Halle, Peter

, professor of canon law in the university of Paris, was born at Bayeux in Normandy, September 8, 1611. He studied philosophy, law, and divinity, for five years in the university of Caen; and also applied himself to poetry, under the direction of his uncle Anthony | Halle, who was a Latin poet of some note, with such success, that he gained the prizes in the poetical exercises that are performed every year in these two cities, “to the honour of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary.” This procured him so much reputation, that, though he was still very young, he was chosen professor of rhetoric in the university of Caen. Some time afier, being rector of the university, he made an oration to M. Seguier, chancellor of France, then in Normandy, to -suppress some popular insurrections; which was so much approved by that head of the law, that he received a doctor of law’s degree from him in 1640. He attended M. Seguier to Paris, and gained such reputation by some pieces he published, that they offered him the mastership of five different colleges; and he was incorporated in his absence (a very unusual thing) into the body of the university in 1641. He was made king’s poet, and reader of the Latin and Greek tongues in the royal college in 1646. His assiduous application to study having ruined his health, he was obliged to rest for two years, in order to recover it. He afterwards resolved to raise the glory of the faculty of the law, which was miserably sunk; and in 1655 he obtained the post of regius professor of the canon law, when he vigorously began, and, though he met with great difficulties, successfully executed what he had resolved. Besides “Canonical Institutions,” which he published in 1685, he wrote also for the use of his pupils several treatises upon the civil and canon laws; as, concerning councils, the Pope’s authority, the regale, simony, usury, censures, regular persons, ecclesiastical benefices, matrimony, last wills and testaments, &c. He had published in 1G55, 8vo. “A Collection of Latin Poems and Orations.” He died December 27, 1689. ¹