Copernican Ideas in Sixteenth Century France

Abstract

The French religious wars were marked by intolerance and fanaticism. At the same time the ability of the established church and state to enforce religious and intellectual conformity was seriously undermined. In this atmosphere of crisis and relative intellectual freedom the old Aristotelian and scholastic certainties were shaken. As a result Copernicus' heliocentric theory became a subject of debate between different schools of thought. Conservatives regarded the notion of heliocentricity as a token of religious, moral and intellectual subversion. Neo-Platonists, sceptics and Ramists used the heliocentric idea as a means of attacking philosophical orthodoxy. The intellectual openness of the period prepared the ground for the reception of Galileo's version of Copernicanism at the beginning of the next century.