{ "id": "epecjprw8t", "slug": "nicolas-coeffeteau", "title": "Nicolas Coeffeteau", "updated": "2026-10-15", "topic_path": [ { "id": "society", "label": "Society and history", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/society" }, { "id": "society.belief", "label": "Philosophy, religion, and mythology", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/society.belief" }, { "id": "society.belief.religion", "label": "Religion and spirituality", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/society.belief.religion" }, { "id": "society.belief.religion.people", "label": "Religious biographies", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/society.belief.religion.people" }, { "id": "society.belief.religion.people.christian_theologians", "label": "Christian theologians and religious scholars", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/society.belief.religion.people.christian_theologians" }, { "id": "society.belief.religion.people.theo_reformation", "label": 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"https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1000.society.belief.religion.people.theo_reformation.counter_reformation_catholic.dominican-theologians", "path": [ { "id": "geo.weu", "label": "Western Europe", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1000", "label": "Western Europe · 1000 to 1799", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1000" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1000.society", "label": "Society and history", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1000.society" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1000.society.belief", "label": "Philosophy, religion, and mythology", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1000.society.belief" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1000.society.belief.religion", "label": "Religion and spirituality", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1000.society.belief.religion" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1000.society.belief.religion.people", "label": "Religious biographies", "api_url": 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"geo.weu.t1000.society.belief.religion.people.theo_reformation.counter_reformation_catholic.dominican-theologians", "label": "Dominican theologians", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1000.society.belief.religion.people.theo_reformation.counter_reformation_catholic.dominican-theologians" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Nicolas Coeffeteau (1574–1623) was a French Dominican theologian, preacher, and controversialist who wrote against the Reformed churches in French, and whose prose made him a founder of classical French prose style.", "snippet": "Nicolas Coeffeteau (1574–1623) was a French Dominican theologian, preacher, and controversialist who wrote against the Reformed churches in French, and whose prose made him a founder of classical French prose style.", "node": "society.belief.religion.people.theo_reformation.counter_reformation_catholic.dominican-theologians", "markdown": "# Nicolas Coeffeteau\n\n**Nicolas Coeffeteau** (1574 – 21 April 1623) was a French Dominican theologian, preacher, and controversialist who wrote against the Reformed churches in French rather than Latin and whose historical and moral prose made him, in the judgment of nineteenth-century scholarship, one of the founders of classical French prose style. He was born at Château-du-Loir and died in Paris.[1](https://estampesdominicaines.com/non-saints/coeffeteau-nicolas/)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Life | Château-du-Loir 1574 – Paris, 21 April 1623; Dominican from 1588, doctor of theology 4 March 1599[1](https://estampesdominicaines.com/non-saints/coeffeteau-nicolas/) |\n| Court career | Preacher and confessor to Henri IV; delivered the king's funeral oration; ordinary preacher in 1608[1](https://estampesdominicaines.com/non-saints/coeffeteau-nicolas/) • [2](https://www.mediterranee-antique.fr/Auteurs/Fichiers/ABC/Coeffeteau/Histoire_romaine/Hist_Rom_000.htm) |\n| Church offices | Vicar general of the Gallican Congregation 1606–1609; titular bishop of Dardania and administrator of Metz 1617; named bishop of Marseille 22 August 1621, died before receiving his bulls[1](https://estampesdominicaines.com/non-saints/coeffeteau-nicolas/) |\n| Polemics | Five Eucharist treatises against Pierre du Moulin; writings against James I of England and Duplessis-Mornay; *Pro sacra monarchia ecclesiae catholicae* against Marc'Antonio de Dominis (1623)[3](https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04091a.htm) • [4](https://archive.org/stream/bub_gb_-PilEjy-3mwC/bub_gb_-PilEjy-3mwC_djvu.txt) |\n| Prose landmark | *Histoire romaine* (1615, from Florus) ran through more than fifty editions in sixty years; *Tableau des passions humaines* (1620) had 23 reprintings between 1621 and 1683[5](https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/personnage/Nicolas_Co%C3%ABffeteau/179121) • [6](https://publications-prairial.fr/larhra/index.php?id=279) |\n| Output | 39 titles in 47 volumes cataloged in the Post-Reformation Digital Library[7](http://www.prdldev.juniusinstitute.org/author_view.php?a_id=704) |\n| Theology | Thomist; a modified Gallicanism restricting infallibility to matters of faith; the Sorbonne prohibited him from completing his *Premier Essai des questions théologiques*[3](https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04091a.htm) • [8](https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/mse/c/coeffeteau-nicolas.html) |\n\n## Life and career\n\nCoeffeteau entered the Dominican order at [Le Mans](https://www.edgepedia.org/le-mans) in 1588 and was sent to Paris for his studies in 1590; he became doctor of theology on 4 March 1599, while still in his mid-twenties.[1](https://estampesdominicaines.com/non-saints/coeffeteau-nicolas/) A 1938 study of a question raised by [Vincent de Paul](https://www.edgepedia.org/vincent-de-paul) dates Queen Marguerite's call to 1602.[9](https://www.persee.fr/doc/rhef_0300-9505_1938_num_24_104_2861)\n\n**Court favor.** He became preacher and confessor to Henri IV and pronounced the king's funeral oration at the sovereign's burial, and in 1608 he was ordinary preacher to the king.[2](https://www.mediterranee-antique.fr/Auteurs/Fichiers/ABC/Coeffeteau/Histoire_romaine/Hist_Rom_000.htm) • [1](https://estampesdominicaines.com/non-saints/coeffeteau-nicolas/) Introduced into fashionable literary circles as a friend of the poet Malherbe, he combined a court career with order administration, serving as vicar general of the Gallican Congregation from 1606 to 1609.[5](https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/personnage/Nicolas_Co%C3%ABffeteau/179121) • [1](https://estampesdominicaines.com/non-saints/coeffeteau-nicolas/)\n\n**Episcopal appointments.** In 1617 Paul V named him titular bishop of Dardania and administrator of the diocese of Metz, where, as suffragan of the bishop, he governed a diocese in which Calvinism was rapidly gaining ground.[1](https://estampesdominicaines.com/non-saints/coeffeteau-nicolas/) • [8](https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/mse/c/coeffeteau-nicolas.html) On 22 August 1621 royal letters named him bishop of [Marseille](https://www.edgepedia.org/marseille), but he died on 21 April 1623 before receiving his bulls of investiture; the title page of his last great polemic, printed that year, styles him only \"Massiliensique episcopo designato\", designated bishop of Marseille.[1](https://estampesdominicaines.com/non-saints/coeffeteau-nicolas/) • [4](https://archive.org/stream/bub_gb_-PilEjy-3mwC/bub_gb_-PilEjy-3mwC_djvu.txt) The BNF authority record dates his doctorate to 1600 rather than 1599, a small discrepancy between official records.[10](https://www.idref.fr/030817390)\n\n## Controversialist against the Reformed\n\nCoeffeteau polemicized with James I of England, the Calvinist minister Pierre du Moulin of Charenton, Philippe Duplessis-Mornay, and Marc'Antonio de Dominis, the former archbishop of Spalato, defending the doctrines they attacked: the [Eucharist](https://www.edgepedia.org/eucharist), the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and the authority of the Pope.[11](https://azioneromana.com/article/coeffeteau-nicolas) Five treatises on the Eucharist arose from his controversy with du Moulin, beginning with *La Défence de la Saincte Eucharistie et présence réelle du corps de Jésus-Christ* against du Moulin's *Apologie de la Cène* (Paris, F. Huby, 1607); an earlier work, the *Examen d'une confession de foy* (1604), expanded in French a Latin response by the Scots bishop William Chisholm to the confession published in France under the name of the King of England.[3](https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04091a.htm) • [7](http://www.prdldev.juniusinstitute.org/author_view.php?a_id=704)\n\nHis last polemic was written in Latin. *Pro sacra monarchia ecclesiae catholicae adversus rempublicam Marci Antonii de Dominis, libri quatuor apologetici*, four apologetic books against de Dominis, was printed in Paris by Sébastien Cramoisy in 1623 with royal and doctoral approbation.[4](https://archive.org/stream/bub_gb_-PilEjy-3mwC/bub_gb_-PilEjy-3mwC_djvu.txt) Chalmers's biographical dictionary describes it as two folio volumes, a format detail the title page itself does not settle.[12](https://words.fromoldbooks.org/Chalmers-Biography/c/coeffetau-nicholas.html) He also answered political-religious pamphlets in the service of the crown: a 1617 *Response au manifeste publié par les perturbateurs du repos de l'Estat* belongs to this series of responses to Protestant positions.[13](https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/103007611)\n\n**Method.** The Catholic Encyclopedia's assessment is that at a time when partisanship was wont to be violent, Coeffeteau maintained an equable temper and a praiseworthy spirit of moderation, handling his subjects objectively and dispassionately.[3](https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04091a.htm)\n\n## Theology and censure\n\nAs a Dominican he wrote within the Thomist system. The Dominican–Jesuit grace controversy, one of the most intense and lasting doctrinal confrontations of the classical-age Roman Church, had begun with the publication at Lisbon in 1588 of Luis de Molina's *Concordia liberi arbitrii cum gratiæ donis*, and French Dominican Thomists took an essential part in it.[14](https://www.persee.fr/doc/crai_0065-0536_2015_num_159_4_95830) On papal authority Coeffeteau held a modified Gallicanism, restricting papal or conciliar infallibility to matters of faith and excluding questions of fact or persons, a position that differed from that of the Sorbonne.[3](https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04091a.htm)\n\nThe Sorbonne prohibited him from completing his *Premier Essai des Questions Theologiques*.[8](https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/mse/c/coeffeteau-nicolas.html)\n\n## Prose style and literary influence\n\nAll his works except the Latin books against de Dominis are in the vernacular.[3](https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04091a.htm) • [11](https://azioneromana.com/article/coeffeteau-nicolas) His *Histoire romaine*, a translation of Lucius Annaeus Florus made at the king's command and first published in 1615, passed for a model of French prose and was taken as a model of linguistic purity by Vaugelas; it was admired by contemporaries including Malherbe, Vaugelas, and Balzac, and ran through more than fifty editions in sixty years, making Coeffeteau one of the most-read authors of the seventeenth century.[5](https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/personnage/Nicolas_Co%C3%ABffeteau/179121) • [2](https://www.mediterranee-antique.fr/Auteurs/Fichiers/ABC/Coeffeteau/Histoire_romaine/Hist_Rom_000.htm) Sources describe the work's publication differently: Larousse dates the 1615 translation and calls the 1621 work its completion and his masterpiece, while the editorial notice to the text presents the 1621 *Histoire romaine* itself as the chef-d'œuvre.[5](https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/personnage/Nicolas_Co%C3%ABffeteau/179121) • [2](https://www.mediterranee-antique.fr/Auteurs/Fichiers/ABC/Coeffeteau/Histoire_romaine/Hist_Rom_000.htm)\n\n**The Tableau.** His *Tableau des passions humaines, de leurs causes et de leurs effets* (Paris, Cramoisy, 1620) was received as one of the first moral-philosophy treatises to offer a general, systematic, and near-complete synthesis of the passions, with the Thomist system as its framework buttressed by the ancient authors [Plato](https://www.edgepedia.org/plato), Aristotle, and Seneca.[6](https://publications-prairial.fr/larhra/index.php?id=279) In the dedicatory epistle to the king Coeffeteau described his own style: a tableau of the passions \"depeinte des pures couleurs de la Philosophie\", painted in the pure colors of philosophy, without many foreign ornaments.[15](https://earlymodernfrance.org/filemanager/active?fid=173)\n\n## By the numbers\n\nThe Post-Reformation Digital Library catalogs 39 titles in 47 volumes for Coeffeteau.[7](http://www.prdldev.juniusinstitute.org/author_view.php?a_id=704) Charles Urbain counted 23 reprintings of the *Tableau* between 1621 and 1683, five from the same publisher, within more than twenty seventeenth-century editions overall; one specialist Catholic article gives a lower figure, 16 editions in 40 years.[6](https://publications-prairial.fr/larhra/index.php?id=279) • [11](https://azioneromana.com/article/coeffeteau-nicolas) The work crossed the Channel quickly: in 1621, one year after its French appearance, the English historian Edward Grimeston translated it as *A Table of Humane Passions. With their Causes and Effects*.[16](https://hcmc.uvic.ca/eol/internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/doc/Coeffeteau_M/complete/index.html%3Fview=print.html) Its success bred imitation and confusion: an anonymous 1626 volume, *Tableau des affections humaines*, edited by Antoine Estoc, played on the confusion, even the usurpation, of titles and author names as a sales argument.[6](https://publications-prairial.fr/larhra/index.php?id=279)\n\n## Works and editions\n\nA dated list of the principal works, from the catalogs:\n\n- *L'Hydre defaite par l'Hercule chretien* (1603), an allegorical treatise denouncing sins[6](https://publications-prairial.fr/larhra/index.php?id=279)\n- *Examen d'une confession de foy* (Jean Gesselin, 1604)[7](http://www.prdldev.juniusinstitute.org/author_view.php?a_id=704)\n- *Merveilles de la saincte eucharistie* (Paris, 1606)[17](https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/coeffeteau-nicolas)\n- *Premier Essai des questions théologiques* (F. Huby, 1608), prohibited by the Sorbonne from completion[7](http://www.prdldev.juniusinstitute.org/author_view.php?a_id=704) • [8](https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/mse/c/coeffeteau-nicolas.html)\n- *Histoire romaine de Lucius Annaeus Florus, mise en nostre langue par le commandement du Roy* (1615)[5](https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/personnage/Nicolas_Co%C3%ABffeteau/179121)\n- *Tableau des passions humaines, de leurs causes et de leurs effets* (Sébastien Cramoisy, 1620; [57] + 651 pages, 18 cm)[18](http://bibindex.dominicains.com/index.php?id=107036&lvl=notice_display)\n- *Tableau de l'innocence et des grâces de la bienheureuse Vierge Marie* (1621)[19](https://bibale.irht.cnrs.fr/59649)\n- *Pro sacra monarchia ecclesiae catholicae adversus rempublicam Marci Antonii de Dominis* (Cramoisy, 1623)[4](https://archive.org/stream/bub_gb_-PilEjy-3mwC/bub_gb_-PilEjy-3mwC_djvu.txt)\n\n## References\n\n1. [Coeffeteau, Nicolas, L'Ordre des Prêcheurs (Estampes dominicaines)](https://estampesdominicaines.com/non-saints/coeffeteau-nicolas/)\n2. [Histoire romaine, editorial notice, Méditerranée antique](https://www.mediterranee-antique.fr/Auteurs/Fichiers/ABC/Coeffeteau/Histoire_romaine/Hist_Rom_000.htm)\n3. [Nicolas Coeffeteau, Catholic Encyclopedia](https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04091a.htm)\n4. [Pro sacra monarchia Ecclesiae Catholicae... adversus rempublicam Marci Antonij de Dominis (Paris, 1623), Internet Archive](https://archive.org/stream/bub_gb_-PilEjy-3mwC/bub_gb_-PilEjy-3mwC_djvu.txt)\n5. [Nicolas Coëffeteau, Larousse](https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/personnage/Nicolas_Co%C3%ABffeteau/179121)\n6. [Le Tableau des passions humaines: un renouveau du discours passionnel au XVIIe siècle, Carnets du LARHRA](https://publications-prairial.fr/larhra/index.php?id=279)\n7. [Nicolas Coeffeteau (1574–1623), 39 titles, 47 vols., Post-Reformation Digital Library](http://www.prdldev.juniusinstitute.org/author_view.php?a_id=704)\n8. [Coeffeteau, Nicolas, Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature](https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/mse/c/coeffeteau-nicolas.html)\n9. [Nicolas Coeffeteau est-il le docteur tenté contre la foi dont a parlé saint Vincent de Paul?, Revue d'histoire de l'Église de France (1938)](https://www.persee.fr/doc/rhef_0300-9505_1938_num_24_104_2861)\n10. [Coeffeteau, Nicolas (1574–1623), IdRef/BNF authority record](https://www.idref.fr/030817390)\n11. [Coeffeteau, Nicolas, Azione Romana](https://azioneromana.com/article/coeffeteau-nicolas)\n12. [Coeffetau, Nicholas, Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary](https://words.fromoldbooks.org/Chalmers-Biography/c/coeffetau-nicholas.html)\n13. [Response au manifeste publié par les perturbateurs du repos de l'Estat (1617), HathiTrust catalog record](https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/103007611)\n14. [Théologies et théologiens thomistes dans la querelle catholique de la grâce, Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (2015)](https://www.persee.fr/doc/crai_0065-0536_2015_num_159_4_95830)\n15. [Once More with Feeling: Rhetorics of the Passions, Early Modern France](https://earlymodernfrance.org/filemanager/active?fid=173)\n16. [A Table of Human Passions (Modern), Internet Shakespeare Editions](https://hcmc.uvic.ca/eol/internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/doc/Coeffeteau_M/complete/index.html%3Fview=print.html)\n17. [Coeffeteau, Nicolas, Encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/coeffeteau-nicolas)\n18. [Tableau des Passions humaines (1620), Dominican library catalogue](http://bibindex.dominicains.com/index.php?id=107036&lvl=notice_display)\n19. [Coeffeteau, Nicolas (évêque de Marseille; 1574–1623), Bibale/IRHT](https://bibale.irht.cnrs.fr/59649)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Philosophy, religion, and mythology › Religion and spirituality › Religious biographies › Christian theologians and religious scholars › Reformation and early-modern theologians › Counter-Reformation and early-modern Catholic theologians › Dominican theologians*\n\n*Initially written Oct 10, 2026 · Edited: Oct 11, 2026; Oct 15, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/nicolas-coeffeteau", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/nicolas-coeffeteau.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Nicolas Coeffeteau\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/nicolas-coeffeteau. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Nicolas Coeffeteau](https://www.edgepedia.org/nicolas-coeffeteau)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/nicolas-coeffeteau](https://www.edgepedia.org/nicolas-coeffeteau). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Nicolas Coeffeteau\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/nicolas-coeffeteau. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Nicolas Coeffeteau was a French Dominican theologian, preacher, and controversialist who wrote against the Reformed churches in French, and whose prose made him a founder of classical French prose style." }