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‘Églises plantées’ and ‘églises dressées’ in the Historiography of Early French Protestantism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2017

Peter Wilcox
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Extract

During the seven years between 1555 and 1562, a transformation took place in the character of early French Protestantism. Before 1555 reformed communities in the kingdom of France were relatively scarce, and only loosely affiliated; by 1562 they had become more numerous, and more centralised. Before 1555 a typical congregation would meet, without either a minister or a system of ecclesiastical discipline, for prayers, the singing of hymns and bible-reading; by 1562, the same group would probably have not only its own pastor to preach and administer the sacraments, but also a consistory to enforce church discipline. In the most recent secondary literature this development is commonly described as the transformation of églises plantées into églises dressées. It is said, for example by Prestwich, that ‘the consistory became the mark of a true church, termed an église dressée, in contrast to the amorphous Bible gatherings, known as églises plantées’. The purpose of this brief article is to question whether these terms were ever contrasted in this way in the mid-sixteenth century, and to suggest that other phrases express the development more accurately.

Type
Notes and Documents
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 44 , Issue 4 , October 1993 , pp. 689 - 695
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

1 M. Prestwich, ‘Calvinism in France, 1555–1629’, in idem (ed.), International Calvinism, 1541–1715, Oxford 1985, 77–118, at p. 84. See also Greengrass, M., The French Reformation, Oxford 1987, 29 Google Scholar; Garrison, J., Les Protestants au XVIe siècle, n.p. 1988, 172–4Google Scholar; McGrath, A. E., A Life of John Calvin, Oxford 1990, 183 Google Scholar.

2 ‘Gallis nostris potissimum’ Ioannis Calvini Opera Selecta, ed. Barth, P. and Niesel, W., 5 vols, Munich 1926–1962, i. 21 Google Scholar. The translation is from The Institutes of the Christian Religion: 1536 edition, trans. Battles, F. L., London 1986, 1 Google Scholar.

3 ‘Ubi tamen cunque verbum Dei sincere praedicari atque audiri, ubi sacramenta ex Christi instituto administrari videmus, illic aliquam esse Dei ecclesiam nullo modo ambigendum est’: Opera Selecta, i. 91; Battles, , Institutes, 62 Google Scholar.

4 Opera Selecta, v. 13. The translation is from the Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. McNeill, J. T., trans. Battles, F. L., Philadelphia 1960, iv. i. 9. 1023Google Scholar.

5 See Höpfl, H., The Christian Polity of John Calvin, Cambridge 1982, ch. ivCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Ecclesiastical Ordinances, Ioannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia (hereinafter cited as Calvini Opera), ed. Baum, G., Cunitz, E. and Reuss, E., 59 vols, Brunswick 1863–1900, x/1. 30 Google Scholar.

7 Registres de la Compagnie des Pasteurs de Genève au temps de Calvin, Tome II, 1553–1564, ed. Kingdon, R. M. and Bergier, J. F., Geneva 1962, 59 Google Scholar.

8 See Kingdon, R. M., Geneva and the Coming of the Wars of Religion in France, 1555–1563, Geneva 1956, app. vi, p. 145 Google Scholar.

9 See Histoire ecclésiastique des églises réformées au royaume de France, ed. Baum, G. and Cunitz, E., 3 vols, Paris 1883–1889, i. 97ffGoogle Scholar for a comprehensive survey of the dates at which consistories were established by churches in France.

10 ‘There were as yet no properly constituted churches in any of its regions. There existed only [groups] of the faithful, taught by the reading of good books, and insofar as it sometimes pleased God to instruct them through occasional exhortations, but without having the normal ministry of the word, or the sacraments, and without an established consistory’: ibid. i. 117–18.

11 E.g. l'église d'Aubigny, ibid. i. 105; l'église de Chartres, ibid. i. 163; une église à Castellane, ibid. i. 172 etc.

12 Ibid. i. 106 etc.

13 Ibid. i. 98, 102 etc.

14 Ibid. i. 101, 104, 213, 217, 342 etc.

15 Many of these letters have been published in Calvini Opera, xviii–xix. A further 20 letters have been published elsewhere, either in Gaberel, J., ‘Correspondance des éeglises de France’, in his Histoire de l' église de Genève, Geneva 1858, i/2. 148–94Google Scholar; in the Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire du Protestantisme Français xlvi (1897), 456–68Google Scholar; or in Roman, J., ‘Documents sur la réforme et les guerres de religion en Dauphiné’, Bulletin de la Société de l'Isère, 3rd ser. xv (1890)Google Scholar. The originals are collected together in seven large manuscript volumes, in the Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire in Geneva: MS Fr. 196, 197, 197a, 402, 403; MS L. 109, 121.

16 ‘A minister gifted enough to found and lead the Church of Jesus Christ in this town’: Gaberel, , ‘Correspondance’, 163 Google Scholar.

17 ‘Perhaps you have heard how the church in Loisy was founded, and how God demonstrated his power so manifestly there, in founding and maintaining it, that the more one thinks about it, the more one finds to marvel at. [But] we lack good pastors to found and protect churches’: letter 3553, Calvini Opera, xix. 23–4.

18 ‘Having first established a church there’: letter 3605, ibid. xix. 105.

19 ‘They beseech you to help them establish a small consistory’: letter 3660, ibid. xix. 191.

20 ‘It has pleased God to give us the means to organise our assembly to some extent, and to establish a consistory to regulate us’: letter 3751, ibid. xix. 353.

21 Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 155, 198, 220, 305 etc.; letter 3409, Calvini Opera, xviii. 500.

22 That is to say, I have been unable to locate a single example. Certainly, no reference is given where the phrase is used in the secondary literature.

23 Huguet, E., Dictionnaire de la langue française du seizième siècle, Paris 1965 Google Scholar.

24 ‘After having set up several churches in Gascony’: Histoire ecclésiastique, i, 156.

25 ‘With the object of setting up and laying the foundations of our church’: letter 3342, Calvini Opera, xviii. 368.

26 Article 31, Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 183.

27 ‘If you deprive us of the presence of such an important pastor, Messieurs and fathers, we would retain no more than one, who would not be able to provide for the town, let alone to set up churches for the Lord in the usual way, strengthening those which are already fully established’: letter 3644, Calvini Opera, xix. 161–2.

28 Greengrass, , French Reformation, 29 Google Scholar.

29 Institution de la religion chrestienne, ed. Benoit, J. -D., Paris 1957–1961, iv. 58 Google Scholar.

30 Calvin aux ministres de Neuchâtel, letter 3618, Calvini Opera, xix. 122.

31 Registres de la Compagnie ii. 62, 69, 71.

32 Ibid. ii. 73.

33 Ibid. ii. 78, 80.

34 Ibid. ii. 82.

35 Letter 2287, Calvini Opera, xv. 754; letter 2289, ibid. xv. 758; letter 2288, ibid. xv. 756; letter 2785, ibid. xvii. 4; letter 2928, ibid. xvii. 276.

36 Letter 1825, ibid. xiv. 637.

37 Letter 2005, ibid. xv. 222.

38 Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 185–90.