Berquin, Louis de
BERQUIN, LOUIS DE
French royal counselor and humanist; b. Passy, 1490; d. Paris, April 17, 1529. He was a member of the circle of Margaret of Valois in the 1520s, and he translated Erasmus' Enchiridion and other works, and treatises of Hutten, Luther, and Melanchthon. He wrote a defense of Luther and a treatise, De Sacerdotio. Arrested, he was rescued in 1523, 1525, and 1526 from the wrath of Parlement and the Sorbonne by Francis I's intervention. It is uncertain whether he adhered to Luther's doctrines, but he was attracted by Luther's early boldness. At the end of the decade, Berquin was arraigned again during the French alliance with Rome and outbreaks of iconoclasm in Paris. He was condemned and burned as a heretic on the same day. Efforts were redoubled to unmask "secret Lutherans," and the "Meaux Group" under Margaret's protection dispersed.
Bibliography: w. g. moore, La Réforme allemande et la littérature française (Strasbourg 1930). a. bailly, La Réforme en France (Paris 1960). j. cadier, "Luther et les débuts de la réforme française,"Positions Lutheriennes 6 (1958). j. viÉnot, Histoire de la réforme française 2 v. (Paris 1926–34). r. nÜrnberger, Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart 3 1:1069. j. rath, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche 2 2:262.
[r. h. fischer]