Jean, Cardinal of Lorraine

Cardinal Jean de Lorraine
Cardinal-Deacon
Church	S. Onofrio, Rome
Diocese	Metz
Orders
Created Cardinal	28 May 1518 by Pope Leo X
Personal details
Born	1498 Bar-le-Duc, Lorraine
Died	May 20, 1550 (aged 52) Neuvy-sur-Loire, France
Nationality	French
Parents	René II, Duke of Lorraine Phillipa of Guelders
Coat of arms

coat of arms

Jean de Lorraine (April 9, 1498 – May 18,^[1] 1550) was a French cardinal, who was (at one time or another) archbishop of Reims (1532-1538), Lyon (1537-1539), and Narbonne (1524-1550),^[2] bishop of Metz, Toul, Verdun, Thérouanne, Luçon, Albi, Valence, Nantes and Agen (1538-1550).^[3] He is one of several cardinals known as the Cardinal de Lorraine.

Biography

Born in Bar-le-Duc, Jean was the sixth child and sixth son of René II, Duke of Lorraine and his wife Phillipa of Guelders. He was a younger brother of Antoine, Duke of Lorraine and Claude, Duke of Guise.^[4] His younger brother, François, Comte de Lambesc, died in the Battle of Pavia in 1525.

In 1500 baby Jean succeeded Cardinal Raymond Peraudi as Coadjutor of his uncle Henri de Vaudemont-Lorraine, Bishop of Metz. The Chapter of the Cathedral gave its consent, on 3 November 1500, and Pope Alexander VI gave his consent in 1501. The Cardinal was compensated for his trouble with the monastery of S. Mansu in Toul. The purpose of such a strange arrangement was the desire of Duke René to keep the bishopric of Metz in family hands.^[5] Bishop Henri formally resigned the See of Metz on 16 July 1505 in favor of his nephew Jean, but, due to Jean's extreme youth, Henri continued as Administrator until his own death on 20 October 1505. From that point the Cathedral Chapter, whose Dean was the Bishop of Toul, assumed responsibility for the administration of the diocese, until Jean de Lorraine became twenty in 1518, with Jean receiving one-third of the episcopal revenues. Spiritual functions were in the hands of the Bishop of Nicopolis, Conrad de Heyden, O.Cist., suffragan of Metz.^[6]

On 28 May 1518 Jean de Lorraine, Bishop of Metz, aged twenty, was created a Cardinal-Deacon by Pope Leo X in his seventh Consistory for the creation of cardinals. Jean was the only cardinal created on that occasion. On 7 January 1519 he was assigned the Deaconry of S. Onofrio in Trastevere, and his red hat was sent to him in France. He visited Rome in April 1521, at which time he was admitted to Consistory.^[7] He had already returned home when Leo X died on 1 December 1521, and thus he did not attend the Conclave of 27 December 1521 − 9 January 1522, which elected Cardinal Adrian Florenszoon Dedel, who took the throne name Pope Adrian VI.^[8]

He is considered a corrupt ruler who before he died squandered most of the wealth which he had derived from these and other benefices. Part of his ecclesiastical preferment he gave up in favour of his nephews. He became a member of the royal council in 1530, and in 1536 was entrusted with an embassy to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. Although a complaisant helper in Francis's pleasures, he was disgraced in 1542, and retired to Rome.

Dissolute, he was also an open-handed patron of art and learning, as the protector and friend of Erasmus, Marot and Rabelais.

Cardinal Jean de Lorraine participated in the Conclave following the death of Pope Paul III, which began on 29 November 1549. Cardinal de Guise had been instructed (by the King, it was said) to support the Cardinal de Lorraine, then the Cardinal de Tournon, and any other French cardinals; failing those, he was to work for Salviati, Ridolfi or de Cupis.^[9] It is recorded that, on the fifteenth Scrutiny on 18 December, before Guise's arrival, Lorraine received five votes, though he did not arrive in the Conclave until 29 December. In the evening of 7/8 February 1550, Cardinal Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte, aged sixty-three, was elected and chose the throne name Julius III.^[10] Julius III, was crowned on February 22, 1550, the Feast of St. Peter's Chair.

He died from a stroke in Neuvy-sur-Loire on 10 May 1550, on his way back to France from Italy.^[11]

Notes

1. Gulik and Eubel (p. 18, 98) give the date of 10 May.
2. Gulik and Eubel, p. 253.
3. Gulik and Eubel, p. 98. Jean de Lorraine was appointed on nomination by the King.
4. André Podsiadlo (2004). Les ducs de Lorraine de René Ier à François III (in French). Paris: Editions Publibook. p. 8. ISBN 978-2-7483-8794-0.
5. Martin Meurisse (1634). Histoire des évêques de l'Eglise de Metz (in French). Metz: Par Jean Anthoine. p. 597.
6. Meurisse, pp. 598-600. Gulik and Eubel, p. 242 and n. 2. Eubel, Hierarchia catholica medii aevi II edition altera (Monasterii 1914), p. 242 with notes 2 and 3; and p. 279.
7. Gulik and Eubel, p. 18, with notes 1 and 2.
8. J. P. Adams, Sede Vacante 1521-1522. Retrieved: 2016-5-6.
9. Petruccelli II, pp. 25-26.
10. J. P. Adams, Sede Vacante 1549-1550. Retrieved: 2016-05-06.
11. Carroll p. 41.

Bibliography

• Carroll, Stuart (2011). Martyrs and Murderers: The Guise Family and the Making of Europe. Oxford: OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-161970-0.
• Collignon, Albert (1910). Le mécénat du Cardinal Jean de Lorraine: 1498-1550. Annales de l'Est, 24e année, fasc. 2. (in French). Paris: Berger-Levrault.
• Michon, Cédric, 'Les richesses de la faveur à la Renaissance: Jean de Lorraine (1498–1550) et François Ier', Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, vol. 50, No. 3 (Jul.-Sep., 2003), pp. 34–61.
• Petruccelli della Gattina, Ferdinando (1864). Histoire diplomatique des conclaves (in French). Tome II. Paris: A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven et cie. pp. 23–64.
• Gulik, Guilelmus van; Konrad Eubel (1923). L. Schmitz-Kallenberg, ed. Hierarchia catholica medii aevi (in Latin). Volume III (editio altera ed.). Münster: sumptibus et typis librariae Regensbergianae.

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "^{article name needed}". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

See also

• Duke of Lorraine
• Dukes of Lorraine family tree