Isaac Casaubon and Matthew Paris

Abstract

ISAAC CASAUBON is mainly known as a student of Greek literature and Holy Scripture.1 Recently, Alastair Hamilton has presented some evidence of his studies on the Arabic tongue.2 However, we can affirm that he exercised his great abilities also on Medieval Latin authors: for instance, the 13th-century chronicler Matthew Paris. When Casaubon moved to London, in 1610, he was directly protected by King James I. While in England, the scholar was requested to compose a response to the attacks against Protestant Churches that lay in Cesare Baronio’s Annales. Casaubon’s response was never completed, and the chapters he wrote were only published after his death as De rebus sacris et ecclesiasticis exercitationes xvi ad Baronii Annales (London, 1614).3 In this book, Casaubon was able to write a decisive page on the history of Paris’ manuscripts. During the XVIth century, in order to state that greed and rapacity were main features of Catholic bishops both in medieval and modern times, Protestant theologians had quoted several passages from Matthew Paris’ chronicles, in which the avidity of the Roman Church was sharply described: Paris’ Historia Anglorum, in fact, was first published by the Archbishop of Canterbury Matthew Parker, in 1571.4 On the other hand Cesare Baronio suggested that paragraphs adverse to the Roman Church could have been inserted by the modern editor: ‘additamenta potius eius qui edidit novatoris, haeretici hominis, quum peculiare sit illis libros, quos potuerint, depravare’.5 Roberto Bellarmino did soon agree with his opinion.6