SIGHT TO THE BLIND

[Thesis print] Mongin, François (praes.) [Griffon du Monchel, Nicolas (resp.)]: Christo Coecos illuminanti. Theses utriusque juris. Canonici. Civilis. ex materia sortito ducta [...] Has theses ex utroque jure, [...] praeside Cl. V. D. Francisco Mongin J.U.D. & Antecessore, tueri conabitur Nicolaus Griffon du Monchel Abbavillaeus, Baccalaureus, die Mercurii 23. Maii, an Dom. 1696. à quartâ ad septimam. Parisiis, in Cameracensi juris auditorio. Pro licentiatu. [Paris] Apud Aegidium P. Du Mesnil, Consultissime Facultatis Typographum, viâ Frigidi pallii, ad Corboliolum. [1696].

Unlocated broadside advertising an oral exam to be taken at the Collège de Cambrai of the University of Paris, for a licence in laws. The time and date were set for 6:45 PM on 23 May 1696. As in 2018, the 23rd was on a Wednesday. The broadside carries a large engraving by Henri Bonnart of Paris (d. 1711), who did much work for the university. It features (and is addressed to) Christ bringing sight to the blind - an appropriate image in relation to an exam, where one tries to see the truth. There was a tradition of religious invocation in Renaissance legal discourse, for the purpose, again, of trying to get to the truth. An engaging piece of academic ephemera.

The candidate, one Nicolas Griffon, sieur du Monchel, was to be examined on material that had been selected by lot - from canon law, extracts from Gregory IX’s Decretals on the subject of security, and from civil law, from Justinian’s Codex on dowries. Griffon can be identified with a mayor in 1728 of Abbeville in northern France (see L.-E. de la Gorgue-Rosny, Recherches genéalogiques sur les Comtés de Ponthieu [etc.], II (1875), 694).

Details

Broadside, 73.8 cms. x 50 cms., letterpress and engraving (the engraving, at head, 34.2 cms. x 26.5 cms, signed Chez H. Bonnart au Coq). Light browning, foxing, slight dustiness, a small hole at centre of horizontal fold, and slight worming to blank left hand margin, but good.