GERSON, JEAN DE, one of the most eminent scholars and divines of the 14th and 15th centuries. His proper name was Jean Charlier, the name of Gerson being given to him from the place of his birth (1363), the village of Gerson, in the diocese of Rheims. He was educated in the university of Paris, under the celebrated Peter d'Ailly. Here he rose to the highest honors of the university, and ultimately to its chancellorship, having acquired by,his extraordinary learning the title of " The Most Christian Doctor." Dur ing the unhappy contests which arose out of the rival claims of the two lines of pontiffs in the time of the western schism, the university of Paris took a leading part in the negotiations for union; and Gerson was one of the most active supporters of the pro posal of that university for putting an end to the schism by the resignation of both the contending parties. With this view, he visited the other universities, in order to obtain their assent to the plan proposed by that of Paris. But although he had the satisfaction to see this plan carried out in the council of Pisa, it failed, as is well known, to secure the desired union. In a treatise inscribed to his friend d'Ailly, he renewed the proposal that the rival pontiffs (now not two, but three since the election of John XXIII. at Pisa) should be required to resign: and in the new council held at Constance in 1414. he was again the most zealous advocate of the same expedient of resignation. It is to him, also, that the great outlines of the plan of church reformation, then and afterwards proposed,.are due. But his own personal fortunes were marred by the animosity of the
Mike of Burgundy and his adherents, to whom Gerson had become obnoxious, and from whom he had already suffered much persecution, on account of the boldness with which he had denounced the murder of the duke of Orleans. To escape their vengeance, he was forced to remain in exile; and he retired from Constance, in the disguise of a pil grim, to Rattenberg in Bavaria, where he composed his celebrated work De Consolations Yheologice, in imitation of that of Bouthius, De Consolations Philosophar. It was only after the ]apse of several years that he was enabled to return to France, and take up his residence in a trionastexy at ofwhich brether was the superior. He devoted himself in this retirement to works of piety, to study, and to the education of youth. He died iu 1429, in his 66th year. His works, which are among the most remarkable of that age, fill five volumes in folio. Among the books Toimerly ascribed to him was the celebrated spiritual treatise On the Imitation of Christ; but it is no long•er doubtful that the true author is Thomas-a-Kempis. See KEALDIS. The authority of Gerson is much relied on by the advocates of Gallican principles; but the Hltramon times allege that the principles laid down by him, as to the authority of the pope aro only applicable to the exceptional case in which he wrote—viz., that of a disputed suc cession, in which the claim of each of the rival popes, and therefore of the existing papacy itself, was doubtful.