Step 5
A modest home
for a humanist :
Gilbert Cousin
Born in Nozeroy in 1506, he studied first at Nozeroy and then at the University of Dole (law, medicine, theology, rhetoric). Becoming secretary-famulus of Didier Erasmus of Rotterdam, he works with this eminent European humanist and is in contact with many humanists.
He left him to become a canon in Nozeroy where he opened a renowned secondary school for the sons of the nobility and the wealthy bourgeoisie. By his way of teaching, calling on personal reflection rather than learning by heart, he attracted criticism from the Franciscans and he was arrested following a brief from the Pope in 1567. His trial began in Dole and continues in Besançon. He could not be condemned for heresy, but he died there in 1572.
It is for the town, the emblematic intellectual figure, victim of the religious intolerance of that time. He has published numerous letters and works including fables and a description of Franche-Comté where he magnifies his hometown.
Explanation: brief: act of the Pope on a specific subject, of less importance than a bull.