Catholic Response in Sixteenth-Century France to Reformation Theology - The Works of Pierre Dore

Author:	Langlois, John
Year:	2003
Pages:	328
ISBN:	0-7734-6697-5 978-0-7734-6697-5
Price:	$219.95

This is the first comprehensive overview of the work of the most prolific Catholic writer and polemicist in 16th-century France. Pierre Doré was a Dominican and a Doctor of Theology of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Paris, and his career spanned the early period of the Reformation in France. He was unique as a writer of works of devotion and theological polemics in the French language at a time when most of his colleagues wrote only in Latin. The only person whose French works were more frequently edited than Doré’s was John Calvin.

Reviews

“…this is a thorough, theologically competent and lucid piece of work. After an introduction presenting previous studies of Doré and the way he has been viewed, the author provides a first chapter studying the Dominican’s life (as far as it is known), and his place in the Church and the Order in the period. After an overview of Doré’s literary output, and a résumé of Doré’s guiding principles in all his works, the core of the study is devoted to Doré’s treatment of the two most hotly debated doctrinal questions raised by the Protestant Reformation: justification by faith, and the Eucharist (Mass vs. Supper). A third major subject treated by Doré is ‘the virtuous life’…A Conclusion resumes the ground covered in this excellent analysis of Doré’s work and thought. A series of appendices list Doré’s works and editions of the same, a useful checklist of known surviving copies of the works listed by library, and a list of the persons to whom Doré dedicated his works (the presence of a number of women on the list is not unconnected with Doré’s choice of French as his language of communication). The work concludes with an extensive, and sound, bibliography….This study of Doré adds significantly to our knowledge of a crucial period of French religious history, and presents the subject lucidly and reliably.” – Frances Higman, former Director of the Institute for the History of the Reformation, University of Geneva

Table of Contents (main headings):
Preface; Foreword
Introduction: Pierre Doré’s Historiographical Reputation; Doré’s Place in the Institutional Response to the Reformation in France
1. Doré and the French Dominicans in the Early Sixteenth Century
2. An Overview of Doré’s Works
3. Justification, Grace, Merit and Free Will
4. The Eucharist: Transubstantiation and “Deification”
5. The Virtuous Life and Mary Its Image
Conclusion
Appendices: Chronological Listing of Doré’s Works and Number of Subsequent Editions; List of Editions of Doré’s Works; Editions of Doré’s Works Arranged According to Library; List of Dedications
Bibliography; Index