Jean Hardouin

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Jean Hardouin (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ aʁdwɛ̃]; English: John Hardwin; Latin: Johannes Harduinus; 23 December 1646 – 3 September 1729), was a French priest and classical scholar who was well known during his lifetime for his editions of ancient authors, and for writing a history of the ecumenical councils. However, he is best remembered now as the originator of a variety of unorthodox theories, especially his opinion that a 14th Century conspiracy forged practically all literature traditionally believed to have been written before that era.^{[citation needed]} He also denied the genuineness of most ancient works of art, coins, and inscriptions. Hardouin's eccentric ideas led to the placement of a number of his works on the Index of Forbidden Books.^[1]

Although Hardouin has been called "pathological" and "mad,"^[2][3] he was only an extreme example of a general critical trend of his time, following authors like Baruch Spinoza, Thomas Hobbes or Jean Daillé, who had started to identify and discard mistaken attributions or datings of medieval documents or Church writings.^[4]