Les sermons Contra haereticos du cardinal Eudes de Châteauroux († 1273)

Abstract

Master then Chancellor of the University of Paris, papal legate for the kingdom of France, and finally Cardinal, Eudes de Châteauroux, who died in 1273, has left homiletic work that counts among the most important of the thirteenth century, quantitatively as well as qualitatively. Many of the sermons show that throughout his preaching career the Cardinal was focused on the heresy problem. While several sermons address this theme indirectly, fourteen, however, are fully or largely devoted to refuting the arguments ascribed to ‘Manichean’ heretics. Two others were intended to be given at the sentencing to the stake of one or more of the heterodox. The article examines how Eudes de Châteauroux envisaged the struggle against allegedly heretical doctrines through preaching and the complex relationships that some of the sermons have with two anti-heretical treatises of the first half of the thirteenth century, the Disputatio inter catholicum et paterinum hereticum and the Adversus Catharos et Valdenses of the Dominican Moneta of Cremona. It also provides a critical edition of the sixteen sermons, unpublished or only partially transcribed by Cardinal Jean-Baptiste Pitra, which deal more specifically with heresy and with the condemnation of heretics.