Week 3: Religious Context - the French Reformation & the Huguenot Church

The French Reformation

How successfully and by what means did the Reformation spread in France?

Assess the contribution of Calvin to the French Reformation.

General reading

Mark Greengrass, The French Reformation (1987)

'France', in The Reformation in National Context, eds B. Scribner, R. Porter and M. Teich (1994), pp. 47-66

Penny Roberts, ‘France’, in Alec Ryrie (ed.), Palgrave Advances in the European Reformations (2006), pp. 102-23

David Nicholls, 'France', in The Early Reformation in Europe, ed. A. Pettegree (1992), pp. 120-41

R.M. Kingdon, Geneva and the Coming of the Wars of Religion in France, 1555-1563 (1956)

Geneva and the Consolidation of the French Protestant Movement, 1564-1572 (1967)

Denis Crouzet, La Genèse de la Réforme française, 1520-1562 (1996)

Further reading

David Nicholls, 'Social Change and Early Protestantism in France: Normandy, 1520-62', European Studies Review, 10 (1980), 279-308

'The Social History of the French Reformation: Ideology, Confession and Culture', Social History, 9 (1984), 25-43

'The Nature of Popular Heresy in France, 1520-42', Historical Journal, 26 (1983), 261-75

'Heresy and Protestantism, 1520-1542: Questions of Perception and Communication', French History, 10 (1996), 182-205

Philip Benedict, ‘Of Marmites and Martyrs: Images and Polemics in the Wars of Religion’, in The French Renaissance in Prints, pp. 109-37, + Catalogue section VIII

A. Duke et al, Calvinism in Europe, 1540-1610 (199), pp. 57-111

Andrew Pettegree, Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion (2005)

A.Pettegree & M.Hall, ‘The Reformation and the Book: A Reconsideration’, Historical Journal, 47 (2004)

D.R. Kelley, The Beginnings of Ideology: Consciousness and Society in the French Reformation (1981)

Christopher Elwood, The Body Broken: The Calvinist Doctrine of the Eucharist and the Symbolization of Power in Sixteenth-Century France (1999)

William Monter, Judging the French Reformation: Heresy Trials by Sixteenth-Century Parlements (1999)

R.A. Mentzer, Heresy Proceedings in Languedoc, 1500-1560 (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 74, 1984)

H. Heller, 'Famine, Revolt and Heresy at Meaux, 1521-25', Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 68 (1977), 133-56

Penny Roberts, A city in conflict: Troyes during the French wars of religion (1996), chapter 2

P. Rambeaud, ‘The Origins of Rural Calvinism in Aunis: The Sphere of Influence of La Rochelle’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 30 (1999), 367-95

Francis Higman, 'Le levain de l'Évangile', in R. Chartier and H.-J. Martin (eds),

Histoire de l'edition française (1983), vol. 1, pp. 372-403, also in his Lire et découvrir: La circulation des idées au temps de la Réforme, (Geneva, 1998), pp. 15-51

'Le domaine française, 1520-1562', in J.-F. Gilmont (ed.), La Réforme et le livre: L’Europe et l’imprimé (1517-v. 1570)(1990), pp. 105-54

Documents: Potter: Chap. 1, docs. 9, 11-12, 16

Documents: 1-4

Figure: 1

 

The Huguenot Church

How militant was the Huguenot movement?

How was the French Reformed Church able to sustain itself despite persecution?

 

[See the reading on the section on 'The French Reformation', plus...]

Philip Benedict, ‘The Dynamics of Protestant Militancy: France 1555-1563’, and

Denis Crouzet, ‘Calvinism and the Uses of the Political and the Religious (France, ca. 1560-ca. 1572)’, both in P. Benedict et al (eds), Reformation, Revolt and Civil War in Franceand the Netherlands, 1555-1585 (1999), pp. 35-50, 99-113

R. Mentzer & A. spicer (eds), Society and Culture in the Huguenot World, 1559-1685 (2002) a collection of diverse and useful essays, on militancy see in particular the essays by Roberts and James

Penny Roberts, ‘The demands and dangers of the Reformed ministry in Troyes, 1552-72’, in The Reformation of the Parishes, ed. A. Pettegree (1993), pp. 153-74

‘Contesting Sacred Space: Burial Disputes in Sixteenth-Century France’, in B. Gordon & P. Marshall (eds), The Place of the Dead: Death and Remembrance in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe(2000), pp. 131-48

‘Huguenot conspiracies, real and imagined, in sixteenth-century France’, in B.Coward and J.Swann (eds), Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theory in Early Modern Europe(2004), pp. 55-69

David Nicholls, 'The Theatre of Martyrdom in the French Reformation', Past and Present, 121 (1988), 49-73

R.A. Mentzer, 'Organizational Endeavour and Charitable Impulse in Sixteenth-Century France: the Case of Protestant Nîmes', French History, 5 (1991), 1-29

'Disciplina nervus ecclesiae: the Calvinist Reform of Morals at Nîmes', Sixteenth Century Journal, 18 (1987), 89-115

Mark Greengrass, ‘Financing the Cause: Protestant Mobilization and Accountability in France (1562-1598)’, in P. Benedict et al (eds), Reformation, Revolt and Civil War in Franceand the Netherlands, 1555-1585 (1999), pp. 233-54

‘The Calvinist Experiment in Béarn’, in A. Pettegree et al (eds), Calvinism in Europe, 1540-1620 (1994), pp. 119-42

‘Nicolas Pithou: Experience, Conscience and History in the French Civil Wars’, in A. Fletcher & P. Roberts (eds), Religion, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain(1994)

M.S. Lamet, 'French Protestants in a Position of Strength: the Early Years of the Reformation in Caen, 1558-1568', Sixteenth Century Journal, 9 (1978), 35-55

N.M. Roelker, Queen of Navarre: Jeanne d’Albret, 1528-1572 (1968)

‘The Role of Noblewomen in the French Reformation’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 63 (1972), 168-95

'The Appeal of Calvinism to French Noblewomen in the Sixteenth Century', Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2 (1971-72), 391-418

Glenn S. Sunshine, Reforming French Protestantism: The Development of Huguenot Ecclesiastical Institutions, 1557-1572 (2003)

Scott M. Manetsch, Theodore Beza and the Quest for Peace in France, 1572-1598 (2000)

Théodore de Bèze, Correspondance, eds H. Aubert, H. Meylan and A. Dufour (many vols, 1962-)

Philip Benedict and Nicolas Fornerod (eds), L'organisation et l'action des Églises réformées de France (2012)

Histoire ecclésiastique des églises réformées au royaume de France, eds G. Baum, E. Cunitz et al (3 vols., original edn 1883-9)

Janine Garrisson, Protestants du Midi, 1559-98 (1980)

E. Le Roy Ladurie, Les Paysans de Languedoc (2 vols., 1966), i, pp. 341-4

Hugues Daussy, Le Parti huguenot: chronique d'une désillusion (1557-1572) (2014)

Les Huguenots et le Roi: Le combat politique de Philippe Duplessis-Mornay (1572-1600) (2002)

Documents: Potter: Chap. 1, docs. 7-8, 14-16; Chap. 2, doc. 4; Chap. 3, doc. 3;

Chap. 4, docs. 2-3, 8-9; Epilogue

Documents: 2-18

Figures: 1 & 2