Le Courrayer, Pierre Francois

Le Courrayer, Pierre Francois a French theologian, was born at Rouen in 1681. At the age of sixteen he was admitted to the congregation of St. Genevieve, and soon he instructed there in philosophy, and theology, was canon in 1701, and librarian in 1711. A dissertation which he published at Brussels in 1723, under the title Sur la Validite des Ordinations des Anglais, called forth the opposition of Gervaise, Hardouin, and Lequien, and an assembly of twenty-two bishops who met at St.Germain-des-Pres condemned the work, together with Le Courrayer's rejoinder to his opponent. Finally he was excommunicated by the abbot of St. Genevieve and cardinal Noailles; but about the same time the Oxford University made him doctor of theology. He intended to write against the cardinal; but, afraid of being imprisoned, went to England, where he was received by archbishop Wake of Canterbury. Le Courrayer died at London in 1776. He published a French translation of Sarpi's History of the Council of Trent, with notes (London, 1736, 2 volumes). See La France Protestante; Necrologes des Horn-nes Cilebres; Lichtenberger, Encyclop. des Sciences Religieuses, s.v. (B.P.)