Baianism is a term applied to the school of thought of Catholic theologian Michael Baius (1513-1589). Its foremost apologists, Baius among them, largely claimed this school and its teachings to be a return to a sort of Augustinianism, against the reliance on Scholasticism and Scholastic writings which held sway over most Catholic theologians at the time. It is the immediate historical predecessor of Jansenism, and, as with Jansenism, has been deemed non-orthodox by the Catholic Church. Michel Baius (Michel de Bay) Michel de Bay was born at Meslin in Hainaut, the son of Jean de Bay, a farmer. He studied humanities in Brugelette and in Enghien and in 1533 he began studying philosophy at the Old University of Leuven. From 1535 he also studied theology at Pope Adrian VI College. He was ordained a priest in 1542, and was appointed director of the Standonck-College in Leuven. In 1550, De Bay obtained a license in theology and became president of the College Adrian. He also substituted for the professor of Holy Scripture, who was then absent at the Council of Trent. While Chancellor Ruard Tapper and Josse Ravesteyn, Professor of Theology were at the Council of Trent, Baius and his colleague Jean Hessels took the occasion to introduce new methods and new doctrines. They believed that Catholic apologists were seriously handicapped by their reliance on the authority and methods of the Scholastics, and that if instead of appealing to the writings of St. Thomas as the ultimate criterion of truth they were to insist more on the authority of the Bible and of the works of the Early Fathers, such as St. Cyprian, St. Jerome, and St. Augustine, they would find themselves on much safer ground, and their arguments would be more likely to command the respect of their opponents. At the request of the Franciscans, the Sorbonne university of Paris censured eighteen propositions embodying the main innovations of Baius and Hessels. Baius answered the censure in a memoir now lost, and the controversy only increased. Pope Pius IV, through Cardinal Granvelle, Archbishop of Mechelen imposed silence upon both Baius and the Franciscans, without, however, rendering any doctrinal decision. In 1561, Baius attended the Council of Trent as a theologian of the King of Spain. Baius returned to Louvain in 1564 and the same year published new tracts. Ravestein, who had succeeded Tapper as chancellor, informed Rome, requesting decisive action. On