Richer, Edmond (1559-1631). French author of De ecclesiastica et politica potestate (1611), a short but influential brochure which summarizes his positive Gallicanism. It also expresses his ‘democratic’ view of authority in the Church as something that is shared by all the members. This ‘richérisme’ strongly influenced 18th-c. Jansenism.

[John Cruickshank]

The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French. Copyright © 1995, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.