Jean Maynier, baron d'Oppède (1495 – 1558) was a French public official. He served as the First President of the Parlement of Aix-en-Provence in 1543.

Biography

Early life

Jean Maynier was born in 1495. His father, Accurse Maynier (1450-1513), served as the First President of the Parlement of Aix-en-Provence in 1507.

Career

He was appointed First President of the Parlement of Aix-en-Provence in

Aix-en-Provence Aix-en-Provence, or simply Aix, is a List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, city and Communes of France, commune in southern France, about north of Marseille. A former capital of Provence, it is the Subprefectures in France, s ...

in December 1543. He is remembered for being responsible for the 1545

Massacre of Mérindol A massacre is an event of killing people who are not engaged in hostilities or are defenseless. It is generally used to describe a targeted killing of civilians en masse by an armed group or person. The word is a loan of a French term for "b ...

, engendered in part by his highly coloured accounts forwarded to Francis I of activities in the Vaudois of Protestants, and encouraged by the papacy to root out the "

heretic Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, particularly the accepted beliefs or religious law of a religious organization. A heretic is a proponent of heresy. Heresy in Christianity, Judai ...

s" in the Venaissin, culminated in the massacre in which hundreds or thousands of

Waldensians The Waldensians, also known as Waldenses (), Vallenses, Valdesi, or Vaudois, are adherents of a church tradition that began as an ascetic movement within Western Christianity before the Reformation. Originally known as the Poor of Lyon in the l ...

were killed at the order of the king. His responsibility is shared by

Antoine Escalin des Aimars Antoine Escalin des Aimars (1516–1578), also known as Captain Polin or Captain Paulin, later Baron de La Garde, was French ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1541 to 1547, and ''"Général des Galères"'' ("General of the galleys") from 154 ...

, who while in

Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...

as he was returning from the

Italian Wars The Italian Wars were a series of conflicts fought between 1494 and 1559, mostly in the Italian Peninsula, but later expanding into Flanders, the Rhineland and Mediterranean Sea. The primary belligerents were the House of Valois, Valois kings o ...

with 2,000 veterans, the ''Bandes de Piémont'', was requested to assist Jean Maynier d'Oppède in the repression. The massacres were followed by a wave of looting.R. J. Knecht, ''Francis I'' p.405
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Death

He died in 1558.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maynier, Jean 1495 births 1558 deaths People from Aix-en-Provence