Nicholas "The Pest" Barnaud achieved much renown in his life and is perhaps best known
among alchemical and theological circles as a mystery and
heretic. On the side, he was apparently also a physician. Very little is known about him except for his works and some few pseudonyms and a rough timeframe of when he lived. There is not even a sketch of him to show what he looked like. He was born at
Crest in Dauphiné. Through his life, Nicholas visited
Spain in
1559, was at
Paris in
1572, and later fled to
Geneva, where he attempted to assist the Protestants as a diplomatic emissary. Still later, he settled in France to live out the rest of his life writing and editing very controversial texts.
Barnaud was definitely of anti-Catholic sentiments, his views being more in line with
Faustus Socinus, and he rejected the
the Holy Trinity of The
Church. This does not,
however, appear to affect his works, as many of them, especially
The Book of Lambspring
involve
Catholic themes, and he was also one of the first (and last) to attack
Mary, Queen of Scots after her marriage to Lord Darnley in 1565, and even suggest her execution in his work
Dialogues (1574). Though there is some debate over whether or not this is actually his work, since the compiler is unknown, it is generally attributed to him.
Barnaud's most controversial work is considered to be the
Huguenot political
polemic, Le Réveille-Matin des Francais et de leurs voisins (prétendus) (
1573), under the name of Eusèbe Philadelphe. In this work, he insists on the marriage of priests and the abolition of
tithes, pursues the theme of a grand Huguenot alliance with the
House of Guise to overthrow the
Valois Dynasty, justifies
tyrannicide and the right of resistance to oppression, and outlines a novel form of political control for society with clear
republican implications.
Barnaud is also tied to the origins of
Rosicrucianism and it is an alchemical tradition that he was a key precursor of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood. His son,
Govaert Basson, published
Robert Fludd's very first
Rosicrucian pamphlets. According to
J.S. Semler's Unparteiische Samlungen zur historie der Rosenkreuzer (
1788) alleges that in
1591 Barnaud, who is known to have travelled in
France and
Holland that year, founded an alchemical society implying that Barnaud was associated with "a great college of the fraternity of the
Rosicrucians". That Barnaud may have organized some alchemical sect is quite possible; in 1597 he produced his
Commentariolum in Aenigmaticum quoddam Epitaphium, which contained the "
alchemical Mass" originally written by the Hungarian,
Nicholas Melchior.
Though we may never know the full story of Nicholas Barnaud, he no doubt had quite an impact on the religious and alchemical societies of
the Renaissance.