Life

He was born at Beaugency-sur-Loire, and educated at Orléans

Orléans

-Prehistory and Roman:Cenabum was a Gallic stronghold, one of the principal towns of the Carnutes tribe where the Druids held their annual assembly. It was conquered and destroyed by Julius Caesar in 52 BC, then rebuilt under the Roman Empire...

. He studied Greek under Adrianus Turnebus

Adrianus Turnebus

Adrianus Turnebus was a French classical scholar.-Life:Turnebus was born at Les Andelys in Normandy. At the age of twelve he was sent to Paris to study, and attracted great notice by his remarkable abilities...

, and then law in Orléans from 1553. He moved to Bourges

Bourges

Bourges is a city in central France on the Yèvre river. It is the capital of the department of Cher and also was the capital of the former province of Berry.-History:...

 in 1559; he was particularly influenced by François Hotman

François Hotman

François Hotman was a French Protestant lawyer and writer, associated with the legal humanists and with the monarchomaques, who struggled against absolute monarchy. His first name is often written 'Francis' in English. His surname is Latinized by himself as Hotomanus, by others as Hotomannus and...

, and by Anne du Bourg

Anne du Bourg

Anne du Bourg was a French magistrat, nephew of the chancellor Antoine du Bourg.Educated at the university of Orléans, he became professor and had Étienne de la Boétie as a student. He became counsellor of the Parliament of Paris in 1557...

, who was executed in that year for heresy.

He went to Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

 first in 1560, and then became a pastor in Gien

Gien

Gien is a commune in the Loiret department in north-central France.Gien is on the Loire River, from Orléans. The town was bought for the royal property by Philip II of France. The town is twinned with Malmesbury in England.-Sights:*Faience de Gien...

. After eight fruitful further years in Geneva from 1572, he made a reputation as preacher and theological writer. He left for a position in the University of Leiden. He taught also in Ghent

Ghent

Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of...

, Orthez

Orthez

Orthez is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in south-western France.It lies 40 km NW of Pau on the Southern railway to Bayonne. The town also encompasses the small village of Sainte-Suzanne thus residents of the town are called either Orthéziens or Sainte-Suzannais...

, Lescar

Lescar

Lescar is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in south-western France.Lescar is the site of the Roman city known variously as Benearnum, Beneharnum or Civitas Benarnensium. This was the original capital, and origin of the name, of the ancient province of Béarn.In 841, Benearnum was...

, and Castres

Castres

Castres is a commune, and arrondissement capital in the Tarn department and Midi-Pyrénées region in southern France. It lies in the former French province of Languedoc....

.

Views

He wrote a book on witchcraft

Witchcraft

Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...

, Dialogus de veneficiis (1564). His views on the topic of hunting witches caused trouble for him in Leiden. It was translated, in its 1574 edition, into English by Thomas Twyne

Thomas Twyne

Thomas Twyne was an Elizabethan translator and a physician of Lewes in Sussex, best known for completing Thomas Phaer's translation of Virgil's Aeneid into English verse after Phaer's death in 1560, and for his 1579 English translation of De remediis utriusque fortunae, a collection of 253 Latin...

as A Dialogue of Witches (1575).

His Physica christiana (1576) argued for a Scriptural basis for physics. It was translated by Twyne as The Wonderfull Workmanship of the World (1578).

External links