Talk:Charles, Duke of Brittany

Conflicting Information Regarding Charles of Blois' beatification, canonization annulment of same etc

It seems there are at least 2 main narratives: 1. He was canonized by Urban V, this was annulled, then he was beatified in 1904. 2. His beatification process started, got put on the back burner for centuries, then he was beatified in 1904.

But now it seems necessary to add a third:

3. Charles was canonized by Pope Gregory XI between 8 and 13 September, 1376. On the 13th, the Pope left Avignon for Rome, and the records of the canonization were not properly preserved owing to the chaos of the transfer. With no solid documentation to base a decision on, Pope St. Pius X beatified him, which is the first step to canonization.

The main source for option 3 is an article by Noël Maurice-Denis Boulet, ' La canonisation de Charles de Blois (1376)'. This was published in Revue d'histoire de l'Église de France, tome 28, n°114, in 1942 -> https://www.persee.fr/docAsPDF/rhef_0300-9505_1942_num_28_114_2943.pdf.

[The French wiki for Charles cites Boulet, but omits the part where he concludes the canonization actually took place. A battle for another day...]

To sum up:

1. There is a ton of indirect evidence that Charles was canonized - everything except the official Vatican document 2. Urban V published two Bulls forbidding the investigation into Charles of Blois from even being begun 3. His successor, Gregory VII, was of the opposite opinion, and on 13 February 1376 published a Bull waiving all prior objections and ordering a commission of six Cardinals to get the process concluded with a favorable outcome. 4. That same year, in September, we have a letter by a third party describing in detail the political and economic factors that made it highly urgent that Pope Gregory get back to Rome immediately, but that he was going to 'canonize a duke of Brittany on the 10th of September'.

A few more considerations:

- There is no in-line citation for Pope Urban V being the one who canonized Charles - Huizinga only states :"Te Angers heeft in 1371 het proces plaats, dat tot zijn zaligspreking leidt" (At Angers a process take place, that leads to his beatification.) ( https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/huiz003herf01_01/huiz003herf01_01.pdf )

Huizinga doesn't say who beatified him, nor that he was canonized. All references to Urban V in 'Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen' have nothing to do with pronouncements of saints.

[Linguistic aside: the word for beatification in modern Dutch is Zaligverklaring per Wikipedia and Google Translate,but in context, 'zaligspreking' likely means beatification. It is a cognate for the German word with the same meaning - Seligsprechung - and the modern translation of zaligspreking=beatitude doesn't make sense in context]

My early reference to the Italian Beati and Santi website was premature - mea culpa.

Perhaps I missed something important, but I think Narrative 3 makes the most sense given all the evidence. I don't want an editing war - let's discuss and craft a formulation that will resist editing. Perhaps a summary of the sources' findings in a section called 'Conflicting Evidence for Canonization'?

Also, there is no concrete historical evidence of an annulment of canonization. That seems to be an inference by someone who had incomplete information.

P.S. The French and Italian wiki confirms his feast is the 29th vice the 30th. I cannot currently locate additional sources for the local feasts, but that is not my main goal.

Spockvondeutschland (talk) 00:55, 12 September 2019 (UTC) I meant to add, the idea that there cannot be a revocation or annulment of canonization is well-founded.

Canonization has generally been considered infallible, and therefore, the idea of an annulment is meaningless:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02364b.htm

And even a non-Catholic source notes that, on the rare occasion when evidence for a person's sanctity or even existence is called into question, the Church doesn't revoke anything, or stop calling them a saint. They just take away their feast day:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2010/04/can-the-pope-revoke-someone-s-sainthood.html

Spockvondeutschland (talk) 01:10, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

@Spockvondeutschland: I am in no way opposed to any additions to the article; what I wanted to avoid (thus the revert) is the removal of cited information. The best solution (in my opinion) would be to adress all three theories in the legacy section. Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral, and we should not decide right or wrong; instead, we fairly present all opinions as well as possible. You can, of course, write that one theory makes more sense than others - but only if you have a source for it! Applodion (talk) 17:10, 14 September 2019 (UTC)