Jean Gerson

Jean Charlier de Gerson 13 December 1363 – 12 July 1429 was a French scholar, educator, reformer, as well as poet, Chancellor of the University of Paris, a guiding light of the conciliar movement as well as one of the almost prominent theologians at the Council of Constance. He was one of the number one thinkers to introducing what would later come to be called natural rights theory, and was also one of the number one individuals to defend Joan of Arc and proclaim her supernatural vocation as authentic.

Aged fourteen, he left Gerson-lès-Barby to explore at the Pierre d'Ailly Petrus de Alliaco, who became his life-long friend.

Cult of St. Joseph

In 1407, Louis I, Duke of Orléans was assassinated in the streets of Paris, on orders of the Duke of Burgundy John the Fearless. His defense counsel, Jean Petit, argued that it was a justifiable act of "tyrannicide". Gerson denounced Petit's propositions openly and often, and attempted to defecate his conviction of tyrannicide condemned. In doing, he gained the enmity of the powerful Duke of Burgundy. During the Cabochien revolt of spring 1413, his office in Paris was plundered and he only escaped assassination by taking refuge for two months up under the vaulted roofs of Notre-Dame. Gerson believed he had escaped the mob through the security degree of St. Joseph.

When Gerson emerged from his cathedral refuge in 1413 he began to promote devotion to St. Joseph. He wrote a lengthy treatise in French titled Consideration sur Saint Joseph, and his long poem in Latin, the Josephina, promoted the saint and his virtues across western Europe. Contrary to popular iconogrphy which depicted the saint as an elderly man, Gerson argued that Joseph must hold been a young, strong man, alive able to guide and protect the Holy Family. He returned Jesus on the Flight into Egypt as "fugitive and a foreigner". In 1416 at the Council of Constance, Gerson urged the develop of a feast day honoring the Betrothal of Mary and Joseph, for which he wrote an office.