No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Martyrologies and Martyrs in the French Reformation: Heretics to Subversives in Troyes*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
The chief martyrology of the French Protestants or Huguenots, the Histoire des martyrs, was the work of a Walloon refugee in Geneva, Jean Crespin. The Histoire focuses on the martyrs of the French Reformation, but also describes the ordeals of those in Scodand, England, and Flanders, as well as of medieval precursors of Protestant ideas, such as Hus and Wyclif. Later versions of the text include the martyrs of the Early Church, whose faith the Huguenots claimed to be reviving and in whose sufferings they believed themselves to be sharing. The Histoire quickly became popular in the fledgeling Reformed churches of France, avidly read from the pulpit and in the home. The accounts of the courage of the martyrs no doubt reinforced the resolution of a group destined to remain a minority, and who became increasingly resigned to their fate. During the civil strife known as the French Wars of Religion, religious tensions were exacerbated by political and military conflict. However, the incident which provoked the outbreak of the wars in 1562 was the massacre of a Huguenot congregation at Vassy, in Champagne, and, indeed, the wars were to be particularly noted for their brutal sectarian violence.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1993
Footnotes
*
All translations are the author’s own.
References
1 Jean Crespin, Histoire des martyrs persecutez et mis à mort pour la verité de l’évangile, depuis le temps des apostres jusques à présent, ed. D. Benoît, 3 vols (Toulouse, 1885–9) [hereafter Crespin], is the 1619 edition. The first edition appeared in 1554; after Crespin died in 1572 his work was continued by Simon Goulart.
2 Histoire ecclésiastique des églises réformées au royaume de France, ed. G. Baum, E. Cunitz, and Reuss, R., 3 vols (Paris, 1883-9) [hereafter Hist.ecc], first published in 1580 Google Scholar.
3 Paris, BN, MS Dupuy 698, Nicolas Pithou, ‘Histoire ecclésiastique de l’église réformée de la ville de Troyes’, sis fols [hereafter Pithou].
4 For a detailed and informative discussion of Protestant martyrdom and its development in France, see Nicholls, David, The Theatre of Martyrdom in the French Reformation’, PaP, 121 (1988), pp. 49–73 Google Scholar.
5 Crespin, 1, p. 381; Pithou, fols 36r-37r.
6 There is some confusion over the date of Moreau’s execution: Crespin, 1, pp. 547–8, states that it took place in isso, and Pithou, fols 42–4, in 1549; whilst the trial record of the Paris Parlement, in the Bibliothèque municipale de Troyes, MS 1291, fol. 126, is dated 5 Oct. 1546.
7 Pithou, fols 80r-85r.
8 Ibid., fol. 232v; Hist.ecc., 2, p. 469.
9 Crespin, 3, p. 279; Hist.ecc, 2, pp. 470–1; Pithou, fols 248v-250r.
10 Davis, Natalie Zemon, ‘The rites of violence: religious riot in sixteenth-century France’, PaP, 59 (1973), pp. 51–91 Google Scholar. Crouzet, Denis, Les Guerriers de Dieu: la violence au temps des troubles de religion (c.1525-c.1610), 2 vols (Paris, 1990 Google Scholar). Also see Estèbe, Janine, Tocsin pour un massacre: la saison des Saint-Barthélemy (Paris, 1968 Google Scholar).
11 On the reluctance of the official executioner in Troyes to become involved, Pithou, fols 268v, 379r.
12 Ibid., fol. 250r.
13 Ibid., fols 174v-177r. ‘Poncelet Meusnier et Jacques de Brienne; premiers chroniqueurs Troyens’, Revue de Champagne et de Brie, 13 (1882), p. 439, and 14 (1883), p. 58 [hereafter ‘Meusnier et Brienne’], for the Catholic view.
14 Pithou, fols 99v-101r; the executioner claimed that there had been a devil on the condemned man’s neck, which had deflected his blows with its horns. ‘Meusnier et Brienne’, 14 (1883), P. 57.
15 Farr, J. R., Hands of Honor: Artisans and Their World in Dijon, 1550–1650 (Ithaca and London, 1988), pp. 160–4 Google Scholar, discusses oral culture in the sixteenth-century French city.
16 Pithou, fols 107r-108r.
17 Ibid., fols 123v-124r. For other cases of mistaken identity in this context, see Diefendorf, Barbara, Beneath the Cross: Catholics and Huguenots in Sixteenth-Century Paris (Oxford, 1991), pp. 53, 69 Google Scholar, and Davis, , The rites of violence’, p. 73, n. 68 Google Scholar.
18 Pithou, fols 237v-242r; Hist.ecc., 2, pp. 476–8; Crespin, 3, p. 280.
19 Here I agree with the view of Crouzet, Les Guerriers de Dieu, 1, pp. 246, 329–30.
20 Davis, ‘The rites of violence’, pp. 81–3, 85; and Crouzet, Les Guerriers de Dieu, passim.
21 Pithou, fols 273r-275r.
22 Paris, BN, MS Dupuy 333, fols 66r-75r; Pithou, fols 371–82.
23 H. Heller, The Conquest of Poverty: the Calvinist Revolt in Sixteenth-Century France (Leiden, 1986), p. 143, on the leadership of the Reformed churches in the towns being drawn from among the urban notables. Also see Davies, J. M., ‘Persecution and Protestantism: Toulouse 1562–75’, HistJ, 22 (1979), p. 50 Google Scholar.
24 On women treated less harshly, see Davies, , ‘Persecurion and Protestantism’, pp. 48—9 Google Scholar; Pithou, fol. 235r.
25 Pithou, fols 228v, 242r; Mémoires de Claude Haton: le récit des événements accomplis de 1553 à 1582, principalement dans la Champagne et la Brie, ed. Bourquelot, Felix, 2 vols (Paris, 1857), 1, p. 48 Google Scholar, discusses Protestant wife-swapping, which he refers to as ‘charité fraternelle’. Crouzet, , Les Guerriers de Dieu, 1, pp. 244–6 Google Scholar.
26 Pithou, fol. 382r; Paris, BN, MS Dupuy 333, fol. 72r.
27 ‘Meusnier et Brienne’, 14 (1883), p. 49. Pithou, Crespin and the Hist.ecc, make no menrion of the participation of children on this occasion. Crouzet, Cf., Les Guerriers de Dieu, 1, pp. 76–91 Google Scholar; Davis, , The Rites of Violence’, pp. 87–8 Google Scholar.
28 Pithou, fols 160–1.
29 ‘Estèbe, Tocsin pour un massacre, p. 197; Crouzet, Les Guerriers de Dieu, 1, pp. 244–8.
30 The minister Sorel made a dramatic escape on horseback in 1562, Pithou, fol. 230; Hist.ecc., 2, p. 469.