Gérard Roussel

Gérard Roussel (Latin: Girardus Ruffus, * 1500 in Vaquerie at Amiens; † in Mauléon 1550) was a French humanist and religious reformer.

Life

Roussel was born near Amiens, and was a devoted student of Jacques Lefèvre d'Etaples. In the years 1521-22 he published two works of Boethius and Aristotle. He followed his teacher to Meaux, where he receives the parish of St. Saintin and canon and treasurer of the Cathedral of Meaux was. In 1524 he was dismissed by Bishop Guillaume Briçonnet for fear of a reaction of the conservatives. Roussel fled from France, where he was accused of heresy, and spent several years in Strasbourg with Wolfgang Capito. In 1535 he returned at the invitation of the French king Francis I and became Bishop of Oléron ( 1536), where he enjoyed the protection of Margaret of Angoulême. As bishop, he gave numerous sermons and emphasized the study of the Bible and the Lord's Supper, for which he was condemned by the Sorbonne. Roussel died in Mauléon of his injuries, giving it a Catholic fanatic, had inflicted the attack on the pulpit from which he preached with an ax.