BERTRAND, PIERRE

Cardinal and canonist; b. Annonay (southern France), 1280; d. 1349. He was a canon of Notre–Dame du Puy in 1296 and dean in 1314; he taught canon law in Avignon, Montpellier (1307), and Paris (after 1312); and in 1312 he was also professor of Roman law in Orléans. From 1314 he was immersed in juridical or political activities, both at the Parlement of Paris (1315) and as a member of King Philip V's Council of State (1318); in 1320 he became chancellor of Queen Joan of Burgundy. When appointed bishop of Nevers in January of 1320, he refused the see, accepting instead that of Autun some four months later. In 1329 in the famous memorandum Super jurisdictione ecclesiastica et temporali, which is his only work to be printed (Paris 1495), he upheld the Church's jurisdiction at a royal consultative assembly at Vincennes. He was subsequently named archbishop of Bourges (1330). In 1331, at the request of the king and queen, he was made a cardinal. He was entrusted with various papal diplomatic missions. Although a fervent polemicist, he had a taste for erudite works and compiled in the manner of the period a Tabula super Decretum and a Scrinium iuris. As a canonist, he has left two important works: an Apparatus on the liber sextus and one on the clementinae. He also added a fourth part to the De origine jurisdictionum of durandus of saint-pourÇain, OP. His teaching is very informative on the Church's constitutional problems in the 14th century.

Bibliography: f. du chesne, Histoire de tous les cardinaux français, 2 v. (Paris 1660). o. martin, L'Assemblée de Vincennes de 1329 et ses conséquences (Paris 1909). m. dÉruelle, Dictionnaire de droit canonique, r. naz ed., 7 v. (Paris 1935–65) 2:789–792. p. fournier, Histoire Littéraire de la France 37 (1938) 85–120. a. van hove, Commentarium Lovaniense in Codicem iuris canonici 1, 5 v. (Mechlin 1928—) 1:458, 462. a. m. stickler, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, j. hofer and k. rahner eds. (2d new ed. Freiburg, 1957–65) 8:351.

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