CALVINISM en Francais

1. Triumph of the Reformed in Geneva and Neuchatel

   Annotations:

   • Rapid establishment of printing presses
   1. Dominated the production of evangelical religious propaganda for the French market

      Annotations:

      • 43 vernacular titles listed in 1542 on the French index of prohibited books, 70% came from Geneva. Calvin's writings by far the most numerous
      1. Outspoken attacks of the old forms of worship

         Annotations:

         • Corruption of the Roman church, on the abominations of the mass and on the unholy compromises of Nicodemism
         1. SUFFERN LAMET
            1. Power of the Book

               Annotations:

               • Could be read and pondered at length, and gave authority to privately held ideas
               • Increased possibility for abstract thought
               1. Reading and intepretation

                  Annotations:

                  • Bestowed prestige on the owners; the 'leaders' of early groups
                  • Stengthened the identification of the French Reformation with the word and the book
            2. Book-reading an individualistic AND collective experience
      2. 1559 - exportation of devotional propaganda massive

         Annotations:

         • Massive cargoes of illegal books smuggled into France into the towns with the Reformed churches
         1. Benedict - "literature struck a chord"
            1. Success in attracting new members stunned contemporaries

               Annotations:

               • Blaise de Monluc; "every good mother's son wanted a taste" - estimated 1.5-2 million Reformed 1559-62.
               1. Reformed arc

                  Annotations:

                  • From Dauphine, across Languedoc and Gascony, up to Poitou - cities strategically vital, were deeply touched by Reformed cause
               2. Yet mostly urban phenomenon

                  Annotations:

                  • Benedict; rural communities remained largely steadfast to the old ways
                  1. Members from middling social and wealthy classes

                     Annotations:

                     • Cases of lower orders, yet mostly servants educated by their Reformed masters - needing a degree of education to connect to the Word
                     1. Literate disproportionately represented

                        Annotations:

                        • The capacity to examine the Bible independently and detachment from local devotional traditions both helped to induce individuals to break with the Roman church
            2. Elite following

               Annotations:

               • Louis, prince of Conde; Gaspard de Coligny, admiral of France; and Jeanne d'Albret, queen of Navarre and Francis I's niece 
               1. Anti-Catholic resentment

                  Annotations:

                  • Burned intensely within the ranks of the Protestant nobility - "We are often asked whether its permitted to rise against those who are enemies not only of religion but also the realm" Beza (1559)
         2. French propaganda

            Annotations:

            • Songs and satires mocking the consecration of the host, as nothing more than a piece of dough
            • Woodcuts and pamphlets depicted the church as a bazaar of false wares and a stew-pot of cooked-up rituals invented by a scheming clergy to line its pockets
            • Idolatry in all of its forms was recurrently criticised
            • Positive - emphasised the need to replace the mass with a simpler eucharistic service, to preach the saving message of justification by faith alone and to give all believers direct access to the Bible
            • Wealth of the church should be directed to more social ends - reducing the tax burden, repurchasing alienated portions of the royal domain and rewarding outstanding royal servants
            • Movement embodied hopes for moral and spiritual renewal. Those embracing the faith soon received an amendment and purity of life
      3. GREENGRASS - power of the printed word
2. Calvin's encouragement from 1555
   1. Institutional basis and direction for evangelical reform

      Annotations:

      • Attributes of a proper church; a consistory, a minister, and regular celebration of the sacraments.
      1. First churches in Paris and Poitiers

         Annotations:

         • Inspired similar churches in surrounding areas, and others sought ministers from Geneva
   2. 1559 - c.72 founded
      1. Reformed churches assembling publicly

         Annotations:

         • Seizing churches and market-places for their own use
         • Private houses became too small for the meetings, and thus the renting of barns became another outlet
         1. 1555-70; 1240 churches were 'planted'

            Annotations:

            • The majority of them between 1559 and 1562
            1. BUT toleration unstable
   3. Letters during the civil wars

      Annotations:

      • Warned against taking the law into their own hands, and expressed dismay when this was done
3. Ministers from Geneva's reports

   Annotations:

   • New churches reported back in wonderment that their new flocks grew breathtakingly and that dozens of surrounding communities also begged for ministers
   1. Benedict; Calvin's concern over success

      Annotations:

      • "Pastors demanded from all parts...but our resources are exhausted."
      • "We are reduced to searching everywhere, even in the artisan's workshop, to find men with some smattering of doctrine and of piety as candidates for the ministry"
      • Concern perhaps over the need for educated and reliable ministers who correctly preach the Word of God, and do not err in their instruction - the falsities and errors of ill-educated Catholic priests
   2. 220 pastors sent from Geneva

      Annotations:

      • The Pays de Vaud and the county of Neuchatel also contributed to the effort, dispatching ministers to the growing flocks - massive effort ot strengthen and support the Reformed church to ensure the success of the True Word of God across France.
      1. Pierre Viret

         Annotations:

         • Pastored successively to churches in Nimes, Lyon and Bearn
      2. Theodore Beza

         Annotations:

         • Made several voyages to France between 1559 and 1564 to act as a spokesman for and advisor to the new churches
4. 1536 Institutes

   Annotations:

   • Dedicated to Francis I - the faith not a seditious creed
   • Insisted that secular rulers are 'God's vicars on earth' who must be obeyed even when they act unjustly - Calvin's fear of disorder

1. Francis II's government struggled to effectively respond

   Annotations:

   • Relaxed the enforcement of the laws against heresy, but then dispatched officials to break up church assemblies which met openly.
2. Catherine de Medici, 1560

   Annotations:

   • Moyenneurs; sought to repair the widening religious breach within the kingdom through a moderate reform of the existing church, hoping those who left would rejoin.
   • Sept 1561; invited the leading Protestant theologians to address an assembly of bishops then meeting in Poissy hoping for a middle ground - only revealed the true gulf
   1. Edict of St Germain, 1562

      Annotations:

      • The Reformed were granted freedom to assemble for worship anywhere in the country, except walled towns

1. Meaux, 1546

   Annotations:

   • Inspired by the French church at Strasbourg chose one of their members to preside over their gatherings and deliver sermons and administer the sacraments in a private home
   • 'Ecclesiastical History of the Reformed Churches in the Kingdom of France' estimated 3-400 members led by a wool-carder deeply versed in Scripture were involved in the clandestine worship
   1. Following expulsion, members became the kernel of new, informal prayer groups
2. Informal gatherings and mutual edification

   Annotations:

   • Bible readings
   1. Two groups in Lyon, 1551
      1. Claude Baudel's

         Annotations:

         • Met to propagate evangelical ideas while maintaining an outward show of Catholicism
      2. Artisans

         Annotations:

         • Public acts of bravado, singing psalms and parading through the streets with arms
3. Influenced the church structure

   Annotations:

   • Adopting Genevan liturgy and the catechisms
   • Consistory of elders and ministers overseeing ecclesiastical discipline and admission to communion became the rule
   1. Languedoc & Dauphine

      Annotations:

      • Churches chose a dean to visit each local church to oversee the local pastor and ensure conformity of practice - influenced by the Pays de Vaud
      • Practices did NOT meet the approval of the Synod and hence were dropped

Annotations:

• Confession of Faith written in Geneva
• Calvinist touches - insistence upon the power of God's all-controlling providence, a paternal statement of double predestination, and an affirmation of Christ's real but purely spiritual presence in the eucharistic elements

Annotations:

• Forced churches to improvise
• French consistories came to act as administrative AND disciplinary bodies, supervising congregational finances and defending the church's legal interests
• Consistory saw the dean's office vanish, and oversaw the relief of the poor

1. Presbyterian-Synodal system

   Annotations:

   • Influenced by the '59 Synod
   • No church could claim domination or precedence over any other - principle of equality contrasting sharply with the subordination of rural churches to the metropolis in Geneva
   • Provisions for the regular reassembly of provincial and national synods, presided over by a moderator chosen exclusively for that gathering and composed of both lay and clerical delegates - individual churches were to refer all doctrinal and disciplinary questions of more than purely local consequence
   • Colloquy added; new elders to be coopted by the sitting consistory, and ministers to be named by the regional synod (colloquy) from neighbouring churches.
   • Federation of churches of equal status, independent of secular authority, with fundamental powers of ecclesiastical decision-making and ministerial appointment vested in a regional and national hierarchy of synods
   • System appealing to others seeking a church with a measure of authority vis-a-vis the civil magistrates yet possessing mechanisms for preventing local congregations taking their own course

Annotations:

• Conflicts had reduced the ranks of the French Reformed between a third and a half

1. Precipitating the conflict was Vassy massacre

   Annotations:

   • Dozens of Protestants killed under the command of the Duke of Guise
   1. Guise got a hero's welcome in Paris, after foregoing court to account for his actions
2. Benedict - disaster for young churches
3. Civil wars in 1567, 68, 72, 74, 77, 80.

   Annotations:

   • Protestants gaining only a fraction of the kingdom's territory - where they were unable to secure their control, their services were outlawed and subjected to vexations - Benedict
   • Many fled to Protestant strongholds
   1. Periods of 'nominal' pacification

      Annotations:

      • Saw bloody episodes of anti-Huguenot popular violence, culminating in the St. Bartholomew's Massacre of 1572.

1. Survival of Catholicism
   1. Three sons of Henry II who successively mounted the throne all remained loyal to Rome
2. Meaux, 1546

   Annotations:

   • 60 members seized, 14 of the leaders executed and others banished to nearby cities
3. Viewed 1562 decree as an abdication of the sacred monarchy's responsibility of protecting the church

   Annotations:

   • Parisian preachers; if the crown did not reverse its policy, it would forfeit its claim to its subjects' obedience - CIVIL WAR three months later
   1. 1585, legal toleration of Protestantism was repealed
      1. Henry III had the duke and cardinal of Guise killed to reassert authority
         1. Catholic backlash

            Annotations:

            • Sorbonne doctors declared Henry a tyrant and the population absolved of its obligations of obedience - cities across the kingdom in revolt
            1. 1589 - Dominican friar Jacques Clement assassinated the king

               Annotations:

               • Henry IV could only subdue those who opposed his claims to the throne only by converting to Catholicism
               • In 1593 guaranteed that the Bourbon dynasty that would rule France for the next 200 years would be a Catholic dynasty
4. Gained cities with the combined force of royal and Catholic arms
   1. Elements within the Catholic Church and nobility

      Annotations:

      • Organised an ever more militant defense of the faith of the Wars of Religion progressed
      • 1580 - Benedict; the most important element within French political culture, reviving the sworn association of the Catholic League (formed in 1576) to militate for the extermination of heresy and to defend the principle that only someone loyal to the Roman Church could accede to the throne
5. St Bartholomew's Day Massacre

   Annotations:

   • Charles IX supposed order to kill many of the leading Huguenots - order appeared to be the king's long-awaited chastisement of those heretics whose seditious spirit had prompted three civil wars and countless plots
   1. Thousands of ordinary men joined in the killing
      1. Thousands of Protestants butchered in Paris and provincial towns
         1. Thousands more frightened into swearing humiliating oaths of abjuration

            Annotations:

            • Marking their reintegration into the Catholic Church
         2. Late-1570s, the once buoyant Huguenot minorities of Lyon, Orleans etc, only a few hundred families

            Annotations:

            • Massive persecution - many of the smaller, more isolated Reformed churches had been extinguished

Annotations:

• "The country was governed by murderers, blasphemers, voluptuaries, and thieves" he declared in Dec 1562

1. "One should spit in the face of princes who disregard God's law"

   Annotations:

   • "Not worthy of being considered men" - he stated on two occasions
2. 1559-60, latched onto the idea that Francis II was not of age to rule

   Annotations:

   • Urged the first prince of the blood, Anthony of Navarre to take the lead in a reforming regency
3. Denounced Protestant nobles for negotiating - selling out the cause

   Annotations:

   • Only a providentialist faith that God would not abandon those who cleaved to his path could support the illusion that better terms might have been obtained by fighting on

1. Moved by anger and persecution of the faithful, and zeal to drive out papal abominations
   1. 1559 onwards

      Annotations:

      • Well-organised efforts to free from captivity those arrested on account of their religious beleifs
      • Individual churches began to mount armed guards around their clandestine assemblies to protect them against the threat of Catholic violence / turned to local noblemen for protection
      1. 1561 - parliamentary organisation

         Annotations:

         • In some provinces, by which individual churches formed a squadron of troops who were grouped into larger units by colloquies and synods
         • Provincial synods played a central role in these military preparations and in the process revealed the utility of presbyterial-synodal forms for the mobilisation and defense of an underground church.
      2. 1572 Massacre
         1. Survival of churches depended on 'Protestant Crescent'

            Annotations:

            • Faith here exercised numerical and political domination in perhaps half of the major towns
            1. Leaders realised their viability depended on securing permanent military control of their strongholds

               Annotations:

               • The need for an army
               1. Following 1568 Civil War, La Rochelle, Montauban and Castres refused to submit to military authority of royal governors

                  Annotations:

                  • St Bartholomew's Massacre; cities became bastions against a royal effort to outlaw Protestant worship entirely
                  • Delegates from Huguenot- controlled parts of Languedoc met to fix a common system for raising taxes and administering seized church authority - regular framework of regional councils and national political assemblies
                  1. Irregular assistance from the Palatinate and England

                     Annotations:

                     • Huguenots were able to mount a defense of the faith that preserved freedom of worship for its adherents throughout the country
         2. ISSUES
            1. No longer justified simply as a matter of protecting royal authority against evil Catholic councillors

               Annotations:

               • The crown openly assumed responsibility for the liquidation of many leading Protestant noblemen in the St Bartholomew's Massacre
               • Reformed spokesmen, (Beza) now issued unambiguous statements of the rights of lesser magistrates to resist a tyrannical king
               1. Beza's published - 'On the Right of Magistrates Over their Subjects' (1574)

                  Annotations:

                  • Reprinted 10 times in French in 1581
                  1. Beza published - 'Vindication of Liberty Against Tyrants' (1579)
                     1. Resist rulers who acted tyrannically or had broken their implicit contract with their subjects
   2. 1557-61 scattered attacks on Catholic shrines and holy objects
      1. 1561 - systematic church purification campaigns across Languedoc and Gascony
         1. Urban strongholds and their own municipal reformations by late-1561

            Annotations:

            • Montpelier, Castres, Bazas, Nimes, Montauban - local churches stripped of their images and the mass eliminated
            • Ministers or consistories almost never took public responsibility for the removal of images and altarpieces without the approval of the civil authorities
   3. Following a united Catholic noble front, the Protestants decided the time was ripe for arms

      Annotations:

      • Beza "the authority of the king and the liberty granted the Churches by the recent edict" - subsequent Huguenot mobilisation revealed the utility of the presbyterian-synodal system for organising the military and political defense of a minority church
      1. Word passed through the network of communication that existed within the church encouraging risings

         Annotations:

         • By April, dozens of cities secured for the faith - from Orleans, Beza oversaw the raising of money and troops from the other churches of the realm.
      2. Could not overcome their numerical inferiority
      3. Polarising effects of warfare removing moderation tone

         Annotations:

         • Churches purified of their altars and statues in great waves of iconoclasm
         • Catholic services ceased as priests fled in fear for their lives. Church property seized and used for the war effort
2. Assasinated many Catholic nobles
3. 1600
   1. Secular and ecclesiastical authorities

      Annotations:

      • Cooperated in overseeing poor relief, education and moral discipline - consistory and village council appear in places to have been the same body
      1. French Reformed churches the enduring model of a network of churches

         Annotations:

         • That maintained purity of doctrine, quality control over local clergy, ecclesiastical discipline and reasonable uniformity of practice with a minimum of reliance on secular authorities
   2. Wars of Religion taught the churches to rely on their own resources to survive

      Annotations:

      • Consistory proceedings to be kept secret, and at national synods, increasingly marked their distance from the secular authorities

1. Huguenots permitted to gather for worship in approximately 700 localities
   1. Rights of access to royal offices, schools and charitable institutions were reaffirmed
2. Special courts to adjudicate contentious matters involving them were set up
3. Churches now reconstituted themselves clustered more strongly in the Huguenot Crescent than in 1562
   1. Surviving churches

      Annotations:

      • Epitomised more than any other Reformed church that regulated its internal affairs and carried out its disciplinary tasks independently of the secular authorities

1. Strong religious conviction and political sagacity
   1. Aided by the Huguenot army in peril
2. Oversaw a gradual reformation, culminating in 1571 with the abolition of Catholicism

   Annotations:

   • With the legislation all inhabitants attend the services or face punishment of fines and imprisonment, and the service became Calvinist
   1. Set of "ordinances for the policing of the church in which God's Majesty shines forth"

      Annotations:

      • Capped the implementation of the Bernais reformation
      1. 1571 ordinances

         Annotations:

         • The policing of the church reiterated all of these  independent administrative board to oversee provisions, including the ecclesiastical property
         • All inhabitants instructed to make themselves worthy of admission to communion by mastering the articles of the faith, with banishment decreed for those who abstained from the sacrament without the approval of the church
         • Prohibited games and amusements on sundays - Sabbath consecrated to worship, and commanded six honest days of labour a week to stave off poverty and debauchery
3. 1561

   Annotations:

   • Dispatched ministers to the leading cities with instructions to the local authorities to provide them with hospitality and tolerate their preaching, which often reached out to the surrounding countryside as well
4. 1564

   Annotations:

   • Cause had advance enough to order the first state-mandated changes in worship.
   • Images were removed from church buildings; principle of freedom of conscience was proclaimed with the unbalanced proviso that wherever Catholic worship ceased, it could not be reestablished
5. Reformed clergy exhorted Jeanne to follow the Israelite kings' example

   Annotations:

   • Eliminate what remained of Roman idolatry at one fell stroke
   • ISSUE- various towns protested that abandoning the annual Corpus Christi processions "greatly scandalised" their inhabitants - breaks from tradition
   1. 1566 - ordered the secularisation of all ecclesiastical property

      Annotations:

      • Band of leading noblemen and clerics entered into a conspiracy to seize her person, restore the old church structure and do away with the Reformed religion - indiscreet lips sank the conspiracy
6. 1568 Civil War - Jeanne placed herself at the head of the Huguenot troops

   Annotations:

   • Massed in La Rochelle, where many leading partisans of the Reformed cause had gathered

1. Huguenot relief force from the Protestant strongholds of southwestern France drove out the invaders

   Annotations:

   • Catholicism had been discredited through its association with an attack on the territory's independence
   • Bernais noblemen who had sided with the French were stripped of their lands, and the mass was soon abolished

Annotations:

•  Called for a system of consistorial discipline, annual synods with powers of appointment to clerical vacancies, and smaller regional colloquies serving as clerical gatherings for the discussion of Scripture