Matthieu Coignet (c. 1514–1586) was a French lawyer, ambassador, landowner, and author. Thanks to an early English translation, some English-language sources give his name as Martyn Cognet.
Life
By 1549 Coignet was an advocate in the ''
Parlement
Under the French Ancien Régime, a ''parlement'' () was a provincial appellate court of the Kingdom of France. In 1789, France had 13 ''parlements'', the original and most important of which was the ''Parlement'' of Paris. Though both th ...
'' of Paris, a high
appellate court
An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear a case upon appeal from a trial court or other lower tribunal. Appel ...
. He was also
Master of Requests to the French Queen,
Catherine de' Medici
Catherine de' Medici (, ; , ; 13 April 1519 – 5 January 1589) was an Italian Republic of Florence, Florentine noblewoman of the Medici family and Queen of France from 1547 to 1559 by marriage to Henry II of France, King Henry II. Sh ...
, and in 1559 was appointed as procurator general of the ''Parlement'' of Savoy. On 22 February 1580 he was noted as a member of the ''
Conseil du Roi
The (; 'King's Council'), also known as the Royal Council, is a general term for the administrative and governmental apparatus around the King of France during the Ancien Régime designed to prepare his decisions and to advise him. It should no ...
'', a sometime ambassador to
Schwyz
Schwyz (; ; ) is a town and the capital of the canton of Schwyz in Switzerland.
The Federal Charter of 1291 or ''Bundesbrief'', the charter that eventually led to the foundation of Switzerland, can be seen at the ''Bundesbriefmuseum''.
The of ...
and the
Grisons
The Grisons (; ) or Graubünden (),Names include:
* ;
*Romansh language, Romansh:
**
**
**
**
**
**;
* ;
* ;
* .
See also list of European regions with alternative names#G, other names. more formally the Canton of the Grisons or the Canton ...
, Master of Requests, and lord (''seigneur'') of
La Tuillerie-les-Dampmartin and of part of Bregi-en-Mulcian.
Louis Moréri
Louis Moréri (25 March 1643 – 10 July 1680) was a French priest and encyclopedist. Moreri was the author of '' Le Grand Dictionaire historique, ou le mélange curieux de l'histoire sacrée et profane'' (literally, ''The Great Historical Dictio ...
, ''Le grand dictionnaire historique, ou le melange curieux de l'histoire sacrée et profane'' (Vol. 6 of 19th edition, Paris, 1744)
p. 774
/ref>
He died in 1586, aged 72.[
]
Publications
La Croix du Maine notes in his ''Les Bibliotheques françoises'' that by 1583 Coignet had published two books, ''Instruction aux Princes de garder la foi promise'' and ''La Philosophie Chretienne''.[ His work was translated into English by ]Edward Hoby
Sir Edward Hoby (1560 – 1 March 1617) was an English diplomat, Member of Parliament, scholar, and soldier during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. He was the son of Thomas Hoby and Elizabeth Cooke, the nephew of William Cecil, Lord Bur ...
and published in 1586 under the title ''Politique discourses on trueth and lying'', with an introduction by Thomas Digges
Thomas Digges (; c. 1546 – 24 August 1595) was an English mathematician and astronomer. He was the first to expound the Copernican system in English but discarded the notion of a fixed shell of immoveable stars to postulate infinitely many s ...
. Hoby gives the original author's name as "Sir Martyn Cognet".[Lily B. Campbell, ''Shakespeare's Histories: Mirrors of Elizabethan Policy'', p. 90]
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coignet, Matthieu
1510s births
1586 deaths
16th-century French diplomats
Ambassadors of France to Switzerland
Ancien Régime office-holders
16th-century French lawyers