Justel, Christopher

, counsellor and secretary to the French king, was born at Paris, 1580. Having excellent parts, and a strong bent to letters, he made a great progress; and, as soon as he left the college, applying himself to the study of the councils and ecclesiastical history, he published the “Code of Canons of the Church universal, and the Councils of Africa, with notes.” He held a literary correspondence with the most learned men of his time, as Usher, Salmasius, Blondel, sirHenry Spelman, and others, till his death, which happened at Paris in 1649. He had the character of knowing more of the middle ages than any of his time. Besides the code already mentioned, he published, in 1645, “The Genealogical History of the House of Auvergne;” and several collections of Greek and Latin canons, from Mss. which formed the.“Bibliotheca juris canonici veteris,” published at Paris in 1668, in 2 vols. folio, by William Voel and our author’s son, the subject of the next article. ²