the French Protestants from
Queen Elizabeth, who favoured him and his wife. Still wanted by the French government for treason, he nevertheless remained provisionally in England, probably because he'd secret orders from the French court to seek Elizabeth's hand in marriage for the
prince of Anjou.
In 1568, his former abbacy of Ferrières was besieged by the troops of
Louis de Condé, friend of the Coligny family and fellow Protestant. The abbey was pillaged and profaned and, although no monks were killed, the reliquaires and treasures of the abbey were dispersed, the tombs of
Louis III,
Carloman and
Louis de Blanchefort(External Link
) heavily damaged and the monks' stalls removed. Odet (abroad by then) only intervened to stop this after three days when his own financial interests in the benefice seemed threatened.
Death
He was preparing to go from England to
La Rochelle to join his brother when he died at the former pilgrims' lodge at Canterbury under mysterious circumstances (possibly poisoned by his servant, possibly - or possibly not - on the orders of the French government) in 1571.
He was therefore buried in a temporary and very plain tomb covered in
hessian and
plaster in the Trinity Chapel in the east end of
Canterbury Cathedral. Meant to have been a temporary solution pending his body's return to France, this in fact never occurred and he still rests there.
One
conspiracy theory relates that - Coligny not being high-ranking enough for permanent burial in this important part of the cathedral - the tomb in fact contains the hidden relics of
Thomas Becket from his nearby shrine (dissolved 40 years earlier), Coligny's body having been returned to France or never in fact laid to rest here. This theory is not, however, accepted by historians.
Sources
Family tree
Bibliography
Atkinson, Ernest G. The Cardinal of Châtillon in England, 1568-1571 : a paper read on November 13, 1889, before the Huguenot society of London. London : printed by Spottiswoode & co., 1890
Becquerel, Antoine César. Souvenirs historiques sur l'amiral Coligny : sa famille et sa seigneurie de Châtillon-Sur-Loing. 2d ed. Paris : Firmin-Didot, 1876
Berton, Charles. Dictionnaire des cardinaux, contenant des notions générales sur le cardinalat, la nomenclature complète ..., des cardinaux de tous les temps et de tous les pays ... les détails biographiques essentiels sur tous les cardinaux ... de longues études sur les cardinaux célèbre ... Paris : J.-P. Migne, 1857
Facsimile edition. Farnborough
Gregg, 1969, cols 692-693; Cardella, Lorenzo. Memorie storiche de' cardinali della Santa Romana Chiesa. Rome : Stamperia Pagliarini, 1793, IV, 134-135
Chacón, Alfonso. Vitæ, et res gestæ Pontificvm Romanorum et S. R. E. Cardinalivm ab initio nascentis Ecclesiæ vsque ad Vrbanvm VIII. Pont. Max. 2 volumes. Romae : Typis Vaticanis, 1630, II, cols. 1480-1481
Coligny, Odet de, cardinal de Chatillon, 1515-1571. Correspondence d'Odet de Coligny, cardinal de Chatillon (1537-1568). Recueillie et publiée par M. Léon Marlet. Paris, A. Picard, 1885. (Documents publ. par la Sociité historique & archéologique du Gatinais; I)
Eubel, Conradus and Gulik, Guglielmus van. Hierarchia Catholica Medii et Recientoris Aevi. Münich : Sumptibus et Typis Librariae Regensbergianae, 1935
reprint, Padua : Il Messaggero di S. Antonio, 1960, III, 22, 72, 76, 131 and 315
Marlet, Léon. Le Cardinal de Châtillon : 1517-1571. Paris : H. Menu, 1883.
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