is scarcely any frost. More than half of the department is arable; about one-seventh is occupied by vines, and the rest is meadows, wood, or heath. The soil is not of great fertility, but is tolerably well cultivated, and the grain pro- duced is more than sufficient for home consumption. Wheat, maize, oats, and rye are the principal grain crops. About one-third of the wine produced is used for home consump— tion, and the remainder is chiefly manufactured into brandy, known by the name of Armagnac. The amount of brandy distilled in the department annually is about 22 million gallons. Horned cattle, sheep, mules, swine, game, and poultry, particularly ducks and geese, are abundant. The minerals and manufactures are unimportant. There are quarries of red and green marble ; and gypsum, marl, white clay, and sand for the manufacture of glass are obtained. (:‘rers is divided into the arrondissements of Auch, Lectoure, Miranda, Condom, and Lombez, with 29 cantons and 467 communes. The chief town is Auch. The total area is 2425 square miles, and the population in 1866 was 295,692,
and 283,546 in 1876.GERSON, John (1363–1429), otherwise John Charlier of Gerson, Johannes Gersonus, John de Gersone, J. Jarson, De Jarsone, or Gersen, the famous chancellor of the university of Paris, and the ruling spirit in the eecumenical councils of Pisa and Constance, was born at the village of Gerson, in the bishopric of llheims and department of Ardennes, on December 11, 1363. we learn a good many details about his family and early upbringing from allusions in some of his devotional tracts. His parents, Arnulph Charlier and Elizabeth de la Chardeniere, “a second Monica,” belonged to the peasant class, were of eminent piety, and rejoiced to see seven of their twelve children, four daughters and three sons, devoting themselves to a religious life. Young Gerson was sent to Paris to the famous college of Navarre when fourteen years of age. After a five years’ course he obtained the degree of licentiate of arts, and then began his theological studies under two very celebrated teachers, Giles Des Champs (ngidius Campensis) and Peter D’Ailly (l’etrus de Alliaco), rector of the college of Navarre, chancellor of the university, and afterwards bishop of Puy, archbishop of Cambray, and cardinal. D’Ailly remained his life—long friend, and in later life the pupil seems to have become the teacher (see pref. to Liber dc Vita Spir. A m'nue). Gerson very soon attracted the notice of the university. He was elected procurator for the French nation in 1383, when barely twenty years of age, and re-elected the year afterwards. In 1384 he took the degree of bachelor of theology. Three years later a still higher honour was bestowed upon him; he was sent along with the chancellor and others to represent the university in a case of appeal taken to the pope. Dr John Montson had been condemned by the faculty of theology because he had taught that the Virgin Mary, like other ordinary descendants of Adam, was born in original sin; and the Dominicans, who were fierce opponents of the doctrine of the immaculate conception, were expelled the university. Montson appealed to Pope Clement VII. at Avignon, and D’Ailly, Gerson, and the other university delegates, while they personally supported the doctrine of the immaculate conception, were content to rest their case upon the legal rights of the university to test in its own way its theological teachers. Gerson’s biographers have compared his journey to Avignon with Luther’s visit to Rome. It is certain that from this time onwards he was zealous in his endeavours to spiritualize the universities, to reform the morals of the clergy, and to put an end to the schism which then divided the church. In 1392 Gerson became doctor of theology, and in 1395, when D’Ailly was made bishop of Puy, he was, at the early age of thirty-two, elected chancellor of the university of Paris, and made a canon of Notre Dame. This great university was then at the height of its fame, and its chancellor was necessarily a man prominent not only in France but in Europe, sworn to maintain the rights of his university against both king and pepe, and entrusted with the conduct and studies of a vast crowd of students attracted from almost every country in Europe. Gerson’s writings bear witness to his deep sense of the responsibilities, anxieties, and troubles of his position. He was all his days a man of letters, and an analysis of his writings is his best biography. His work has three periods, in which he was engaged in re- forming the university studies, maturing plans forovercomin g the schism (a task which after 1404 absorbed all his energies), and in the evening of his life writing books of devotion.
Gerson wished to banish scholastic subtleties from the studies of the university, and at the same time to put some evangelical warmth into them. He was called at this period of his life Doctor Christianissimus; later his devotional works brought him the title Doctor Consolatorius. His plan was to make theology plain and simple by founding it on the philosophical principles of nominalism. His method was a clear exp0siti0n of the principles of theology where clearness was possible, with a due re- cognition of the place of mystery in the Christian system of doctrine. Like the great nominalist William of Occam, he saved himself from rationalism by laying hold on mysticism—the Christian mysticism of the school of St Victor. He thought that in this way he would equally guard against the folly of the old scholastic and the seductions of such Averroistic pantheism as was preached by heretics like Amalric of Bena. His plans for the reformation of university studies may be learned from his Tract. dc Examinatioue Doctriuar-um (01,1). i. 7), Epistolaz dc reform. Theo]. (i. 12]), Epz’stolcc ad Studentes Collegii fi'avarra’, quid ct qualiter st-udere (libeat novus t/wo- logice auditor, et contra curiosz'tutem student-inn: (i. 106), and Lectz'ones (lure contra vauam curiositatem {u negotio fidei (i. 86). The study of the Bible and of the fathers was to supersede the idle questions of the schools, and in his Tract. contra romantiam de rosa (iii. 297) he warns young men against the evil consequences of medizeval romance-reading. He was oftentimes weary of the chancellorship,—it involved him in strife, and in money difficulties ; he grew tired of public life, and longed for learned leisure. To obtain it he accepted the deanery of Bruges from the duke of Burgundy, but after a short sojourn he returned to Paris and to the chancellorship.
Gerson’s chief work was what he did to destroy the great schism. Gregory XI. had died in 1378, one year after Gerson went to the college of Navarre, and since his death the church had had two popes. To the medizeval mind, imaginatively apprehending great thoughts in pictrue-representations, two popes meant two churches and a divided Christ. The spiritual unity of the church, which is founded on the spiritual union of all believers to Christ, was un intelligible to it. Gerson and his contemporaries could not disen- tangle the invisible from the visible, and if daring spirits like Wicklifl'e and Huss declared that the elect were the true church, the practical consequences which they drew from this showed that they also were unable to escape fiom the confusion. The schism had practically been brought about by France. The popes had been under French influence so long that it appeared to France a political necessity to have her own pope, and pious Frenchmen felt themselves somewhat responsible for the sins and scandals of the schism. Hence the melancholy piety of Gerson, D‘Ailly, and their companions, and the energy with which they strove to bring the schism to an end. During the lifetime of Clement the university of Paris, led by D’Ailly, Gerson, and Nicholas Clamenges, met in deliberation about the state of Christendom, and resolved that the schism could be ended in three ways,—by eession, If both popes renounced the tiara unconditionally, by arbitratlon, or by a general council. Clement died. The king of France, urged bylt‘he university, sent orders that no new pope should be elected. lhe cardinals first elected, and then opened the letter. Iln the new elections, however, both at Rome and Avignon, the Influence of, Paris was so much felt that each of the new popes swore to " cede if his rival would do so also.
