A RELIGION IN ITS TIME: NUMEROLOGY AND MORAL ALCHEMY IN PHILIPPE DE MÉZIÈRES’ WORK

Joël Blanchard

In his cell at the Celestines’ monastery, the Vieil Pélerin [The Old Pilgrim], also known as Ardant Désir [Burning Desire], has a dream. A lady of light, Divine Providence, attended by her ladies-in-waiting, appears to him to announce to him nothing less than the necessary reform of Christianity and of the kingdom of France. The wall that men have erected through their sins between themselves and God must be brought down. The biblical parable of the talents urges that those men who have the ability, and first among them the Vieil Pélerin, make the most of these talents on behalf of the renascence of the kingdom of God and in the service of the kingdom of France. Thus will one be able to help France’s new sovereign, the “blanc faucon aux bec et aux pattes dorés” [the golden-billed and golden-legged white falcon], Charles VI, in his mission. Yet, prior to everything, an inquiry has to be carried out and an inventory made in every part of the Christian world, so the necessary remedies could be determined. Only then will the “belle monnoie de la sainte arquemie” [the beautiful coinage of holy alchemy], moral alchemy being meant here, be able to circulate in the whole world and the philosopher’s stone be discovered.1 Le songe du vieil pelerin is as much an initiatory tale as a work deal- ing with politics (and political morality), history and geography, which plunges us right into the tragic end of the Middle Ages. We intend to organize our analysis around two themes, numerology and moral alchemy, which are very closely connected. The stronger emphasis will be on alchemy, which has hitherto been little studied with regard to the Songe. As far as numerology is concerned, we took a close look

1 George William Coopland’s two-volume edition of the Songe, faulty as it is, unfor- tunately is still the only one available (Cambridge, 1969) [henceforth Coopland]; see 1: 95, prologue. We are preparing a critical edition of the Songe to be published by Droz (Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance), Geneva. 226 joël blanchard at this topic in a recent article dedicated to hierarchies in Mézières’s works. Here then are just a few thoughts about numerology.2 In this field, Philippe de Mézières is resorting in an unexpected man- ner to Pseudo-Dionysius: he introduces alterations in the Areopagite’s grid.3 In Pseudo-Dionysius, let us briefly recall, there are three triple hierarchies: Seraphims, Cherubims, Thrones / Dominions, Virtues, Powers / Principalities, Archangels, Angels. In Mézières, there is a shift from three to four, and this change is deliberate. Even though the “quatre hiérarchies des trois estatz” [four hierachies of the three estates] expression, preserves the ternary model in the Songe, the pres- ence of the number four raises questions.4 It is one of the enigmas, among many others, that we tried to solve in our article. Several expla- nations can account for this dissymmetry. Let us consider the many influences that converge on Philippe de Mézières, first of all the Victorine influence at the end of the Middle Ages. Can the beginning of this relation be dated back to his quick stay at the University of Paris between 1349 and 1354? There, Philippe de Mézières developed his first contacts with theologians, with Nicolas Oresme in particular. Did he return there, much later, after 1370, as an eternal student, richer now because of the lessons learnt in an adven- turous life? Let us recall that in Hugh of Saint Victor’s Didascalion the number four refers to the arithmetic conception of the quaternarium animae; the same author associates the quaternarium with the four parts of philosophy: the “theoretical” sciences, or the contemplation of truth; the “practical” sciences, or the regulation of morals; the “mechanical” sciences, i.e. those that take care of the occupations of everyday life; and finally the “logical” sciences, which provide the necessary knowl- edge to speak correctly, and, in this manner, the “elders use this figure in their oaths.”5 Jean Gerson, a contemporary of Mézières’s, proposes a fourfold classification: the four kingdoms, the four climates, that is, the four parts of the world, and the four rivers of Heaven. The four

2 Joël Blanchard, “Les hiérarchies de l’honneur. Avatars d’une grille conceptuelle à la fin du Moyen-Âge: Mézières et le Pseudo-Denys,”Revue historique, CCCX/4 (2008), 789–817. 3 On how Pseudo-Dionysius was received in the Middle-Ages see François Bou- gard, Dominique Iogna-Prat, Régine Le Jan, eds., Hiérarchie et stratification sociale dans l’Occident médiéval (400–1100) (Turnhout, 2008), passim. 4 Coopland, 1: 447, chap. 83. 5 The Didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor, A Medieval Guide to the Arts, trans. by Jerome Taylor (New York and London, 1968), 65.