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The Rites of Violence: Religious Riot in Sixteenth-Century France
Author(s): Natalie Zemon Davis
Source: Past & Present, No. 59 (May, 1973), pp. 51-91
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/650379 .
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THE RITES OF VIOLENCE: RELIGIOUS
RIOT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY
FRANCE *
These are the statutesand judgments,which ye shall observe to do in the
land, which the Lord God of thy fathersgiveth thee... Ye shall utterly
destroyall the places whereinthe nations which he shall possess served their
gods, upon the high mountains,and upon the hills, and under every green
tree:
And ye shall overthrowtheiraltars, and break theirpillars and burn their
groveswith fire; and ye shall hew down the gravenimages of theirgods, and
destroythe names of them out of that place [Deuteronomyxii. 1-31].
Thus a Calvinistpastorto his flockin 1562.1
If thy brother,the son of thy mother,or thy son, or thy daughter,or the
wife of thy bosom, or thy friend,which is as thine own soul, entice thee
secretly,sayingLet us go serve othergods, which thou hast not known,thou,
nor thy fathers... Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearkenunto him
... But thou shalt surelykill him; thine hand shall be firstupon him to put
him to death, and afterwardsthe hand of all the people ....
If thou shalt hear say in one of thy cities, which the Lord thy God hath
given thee to dwell there,saying,Certainmen, the childrenof Belial are gone
out fromamong you, and have withdrawnthe inhabitantsof theircity,saying
Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known... Thou shalt
surelysmitethe inhabitantsof that citywiththe edge of the sword,destroying
it utterlyand all that is therein[Deuteronomyxiii. 6, 8-9, 12-13, 151.
And [Jehu]liftedup his face to the window and said, Who is on my side?
Who? And there looked out to him two or three eunuchs. And he said,
Throw her down. So they threw [Jezebel] down: and some of her blood
was sprinkledon the wall, and on the horses: and he trode her under foot ...
And theywent to buryher: but theyfoundno more of her than the skull and
the feetand the palms of her hands ... And [Jehu]said, This is the word of
the Lord, which he spake by his servantElijah... saying,In the portionof
Jezreelshall dogs eat the fleshof Jezebel: And the carcase of Jezebelshall be
as dung upon the face of the field [II Kings ix. 32-3,
35-71].
Thus in 1568Parisianpreachersheldup totheirCatholicparishioners
the end of a wickedidolater.2 Whateverthe intentions
of pastors
* The research for this paper has been aided by grants-in-aidfrom the
American Philosophical Society, the American Council of Learned Societies
and the Universityof California,Berkeley. The presentarticleis based upon
a paper read at the Newberry Library Renaissance Conference marking the
anniversaryof the Saint Bartholomew Day Massacre, held on May 5 and 6
1972, under the chairmanshipof ProfessorAlfred Soman. The proceedings
of the Conference are being edited by Dr. Soman and will be published by
Martinus Nijhoff,The Hague.
des JlglisesRiformdesau Royaumede France (hereafter
1 Histoireeccldsiastique
Hist. eccl.), ed. G. Baum and E. Cunitz, 3 vols. (Paris, 1883-9), i, p. 537.
2 Claude
Haton, Me'moiresde Claude Haton contenantle recitdes ve'nements
accomplisde 1553 a 1592, principalementdans la Champagne et la Brie, ed.
Felix Bourquelot (Collection de documents inedits sur l'histoire de France),
2 vols. paginated continuously(Paris, 1857), pP. 527-8.
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52
PAST AND PRESENT
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and priests,such wordswereamongthemanyspursto religiousriot
in sixteenth-century
France. By religious riot I mean, as a
definition,
preliminary
any violentaction,withwordsor weapons,
undertakenagainstreligioustargetsby people who are not acting
officiallyand formallyas agents of political and ecclesiastical
to bearupon
authority.As foodriotersbringtheirmoralindignation
the stateof the grainmarket,so religiousriotersbringtheirzeal to
bear upon the stateof men's relationsto the sacred. The violence
of the religiousriotis distinguished,
at least in principle,fromthe
action of politicalauthorities,who can legallysilence,humiliate,
demolish,punish,tortureand execute;and also fromthe actionof
soldiers,who at certaintimesand places can legallykilland destroy.
In mid sixteenth-century
France,all thesesourcesof violencewere
busilyproducing,and it is sometimeshard to tell a militiaofficer
froma murderer
and a soldierfroma statue-smasher.Nevertheless,
a violent
thereareoccasionswhenwe can separateoutforexamination
crowdset on religiousgoals.
about
The sixteenthcenturyitselfhad its own generalizations
crowdviolence. Once in a whileit was seen as havinga kind of
systemor sense. In CorpusChristiDay drama,theviolenceagainst
Christis representedas a series of formalcompetitive"games",
thefullknowledgeofwhattheydo.3
whichhidefromHis tormentors
of
In Diirer'sMartyrdom
the
Ten
Thousand,the Persiantorturers
of
the Christiansare spaced apart,doingtheirterriblebusinessin an
as in Breugel's
methodical
way.' Most ofthetime,however,
orderly,
the
Dulle
and
The
Griet
Death,
image of the
Triumphof
flaming
crowdwas one of chaos. Learned writerstalk of grainriotersin
Lyon as "the dregs of the populace, with no order,no rein, no
leader... a beast of manyheads... an insane rabble" and of the
Paris mob as "an ignorantmultitude,collectedfromall nations...
governedbytheappetiteofthosewhostirthemup [to]extremerage,
just lookingforthe chanceto carryout any kindof cruelty".5
3 V. A. Kolve, The Play Called Corpus Christi(Stanford,1966), ch. 8. Also
2 vols.
see L. Petit de Julleville,Histoire du theatreen France. Les mystdres,
(Paris, 188o), ii, pp. 391, 408, 444-5. Breugel's Processionto Calvary has some
of this same gamelike, "orderly" quality.
4Philipp Fehl, "Mass Murder, or Humanity in Death", TheologyToday,
xxviii (1971), pp. 67-8; E. Panofsky, The Life and Art of AlbrechtDiirer
explanations
(Princeton,1955), pp. 121-2. For the range of sixteenth-century
of human violence,see J. R. Hale, "Sixteenth-CenturyExplanationsof War and
Violence", Past and Present,no. 51 (May 1971), PP. 3-26.
5 Guillaume Paradin, Memoiresde l'Histoire de Lyon (Lyon, 1573), P. 238;
Hist. eccl., i, pp. 192-3. See also Christopher Hill, "The Many-Headed
Monster in Late Tudor and Early Stuart Political Thinking", in C. H. Carter
Essays in honour of
(ed.), From the Renaissance to the Counter-Reformation.
GarrettMattingly(London, 1966), pp. 296-324.
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RELIGIOUS RIOT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURYFRANCE
53
Nowadaysthishydramonsterhas takenon a moreorderlyshape,
as a result of the work of George Rude, Eric Hobsbawm,
E. P. Thompson,Charles Tilly, EmmanuelLe Roy Ladurie and
others.6 We may see these crowdsas promptedby politicaland
moraltraditionswhichlegitimizeand even prescribetheirviolence.
We may see urban riotersnot as miserable,uprooted,unstable
masses,but as men and womenwho oftenhave somestakein their
or better;and who, even when
community;who maybe craftsmen
poor and unskilled,may appear respectableto their everyday
neighbours. Finally,we maysee theirviolence,howevercruel,not
as random and limitless,but as aimed at definedtargetsand
of traditionalpunishments
selectedfroma repertory
and formsof
destruction.
This pictureof pre-industrial
crowd violence has been drawn
primarilyfromthe studyof grain and bread riots,tax riots,craft
violence,and certainkindsof peasantrevolts. The broad spectrum
ofreligiousriot,however,has notreceivedanalytical
attention,
except
in thecase oftheanti-Semitic
movement,7
pogromandthemillenarian
both of which have evidentcontemporary
significanceand nonreligiousfeatures. To present-daychurchhistorians,especiallyin
an age of ecumenicalism,
the popularviolenceof theirCalvinistand
Catholicancestorsmayhave been an embarrassment
(as is Belfast).
6 The literature
on crowds and violence is vast. I list here only those works
which have especially assisted the preparation of this paper: George Rude,
The Crowd in History.A Study of Popular Disturbancesin France and England,
1730-1848 (New York, 1964); E. J. Hobsbawm, PrimitiveRebels, Studies in
Archaic Formsof Social Movementin the I9th and 2oth Centuries(Manchester,
1959); E. P. Thompson, "The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the
EighteenthCentury",Past and Present,no. 50 (Feb. 1971), pp. 76-136; Charles
Tilly, "Collective Violence in Nineteenth-CenturyFrench Cities" (Public
Lecture, Reed College, Feb. 1968); "The Chaos of the Living City", forthcoming in Charles Tilly (ed.), The Building of an Urban World; Charles Tilly
and James Rule, Measuring Political Upheaval (Princeton, 1965) - I am also
gratefulto Charles Tilly for his comments on this paper; Emmanuel Le Roy
Ladurie, Le paysans de Languedoc, 2 vols. (Paris, 1966), i, pp. 391-414, 495508, 607-29; Roland Mousnier, Fureurs paysannes (Paris, 1967); M. Mollat
and Philippe Wolff,Ongles bleus,Jacques et Ciompi, Les rdvolutions
populaires
en Europe aux XIVe et XVe sikcles(Paris, 1970); J. R. Hale, "Violence in the
Late Middle Ages: A Background", in Lauro Martines (ed.), Violenceand Civil
Disorderin Italian Cities,1200-1500 (Berkeley,1972), pp. 19-37; Neil J. Smelser,
Theoryof CollectiveBehavior (New York: Free Press Paperback, 1971). There
are also some helpful classificationsof crowds in Elias Canetti, Crowds and
Power, tr. Carol Stewart (German edn. 1960; N.Y., 1966), pp. 48-73.
As in, forinstance,Philippe Wolff,"The 1391 Pogrom in Spain. Social
Crisis or Not?", Past and Present,no. 50 (Feb. 1971), PP. 4-18; Norman Cohn,
The Pursuitof theMillennium(2nd edn., N.Y., 1961); Sylvia L. Thrupp (ed.),
Millennial Dreams in Action. Studies in RevolutionaryReligious Movements
(New York, 1970).
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54
PAST AND PRESENT
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To socialhistorians
itis theseeming"irrationality"
ofmostsixteenthcenturyreligiousriotthathas been puzzling. To bear theswordin
thenameof a millennialdreammightmakesomesense,but whyget
so excitedabouttheEucharistor saints'relics? It is hardto decipher
the social meaningof such an event.
Not surprisingly,
the pioneeringremarksof C. Verlindenand his
colleagueson populariconoclasm,and of JanineEstebe on popular
Catholic violence,insist upon a stronglinkagebetweenreligious
conflict
and economicissues. It is arguedthata risein grainprices
triggersthese disturbances,and that the Saint Bartholomew's
massacresare also a "class-crime","rich Huguenotsbeingattacked
and pillagedby preference". Beyondthis,Estebe accountsforthe
oftheprimitive
soul of
crowdactionin themassacresas an expression
the people, pushed by eventsinto pathologicalhatred. Similarly,
in PhilippeWolff'sstudyof anti-Semiticpogromsin Valencia and
Barcelonain 1391 and in George Rude's analysisof anti-Catholic
riotsin eighteenth-century
London, thereis a tendencyto identify
as thesocialones,socialbeing
the"real" elementsin thedisturbance
ofpooragainstrich,artisansagainst
definedonlyin termsofa conflict
and wage-earnersagainst manuwealthyburghersor craftsmen,
facturersand merchants.8There is no doubt that some religious
- Wolff'sevidenceforBarcelonais very
violencehas thischaracter
in
good indeed- butis thistheonlykindofsocialmeaninginherent
a religiousriot? Whatdoes one makeof popularreligiousviolence
whereclass conflictof thistypeis not present?
I willtryto answerthesequestionsin regardto sixteenth-century
Francein the courseof thispaper. My firstpurposeis to describe
the shape and structureof the religiousriot in Frenchcities and
towns,especiallyin the I56os and early1570s. We will lookat the
and occasionsfor riots; at the kinds of action
goals, legitimation
undertakenby the crowdsand the targetsfor theirviolence; and
in theriotsand theirorganization.We will
at theparticipants
briefly
and Catholicstylesof crowd
considerdifferences
betweenProtestant
behaviour,but will also indicatethe manywaysin whichtheyare
8 C. Verlinden, J. Craeybeckx,E. Scholliers, "Mouvements des prix et des
salaires en Belgique au XVIe sidcle", Annales. E.S.C., x (1955), pp. 185-7.
(Paris,
JanineEsthbe, Tocsinpour un massacre.La saison des Saint-Barthdlemy
1968), pp. 97-8, 196 I135-6, 189-98. Though I will take issue at several
her
valuable
the
of
in
Esthbe's
massacres,
interpretation
points this paper with
book is surelythe most imaginativestudywe have had of the social psychology
of that event. Wolff,"Pogrom", p. I6; Rud6, Crowd in History,pp. 62, 138:
M. Wolffcharacterizesthe pogromat Valencia, where "violence directedagainst
the Jewspredominates,committedmoreoverby persons fromthe most diverse
social backgrounds", as "pseudo-religious" (p. I6).
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RELIGIOUS RIOT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURYFRANCE
55
Catholicand Protestant
alike. Our sourceswill be contemporary
fromwhichwe will do our best to
accountsof religiousdisturbance,
fromlikelyfact.9 I hope thisinquirywill
sortout utterfabrication
day in a new perspective,
put the massacresof Saint Bartholomew's
of the religiousriotas a typeof
and also deepenour understanding
collectivedisturbance.
I
Whatthencan we learnof thegoals of popularreligiousviolence?
Whatwerethe crowdsintendingto do and whydid theythinkthey
must do it? Their behavioursuggests,firstof all, a goal akin to
of false
preaching:the defenceof true doctrineand the refutation
doctrinethroughdramaticchallengesand tests. "You blaspheme",
shoutsa womanto a Catholicpreacherin Montpellierin I558 and,
havingbrokenthedecorumoftheservice,leads partofthecongregain themidst
tionoutofthechurch. "You lie", shoutsa sheathmaker
of the Franciscan'sEaster sermonin Lyon, and his words are
underscoredby the gunshotsof Huguenotswaitingin the square.10
9 Where possible, I have triedto use both Catholic and Protestantaccounts of
the same episode. For instance,for events in Toulouse in 1562, I have used
among othersthe account of the Catholic G. Bosquet (Histoirede M. G. Bosquet,
sur les troublesAdvenusen la ville de Tolose l'an 1562 [Toulouse, 1595]) and that
of the Reformed Histoireeccldsiastique. I have taken especially seriouslydescriptionsof Catholic violence coming fromCatholic writers(as in the Memoires
of the priestClaude Haton) and descriptionsof Protestantviolence comingfrom
the Histoire ecclesiastique. These sources are not necessarilytelling the whole
truthabout their party's violence, but at least we can assume that what they
positively describe did occur. I have also taken especially seriously the
omissionof certainkinds of violence in accusationsmade by one partyabout the
opposing party (for instance, that Catholic accounts say very little about the
desecrationof corpses by Protestantcrowds), since these writersshow so little
willingnessto put their opponents in a favourable light. If certain kinds of
violence are regularlynot attributedto the enemy,then I thinkwe can assume
that they did not in fact occur very often.
In regard to accepting evidence about acts of desecrationof corpses, torture
and acts of filth,where there is no way of getting "impartial" eye-witness
accounts, I have used my judgement,based on a general understandingof the
range of possibilities in sixteenth-centurybehaviour. My guides here have
been French legal practice and penalty, Rabelais, descriptions by Pierre
de L'Estoile of behaviour in Paris in the late sixteenth century, and the
commentsof Montaigneon torturesin his time("On Cruelty","Of Cannibals").
10 Hist. eccl.,i,
p. 248; Jean Gueraud, La chroniquelyonnaisede Jean Gudraud,
ed. Jean Tricou (Lyon, 1929), p. 151. Other examples: Geneva, Advent 1533,
a young man interruptsa sermon of the Catholic theologian Guy Furbity,
"Messieurs, listen... I will put myselfin the fireto maintain that all he has
said are lies and words of the Antichrist"; "Into the fire", shout some of the
de
congregation: Jeanne de Jussie, Le levain du Calvinismeou commencement
l'hdrdsiede Genkve(Geneva, 1865), p. 74. Rouen: a barber's journeymandenies
at the end of a Franciscan's sermon that there are seven sacraments,insisting
thatthereare only two: Hist. eccl.,i, p. 355. Rouen, March 1562 in Hist. eccl.,
iii, p. 713, n. I. Toulouse, 4 May 1562 in Bosquet, Histoire,p. 38. Provins,
1560, Protestantsdisturba Catholic sermon: Haton, Mimoires,pp. 136-7.
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56
PAST AND PRESENT
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"Look", criesa weaverin Tournai,as he seizestheelevatedhostfrom
the priest,"deceivedpeople, do you believethisis the King, Jesus
Christ,the trueGod and Saviour? Look!" And he crumblesthe
waferand escapes. "Look", says a crowdof image-breakers
to the
people of Albiac in I56i, showingthemthe relicstheyhave seized
fromthe Carmelitemonastery,
"look,theyare onlyanimalbones".11
And the slogan of the Reformedcrowdsas theyrush throughthe
streetsof Paris,of Toulouse, of La Rochelle,of Angoulemeis "The
Gospel! The Gospel! Long live the Gospel!"12
Catholiccrowdsanswerthiskind of claimto truthin Angersby
takinga FrenchBible,well-boundand gilded,seizedin thehomeof
a richmerchant,and paradingit throughthe streetson the end of
a halberd. "There's the truthhung. There's the truthof the
it intothe
Huguenots,the truthof all the devils". Then, throwing
river,"There's the truthof all the devils drowned". And if the
Huguenotdoctrinewastrue,whydidn'ttheLord comeand savethem
fromtheirkillers? So a crowd of Orleans Catholicstauntedits
victimsin 1572: "Whereis yourGod? Whereare yourprayersand
Psalms? Let himsaveyouifhe can". Even thedead weremadeto
speak in Normandyand Provence,whereleaves of the Protestant
Bible werestuffed
intothe mouthsand woundsof corpses. "They
preachedthetruthoftheirGod. Let themcall himto theiraid".13
The same refutationwas, of course, open to Protestants.A
Protestantcrowd cornersa baker guardingthe holy-wafer
box in
Saint Medard's Churchin Paris in 1561. "Messieurs",he pleads,
"do nottouchitforthehonourofHimwhodwellshere". "Does your
God of paste protectyou now fromthe pains of death?" was the
Protestantanswerbeforetheykilledhim.14 True doctrinecan be
defendedin sermonor speech,backedup by the magistrate's
sword
againsttheheretic. Here it is defendedby dramaticdemonstration,
backedup by theviolenceof the crowd.
11 Jean Crespin, Histoiredes Martyrspersecutezet mis acmortpour la Verite
de l'Evangile,depuisle tempsdes Apostresjusques a present(1619), ed. D. Benoit,
3 vols. (Toulouse, 1885-9), ii, pp. 307-8. Ibid., iii, p. 515 fora similarepisode
in Flanders. Hist. eccl., i, p. 931.
12 Haton,
Mdmoires,p. I82. "Relations de l'emeute arriv6ea Toulouse en
1562", in L. Cimber and F. Danjou (eds.), Archivescurieusesde l'histoirede
France (hereafterArch. cur.) (Paris and Beauvais, I834-40), iv, p. 347. Hist.
eccl., iii, p. 989. [Richard Verstegen], Thgatredes cruautdsdes herdtiquesau
seizizme sidcle, contenant les cruautes des Schismatiques d'Angleterre.. . les
cruautesdes Huguenotsen France, et les barbariescruellesdes CalvinistesGueux
aux Pays-Bas. Reproductiondu texte... de 1588 (Lille, 1883), p. '38.
13 Hist. eccl., ii, pp. 650-I; "Massacres de ceux de la Religion
Orl6ans",
Arch. cur.,vii, p. 295. Hist. eccl.,ii, p. 839 (Valognes), iii, p. 315 (Orange).
14 From the memoirs of Canon Bruslart of Paris, quoted in Arch. cur.,
iv, p. 57, n.I .
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RELIGIOUS RIOT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURYFRANCE
57
A morefrequentgoal of theseriots,however,is thatof ridding
the communityof dreaded pollution. The word "pollution" is
oftenon thelipsoftheviolent,and theconceptserveswellto sumup
the dangerswhich rioterssaw in the dirtyand diabolic enemy.
A priestbringsornamentsand objectsforsingingthe Mass into a
Bordeauxjail. The Protestant
prisonersmashesthemall. "Do you
wanttoblasphemetheLord's nameeverywhere?Isn'titenoughthat
the templesare defiled? Must you also profaneprisonsso nothing
is unpolluted?"15 "The Calvinistshave pollutedtheirhands with
everykindofsacrilegemencanthinkof", writesa DoctorofTheology
in 1562. Not long afterat the Sainte Chapelle,a man seizes the
elevatedhostwithhis "pollutedhands" and crushesit underfoot.
The worshippersbeat him up and deliverhim to the agents of
could be viewedas
Parlement.16 The extentto whichProtestants
vesselsof pollutionis suggestedby a popularbeliefaboutthe origin
of the nickname"Huguenots". In the cityof Tours, le roi Huguet
("King Huguet") was the genericname forghostswho, insteadof
camebackto rattledoorsand haunt
spendingtheirtimein Purgatory,
wentout at nightsto their
and harmpeople at night. Protestants
and so thepriestsand thepeoplebeganto call
lasciviousconventicles,
them Huguenotsin Tours and then elsewhere. Protestants
were,
thus,as sinisteras the spiritsof the dead, whomone hopedto settle
in theirtombson All Souls' Day."7
voices
One does not have to listenverylong to sixteenth-century
of either
to hearthe evidenceforthe uncleanlinessand profanation
side. As forthe Protestants,
Catholicsknew that,in the styleof
earlierheretics,theysnuffedout the candlesand had sexual intercourse after the voluptuous Psalmsingingof their nocturnal
conventicles.When theirservicesbecamepublic,it was no better,
fortheirHoly Supper was perceived(in the wordsof a merchantdraper of Lyon) as disorderedand drunken,"a bacchanalia".18
15Crespin, Martyrs,ii, p. 470.
des Eglises Catholiques,par
"1 Claude de Sainctes, Discourssur le saccagement
les Heretiquesancienset nouveaux Calvinistesen l'an 1562 (1563) in Arch. cur.,
iv, p. 368; Haton, Mimoires,p. 375.
11Hist. eccl.,i, p. 308. On popular attitudestoward ghostsand the souls of
the dead, see Arnold Van Gennep, Manuel de FolkloreFrancais, 4 vols. (Paris,
et genres
1943-58), ii, pp. 791-803; Andr' Varagnac, Civilisationtraditionnelle
de vie (Paris, 1948), ch. 7; Roger Vaultier,Le Folklorependantla guerrede Cent
Ans d'apres les Lettresde Remissiondu Trdsordes Chartes (Paris, 1965), p. 80;
Keith Thomas, Religionand theDecline of Magic (London, 1971), PP. 587-606.
18 Haton, Me'moires, pp. 49-50, and p. 511 on "incest" among Huguenots,
spurred on by reading the Bible in French. Crespin, Martyrs, ii, p. 546.
Gabriel de Saconay, Genealogie et laTFin des Huguenaux, et descouvertedu
Calvinisme(Lyon, 1573), fo. 68v, who cites a work by Antoine Mochi, alias
(cont.onp. 58)
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58
PAST AND PRESENT
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licencewithwhichtheylivedwhichwas
Butit was notjustthefleshly
booksand the
unclean,butthethingstheysaid in their"pestilential"
thingstheydid in hatredof the Mass, the sacramentsand whole
Catholicreligion. As the representative
of the clergysaid at the
Estatesof Orleans,the hereticsintendedto leave "no place in the
Kingdomwhichwas dedicated,holy and sacred to the Lord, but
would onlyprofanechurches,demolishaltarsand breakimages".1"
The Protestants'
senseof Catholicpollutionalso stemmedto some
extentfromtheirsexualuncleanness,herespecifically
of the clergy.
Protestantpolemicnevertiredof pointingto the lewdnessof the
clergywiththeir"concubines". It was rumouredthatthe Church
of Lyon had an organization
of hundredsof women,sortof temple
at the dispositionof priestsand canons;and an observer
prostitutes,
pointedoutwithdisgusthow,aftertheFirstReligiousWar,theMass
and the brothelre-enteredRouen together. One ministereven
claimedthatthe clergywere forthe most part Sodomites.20 But
more seriousthan the sexual abominationsof the clergywas the
defilement
of the sacred by Catholicrituallife,fromthe diabolic
magicoftheMass to theidolatrousworshipofimages. The Mass is
"vile filth";"no people pollutethe House of the Lord in everyway
morethantheclergy". Protestant
convertstalkedoftheirown past
(note18 cont.)
De Mochares, Apologie contrela Cene Calvinique, printed in Paris in 1558.
Gueraud, Chronique,p. 147. Also, note the reactionof the Catholics Florimond
de Raemond and Claude de Rubys to male and female voices joining together
in the Psalms: Florimond de Raemond, L'histoirede la naissance,progrez et
decadence de l'herdsiede ce sikcle(Rouen, 1623), p. I,010; Claude de Rubys,
Histoireveritablede la ville de Lyon (Lyon, 1604), pp. 390-I ("Leurs chansons
Androgynes",etc.).
19Gentian Hervet, Discourssur ce que les pilleurs,voleurset brusleursd'Eglises
disentqu'ils n'en veulentqu'auz Prestres.Au Peuple de Rheims,et des environs
(Paris, 1563): "The execrable words of diabolic ministers","pestilentiallittle
books full of poison"; Haton, Mbmoires,p. I5o; harangue of Canon Jean
Quintin at Orleans, Dec. I56o, in Hist. eccl., i, p. 476. Another Catholic
quotation expressing these attitudes and fears is: "Nothing remains in the
churches. The impious takes away everything. He destroys,he overturns,he
pollutesall holyplaces" - fromthe MS. "De tristibusFrancorum" illustrated
with pictures of the iconoclastic Protestants of Lyon with animal heads:
Leopold Niepce, Monumentsd'art de la Primatialede Lyon, ddtruitsou aliends
pendant l'occupationprotestanteen 1562 (Lyon, 1881), pp. 16-17.
20 Le Cabinet du Roi de
France, described in Jean-Jacques Servais and
(Paris, 1965), p. 170.
Jean-PierreLaurend, Histoireet dossierde la prostitution
Crespin, Martyrs, iii, p. 324, i, PP. 385-90. [Pierre Viret], Le Manuel ou
Instructiondes Curez et Vicaires de l'Eglise Romaine (Lyon, 1564), p. 137; for
the identification
of the authorof thiswork see R. Linder, The Political Ideas of
Pierre Viret(Travaux d'humanismeet renaissance,lxiv, Geneva, 1964), p. 189.
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RELIGIOUS RIOT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURYFRANCE
59
lives as a timeof befoulment
and dreadedpresent"contamination"
fromCatholicchurchesand rites.21
Pollutionwas a dangerousthingto sufferin a community,
from
eithera Protestantor a Catholicpointof view,forit would surely
provokethe wrathof God. Terriblewind stormsand floodswere
sometimestaken as signs of His impatienceon this count.22
had also to worryaboutoffending
Catholics,moreover,
Maryand the
saints; and thoughthe anxious,expiatoryprocessionsorganizedin
thewakeof Protestant
sacrilegemighttemporarily
appeasethem,the
hereticsweresure to strikeagain.23 It is not surprising,
then,that
so manyoftheactsofviolenceperformed
by Catholicand Protestant
crowdshave(as we shallsee morefullylateron) thecharacter
eitherof
ritesof purification
or of a paradoxicaldesecration,
intendedto cut
downon uncleannessby placingprofanethings,likechrism,back in
the profaneworldwheretheybelonged.
This concern of Catholic and Protestantcrowds to destroy
of the insistenceof revolutionary
pollutingelementsis reminiscent
millenarianmovementsthat the wickedbe exterminated
thatthe
rule.
The
resemblance
is
is
but
limited.
Our
real,
godly may
Catholicand Protestantriotershave a convictionnot so much of
theirimmanentgodlinessas of the rightnessof theirjudgement,
envisagenotso mucha societyof saintsas a holiersocietyofsinners.
21
Hist. eccl.,i, p. 486; "R6cit de l'oeuvre du Seigneuren la ville de Lyon pour
action de grace" and "Epigramme du Dieu des papistes" in Anatole de
Montaiglon (ed.), Recueil de podsiesfrangoisesdes XVe et XVIe sikcles(Paris,
1867), vii, pp. 36-9, 42-5. On the loathsomeand magical aspects of the Mass,
Antoine de Marcourt, Declaration de la messe(Neuchitel, 1534). Les cauteles,
canon et ceremoniesde la messe (Lyon, 1564) (see n. 82 below). Thomas,
Book Iv,
Religion,pp. 33-5. Jean Calvin, Institutionde la religionchretienne,
para. i8, in loannis Calvini Opera quae supersuntomnia,ed. G. Baum, E. Cunitz,
E. Reuss, 57 vols. (Brunswick, 1863-96), iv, col. 1,o77 (ces villainesordures).
Calvin's comments on the "mire" of his earlier life in the Preface to his
Commentarieson the Psalms, Commentairesur le livre des Pseaumes in Opera
omnia,xxxi, col. 22. On the danger of "pollution" and "contamination"from
Catholic religious life, Crespin, Martyrs,i, p. 563 and Haton, Mimoires,pp.
407-8.
22 Haton,
Mdmoires,pp. 427-8; [Jean Ricaud], Discours du massacrede ceux
de la ReligionReformee,
fait &Lyon par les catholiquesromains,le vingthuictieme
de moisde aoat et jours ensuivantde l'an 1572 (1574) (Lyon, 1847), pp.
;
De l'effroyableet merveilleuxdesbordde la riviare du Rhosne en 1570IIO-II
(first
published Lyon, 1576; Lyon, 1848 edn.), p. 6.
23 There were expiatory
processionsin Paris in the wake of "execrable crimes"
against religiousstatues in 1528, 1547, 1550, 1551, 1554 and 1562, described in
Le Journald'un bourgeoisde Paris sous le rdgne
de Franfoisler (1515-1536), ed.
V. L. Bourrilly (Paris, I9Io), pp. 290-4; M. F6libien and G. A. Lobineau,
Histoirede la ville de Paris (Paris, 1725), iv, pp. 676-9, 728, 748, 755, 765, 804-5;
Arch. cur.,iv, pp. 99-102. Note also the expiatoryprocessionin Lyon afteran
iconoclastic outrage in 1553 in Gueraud, Chronique,pp. 65-6.
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60
PAST AND PRESENT
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For Catholiczealots,the extermination
of the heretical"vermin"
the
restoration
of
to
the
promised
body social and the
unity
boundaries:
guaranteeof its traditional
And let us all sayin unison:
Long live theCatholicreligion
Long livetheKing and goodparishioners,
Parisians,
Long live faithful
And mayit alwayscometo pass
That everypersongoes to Mass,
One God, one Faith,one King.24
"vermin"promised
For Protestant
zealots,thepurgingofthepriestly
the creationof a new kind of unitywithinthe body social, all the
becausefalsegodsand monkishsectswouldno longerdivideit.
tighter
Relationswithinthesocialorderwouldbe purer,too,forlewdnessand
love of gain would be limited. As was said of Lyon afterits
"deliverance"in 1562:
And again:
Lyonhas changedindeed...
The profitof Mercury,
thedanceofVenus
And presumption,
too,each man has leftaside.
Whenthistownso vain
Was filled
Withidolatryand dealings
Of usuryand lewdness,
It had clericsand merchants
aplenty.
But onceit was purged
And changed
By theWordof God,
That broodof vipers
Could hope no more
To live in so holya place.25
Vivele
"4"Et dironstousd'unebonneunyon:/Vivela catholicquereligion/
Vivefidelles
Et jusquesa tantn'ayons
Parisiens,/
Royet les bonsparroyssiens,/
cesse/Que chascunailleAla messe/Un Dieu, une Foy,un Roy": "Dl1uge des
as "vermin",
HuguenotzfaictAParis"inArch.cur.,vii,p. 259. On Protestants
Gu6raud, Chronique,p. 141; Saconay, Genealogie,p. 64a; Claude de Rubys,
Histoireveritable,p. 404.
I have triedin thisparagraphto generalizeEsthbe'simportant
insightin
Day massacres:that
regardto thepopularaspectof the SaintBartholomew's
theProtestants
(pp. 194-5). Thereseemsto me very
appearedas "profaners"
"a
littleevidence,however,thatthe Catholickillerswishedto exterminate
and misreadstheevidencein regard
race" (p. 197). This exaggerates
foreign
ofmales(see below,pp. 78,
womenandthecastration
to thekillingof pregnant
actions,
82-3 and n. 87). Hereticswere hatedfor pollutingand disorderly
forcedthembackto theMass rather
notas a "race"; andthecrowdssometimes
thankillingthem.
25 "Lyon est bien change... /De Mercurele gain,& de Venus la dance/
Tout hommea delaiss6,& touteoutrecuidance":Egloguede deuxBergers,
Demonstrantcommela ville de Lyon a estd reduitea la Religion vrayement
Chrestienne,
par la pure predicationde l'Evangile (Lyon, 1564), A 4r. "Quand
D'usureet de paillarcestevilletantvaine/Estoitpleine/D'idolatrieet procks/
onp. 61)
(cont.
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RELIGIOUSRIOTIN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY
FRANCE
61
Crowdsmightdefendtruth,and crowdsmightpurify,but there
was also a third aspect to the religiousriot - a politicalone.
E. P. Thompsonhas shownhow in the eighteenth-century
English
food-riot,the crowd'sbehaviourwas legitimatedby a widelyheld
beliefthatit was actingin place of the government.If the justices
of the peace failedto do theirlegal dutyin guaranteeing
the food
supply,thenthe crowdwouldcarryout the provisionsof the Assize
forthem."2 I have foundthe same thingto be true,at leastas far
as the menupeuple("the littlepeople") are concerned,in the great
or GrandeRebeine,of Lyon in 1529. Under theslogan,
grain-riot,
"The communeis risingagainstthe hoardersof grain",the crowd
meton the groundswheremunicipalassemblieswereordinarily
held
and then went about openingthe municipalgranaryand seizing
grainfromwealthypeople withample supplies,actionswhichthe
in thepast,buthad failedto do promptly
citycouncilhad undertaken
crisis.
In
the
current
the grain-riot
of Provinsin 1573,the
during
artisansseized grain that had been sold at a high price to nonresidentsof the city because the civic authoritieshad failed to
provisionthe townat an honestprice.27
Now we can deducesomeofthesameassumptions
fromtheactions
of the religiouscrowdsof the mid-sixteenth
century. When the
had not used his swordto defendthe faithand the true
magistrate
churchand to punishthe idolators,thenthe crowdwould do it for
him. Thus, manyreligiousdisturbances
beginwiththe ringingof
the tocsin,as in a time of civic assemblyor emergency. Some
riots end with the marchingof the religious"wrongdoers"on
the otherside to jail. In 1561, for instance,Parisian Calvinists,
(note 25 cont.)
Et changee/
dise/Clercset marchanseut asses./Mais si tostqu'en futpurgee/
Par la Parollede Dieu:/ Cetteengencede vipere/
Plus n'espere/
D'habiteren si
sainctlieu": AntoineDu Plain,"De l'assistance
que Dieu a Faite~ sonEglisede
au XVIe sizcle(Paris,
Lyon" in H. L. Bordier(ed.), Le chansonnier
huguenot
et
1870),p. 221. On Catholicclergyas "vermin",see Discoursde la vermine
de Lyon,dechasse
avec la retraicte
des
prestraille
par le brasfortdu Seigneur,
moines... Par E.P.C. (1562) in Montaiglon,
Recueil,viii,pp. 24-45.
For the theoryin this paragraph,I have foundhelpfulMary Douglas's
remarkson the relationbetweenpollutionfears and concernfor social
boundaries(PurityandDanger,An AnalysisofConcepts
and Taboo
ofPollution
[London, 1966], ch. 7) and the definitions
by Neil J. Smelserof "valueorientedmovements"
Behavior,
(TheoryofCollective
pp. 120-9and ch. x).
6Thompson,"Moral Economy",pp. 91-115.
27 The essentialdocuments
on the Rebeineare reprintedin M. C. and
G. Guigue,BibliothBque
du lyonnais
historique
(Lyon,1886);andon theProvins
riotin Haton, Mgmoires,
to
pp. 714-25. For the relationof the food-riot
governmentalaction in France in the late seventeenthand eighteenth
see Louise Tilly,"The Food Riotas a Formof PoliticalConflictin
centuries,
ii (1971), pp. 23-57.
France",Ji. ofInterdisciplinary
History,
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62
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER 59
in Saint M6dard's Church
fearingthatthe priestsand worshippers
wereorganizingan assaulton theirservicesin thePatriarchegarden
nextdoor,firstriotedin SaintM6dardand thenseized somefifteen
Catholicsas "mutinous"and led themoff,"boundlikegalley-slaves",
to the Chiteletprison.28
If the Catholickillingof Huguenotshas in somewaystheformof
the
it also sometimeshas theformof imitating
a riteof purification,
magistrate.The mass executionsof Protestantsat Merindoland
Cabrieresin Provenceand at Meauxin theI540s, dulyorderedbythe
forheresyand high
Parlementsof Aix and of Paris as punishment
crowdmassacresoflaterdecades. The Protestants
treason,anticipate
thelightofthe
sensedthis:thedevil,unableto extinguish
themselves
Gospel throughthe sentencesof judges, now triedto obscure it
throughfuriouswar and a murderouspopulace. Whereasbefore
nowit is at thehandsof
theyweremademartyrs
by one executioner,
"infinitenumbersof them,and the swordsof privatepersonshave
becomethe litigants,
witnesses,judges,decreesand executorsof the
cruelties".29
strangest
acts of desecrationof
acts of tortureand official
Similarly,official
thecorpsesofcertaincriminalsanticipatesomeoftheactsperformed
by riotouscrowds. The publicexecutionwas,of course,a dramatic
and the wood-cut
eventin the sixteenthcentury,
and well-attended
documentedthescenefarand wide. Therethecrowd
and engraving
tongueoftheblasphemerpiercedor slit,the
mightsee theoffending
hands of the desecratorcut off. There the crowdcould
offending
his corpsequartered
watchthetraitordecapitatedand disemboweled,
sectionsof the
and thepartsborneoffforpublicdisplayin different
town. The body of an especiallyheinous criminalwas dragged
throughthe streets,attached to a horse's tail. The image of
lived on forweeks,even years,as the
exemplaryroyalpunishment
corpses of murdererswere exposed on gallows or wheels and
theheads of rebelson posts.30 We are not surprisedto learn,then,
de la mutinerie,tumulteet sedition,faite par les Prestres
2, Histoire veritable
Sainct Medard, contreles Fideles, le Samedy XXVII iour de December1562
[sic for 1561] in Arch. cur., iv, p. 55; memoirs of Canon Bruslart,Arch. cur.,
iv, p. 57, n. I; Haton, Mdmoires,p. 181. On Toulouse Catholic crowds leading
Protestantsto prison, see Hist. eccl., iii, pp. 17-18.
19Crespin, Martyrs,i, pp. 381-418, 494-500, iii, p.
639.
Decorum and
a0Samuel Y. Edgerton, Jr., "Maniera and the Mannaia:
and S. G. Nichols,
Robinson
in
F.
W.
the
Sixteenth
in
Century",
Decapitation
Jr. (eds.), The Meaning of Mannerism (Hanover, N.H., 1972), pp. 67-103;
Journal d'un bourgeois,pp. 229, 373, 384-5; Claude Bellibvre, Souvenirs de
voyagesen Italie et en Orient.Notes historiques,ed. C. Perrat (Geneva, 1956),
p. 26, n. 27; Haton, Mimoires,p. 375; Gueraud, Chronique,pp. 28-9; Pierre de
(cont.onp. 63)
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FRANCE
RELIGIOUSRIOT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY
63
thatthebodyofAdmiralColignyhad alreadybeenthrownout ofthe
windowby the king'smen and stonedby the Duc de Guise hours
before the popular attackson it began in 1572. Furthermore,
crowdsoftentooktheirvictimsto places of official
execution,as in
Paris in 1562, when the Protestantprinter,Roc Le Frere, was
draggedforburningto the Marcheaux Pourceaux,and in Toulouse
the same year,when a merchant,slain in frontof a church,was
draggedfor burningto the town hall. "The King salutes you",
said a Catholiccrowdin Orleansto a Protestant
trader,thenputa cord
aroundhis neck as officialagentsmightdo, and led him offto be
killed.31
Riots also occurredin connectionwith judicial cases, eitherto
hurrythe judgementalong,or whenverdictsin religiouscases were
consideredtoo severeor too lenientby "the voice of the people".32
Thus in 1569 in Montpellier,a Catholiccrowdforcedthe judge to
condemnan important
Huguenotprisonerto deathin a hasty"trial",
thenseized him and hangedhim in frontof his house. In 1551 a
masked Protestantgroup kidnapped and released a goldsmith's
who had been condemnedin Lyon forheresyand was
journeyman,
to Paris. And in 1561 in Marsillargues,when
removed
being
prisonersforheresywerereleasedby royaldecree,a Catholiccrowd
"rearrested"them,and executedand burnedthemin the streets.33
The mostfascinating
exampleof the assumptionof the magistrate's
(note 30 cont.)
ed. Brunetet al., 12 vols. (Paris, 1888-96),ii,
L'Estoile,Medmoires-journaux,
desanciennes
loisfranfaises
pp. 323-4;F. A. Isambertetal. (eds.),Recueil
gendral
(Paris,1822),xii,nos. 115,210,xiii,nos. 18, 90; Edme de la Poix de Freminou traite'de la policegnderale
des villes,bourgs,
ville,Dictionnaire
paroisseset
de la campagne
seigneuries
(Paris,1758),pp. 56, 171; Le Roy Ladurie,Paysans,
p. 5o6; Roland Mousnier,L'assassinatd'HenriIV (Paris, 1964), pp. 32-4;
A. Allard,Histoirede la justicecriminelle
au seizieme
sikcle(Ghent,I868), pp.
333-4.
31 Hist.eccl.,
For
the
Marche
aux
as a placeofexecution
Pourceaux
ii,p. 175.
for heretics,see the Journald'un bourgeois,
pp. 384-5. Bosquet,Histoire,
p. 38.
32 L'Estoile, Mimoires-journaux,
ii, p. 85 (describinghere the freeingby
a Parisiancrowdof a man condemnedto deathforimpregnating
a young
woman).
33 JeanPhilippi,
in NouvelleCollection
desMemoires
pourservira
Mldmoires
de France,ed. Michaud and Poujoulat(Paris, 1838), viii, p. 634.
l'histoire
ii, p. 37; Hist.eccl.,i, p. 983. In Rouen,a Catholiccrowd
Crespin,Martyrs,
of 1563 pressured the Parlement to condemn Protestantsto death; a Catholic
crowd of 1571, having had some of its membersarrestedforkillingProtestants,
brokeintothe prisonand freedthem:Hist. eccl.,ii, p. 792, n. I; Crespin,
iii,pp. 662-3. For twoexamplesofCatholiccrowdsseizingfromthe
Martyrs,
gallows female hereticswho had been condemned merely to be hanged, and
burningtheminstead,see Hist. eccl.,iii, pp. 43-4 and L'Estoile,Memoiresjournaux,iii,p. 166.
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64
PAST AND PRESENT
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r61eby a crowd,however,is themocktrialby theboysofProvinsin
Champagnein October1572. A Huguenothad been hangedfor
theftsand killingscommitted
duringthereligioustroubles. Groups
ofboysputropesaroundhisneckand hisfeet,buta tug-of-war
could
notresolvewhichwaythecorpsewas to be dragged. The boysthen
electedlawyersand judgesfromamongtheirmidstfora trial. Before
the eyesof a hundredspectators,
theyarguedthe penalty,appealing
fromthedecisionoftherealjudgethattheHuguenotbe onlyhanged
and not burned alive. Afterthe boys' decision,the corpse was
draggedthroughthe streetsby the feetand burned.34
ofimagesby
The seizureofreligiousbuildingsand thedestruction
Calvinistcrowdswere also accomplishedwith the convictionthat
in
theyweretakingon ther61eoftheauthorities.WhenProtestants
Montpellier
occupieda churchin 1561,theyarguedthatthebuilding
belongedto themalready,sinceitsclergyhad been whollysupported
and burghersin the past and theproperty
belongedto
bymerchants
ministers
thetown. In Agenthesameyear,withReformed
preaching
aloneto eradicatethemarksof
thatit was theofficeofthemagistrate
Protestant
artisansdecidedone nightthat"if one tarriedfor
idolatry,
the Consistory,it would neverbe done" and proceededto break
intothe churchesand destroyall the altarsand images.35
To be sure, the relationof a French Calvinistcrowd to the
fromthatof a FrenchCatholiccrowd.
modelis different
magisterial
to ruyne
The kinghad notyetchastisedtheclergyand "putall ydolatry
had been urginghimsincethe early
as Protestants
and confusyon",
1530s.3. Calvinistcrowdswere usinghis sword as the kingought
to havebeen usingit and as someprincesand citycouncilsoutsideof
France had alreadyused it. Withinthe kingdombefore1560 city
councilshad onlyindicatedthe rightpath,as theyset up municipal
welfaresystemsorotherwise
limitedthesphere
schools,lay-controlled
of actionof the clergy.37Duringthe nextyears,as revolutionand
createdReformed
conversion
(suchas the
citycouncilsand governors
The boys were aged twelve or younger,
34 Haton, Mimoires, pp. 704-6.
according to Haton.
3" Hist. eccl., i, pp. 970, 889.
3- Antoine de Marcourt, The bookeof Marchauntes(London, 1547), C iv-iir
The Livre des Marchandswas firstpublished in Neuchatel in 1533. Antoinede
thecause and themeane,
Marcourt,A declarationof themasse,thefruytethereof,
whereforeand howe it oughteto be maynteyned(Wittenberg: Hans Luft [sic,
for London, John Day], I547), D ivV, conclusion writtenby Pierre Viret.
Marcourt's work firstappeared in French at Neuchitel in 1534.
37 Municipal schools in Toulouse, Lyon and Nimes among otherplaces, and
urban welfare systems in Paris, Rouen, Lyon, Troyes, Toulouse and other
cities. See N. Z. Davis, "Poor Relief, Humanism and Heresy: The Case of
Lyon", Studies in Medieval and RenaissanceHistory,v (1968), pp. 216-75.
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RELIGIOUSRIOTIN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY
FRANCE
65
Queen of Navarre)withinFrance,Calvinistcrowdsfinallyhad local
whoseactionstheycould promptor imitate.
magistrates
In general,then,the crowdsin religiousriotsin sixteenth-century
France can be seen as sometimesacting out clerical r6les of defilement
in
defendingtrue doctrineor riddingthe community
a violentversionofpriestor prophet- and as sometimesactingout
magisterialr1les. Clearly some riotous behaviour,such as the
extensivepillagingdoneby bothProtestants
and Catholics,cannotbe
subsumedundertheseheads; but justas the prevalenceof pillaging
in a war does not preventus fromtypingit as a holy war,so the
prevalenceof pillagingin a riotshouldnot preventus fromseeingit
as essentially
religious.
II
Whatevermadethepeoplethinktheycould rightfully
assumethe
r6les of priest, pastor and magistrate?Like other Catholic
writers,when the JesuitEmond Auger composed his Pedagogue
d'Armesin 1568 to urgea holywar to exterminate
the heretics,he
addressedhisinstruction
onlyto CharlesIX.38 Like otherReformed
preachers,PastorPierreVirettold his flockthatprivateindividuals
shouldnevertakeit upon themselvesto stop publicscandalsunder
coverof havingsome "extraordinary
vocation". There was no way
thatone could get certainevidencefroma Scriptureto showthata
was
particularprivateindividualhad such a calling,and everything
best left to those who held politicalpower.39 When Protestant
resistancetheorywas fullydevelopedit too neverconcededa clear
rightof violentdisobedienceto privatepersons.40Nor weresecular
in sixteenth-century
authorities
citiesin thehabitoftellingthe "little
people" thattheyhad a rightto riotwhentheyfeltlike it.
Yet the crowdsdid riot,and thereare remarkably
fewinstances
reported of remorse on the part of participantsin religious
disturbances. Of the many Catholic murderersmentionedin
un Prince Chrestiena
38 Emond Auger, Le Pedagogued'Armes. Pour instruire
bien entreprendre
et heureusement
acheverune bonneguerre,pour estrevictorieux
de tousles ennemisde son Estat, et de L'Eglise Catholique.Dedie au Roy, Par M.
Emond,de la Compagniede lesus (Paris, 1568), especially fos. 18r-24v.
9 Letter fromPierre Viret to the Colloque de Montpellier,15 Jan. 1562 in
Hist. eccl., i, pp. 975-7. Pierre Viret, L'Interim, Fait par Dialogues (Lyon,
I565), PP. 396-7. Linder, Political Ideas, pp. 137-8. Robert Kingdon, Geneva
and the Consolidationof theFrenchProtestantMovement(Madison, Wis., 1967),
pp. 153-5.
40 See, for instance,the Vindiciaecontra Tyrannos(trans. by J. H. Franklin)
on this subject in J. H. Franklin (ed.), Constitutionalism
and Resistancein the
SixteenthCentury(New York, 1969), pp. 154-6.
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PAST AND PRESENT
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Crespin'sBook of Martyrs,onlythreeweresaid to have fallenill in
devils
thewakeoftheirdeeds,to havebecomemad and died invoking
or denyingGod. Leading killersin the Lyon Vespers of 1572
exhibitedtheirbloodypourpointsin the streetsand braggedof the
numberstheyhad slain;theirsubsequentabsolutionby a papal legate
returned
appearsa formal,
politicalaffair. In caseswhereProtestants
to Mother Church, there may well have been some regretfor
smashingstatuesorassaultingpriests,buthereonlyas partofa whole
patternof "heretical"behaviour. So long as riotersmaintaineda
given religiouscommitment,
theyrarelydisplayedguilt or shame
fortheirviolence. By everysign,the crowdsbelievedtheiractions
legitimate.41
is thatin some,thoughby no means
One reasonforthisconviction
wereactivemembers
all, religiousriots,clericsand politicalofficers
in theirofficial
ofthecrowd,thoughnotprecisely
capacity. In Lyon
in 1562,PastorJeanRuffytookpartin the sack of the Cathedralof
SaintJeanwitha swordin his hand.42 Catholicpriestsseemto have
as in Rouen in 1560, whenpriests
been in quite a fewdisturbances,
in a CorpusChristiparadebrokeintothehousesof
and parishioners
Protestantswho had refusedto do the processionhonour.43 (In
othercases,the clergywas said to have been busybehindthescenes
organizingthe crowds.44) At Aix a band of Catholicrioterswas
headed by the FirstConsul of thatcity,whileat Lyon in 1562 the
and Consul, Jeande La Porte,led a Protestant
merchant-publisher
41 Crespin, Martyrs,iii, pp. 694, 701, 711-12 and 717.
The infrequencyof
these tales of remorseis all the more significantbecause they could be used so
readily by Protestantsto show the just punishment of God: cf. Hist. eccl.,
i, p. 357. Pastor Jean Ruffy,formallyrebuked by Calvin for hisr6le in an
iconoclasticriotin Lyon in 1562 (Robert Kingdon, Geneva and theComingofthe
Wars of Religionin France, 1555-1563 [Geneva, 1956], p. IIo), led a Protestant
crowd against dancing Catholics in 1565 (de Rubys, Histoire, p. 406). On
ambivalenceabout disobedienceand violentbehaviourthatmightbe embedded
deep in the feelingsof rioters,I have no evidence one way or the other.
42Gueraud,
Chronique, p. 155; Charles Du Moulin, Omnia... Opera,
5 vols. (Paris, I68I), v, p. 618; Kingdon, Geneva and the Coming,p. Iio.
For otherallegationsthatprieststookpartin Catholic
43 Hist. eccl.,i, p. 352.
riots in Toulouse, 1562 (ibid., iii, pp. 4-5); in Lavaur, 156I (i, pp. 938-9); in
Clermont in Auvergne, 1568, Crespin, Martyrs, iii, p. 651. Also see the
commentsof the priestClaude Haton about brawling priestswith swords in
theirhands, Mdmoires,pp. 17-18.
44For instance,priestsat Nemours were said to have helped plan an attackon
Protestantstherein 156I, and Dominicans at Revel are alleged to have organized
an attack on Psalm-singersthe same year: Hist. eccl., i, pp. 833-4, 959. The
bishop of Autun was accused of organizinggroups of artisans to exterminate
Protestantsin that city in 1562, and Cardinal Strozzi, the bishop of Albi, was
supposed to have helped to organize a massacre in Gaillac in May 1562: ibid.,
iii, pp. 487-8, 8o-1.
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RELIGIOUS RIOT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURYFRANCE
67
crowd
groupto an assaulton thecloisterofSaintJust.45 The fighting
of Protestants
which"arrested"Catholicsat SaintMedard'sChurch
in 1561had in itsmidstthechiefofficer
ofthe"royalwatch"in Paris.
And amongtheimage-smashers
ofAgenthesameyearwas thetown
executioner. "It is my officeto set fire",he said as he put the
statuesto theflames.46 Finally,thereis thewell-known
participation
of some of the militiaofficersin the Saint Bartholomew'sDay
massacresin Paris and in the Lyon Vespers. Their murdering
and
sacking,as JanineEstebehas pointedout forParis,wentbeyondany
informalencouragement
that they had fromthe king and clearly
the
official
orders
beyond
giventhembytheBureaude la Ville.47
On theotherhand,notall religiousriotscould boastof officers
or
mustbe sought.
clergyin thecrowd,and othersourcesoflegitimation
Here we mustrecognizewhatmixedcues weregivenout by priests
andpastorsin theirsermonson heresyoridolatry. If we do notknow
whether
to believetheCatholicpriest,Claude Haton,in hisclaimthat
a Huguenot preacher at Sens told his congregationthat "to
exterminate
papal verminwould be a greatsacrificeto God", it is
that iconoclasticriots in Gien and Rouen both
surelysignificant
occurredon 3 May 1562aftersermonson thetextfromDeuteronomy
xii withwhichI opened this study.48 Howevermuch Calvin and
otherpastorsopposed such disturbances(preferring
thatall images
and altarsbe removedsoberlyby the authorities),
theynevertheless
werealwaysmorereadyto understand
and excusethisviolencethan,
march. Perhaps,
say,thatof a peasantrevoltor of a journeymen's
afterall, the popularidol-smashing
was due to "an extraordinary
power (vertu)from God". How else was it possible, says Jean
Crespinabout iconoclasmin the Netherlandsin 1566, for a small
numberof men,womenand children,badlyequippedand ofmodest
condition,to demolishin fourdays whatit would have takenmany
45 Crespin, Martyrs,iii, pp. 390-I; Leopold Niepce, "Les tresorsdes Eglises
de Lyon", Revue lyonnaise,viii (1884), p. 40, n. I.
4" Haton, Mdmoires,p. 182; Histoireveritablede la mutinerie... faite par les
PrestresSainct Medard, in Arch. cur.,iv, p. 56. On the positionof thechevalier
du guet,or chiefofficerof the watch, in Paris, see Isambert,Recueil,xii, no. 296.
Hist. eccl., i, p. 889.
of Paris
47 Estebe, Tocsin,pp. 137-40. The ordersgivento the militiaofficers
from22 Aug. to 30 Aug. 1572 are printedin HistoireGindralede Paris. Rdgistres
des ddliberations
du Bureau de la ville de Paris, ed. F. Bonnardot,19 vols. (Paris,
1883-1958), vii, pp. 9-20. Also see the leadership of doctors of theologyand
militiacaptains in an unofficialburningof Protestantbooks by a Catholic crowd
in Paris in 1568: Felibien and Lobineau, Histoire,iv, p. 828; I am gratefulto
Alfred Soman for this reference.
4" Haton, Mimoires,p. 191. Hist. eccl., ii, pp. 537-8, 719-20.
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68
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER 59
masons twice as long to do? How else to explainthe fact that
artisans,women and childrenhad been able to clean out fifty
churchesin Rouenin onlytwenty-four
hours?49 PastorPierreViret
have
wondered
about
God's
may
similarly
r61ein a crowdseizureof
Nimes cathedralin December1561. Though he had opposedsuch
actions,he was nevertheless
willingto preachto the Calvinistsin the
churchthreedayslater.50
The r61eof Catholicpreachersin legitimating
popularviolence
was even more direct. If we don't know whetherto believe the
Protestantclaim that Catholicpreachersat Paris were tellingtheir
congregationsin 1557 that Protestantsate babies, it is surely
that,in the year of the attackon the rue St. Jacques
significant
conventicle,Catholicpreachersdid blame the loss of the battleof
SaintQuentinon God's wrathat thepresenceofhereticsin France.51
In the next years,theyheld up Ahab and his wifeJezebel,and
Belshazarand othersas examplesoftheterribleend thatwouldcome
to those who toleratedidolatry. Before a Catholic riot at the
in the
Cimiti"redes Innocents,BrotherJeande Han toldhis listeners
churchthattheycouldnotcounton royaljudgesto punishLutherans
and would have to take mattersinto theirown hands.52 On St.
Michael's Day I572 at Bordeaux,a few days beforethe massacres
there,the JesuitEmond Augerpreachedon how the Angel of the
Lord had alreadyexecutedGod's judgementin Paris, Orleansand
elsewhere,and would also do so in Bordeaux.53 And if Protestant
pastorscould timidlywonderif divinepowerwerenot behindthe
forceof the iconoclasts,priestshad no doubts that
extraordinary
certainmiraculousoccurrencesin the wake of Catholicriotswere
a signofdivineapproval,suchas a coppercrossin Troyesthatbegan
to changecolourand curepeoplein 156I, theyearof a riotin which
hawthorntreeat
and the long-barren
CatholicsbestedProtestants,
49 Crespin, Martyrs, iii, pp. 519-22; Hist. eccl., ii, pp. 719-20.
Also, see
Cond6's letter to the king of May 1562, in which he argues that though "le
peuple" was at faultfordestroyingimageswithoutwaitingforan orderfromthe
magistrate,nevertheless,theiraction could be imputed to "a secretmovement
of God, inciting the people to detest and abhor idolatry, and not to any
disobedience or rebellion": Hist. eccl., ii, p. 74.
50 Ann Guggenheim,"Calvinism and the Political elite of SixteenthCentury
Nimes" (New York UniversityPh.D. thesis, 1968), ch. 6, p. 214.
51Crespin, Martyrs,ii, pp. 538, 546. Hist. eccl., i, pp. 268-9.
52 Haton, M'moires, pp. 527-9; Hist. eccl., i, pp. 192-3, 48I.
53 Crespin, Martyrs,iii, p. 727; Henri Hauser, "Le pere Emond Auger et le
massacre de Bordeaux, 1572", Bulletinde la socidtdd'histoiredu protestantisme
franfais,5th ser., viii (19II), pp. 289-306.
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RELIGIOUS RIOT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURYFRANCE
69
the Cimitieredes Innocents,which began to bloom from the
beginningof the Saint Bartholomew's
massacres.54
In all likelihood,however,thereare sourcesforthelegitimation
of
popularreligiousriotthatcome directlyout ofthe experienceofthe
local groupswhichoftenformedthe nucleusof a crowd- the men
and womenwhohad worshipped
in thedangerousdaysofthe
together
the men in confraternities,
in festivegroups,in
nightconventicles,
and
be
remembered
how often
militia
units.
It
should
youthgangs
conditionsin sixteenth-century
cities required groups of "little
people" to takethe law into theirown hands. Royal edictsthemselvesenjoinedanypersonwho saw a murder,theftor othermisdeed
to ring the tocsin and chase afterthe criminal.55Canon law
allowedcertainpriestly
suchas
r6lesto laymenintimesofemergency,
the midwife'sresponsibility
to baptizea babyin dangerof dying,56
while the r61leof preachingthe Gospel was often assumed by
Protestant
Churchwas set
laymenin thedecadesbeforetheReformed
up. Talking about the Bible among themselves,some Calvinist
decided that privatepersonsmightbe obligedto act
city-dwellers
of the magistratein defenceof religion,and even
independently
publisheda tract- The Civil and MilitaryDefenseof theInnocents
and of the Churchof Christ- in supportof this view with Old
Testamentprecedents.
57
Protestantwritersalso stress divine
54 Haton, Memoires,pp. 195-7, 681-2.
interventionto show God's disapproval of Catholic riotersand violence. For
instance, in Draguignan two Protestantskilled by a crowd were found three
months later with no sign of corruptionin theirbodies and with theirwounds
still freshin appearance. A Catholic who had been guardingthe bodies was
killed by Protestantsoldiersand his body instantlybecame rotten,and was eaten
by crows and dogs. Hist. eccl.,i, p. 428. In Marennes (Charente-Maritime),
a rich burgherwho triedto preventa Protestantservicebeing held and beat up
one of the Protestantsdied shortlyafterfromapoplexy. This was viewed as
the "hand of God" and led to the conversionof his childrento the new religion.
Ibid., i, p. 357.
5 Freminville, Dictionnaire, p. 400, citing edicts of 1536 and 1550.
Isambert, Recueil, xii, no. 115 (Edict of Sept. 1523), p. 531 (Edict of 25 Jan.
1536), pp. 557-8 (Edict of 9 May 1539).
56 Jacques Toussaert, Le sentiment
religieuxen Flandresa' la findu Moyen Age
(Paris, 1963), p. 90; T. J. Schmitt, L'organisationecclesiastiqueet la pratique
religieusedans la diocesed'Atun de i650o 1750 (Autun, 1957), P. 166. Until the
Council of Trent, canon law allowed that a marriagepromised between two
persons privately,without the presence of a priest, and consummatedwas a
sacrament. Even after Trent, it took some time for the 1564 legislation
requiring a priest's presence to be widely known and followed.
57La Deffensecivile et Militaire des Innocens et de l'Eglise de Christ was
published in Lyon in 1563, and burned on 12 June1563 aftera condemnationby
the pastors of Lyon and Governor Soubise: Du Moulin, Opera, v, pp. 17-22.
On Old Testament precedents for private individuals killing tyrants,see
Mousnier, Assassinat,p. 28.
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PAST AND PRESENT
70
NUMBER 59
Finally,the veryexperienceof singingthe Psalms togetherin
Frenchin a largearmedgroupintenton challengingthe religious
practicesoftheworldaroundit; theveryexperienceof beingpartof
a CorpusChristidayprocessionat a timewhendangerthreatened
the
sanctityof the host- theseprocessionalexperiencesin themselves
would feed a popularcertitudethatthe groupdid indeedhave the
righton occasionto moveintothe realmof violenceforthe sake of
religion.
III
What then of the occasionsfor religiousriot? By "occasions"
I don'tmeanherethespecificevents,suchas theSaintBartholomew's
rumourofconspiracy
to killtheking,whichhavetriggered
particular
instancesof religiousriot. Nor do I here mean anythingas grand
as theoriesof structuralstrain,relative deprivationamong the
people or crisesamongtheelite,whichmightaccountforthetiming
the chronological
of all riots. In fact,I am considering
questionof
I
not
.
.
that
am
little
in
this
is,
askingwhythere
paper
timingvery
in Lyon,say,in theearly'50s,58
area clusterofreligiousdisturbances
a clusterof religiousdisturbancesthroughoutFrance in the early
'6os, and so on. I don'thavetheextensivedata upon whichto base
such an analysis. Workingfromthe crowdbehaviouritself,I have
'merelystressedthefactthatreligiousriotis likelyto occurwhenit is
are failingin their
believedthatreligiousand/orpoliticalauthorities
them.
dutiesor need help in fulfilling
ofreligiousriot
All I wouldadd in regardto thetimingand triggers
variable.
is thata risein grainpricesdoes notseemto be a significant
in Toulouse in thefirstfive
For instance,the religiousdisturbances
monthsof 1562correspond
to a periodofgrainpriceswhichwerethe
twoyears. The supply
sameas, orlowerthan,thoseofthepreceding
was surelymoreabundanttherethanduringthe hard timesin the
springand early summerof 1557, when there was no religious
disturbance.
59 The Catholicattackon the conventicleon the rue
I
58These disturbancesincluded armed marchesof hundredsof Psalm-singing
Protestant artisans and their wives in the spring of 1551; "assemblies and
sedition" in the wake of hereticalpreachingby a Florentineat the St. Lawrence
Hospital in August 1551; the theftof all the ornamentand the Sacramentfrom
the Church of Fourvibresin October 1551; the desecrationof a crucifixand an
image of Saint Anne in January 1553, etc. Gueraud, Chronique,pp. 54-5,
58, 65-6; Archives departementalesdu Rh6ne, B, Senechauss&e, Sentences,
1551-2, Dec. 1551.
59Georges and Genevieve Freche, Les prix desgrains,des vinset des ldgumes&
Toulouse(1485-1868) (Paris, 1967), pp. 44-5. The famineand plague of 1557
were interpretedin Toulouse as the hand of God falling on the city for its
iniquities. The local governmentthen tried to purge the town of the "idle
vagabonds", to feedthe starvingin Toulouse and fromnearbyvillages,and to get
rid of "infecting vapors" and other filth in the streets. Antoine Noguier,
Histoire Tolosaine (Toulouse, n.d., royal privilege,1559), PP. 126-33.
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RELIGIOUS RIOT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURYFRANCE
71
SaintJacquesin September1557 occurredat a timewhengrainhad
droppedto a good low pricein Parisand was plentiful. The SaintMedardriotat theend of 1561tookplacewhenpriceswererising,but
would have thoughta famine
were far fromwhat contemporaries
level.s As forthe 1572massacres,theyoccurredat a timeofslowly
risinggrain prices, but not yet of serious dearth,with AugustSeptemberpricesin Paris beinga littlelowerthanthoseof October
precedingsum1571and in Toulouse lowerthanin theimmediately
mermonths.61In short,grainpricesare relevantto religiousriotin
ofthe
Franceonlyin thegeneraland indirectsensethattheinflation
on manyaspects
lastforty
had an effect
century
yearsofthesixteenth
of life,as did the ReligiousWars themselves. Perhapsit is onlyin
to the Flemish
thisbroadsensethattheyare partof thebackground
iconoclasticmovementof 1566 (I am here raisinga queryabout the
of Verlindenand his colleagues),the specifictrigger
interpretation
fortheriotsbeingmorelikely,as Crespinclaimed,thesuddenupsurge
in public Protestantpreaching.62 What are specificrises in grain
prices correlatedwith in France? Why, with grain riots and
whiteprocessionsto beg forrain.63
penitential
60Micheline Baulant and Jean Meuvret, Prix des cereales extraits de la
Mercuriale de Paris (1520-1698), 2 VOIs. (Paris, 1960), i, pp. 47, 49, 152-3.
Maximum prices for wheat in December 1561 were somethingover 5 livres
tournoisper setier,but a famineprice would be thoughtof in Paris as something
like the 91 i.t. per setier,to which wheat rose in the summer of 1546.
"' Freche, Prix, p. 46; Baulant and Meuvret, Prix, i, pp. 56-7.
Crespin, Martyrs,iii, pp. 518-9. A recent
62 See p. 54 and note 8 above.
study of fifteenth-century
Spain has shown how complex the relation was
between a rise in food prices and anti-Semiticpogroms. Its author suggests
that a prolonged rise in food prices is part of the general background for
a varietyof popular risings. The sharper the price rise, the more likely the
disturbance was not to be "exclusively anti-Semitic in character". Angus
MacKay, "Popular Movements and Pogroms in Fifteenth-CenturyCastile",
Past and Present,no. 55 (May 1972), pp. 58-9.
63 As in the white processionsin Lyon in the springof 1504 and in the great
grainriot,or GrandeRebeine,of Lyon in 1529: Paradin, Memoires,p. 281I;Davis
"Poor Relief", pp. 227-30. The assertion of the physician Symphorien
Champier,whose granarywas sacked in the GrandeRebeine,thatthe crowd also
smashed religiousstatuesin his house is surelyfalse and was not takenseriously
by contemporaries:ibid., n. 43, and H. Hours, "Proces d'heresie contreAim6
et renaissance,xix (1957), pp. 20-I. During
d'humanisme
Meigret", Bibliothdque
the droughtof spring 1556 in the Lyonnais, therewere both penitentialwhite
processionsof ruralparishionersto Lyon and a crowd attackon boats removing
grainfromthe cityforthe Order of Malta: Paradin, Memoires,p. 357; Gu'raud,
Chronique,p. 95.
For famine prices and grain riots in Provins in 1573 see Haton, Mimoires,
pp. 714 ff; famine prices and a penitentialprocession in Paris in June 1521,
Baulant and Meuvret,Prix, i, p. 94 and Journald'un bourgeois,
pp. 82-3; and for
extraordinary
prices and a bread riotin Paris in July1587, Baulant and Meuvret,
Prix, i, p. 223 and L'Estoile, Me'moires-journaux,
iii, p. 58.
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72
PAST AND PRESENT
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Questionsof chronologicaltimingapart,then,the occasion for
mostreligiousviolencewas duringthe timeof religiousworshipor
ritualand in the space whichone or both groupswere using for
of
sacredpurposes. Therewereexceptions,
of course. Profanation
religiousstatuesand paintingsmightoccurat night,especiallyin the
earlyyearswhenit was a questionof a smallnumberof Protestants
sneakinginto a church.64 Widespreadmurder,as in the 1572
- in thestreets,
in bedrooms. But
massacres,mightoccuranywhere
muchof the religiousriotis timedto ritual,and the violenceseems
oftena curiouscontinuation
of therite.
Almost everytype of public religiousevent has a disturbance
associatedwithit. The sightofa statueoftheVirginat a crossroad
ofthosewho
orin a wall-niche
provokesa Protestant
groupto mockery
reverenceher. A fight ensues. Catholics hide in a house to
entrapHuguenotswho refuseto dofftheirhatsto a Virginnearby,
and thenrushoutand beatthehereticsup.65 Baptism:in Nemours,
a Protestant
familyhas itsbabybaptizedon All Souls' Day according
to the new Reformedrite. With the help of an aunt, a group of
Catholicsstealsit away forrebaptism. A drunkardsees the father
and the godfather
and otherProtestants
discussingthe eventin the
streets,claps his sabotsand shouts,"Here are the Huguenotswho
have cometo massacreus". A crowdassembles,thetocsinis rung,
and a three-hourbattle takes place.66 Funeral: in Toulouse, at
triesto buryhis Catholicwifeby
a Protestant
Easter-time,
carpenter
the new Reformedrite. A Catholiccrowd seizes the corpse and
buriesit. The Protestants
dig it up and tryto reburyher. The
bellsarerung,and witha greatnoisea Catholiccrowdassembleswith
stonesand sticks. Fightingand sackingensue.67
Religiousservices:a CatholicMass is the occasionforan attack
of a sermon,whichthenleads to a
on the Host or the interruption
64 As in Paris on the day afterPentecost 1528, when some hereticscut offthe
head of a Virgin in a wall-niche at night: Journal d'un bourgeois,p. 291.
Iconoclastic episodes in Lyon in January 1553 probably occurred at night:
Gu6raud, Chronique,p. 65. For iconoclasticriotsin Annonay at nightin 1561
see Achille Gamon, Mimoires in Nouvelle Collectionsdes Memoirespour servir
a l'histoirede la France, ed. Michaud and Poujoulat (Paris, 1838), viii, p. 6II.
For an iconoclastic riot by sailors of Dieppe at night in 1562, see Hist. eccl.,
ii, p. 796.
Haton, Mimoires,
340-I; Hist. eccl., i, p. 284.
61
66Ibid., i, pp. 833-4;pp.
Crespin, Martyrs,iii, p. 2Io.
67
Hist. eccl., iii, pp. 4-5; Bosquet, Histoire, pp. 67-9. For an episode
concerninga Reformed burial at Bordeaux on All Souls' Day I56I, see Hist.
eccl., i, pp. 870-1.
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RELIGIOUS RIOT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURYFRANCE
73
Protestant
preachingin a homeattracts
largeCatholiccrowds
at the door, who stone the house or otherwisethreatenthe
worshippers.69In theyearswhentheReformedservicesarepublic,
oftheritesbecomesgraphic.Side bysideat Saint-Medard,
therivalry
the Vesperbells are rungto drownout the pastor'ssermon;side by
side at Provins,the Huguenotssing theirPsalmsto drownout the
Mass.70
But theseencounters
are as nothingcomparedto the disturbances
thatclusteraroundprocessionallife. Corpus ChristiDay, withits
crowds,coloured bannersand great crosses,was the chance for
Protestantsnot to put rugs in frontof theirdoors; for Protestant
womento sit ostentatiously
in theirwindowsspinning;forheroic
individuals,like the painterDenis de Vallois in Lyon, to throw
themselves
on the"God ofpaste"so as "to destroy
himin everyparish
in theworld". CorpusChristiDay was thechancefora procession
to turnintoan assaulton and slaughterof thosewhohad so offended
the Catholicfaith,itsparticipants
shouting,as in Lyonin 1561,"For
the fleshof God, we mustkill all the Huguenots".71 A Protestant
riot.68
8sE.g., at the Vespers service on the 18 March 1562 in Rouen (Hist. eccl.,
ii, p. 713, n. I); at Paris at the Sainte Chapelle in 1563 (Haton, Mdmoires,
p. 375); at Toulouse at the Eglise Saint Sernin while the Inquisitor della Lana
was preaching,4 May 1561 (Bosquet, Histoire,pp. 38-9). Bosquet claimed that
an hereticalmerchantwas killed by the zealous menupeuple afterhe shouted,
"You lie, hypocriticalmonk" and other blasphemous remarks. A Protestant
account claims that the merchantwas actually a Catholic, dissatisfiedwith the
seditious remarks made by the preacher (Hist. eccl., i, p. 905). Protestant
sources report other episodes in which jumpy Catholic worshipperskilled
persons as hereticswho were in fact Catholics. The victimshad been merely
asking formore room or had laughed at a neighbour's remark(e.g., Angers in
1561, ibid., i, p. 837; Paris, Church of Saint Eustache, 1558, and at the
Cimitieredes Innocents, 1559, ibid., i, pp. 193-4).
69 In addition to the well-known attack on the conventicle on the rue St.
Jacques in Paris in 1557, there were four attacks on conventiclesin Paris in
April-May 1561: F61ibienand Lobineau, Histoire,iv, pp. 797-8; R. N. Sauvage,
"Lettre de Jean Fernaga,
procureur syndic de la ville de Caen, touchant les
'
troubles survenus Paris en avril 1561", Bulletin de la socidtdde l'histoiredu
protestantisme
franfais,5th ser., viii (1911), pp. 809-12. Crowds in Lyon in
Sept. 1561 were out to sack all houses in which "people were having certain
assemblies" and threatened the house of the Protestant merchant Jerome
Pellissari: Archives d6partementalesdu Rh6ne, B, S6n6chauss6e, Audience,
Sept.-Dec. 1561. For an attackon a conventiclein Auxerreon 9 Oct. 1561, see
Hist. eccl., i, p. 852, and on one in Cahors on 16 Nov. 1561: Crespin, Martyrs,
iii, p. 211.
pp. 179-82,
70 Histoireveritable... in Arch. cur.,iv, p. 52; Haton, Medmoires,
147, 177-8; F61ibienand Lobineau, Histoire,iv, p. 8oo. Also see the conflict
between a Protestantservice at a pastel mill at Castelnaudryand a Catholic
procession for Pdques fleuriesin 1562: Hist. eccl., iii, p. 157.
71E.g., at Geneva at the Fite-Dieu, see Jeanne de Jussie, Le levain du
calvinisme,p. 94. At Le Crosic, Brittanyin 1558, and at Rouen in 1560; Hist.
eccl., i, pp. 179-80, 352. For the Lyon episode on Corpus ChristiDay, 1560,
see Gueraud, Chronique,pp. 133-4 and Archives d6partementalesdu Rh6ne,
B, S6n6chauss6e,Sentences, 1561-2, sentenceof 12 Sept. 1561. At ClermontFerrand in 1568, Crespin, Martyrs,iii, p. 651.
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74
PAST AND PRESENT
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processionwas a parade of armedmen and womenin theirdark
clothes,goingoffto servicesat theirtempleor outsidethecitygates,
singingPsalmsand spiritualsongsthatto Catholicearssoundedlike
insultsagainstthe Churchand her sacraments. It was an occasion
forchildrento throwstones,foran exchangeofscandalouswords"idolaters","devilsfromthePope's purgatory",
"Huguenotheretics,
forfighting.72Sometimesthe
livinglikedogs" - and thenfinally,
two processionsencounteredeach other,as in Sens in 1562. The
Calvinistswouldnotgivewayand insistedupon passingthroughthe
centreoftheCatholicprocession. The groupsconfronted
eachother
again afterservices,and the Catholics,aided by processionsfrom
peasantvillages,prevailedin a bloodybattle.73
The occasionswhichexpressmostconciselythe contrastbetween
thetworeligiousgroups,however,arethosein whicha popularfestive
Catholicismtook over the streetswith dancing,masks,banners,
costumesand music- "lasciviousabomination",accordingto the
Protestants.In Lyon, when Catholics did their traditional
summerdancingon St. Peter'sDay 1565, the Huguenotsattacked
themin a riotthatled eventuallyto the exile of PierreViretand
anotherpastorfromthe city. In Montpellier,in the summerof
theconfraternities
ofhundredsof
organizedSundayprocessions
156I,
men,womenand childrenwithpainsbdnits
("blessedloavesofbread")
- dancing,jumping,and crying,"In spite of the Huguenotswe
dance". 74
But festivitiesled to more than spite and intimidation.For
Mardi Gras at Issoudun in 1562, a Catholic group organizeda
thirteen
dramaticcostumeddanceforthirteen
reapers,thirpilgrims,
each armedwith
and thirteentithe-collectors,
teen wine-harvesters
gotholdofthescenarioforthis
largemacabretools. The Protestants
grislycarnivalandwereable to gettheplayersarrested.75In Pamiers
big Psalm-singingparades seem to have occurredin 155I1in Lyon,
72 The first
with artisans, and especially printers' journeymen, taking the initiative in
organizing them: Gueraud, Chronique,pp. 54-5; lettersof Claude Baduel to
Calvin in 1551 in JeanCalvin, Opera ... Omnia,xiv, pp. I6ff. See Gu6raud on
an episode in Lyon in Dec. 1561, Chronique,p. 145. Also see Haton, Mimoires,
pp. 177-8, 190; Bosquet, Histoire,p. 60, and Hist.eccl.,iii, p. 2 on Toulouse in
1562. See L'Estoile, Mimoires-journaux,i, p. 157 on the stoning of
"Huguenot troops" returningfromservicesintoParis in Sept. 1576, followedby
a violentmelde.
7 Haton, M'moires, pp. 189-94.
n. I. In
74 De Rubys, Histoire,p. 406; Hist. eccl., i, pp. 969-70 and 970,
Rouen in 1562, Protestantmenupeuple stonedthe membersof the festiveAbbey
of Conards as they were about to begin their Mardi Gras activities: ibid., ii,
p. 713.
75 Hist. eccl., i, p. 844.
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RELIGIOUS RIOT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURYFRANCE
75
in 1566,however,thefestiveyouthsociety,withitspopes,emperors,
bishopsand abbots,was able to dance its Pentecostaldance to the
end. The Calvinists,
whohad stonedearlierdances,triedto prevent
the affair,but the Catholicgroup insisted. "If [the heretics]can
preachsecretly,thenwe can dance - or it will cost fivehundred
heads". Aftera processionwith relics and a silverstatue of St.
and
Anthony,the dancingbegan,threeby three,withtambourines
minstrels. When theygot to the quarterwherePastorDu Moulin
was preaching,the song turnedinto "kill,kill',and seriousfighting
beganwhichwas to dividethetownforthreedays. "It's a longtime
sinceI was up to myelbowsin Huguenotblood", one ofthedancers
said. He was to be disappointed,
forthistimeit was theHuguenots
who won.76
These occasionsforreligiousriotshow us how characteristic
was
massacres. A marriage
the scenariofortheParis St. Bartholomew's
- one ofthegreatritesof passage,but here,as withthe baptismof
Nemoursand the burialat Toulouse,conflictoverwhetherits form
- and thenweddingmasquesofall
shouldbe Catholicor Protestant
kinds. In one, laterseen as an allegoryof comingevents,the king
and his brotherspreventwanderingknightsfromenteringParadise
and arepulleddownto Hell bydemons.77 Soon after,as in Pamiers,
the festivity
turnedintoa riteof violence.
IV
As withliturgicalrites,therewere some differences
betweenthe
rites of violence of Catholic and Protestantcrowds. The good
Calvinistauthorsof the Histoireecclhsiastique
wentso faras to claim
thatoutsideofthemurderofa certainSeigneurde Fumel,killedin the
Agenois "not for religionbut for his tyrannies","those of the
76Discours des troublesadvenusen la Ville de Pamies le 5 luin 1566. Avec un
l'Annee precedente(1567) in Arch. cur., vi,
briefrecit des calamitez souffertes
pp. 309-43. On the relation between carnival and masked festivities,and
various kinds of disturbance, see Le Roy Ladurie, Paysans, i, pp. 395-9;
N. Z. Davis, "The Reasons of Misrule: Youth Groups and Charivaris in
Sixteenth-CenturyFrance", Past and Present,no. 50 (Feb. 1971), pp. 68-70;
and A. W. Smith, "Some Folklore Elements in Movements of Social Protest",
Folklore,77 (1966), pp. 241-51.
77 Relation du massacrede la Saint-Barthelemyin Arch. cur., vii, pp. 88-9;
Frances Yates, The FrenchAcademiesof the SixteenthCentury(London, 1947),
pp. 254-9. Marriage as a possible occasion forslaughterremainedin the mind
of Henri de Navarre. In I588 he feared that the festivitieswhich an
Armagnacnoblemanwas givingforhis daughter'sweddingwere an occasion for
a plot on his life. To preventthis,one of Navarre's supporters,a neighbourof
the nobleman, enteredthe house with a band of men duringthe festivitiesand
slaughtered about thirty-fivegentlemen: L'Estoile, Memoires-journaux,iii,
p. 121.
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PAST AND PRESENT
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NUMBER 59
ReformedReligionmadewaronlyon imagesand altars,whichdo not
bleed,whilethoseoftheRomanreligionspilledbloodwitheverykind
of cruelty".78Though there is some truthin this distinction,
riotersdid in factkilland injurepeople,and notmerelyin
Protestant
self-defence;and Catholic riotersdid destroyreligiousproperty.
At the Patriarchegardenin Paris, at Vassy, at Senlis, Catholics
smashed the pulpits and benches used in Reformedworship;at
Amienstheywenton to burnthem.79 As houses whichhad been
used forProtestant
worshipin Meaux and Pariswereorderedto be
razed by Parlementary
decree,so in Lyon in I568 a Catholiccrowd
razed the ProtestantTempledu Paradis,whichhundredsof Psalmsingingmen,womenand childrenhad builtonlya fewyearsbefore.80
BothProtestant
and Catholiccrowdsdestroyed
books. The Catholic
targetwas especiallythe FrenchBibleswhichtheyhad so oftenseen
in the I540s and I550s.81 The
burnedpubliclyby the authorities
Calvinisttargetswereespeciallythepriests'manuals,themissalsand
the breviarieswhich Protestantwriterslike Viret had already
desecratedin grossand comicsatire.82
Nevertheless,when all this is said, the iconoclasticCalvinist
78
Hist. eccl., i, p. 887.
la mutinerie... faite par les PrestresSainct Medard
..., p. 62; Crespin, Martyrs,iii, p. 205; Hist. eccl., ii, pp. 425, 433-5.
80Crespin, Martyrs,i, pp. 495-8; Discours de ce qui avint touchantla Croix
de Gastines l'an 1571, vers Noel, extractedfrom Mimoires... de Charles IX,
in Arch. cur.,vi, pp. 475-8. De Rubys, Histoireveritable,pp. 402, 412. [Jean
fait & Lyonpar les
Ricaud], Discoursdu massacrede ceux de la ReligionReformde,
du mois de aozit et jours ensuivantde l'an
catholiquesromains,le vingthuictieme
1572 (1574) (Lyon, 1847), PP. 9-13.
81 Crespin, Martyrs,iii, p. 204; Hist. eccl.,ii, pp. 650-1, 839, 883, 932-3; iii,
15, 315; F6libien and Lobinaux, Histoire,iv, p. 828.
82 Bosquet, Histoire,pp. 22, 143-4; Haton, Mimoires, p. 18I; de Sainctes,
Discourssur le saccagement... in Arch. cur.,iv, p. 384; Hist. eccl., i, p. 935, ii,
pp. 720, n. I and 925, iii, p. 515. A Catholic polemical piece fromToulouse
describes the opening Protestant"crime" in that city as the sale by Protestant
librairesof the Canon de la Messe, which the Calvinistshad depraved. This is
in all probabilitya Protestantedition of the Missal, with mockingand satirical
footnotesthroughout,which had various editions,including one in Lyon in
1564: Les cauteles,canon et ceremoniesde la messe.Ensemblela messeintituli,
extraict
Du corpsde Iesuchrist.Le touten Latin et en Franpois:Le Latin fidelement
du Messel a l'usage de Rome imprime' Lyon par lean de Cambrayl'an mil cinq
of
Marcourt's
the
comic
tradition
In
censvingt(Lyon: Claude Ravot, 1564).
Livre des Marchands,the work resemblesin organizationPierre Viret's satirical
Manuel, ou Instructiondes Curez et Vicaires (Lyon: Claude Ravot, 1564).
As with statue-smashing,Protestantpastorsmuch preferredthat ecclesiastical librariesbe confiscatedand catalogued by the authorities(as in the Archives
departementalesdu Rh6ne, 3E566, Inventoryof Io May 1562) and not destroyed
iii, p. 515, expressed regretat the
by the crowds. The Histoireeccldsiastique,
insolence of Huguenot soldiers who destroyedan enormous quantityof books
at the Abbey of Cluny under the impressionthat they were all Missals.
79 Histoire veritablede
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RELIGIOUS RIOT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURYFRANCE
77
crowdsstillcomeout as thechampionsin thedestruction
ofreligious
property("with more than Turkishcruelty",said a priest). This
was not onlybecausethe Catholicshad morephysicalaccessoriesto
theirrite,but also becausetheProtestants
sensedmuchmoredanger
in thewrongful
useofmaterialobjects. In Pamiers,the
and defilement
Catholicvicarmightdrophis BlackVirginofFoix whenshe failedto
bringgood weather;but thenhe tenderlyrepairedher brokenneck
withan ironpin. When the Protestants
foundher,theypromptly
burnedthe head in Pamiersand the bodyin Foix.83
In bloodshed,the Catholicsare the champions(rememberwe are
crowds,not oftheir
talkingof theactionsof Catholicand Protestant
armies). I thinkthisis due notonlyto theirbeingin thelongrunthe
in mostcities,but also to theirstronger
partynumerically
strongest
sense of thepersonsof heretics
as sourcesof dangerand defiliment.
modeofpurifying
thebody
Thus, injuryand murderwerea preferred
social.
thepreferred
in the
Furthermore,
targetsforphysicalattackdiffer
to
Protestant
and Catholiccases. As befitting
a movement
intending
overthrowa thousandyearsof clerical"tyranny"and "pollution",
the Protestants'targetswere primarilypriests,monks and friars.
That theirecclesiasticalvictimswere usuallyunarmed(as Catholic
criticshastenedto pointout) did not makethemanyless harmful
in
Protestanteyes, or any more immunefromthe wrathof God.84
crowds,too,such
Lay peopleweresometimesattackedby Protestant
as thefestivedancerswhowerestonedat Pamiersand Lyon,and the
whowerekilledat Saint-Medard'sChurch.85 Butthere
worshippers
is nothingthatquiteresemblesthestyleand extentoftheslaughter
of
the 1572 massacres. The Catholiccrowdswere,ofcourse,happyto
83 Hervet, Discours sur.. . les pilleurs; Hist. eccl., i, p.
957. On the
complexityof Catholic attitudestowards theirstatues, see Richard C. Trexler
"Florentine Religious Experience: The Sacred Image", Studies in the
Renaissance,xix (1972), pp. 25-9.
84 That priests and religious were the preferred(though not the exclusive)
target for Protestantcrowds is a fact emergingnot only from an analysis of
many crowd actions,but also fromCatholic literature.The Thdatredes Cruautes
des heritiquesgives few examples of lay persons murdered,but many of priests
and religious. Claude de Sainctes's Discours sur le saccagement(1563) also
stresses Protestant attacks on priests. Gentian Hervet's Discours sur . .. les
pilleurstalkswith horrorof the Protestantwar againstunarmedpriests,and the
Protestantclaim that their grudge is against the priests only. He warns that
once all the churches are destroyed,the Protestantswill starton the common
people.
85 Discours des troublesadvenusen la Ville de Pamies...,
p. 318; de Rubys,
Histoireveritable,p. 406; Haton, Memoires,p. I81.
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78
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER59
would
catcha pastorwhentheycould,86butthedeathofanyheretic
of
sowers
of
of
in
France
these
cause
the
cleansing
perfidious
help
ofwomenkilled
disorder
anddisunion.Indeed,whilethenumber
crowdsseemsto have been verysmall,observers'
by Protestant
in
crowds
showaboutoneoutoftenpeoplekilledbyCatholic
reports
in 1572was a woman,and theratiowas higherin
theprovinces
Paris.87
women
andunarmed
unarmed
crowds
thatattacked
priests
Clearly,
the
werenot trying
to destroy
powerful.But is
only
physically
werealso
insuggesting
thatthe1572massacres
Esteberight
Jeannine
ofthepeople
shemeansa rising
ofclasshatred,
anexpression
bywhich
herquestion
?88 We can evenbroaden
againsttherichHuguenots
and of
it's trueof otherCatholicdisturbances
and ask whether
riotsas well. As CharlesTillyand JamesRule have
Protestant
ofthese
is the"isomorphy"
PoliticalUpheaval,
askedin Measuring
is
a
which
mean
there
or
disturbances
highorlow
they
high low,by
the
the
divisions
between
of
separating
"degree correspondence
86
Amongthe pastorskilledor assaultedby CatholiccrowdswereLeonard
MorelatVassy,156I; PastorsRicherandMarcilatPoitiers,
1562;PastorGiscart
at Castelnaudary,
I562; a pastorat Gaillac,1562; andPastorBonnetat Macon,
and Montauban,
pastorat Val d'Angrogne
1562. MartinTachard,formerly
Foix in 1567. Amongthepastorskilledinthe1572
wasled inmockery
through
Le More and Des Gorrisat Paris;JacquesLanglois
were:Bugnette,
massacres
and N. Dives at Lyon; PierreLoiseleurditde Villiersand Louis Le Coq at
at Bordeaux.
Rouen; and a minister
in Crespinof personskilledin the 1572 massacresgive,for
87 Estimates
Rouenabout550 menand about50 women;forOrleans,I,8oo adultmenand
women. No femaledeathswerereportedfromthe Lyon Vespers.
I5o adultwomen
werevictimsat Paristhatwordwentouton the28 or 29 Aug.
So
many
women. Even
pregnant
1572thatno morewomenwereto be killed,especially
here,thelistingsshowmanyfewerfemaledeathsthanmale. The sameis true
as inProvencein 1562:Crespin,Martyrs,
forearliercrowdactionsbyCatholics,
iii, pp. 695, 721, 7Io ff.,678, 371-88. It is clearfromtheseestimatesthat
womencouldnothavebeenpreferred
thoughtheyobviously
targets,
pregnant
de choix)
werenotspared. Whethertheywerethe "choicevictims"(victimes
of Catholiccrowds,as Estebe claims(Tocsin,p. 197), I do not know. She
an
with
of
male
associatesthis,as well as the castration
attemptto
corpses,
above(n.
"a foreign
race,a hatedand cursedrace". As suggested
extinguish
of the Huguenotsas a "race". By
25), I findno evidenceof the perception
theirheresy,theyappearedoutsidersand finallynon-humanto theirkillers,
ofcorpsesand thekilling
butthisis nota racialdistinction.On thecastration
to humiliateand weakenthe dangerous
of unborninfantsas ultimateefforts
enemy,see belowpp. 82-3.
As forProtestant
killingofwomen,Catholicsourcesreportwomenkilledby
the Huguenotsin the Saint-Medardmassacreat Paris,in the May eventsat
Toulousein 1562and in thedioceseofAngouleme:Haton,Mdmoires,
p. 181;
descruautis,
Relations
de l'meutede Toulouse,
p. 44. Bosquet
p. 351; Thdatre
reportsnunsraped at Montaubanin 1562; Histoire,ch. ii. On thewhole,
crowdactionsaylittleaboutassaultson females;with
accountsof Protestant
statuesof theVirginand femalesaints,it is anothermatter.
88 Est"be,Tocsin,
p. 196.
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RELIGIOUS RIOT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURYFRANCE
79
antagonists in a . . . disturbance and those prevailing in the social
occurs"?89
systemwithinwhichthe disturbance
Though only extensivequantitativeresearchcould establishthe
point, it seems to me that Estebe's view does not hold for these
urbandisturbances. To be sure,pillagingplayeditsr61ein all riots.
To be sure, the Catholic crowds who threwslime and shouted
noblewomenbeingled from
"putains" ("whores")at the Protestant
the rue Saint Jacquesconventicleto prisonin 1557 weresavouring
as well as religioushatred. So probablywerethe
social resentment
whoslewa notablejewelmerchant
embroiderer's
in 1572
journeyman
at Paris and the cutlerwho slew a lawyerin Orl6ans.90 For Protestantsat Valencein I562 who killedthe Sire de La Motte Gondrin,
of the Dauphine,therewerepoliticalgrievances
lieutenant-governor
to reinforce
religiousand socialcomplaint.91
Nevertheless,
despitesuch individualcases of "highisomorphy",
the overallpicturein these urban religiousriotsis not one of the
"people" slaying the rich.92 Protestantcrowds expressed no
preferencefor killingor assaultingpowerfulprelatesover simple
priests. As for Catholic crowds, contemporary
listingsof their
victimsin the 1572 massacresshowthatartisans,the "littlepeople",
are represented
in significant
numbers. In Lyon, forinstance,in
a list of 141 maleskilledin the Vespers,eighty-eight
wereartisans,
six
were
and
were
merchants
thirty-four
lawyers."" Reportsfrom
Tilly and Rule, Political Upheaval, pp. 59-60.
90Crespin, Martyrs,ii, p. 545, iii, pp. 676, 696.
91Hist. eccl.,iii, pp. 301-5. So also in Troyes, where a stockingmakerkilled
the merchant-provostof the town, who had formerlybeen a member of the
Reformed Church, one expects that political grievances reinforcedreligious
hatred: Crespin,Martyrs,iii, p. 685. At Meaux, Crespinreportsthatone Gilles
Le Conte was killedin the 1572 massacres,less because of his ReformedReligion
than because he was a tax-farmerforCatherine de Medicis and was sometimes
hard on Catholics: Martyrs,iii, p. 682.
92 Though numerous other examples of "high isomorphy"can be found,the
pages of Crespin are full of examples where artisans and merchants slew
people in their trade (ibid., iii, p. 675) and where relatives slew relatives (iii,
pp. 676, 697). There are also individual cases of "high isomorphy",where the
killing occurred "downward" - that is, the wealthy Catholic killed a poor
Protestant. Indeed, the author of the Tocsain contreles massacreurs(in Arch.
cur., vii, pp. 58-9) asked the followingquestion: as for the little people who
professed the Reformed Religion, what humanitycould they expect afterthe
illustriousfamilieshad been treatedin such a fashion?
93 Figures compiled from Premiereliste des chretiensmis aimortet igorgesa
Lyon par les catholiquesromainsa' l'poque de la S. Barthelemiaoat 1572, ed.
P. M. Gonon (Lyon, 1847) and Crespin, Martyrs,iii, pp. 707-18. Letters from
Lyon to Paris in early Septemberreportedthat between six and seven hundred
persons were killed in all: A. Puyroche, "Le Saint-Barthelemya Lyon et le
gouverneur Mandelot", Bulletin de la socidtede l'histoiredu protestantisme
de Paris sous
frangais,xviii (1869), p. 365; Jacques Pannier, L'Eglise Reform&e
Henri IV (Paris, 1911), p. 369, n. I. These estimatesseem high on the basis of
all the available evidence fromwills and burials.
89
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PAST AND PRESENT
80
NUMBER 59
othercitiesgivea similarspread,as can be seenin thefollowing
table.
reportedto have been killed
Only in Orleanswere moremerchants
than artisans,while in Rouen and Meaux the "littlepeople" outmerchants
numberthewealthier
amongthevictimsmanytimesover.
are all the moresignificant
The distributions
becausethe prominent
and rich who were slain wereespeciallylikelyto be remarked. If
we had fullerevidence about the massacres,it would doubtless
multiplythe namesof victimsof modestbackground.
TABLE
I
SOCIAL-OCCUPATIONALDISTRIBUTION OF MALE VICTIMS IN
CONTEMPORARYLISTINGS OF THE 1572 MASSACRES*
Nobles Law- Mer- Teach- Artisans
OccuUnCITY
skilled, pation TOTAL
t
yers, chants ers,
Officers
Bourges
Meaux
Troyes
Orleans
Rouen
Lyon
Paris
Pastors
0
2
3
22
47
I19
2
11
3
0
15
31
36
142
186
5
40
2
II
121
6
13
0
o
o
2
3
I
15
9
II
50
18
36
14
13
0
6
34
un-
8
10
7
5
o
0
Ser-
vants
o
I
3
(+200)
88
5
known
2
23
0
229
5
141
* Sources for Lyon are given in n. 93. Other lists are from Crespin,
Martyrs,iii.
t Nobles are here definedas personslistedwiththetitle"Sieur de" in Crespin.
Some of the lawyersand high officerskilled may also have been ennobled.
$ The names of ten artisansare listed forMeaux, afterwhich the authorsays
and "other artisans to the number of 200 or more". This figurehas been
added, not because it is believed to be accurate, but because it reflectsthe
impressionof contemporariesas to what level of the population was hit by the
massacres.
book Strikesand Salvation
As I showin detailin myforthcoming
at Lyon,Catholicand Protestant
in Frenchcitiesup to
movements
thesocialstructure,
buthad eacha distincthrough
1572cutvertically
tiveoccupationaldistribution.On thebasis oflimitedevidence,that
seemsto be fairlywell reflected
in the victimsof crowd
distribution
and (as we willsee morefullyin a moment)in themake-up
action,94
94In my forthcomingbook Strikesand Salvation at Lyon, an analysis of the
social and vocational distributionof several thousand male Protestantsin Lyon
in theperiodup to 1572 showsthemto be drawnfromthe Consular elite,notables
and menupeuple in numbers roughlyproportionalto their distributionin the
population at large,but to be selected especiallyfromthe newer or more skilled
occupations,occupationswherethe literacyratewas higher,or occupations(such
as tavernkeeping)whichhad been transformed
by the urban developmentsof the
(cont.onp. 81)
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RELIGIOUS RIOT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURYFRANCE
8I
of the crowds. Onlythe mostvulnerableof the urbanpoor - the
thedaylabourersandthejoblessthatis,theunskilled,
gagnedeniers,
to the
are not amongthe killersor the killed. Neithercommitted
Calvinistcause nor well integratedinto the Catholic city parish,
these "bilitres"("rascals") appear only afterthe violenceis over,
stolidlyrobbingclothingfromthecorpses.95
Franceneverthen
Is popularreligiousviolencein sixteenth-century
correlatedin a systematic
way with socio-economicconflict? Not
when it is among the city-folk,who account for most of the
disturbances;but when peasantsraise theirarmsforthe faith,the
is morelikelyto exist. How else to explainthedispatch
relationship
fellupontheHuguenotburghers
of Sens,
withwhichpeasantpilgrims
even theurban Catholicsby theirinitiative? And when
surprising
Protestantpeasantsin the Agenoispursuedtheirpersecutinglord,
the Seigneurof Fumel, theywere shouting,"Murderer!Tyrant!"
Even Catholicpeasantsjoinedin the seige of his chateau.96
oftheurbancrowds,let us look
Beforeturningto thecomposition
at whatI have calledtheirritesof violence. Is there
a littlefurther
concretedetailsoffilth,
shameand
anywaywe can ordertheterrible,
torturethatare reportedfromboth Protestantand Catholicriots?
I would suggestthattheycan be reducedto a repertory
of actions,
fromthe actionof political
derivedfromthe Bible,fromtheliturgy,
of popularfolkjustice,intendedto
or fromthe traditions
authority,
(note94 cont.)
early sixteenthcentury. At the top of urban society,it is the new elite rather
than the more established elite that tends to produce Protestants(in Lyon,
therefore,among the Consular familiesit is the wealthymerchantsratherthan
the lawyerswho tend to become Protestant). This vocational distributionis,
of course, not perfectlyexpressedin the victimsof the massacres,since so many
factorsoperatedin the choice of any one person as a victim. For instance,very
few persons fromthe publishingtrade were killed in the Vespers at Lyon (the
libraires Jean Honor6, Mathieu Penin, and Jean Vassin, the bookbinder
Mathurin Le Cler and the proofreaderJean de Saint Clement), though a very
large percentage of the industryhad been Protestantin the I560s and many
mastersand publishersstillwere so in 1572. It is my impressionthat in other
cities, members of the publishing trade, though certainlyfound among the
victims, were under-representedrelative to their presence in the Reformed
Church. This can probably be explained by the special relationsamong the
men in the trade or by their absence fromFrance.
9, Rdlationdu massacrede la Saint-Barthelemy,reprintedfrom Memoiresde
l'Etat de France sous Charles IX in Arch. cur., vii, p. 151; Crespin, Martyrs,
iii, p. 703.
96 Haton, Memoires,pp. 190-3; Hist. eccl., i, pp. 885-6.
See also a religious
riotwith "high isomorphy"in Beaune, a small townwitha veryhigh percentage
of winegrowers- thatis, a large ruralelement- withinits walls. In 1561 the
winegrowersand othersof the "little people", supportedfromabove by one of
the city councillors, attacked Protestantsreturningfromservices. The latter
group included some of the wealthierfamiliesin Beaune. Ibid., i, pp. 864-5.
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82
PAST AND PRESENT
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and humilitate
the enemyand thus
purifythe religiouscommunity
makehim less harmful.
The religioussignificance
of destruction
by wateror fireis clear
enough. The riverswhichreceiveso manyProtestantcorpsesare
notmerelyconvenient
massgraves,theyaretemporarily
a kindofholy
water,an essentialfeatureof Catholicritesof exorcism. The fire
in Montpellier
whichrazesthehouseofa Protestant
leaves
apothecary
behindit notthesmellof death,ofthehereticwhomthecrowdhad
in the air fordays,likeincense. If
hanged,but of spices,lingering
Protestants
have rejectedholy waterand incense,theystillfollow
Deuteronomyin acceptingfireas a sacredmeansof purification."9
Let us take a more difficultcase, the troublingcase of the
desecrationof corpses. This is primarilyan action of Catholic
crowdsin the sixteenthcentury. Protestantcrowdscould be very
cruel indeed in torturing
livingpriests,but paid littleattentionto
them when they were dead.98 (Perhaps this is related to the
and prayersforthe dead: thesouls
Protestant
rejectionof Purgatory
ofthedead experienceimmediately
Christ'spresenceor thetorments
of the damned,and thusthedead bodyis no longerso dangerousor
Protestants
was
an objectto the living.) Whatinterested
important
diggingup bonesthatwerebeingtreatedas sacredobjectsbyCatholics
and perhapsburningthem,afterthe fashionof Josiahin I Kings.99
The Catholics,however,werenotcontentwithburningor drowning
91On Catholic rites of exorcism, see Thomas, Religion and the Decline of
Magic, chaps. 2 and I5. For the Montpellierepisode, see Philippi, Mimoires,
p. 634. Cf. the somewhat differenttreatment by Estebe of the Saint
Bartholomew'sDay massacre as a "ritual crime" and purificationrite: Tocsin,
p. 197.
98Though Catholic writerssuch as the priestClaude Haton admit to various
acts of desecrationof corpses by Catholic crowds (e.g., Mimoires,pp. 704-6),
theymake remarkablyfew accusations against Protestantsforthe same kind of
acts. Haton gives only one example - the dismembermentof a doctor of
theology,killedin the Saint Medard massacre(ibid.,p. 18I) - thoughhe accuses
the Huguenots of many other kinds of vicious actions. Bosquet's book on
Toulouse gives one example of Protestantsdisembowelinga priestand displaying his entrails(Histoire,pp. 9-Io, at Montauban), but stressesmuch more the
Protestanthumiliationand tortureof livingpersons. The Thdatredes cruautes
des hiritiques, which would surely have mentioned the Protestant acts of
desecration of corpses if they had been common, talks only of the tortureof
living priests. In contrast, Protestant writings are full of descriptions of
Catholic desecrationof corpses, and Catholic sources describe these as well.
99Calvin on Purgatoryand the whereaboutsof the soul betweendeathand the
Last Judgementin the Institutes,Book III, ch. 5, sections6-Io; Book III, ch. 25,
section 6. See also Keith Thomas's discussion of Protestantattitudestowards
the dead in Religion,pp. 588-95, 602-6; Claude de Sainctes, Discours sur le
saccagement,
p. 381 (burningof "holy bones" at Orleans). For the diggingup
and throwingaround of saints' bones at Lyon, see Gu6raud, Chronique,p. 156,
and Niepce, Monuments,p. 42-3.
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RELIGIOUS RIOT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURYFRANCE
83
hereticalcorpses. That was notcleansingenough. The bodieshad
to be weakenedand humiliatedfurther. To an eerie chorus of
"strangewhistlesand hoots", they were thrownto the dogs like
thestreets,
Jezebel,theyweredraggedthrough
theyhad theirgenitalia
and internalorganscut away,whichwerethenhawkedthroughthe
cityin a ghoulishcommerce.100
Let us also take the embarrassingcase of the desecrationof
means. It is theProtestants,
and disgusting
religiousobjectsbyfilthy
as we have seen,who are concernedaboutobjects,who are tryingto
showthatCatholicobjectsof worshiphave no magicalpower. It is
notenough
notenoughto cleanseby swiftand energeticdemolition,
to purify
bya greatpublicburningoftheimages,as in Albiac,withthe
childrenof the townceremonially
recitingthe Ten Commandments
aroundthe fire.10' The line betweenthe sacred and the profane
thesacredhostto thedogs,byroasting
was alsore-drawn
bythrowing
thecrucifix
upona spit,byusingholyoil to greaseone'sboots,andby
basins and otherreligious
leavinghumanexcrementon holy-water
objects.102
And what of the living victims? Catholics and Protestants
of folk
humiliatedthemby techniquesborrowedfromthe repertory
womenthroughthe streets
justice. Catholiccrowdslead Protestant
forthe shrew- or with
withmuzzleson - a popularpunishment
a crownof thorns.103A formof charivariis used,wherethe noisy
thronghumiliatesitsvictimby makinghimridebackwardon an ass.
100
Strange sounds in Paris at the Saint Bartholomew's Day massacres:
Crespin, Martyrs,iii, p. 681. Bodies thrownto the dogs in Draguignan and in
Frdjus in 1560 (Hist. eccl., i, pp. 421, 429) and in Orl6ans (Crespin, Martyrs,
iii, p. 693). Parts of corpses were sold at Villeneuve d'Avignon in 1561 ("Five
pence for a Huguenot's liver!"); at Vire in 1562 ("who wants to buy the tripe
of Huguenots?"); at Paris in 1572; at Lyon in 1572 (where an apothecary
rendered fat fromProtestantcorpses and sold it at 3 blancsthe pound): Hist.
eccl., i, p. 978; ii, p. 846; Le Tocsain contreles autheursde Massacre de France
in Arch. cur., vii, p. 51; Crespin, Martyrs,iii, p. 713.
There are also a fewreportsof cannibalismby Catholics in the wake of crowd
murder("not forhunger",as Montaigne says of "Cannibals" in his Essais, "but
to representan extremevengence"): at Carcassone in 1561, Troyes in 1562 and
Sens in 1562: Hist. eccl., i, p. 94; ii, p. 478; iii, pp. 419-20. Le Roy Ladurie
reportsa curious storyof cannibalism among Protestantsat Lodeve in 1573:
the body of Saint Fulcran, miraculouslyconserved,was shot and then eaten by
order of the Huguenots in the wake of an uprisingthere: Les paysans,i, p. 398,
n. 5.
101 Hist. eccl., i, p. 931.
102Haton, Mimoires, pp. 181-2; Gueraud, Chronique, p. 156; Bosquet,
Histoire,p. 148; de Sainctes, Discours,p. 372. See pp. 58-9 and n. 21 above.
103 For the muzzle at Toulouse in 1562, and the crowns of thorns at St.
Martin de Castillan and Brignollesin 1562, see Hist. eccl., iii, p. 43; Crespin,
Martyrs,iii, pp. 386-7. On punishmentsfor the shrew, see Davis, "Reasons
of Misrule", pp. 52, 56, n. 48. Prisonerswere sometimesmuzzled on the way
to execution: L'Estoile, Mimoires-journaux,iii, p. 166.
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PAST AND PRESENT
84
NUMBER59
In Bloisin 1562,theCatholicsdid thisto a Protestant
saddler,poking
him witha pikeand shouting,"Oh, don't touchhim,he belongsto
the Queen Mother". In Montauban,a priestwas riddenbackward
on an ass, his chalicein one hand, his host in the other,and his
missalat an end ofa halberd. At theend ofhis ride,he mustcrush
hishostandburnhisownvestments. And,as inthefestiveparadeon
an ass of henpeckedhusbandsit was sometimesnecessaryto get
a neighbourto replacethe husband,so sometimesa Protestant
had
to replacethe priest. Dressed in holyvestments,
he would be led
to saymass,whilethecrowdwithhim
throughthestreetspretending
sang in derisionTe DeumLaudamusor a requiem.'04
With such actions,the crowds seem to be movingback and
forthbetweenthe ritesof violenceand the realmof comedy. Are
we at a Mardi Grasgame,withitsparodiesand topsy-turvy
mockery?
At Lyon, a Protestant,
in the midstof sackingthe Churchof Saint
Iren&e,dressesup as theSaintwithhisepiscopalringaroundhisneck.
At Rouen,the hostis paradedat the end of a Rogation'sDay lance
witha dragonon it: "The dragonhas eatenthehost"!"'- At Macon
in 1562,the familiarblessingfromNumbersvi. 24-6 is parodiedas
Protestants
areslain:"The lordGod ofHuguenotskeepyou,thegreat
Devil bless you,theLord makehis faceto shineuponyou who play
the dead". Murderfinallybeganto be called a "farce"in Macon,
The gamewas
the "farceof SaintPoint",the lieutenant-governor.
to go withsome womenaftera partyand get one or two Protestant
prisonersfromjail, havetheladieschatpleasantlywiththem,as they
walkedto the Sa6ne bridge,and thendrownthem.'10
104 Crespin, Martyrs,iii,
pp. 311-2; Hist. eccl., i, p. 935; Bosquet, Histoire,
actions
pp. 9-Io; de Sainctes,Discours,
p. 384. Therewereothercharivari-like
in religiousriots:at Toursin 1562Protestant
womenweretakenbackto mass
on horseback
"in derision"(probably
backward
on
the
Hist.
eccl.,
facing
horse):
thetown
ii,p. 695. AtMaconin 1562,PastorBonnetwaspromenaded
through
a thousandrapson thenoseand punches",thecrowdcrying,
with"mockery,
"Whoeverwantsto hearthispious and holypersonpreach,cometo thePlace
de L'Escorcherie":ibid.,iii,p. 522. In 1567,PastorMartinTachartwas led
in a "whitebonnet,witha rosaryroundhis neck":
throughFoix in triumph,
Discours des troublesadvenusen la Ville de Pamies, p. 342.
Davis, "The Reasonsof Misrule".
On charivaris,see
105 Claude de Rubys, Oraisonprononceea Lyon a la CreationdesConseillerset
eschevins... le iour de la feste S. Thomas... 1567 (Lyon, I568), Bb 2v; the
journal of Canon Bruslartof Rouen, quoted in Hist. eccl., ii, p. 720, n. I.
Other examples of the renamingof objects
10o Hist. eccl., iii, pp. 518, 524.
in Beziersand Montpellier
calledtheclubs
or actionsof violence:Protestants
with which they hit priests and religiousand other Catholic enemies
anditsregionused
or"whiskbrooms".CatholicsinMont-de-Marsan
dpousettes
Hist. eccl.,iii,
the same termforthe clubs withwhichtheyhit Protestants:
pp. 158-9; ii, pp. 963-4; Philippi, Mimoires,p. 624.
At Agen, the gibbet on
were hangedwas called the "Consistory":Hist. eccl.,ii,
whichProtestants
pp. 941-2. At Rouen, Catholiccrowdsreferredto killingHuguenotsas
"accomodating" them: Crespin, Martyrs,iii, p. 721.
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RELIGIOUS RIOT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURYFRANCE
85
These episodesdiscloseto us the underlying
functionof the rites
ofviolence. As withthe"games" ofChrist'stormentors,
whichhide
fromthemthefullknowledgeofwhattheydo, so thesecharadesand
ceremonieshide fromsixteenth-century
riotersa fullknowledgeof
whattheyaredoing. Like thelegitimation
forreligiousriotexamined
earlierin this paper,theyare partof the "conditionsforguilt-free
massacre",to use a phrasefroma recentstudyofviolencein ourown
day.x07 The crucialfact that the killersmust forgetis that their
victimsare human beings. These harmfulpeople in the community- the evil priestor hatefulheretic- have alreadybeen
transformed
forthe crowdinto"vermin"or "devils". The ritesof
religiousviolencecompletethe processof dehumanization.So in
Meaux, where Protestantswere being slaughteredwith butchers'
cleavers,a livingvictimwas trundledto his deathin a wheelbarrow,
while the crowd cried "vinegar,mustard". And the vicar of the
parishof Fouquebrunein theAngoumoiswas attachedwiththeoxen
to a ploughand died fromProtestant
blows as he pulled.x08
V
Whatkindsofpeoplemadeup thecrowdsthatperformed
therange
ofactswe haveexaminedin thispaper? First,theywerenotby and
large the alienatedrootlesspoor that people the pages of Norman
Cohn's Pursuitof theMillennium.'loA largepercentageof men in
Protestant
iconoclasticriotsand in the crowdsof Catholickillersin
as artisans. Sometimesthecrowdsincluded
I572 werecharacterized
othermenfromthelowerorders,as in 1562in Gaillac,whereCatholic
boatmenfromMontaubanparticipated
in theMay massacres,and in
Dieppe, whereProtestantsailorsenteredthe churchesat nightto
smash statues. More often,the social compositionof the crowds
extendedupwardto encompassmerchants,
notariesand lawyers,as
107 Troy Duster, "Conditions for Guilt-Free Massacre", in Nevitt Sanford
and Craig Comstock (eds.), Sanctionsfor Evil (San Francisco, 1971), ch. 3.
Duster especially stresses the dehumanization of victims, and this volume
contains several interestingessays on this matter.
108sCrespin, Martyrs, iii, p. 684; Thddtredes cruautesdes hiretiques, p. 44.
There are several examples of Catholics associating Protestantsnot only with
animals, but also with excrement. Excrement is thrown at them by crowds
(Crespin, Martyrs,ii, p. 545, iii, pp. 203-4, 672), and in an extraordinary
episode
in Toulouse Protestantshiding in the sewers along the river are flushed out,
covered with excrement,by great streams of water poured into the cloacas by
Catholics, and are drowned (Hist. eccl., iii, p. 19).
109 Cohn, Pursuit,pp. 32, 137, 281.
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86
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER59
well as the clerics whose r6le has already been mentioned."11
the
Dependingon the size, extentand occasionof the disturbance,
leaders of the crowd were sometimesartisansthemselves,but
frequentlya mixed group. Iconoclasticdisturbances,otherthan
those carriedout by Protestantnoblemenand theirsoldiers,were
led by the "littlepeople", but notablepersonagesled the
ordinarily
Protestantriotersinto Saint Medard's churchin I561. Of twenty
leadersof the 1572 massacresat Orleans,threewerelawyers,eight
weremerchants,
andotherswerevariouskindsofcraftsmen-tanners,
ll
butchersand candlemakers.
In addition,therewas significant
participation
bytwoothergroups
ofpeoplewho,thoughnotrootlessand alienated,had a moremarginal
to politicalpowerthan did lawyers,merchants
or even
relationship
male artisans- namely,citywomenand teenagedboys. As the
wivesof craftsmen
marchedwiththeirhusbandsin the greatPsalmsingingparades,so theywerealwaysbusyin theiconoclasticriotsof
the Protestants.Sometimestheyare active in otherways, as in
Pamiers,wherea bookseller'swifesetfireto thehouseoftheleading
enemyoftheHuguenotsthere,and in Toulouse,whereLa Broquiere,
a solicitor'swife,foughtCatholicswithfirearms.112 As thewivesof
Catholictradesmenmarchwiththeirhusbandsin Corpus Christi
110 Artisansin iconoclasticriots: Hist. eccl.,i, pp. 889, 702, 719.
Analysisof
CatholiccrowdsfromCrespin,Martyrs,
iii,pp. 663-733. Catholicboatmenat
sailorsat Dieppe,ibid.,ii,p. 796. Catholics
Gaillac,ibid.,iii,p. 82; Protestant
arrestedin the wakeof the CorpusChristiday riotat Lyon in 1561,during
whichBarth6lemy
Aneau,rectoroftheCollegede la Trinite,and otherswere
killed:a boatman,a miller,a tavernkeeper,
a shearer,a silkthrower
(Archives
du Rh6ne,B, Senechauss6e,Sentences,1561-2,sentenceof
departementales
14 Aug. 1561). Councillorsfromthe Parlementof Toulouse in a violent
Catholic crowd of May 1562 in Hist. eccl., iii, p. I5.
In an interesting
paper of May 1972, given at the NewberryLibrary
Conferenceon the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew's
Day, JohnTedeschi
a hitherto
unknown
presented
Lib.,
Newberry
manuscript
byTomassoSassetti,
Castelvetro
MSS. Cod. 78/2,describing
themassacresat Lyon and especially
in Paris: "BrieveRaccontamento
del GranMacellofattonellacitthdi Parigi".
Sassettireportedthatprinterswereactiveamongthe Lyon killers;but his
assertion
is notborneoutbyanyotheraccountsbyresidents
ofLyon,norbythe
ofdeaths(see n. 94 above). Onlytwomerchant-publishers
areknown
patterns
to havehad a connection
withthemassacres GuillaumeRouill6,whowas a
Consulat thetimeand thusbearssomeresponsibility
forwhathappened,and
AlexandreMarsigli,a Luccan exilewho killeda merchant
Paolo Minutoliin
thehopethathe wouldbe pardonedin Lucca and allowedto return. Sassetti
had justarrivedin Lyon whentheVespersoccurred.
111 Crespin, Martyrs,iii, p.
692.
112 Hist.
eccl., i, pp. 227, 719; Crespin, Martyrs, iii, p. 522; Discours des
troublesadvenus en la Ville de Pamies, p. 325; Bosquet, Histoire,pp. 148-50.
I have also treatedthis subjectin "City Womenand ReligiousChangein
in Dorothy MacGuigan (ed.),
Sixteenth-Century
France", forthcoming
A Sampler of Women'sStudies (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1973).
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RELIGIOUS RIOT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURYFRANCE
87
in Catholicreligiousdisturbances.
so theyparticipate
dayprocessions,
funeralin Montaubanand throw
They shoutinsultsat a Protestant
mireat a ministerin Vassy,screaming,"Kill him,killthe evil-doer
who has caused so manydeaths"; but theirmostextremeviolence
seems directedagainstotherwomen. At Aix-en-Provence
in 1572,
a groupof butcherwomentormenta Protestant
woman,the wifeof
a bookseller,finallyhangingher froma pine tree,whichhad been
used as a meetingplace forProtestant
worship.113
Adolescentmales and even boys aged ten to twelve played a
strikingly
importantr61ein both Catholicand Protestantcrowds.
In Lyon and Castelnaudaryin 1562 enfantsstoned Protestant
on theirwayto services. In severaltownsin Provence
worshippers
-
Marseille, Toulon and elsewhere -
Catholic youths stoned
Protestantsto death and burned them. The reputationof the
adolescentsin Sens and Provinswas so frightening
thata memberof
a well-knownHuguenot familywas afraidto walk throughthe
streets,lest the childrenof Provins(enfantsde Provins)massacre
him.114 In Toulouse,Catholicstudentstakepartin themassacresof
studentshad had the university
1572,and a decadeearlierProtestant
in an uproar,whistling
and bangingin lectureswhenthe canonlaw
or the "old religion"was mentioned. In Poitiersin 1559 and again
in 1562,Protestant
fromten to twelveand studentstake
youngsters
the initiativein smashingstatuesand overturning
altars. Indeed,
youthsare mentionedas part of almostall the greaticonoclastic
- in the Netherlands,
in Rouen and elsewhere.115
disturbances
I am struckhere by the similarity
betweenthe licence allowed
113
Hist. eccl., i, p. 913; Crespin, Martyrs,iii, pp. 203-4, 392. At Lyon a
woman was among those arrestedforher actions in the Corpus Christiday riot
of 1561: Archivesdepartementalesdu Rh6ne, B, Senechaussee, Sentences,15612, sentence of 14 Aug. 1561. Catholic women stoned a Protestantmercer at
Vire in Normandy: Hist. eccl., ii, p. 846.
114
Lyon: Gueraud, Chronique,p. 145; Castelnaudary: Hist. eccl.,iii, p. 157;
Marseille, Toulon, Poignans, Forcalquier: Hist. eccl., iii, pp. 412-15; Provins
and Sens: Haton, Mimoires, pp. 194, 315. In addition, the "petits enfans"
("children") of Auxerrestartstoningthe doors of a conventiclein 1561, and the
"petits enfans" of Draguignan, egged on by priests and councillors of the
Parlement of Aix, kill the importantProtestant,Antoine de Richier, Sieur de
Mouvans, in 1560: Hist. eccl.,i, pp. 852, 421. The tug-of-warover a corpse by
the boys, ten to twelve years old, in Provins has already been described,as has
the riotin Pamiers,provokedby thejeunes hommes("young men") of the festive
youth group: above, pp. 63-4 and 74-5. Already in Geneva in 1533, we see
Catholic "enfants", twelve to fifteenyears old, joiningtheirmothersin Catholic
crowds which stoned the hereticalwomen: Jeanne de Jussie,Levain, p. 47.
116Toulouse: Crespin, Martyrs,iii, p. 726 (studentsalso participatedin the
1572 massacres at Orleans, ibid., p. 695): Bosquet, Histoire,p. 46. Poitiers:
Hist. eccl., i, pp. 227-8, ii, p. 703. Rouen: Hist. eccl., ii, p. 719. Flanders:
Crespin, Martyrs,iii, pp. 519, n. I, 522.
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88
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER59
youthto do violencein religiousriotand thefestivelicenceallowed
in villagesand smalltownsto act as
adolescentsin theyouth-abbeys
the conscienceof the communityin mattersof domesticdiscord.
As youngteenagersand childrenparticipated
in theprocessionallife
of,say,Rouen("theirprayersareofgreatmeritbeforeGod, especially
because theyare pure and clean in theirconscienceand without
malice",noteda Rouennaispriest)and led someofthegreatLeague
in Parisin 1589,so Catholicadolescents
moved
penitential
processions
into religiousviolencewithoutmuch criticismfromtheirelders.'1"
In the Protestant
case, wheresons mightsometimesdisagreeabout
their
with
fathersand wheretherevoltis in partagainstthe
religion
oftheclergy,youthful
violenceseemsto havemore
paternalauthority
of the characterof generational
conflict. But ultimately
Calvinism,
lines,withinwhich
too, was a movementcuttingacrossgenerational
adolescentsor artisanssometimestook the earlyinitiativein open
militantaction. Thus in Lyon in 1551, the firstpublic Psalmwhilein
singingmarcheswere organizedby printers'journeymen,
in
was
the
it
"youngpeople" ("jeunesgens")who
Montpellier 1560-6I
firstinviteda minister
to the cityand beganpublicPsalmsingingin
Frenchin frontof the cityhall.117
Finally, as this study has already suggested,the crowds of
Catholicsand Protestants,
includingthosebenton deadlytasks,were
not an inchoate mass, but showed many signs of organization.
Even withriotsthathad littleor no planningbehindthem,theevent
was givensomestructure
bythesituationofworshipor theprocession
thatwas the occasionformanydisturbances. In othercases,planfriends
and waysofidentifying
ningin advanceled to listsoftargets,
or fellowrioters(whitecrosseson Catholicdoorsin Macon in 1562;
red bonnetswornby the killersin theBande Cardinalein Bordeaux
in 1572; passwordsand slogans- "Long live the Cross", "The
116
F. N. Taillepied, Recueildes Antiquitezet Singularitezde la Ville de Rouen
iii, pp. 243-4, 247.
(Rouen, 1587), pp. 195-7; L'Estoile, Mdmoires-journaux,
in theLeagueprocession
PeterAscolialso describesther6leofchildren
of1589
at
ofCalifornia
in "The Sixteenand theParisLeague,1589-1591"(University
BerkeleyPh.D. thesis, 1971). In a recent lecture on fifteenth-century
firstin
ofmaleadolescents
Florence,RichardTrexlerhas emphasizedther61le
of
the processional
lifeof the cityand thenas zealousand activesupporters
Savonarola'swar on the vanities:"Ritual in Florence: Adolescenceand
on Late Medievaland Renaissance
Salvationin theRenaissance",Conference
of Michigan,AnnArbor,Apr. 20-22, 1972.
Religion,The University
and Salvationat Lyons",ArchivftlrReformations117 N. Z. Davis, "Strikes
Ivi (1965), pp. 51-2; Philippi, Mdmoires,p. 623.
geschichte,
For youth-groups
in sixteenth-century
and theirr61le
France,see Davis, "ReasonsofMisrule".
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RELIGIOUS RIOT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURYFRANCE
89
could
Wolf", "Long live the Gospel").11s Existingorganizations
as
such
basis
for
the
subsequentreligiousdisturbance,
provide
and festiveyouthsocietiesforCatholics;and forboth
confraternities
and Catholics,unitsofthemilitiaand craftgroupings.119
Protestants
Zeal for violent purificationalso led to new organizations.
Sometimesthe model was a militaryone, as in the companiesof
Catholic artisansin Autun,Auxerreand Le Mans raised by the
liftingof an ensign;the "marchingbands" organizedin Beziersby
both Protestantsand Catholics; and the dizaines set up by the
Reformed church of Montauban in 1561.120
Sometimes the model
lesser
was a youthgroup,as in thecase ofa band ofyoungunmarried
Catholics.121
nobles in Champagne,who went around terrorizing
The creationwhichbestexpressesthespiritofreligiousriot,however,
is the band of the Sieur de Flassans in Aix-en-Provence.This
nobleman,FirstConsul of Aix, in 1562 organizeda troopof "little
people", butchersamongthem,and monks,to seek out Protestants
orimprisonin thearea,stoningtheirhouses,shoutingatthem,killing,
hatswithwhite
ingthem. They worerosariesand specialfeathered
crosseson them; theysang special songs againstthe Huguenots;
carriedan ensignwiththePope's keysupon it; and wenteverywhere
led by a Franciscanwitha greatwoodencross.122
11s For the r6le of Protestanttargetsin Nemours, see Hist. eccl., i, p. 834.
For the white crosses in Macon, ibid., iii, p. 518; and the red bonnets in
Bordeaux, Crespin, Martyrs, iii, p. 729. For "Vive la Croix" in Toulouse,
"Le Loup", a Catholic password in Vire in Normandy,"Vive l'Evangile" in La
Rochelle, see Hist. eccl., iii, p. 33, ii, pp. 845, 989.
119 Ibid., i,
pp. 355, 844; Discoursdes troublesadvenus en la Ville de Pamies,
pp. 319-20.
120 Hist. eccl., iii,
p. 487; Crespin, Martyrs,iii, pp. 287, 641; Hist. eccl., iii,
pp. 158-9, i, p. 913. Also see the "company" of horsemenof the draperCosset
of Meaux, founded in 1572 right after the massacres to round-up and kill
Huguenots who had escaped to nearbyvillages (Crespin, Martyrs,iii, p. 684),
and the image-breakingband formedin 1562 in Mont-de-Marsan (Hist. eccl., ii,
pp. 963-4).
121
Haton, Mimoires,p. 334. In Annonay in 1573, a young man, formerly
head of the Bazoche, or festivesocietyof law clerks,of Vismes, put himselfat
the head of eightymen "of his type" and lived offthe countryside. This was
evidentlya Protestantband of young men. Achille Gamon, Memoires,p. 615.
The most interestingnew youth group formed in this period was, however,
the Whistlersor Sifflarsof Poitiers,so-called froma whistlethe memberswore
around theirnecks. Founded among studentsaround 1561, it initiallymocked
both religions. Initiates had to swear by flesh,belly, death and "the worthy
double head, stuffedwith Relics" and by all the Divinity in this pint of wine,
that they would be devoted Whistlers,and that instead of going to Protestant
service, mass or Vespers, they would go twice a day to a brothel, etc. The
group grew to some sixty-fouryouths and became especially hostile to the
Reformed Church and its services,perhaps because of Reformedhostilityto
them. Its membersbegan to go around armed. Hist. eccl., i, pp. 844-5.
122
Ibid., i, pp. 983-6; Crespin, Martyrs,iii, pp. 390-1.
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90
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER 59
That such splendourand ordershould be put to violentuses is
a disturbing
fact. Disturbing,too, is the wholesubjectof religious
violence. How does an historian
talkabouta massacreofthemagnitude of St. Bartholomew's
Day? One approachis to viewextreme
of
event,theproductoffrenzy,
religiousviolenceas an extraordinary
thefrustrated
and paranoicprimitive
mindofthepeople. As Estebe
has said, "The proceduresused bythekillersof SaintBartholomew's
had
Day camebackfromthedawnoftime;thecollectiveunconscious
buried them withinitself,theysprangup again in the monthof
between
August 1572".123 Though thereare clearlyresemblances
the purification
ritesof primitive
tribesand thoseused in sixteenthcenturyreligiousriots,thispaper has suggestedthat one does not
need to look so faras the "collectiveunconscious"to explainthis
fact,nor does one need to regardthe 1572 massacresas an isolated
phenomenon.
A secondapproachsees suchviolenceas a moreusualpartofsocial
behaviour,but explainsit as a somewhatpathologicalproductof
certainkindsof child-rearing,
economicdeprivationor statusloss.
This paper has assumed that conflictis perennialin social life,
of the accompanying
violencevary;
thoughthe formsand strength
and thatreligiousviolenceis intensebecause it connectsintimately
of a community.
with the fundamentalvalues and self-definition
The violenceis explainednot in termsof how crazy,hungryor
the violentpeople are (thoughtheymay somesexuallyfrustrated
timeshave such characteristics),
but in termsof the goals of their
actionsand in termsofther6lesand patternsofbehaviourallowedby
theirculture. Religiousviolenceis relatedherelessto thepathological thanto thenormal.
Thus, in sixteenth-century
France,we haveseen crowdstakingon
the r61eof priest,pastoror magistrate
to defenddoctrineor purify
the religiouscommunity,
eitherto maintainits Catholicboundaries
or to re-form
and structure,
relationswithinit. We have seen that
fromdifferent
violence
could
receivelegitimation
popularreligious
ofpoliticalandreligiouslife,as wellas fromthegroupidentity
features
of the people in the crowds. The targetsand characterof crowd
violence differedsomewhatbetween Catholics and Protestants,
dependingon theirperceptionof the sourceof dangerand on their
religioussensibility. But in both cases, religiousviolencehad a
connectionin time,placeand formwiththe lifeof worship,and the
violentactionsthemselveswere drawnfroma storeof punitiveor
France.
traditions
currentin sixteenth-century
purificatory
123
Esttbe, Tocsin,pp. 194, 197.
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RELIGIOUS RIOT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURYFRANCE
91
In thiscontext,the crueltyof crowdactionin the 1572 massacres
was certainly
was not an exceptionaloccurrence. St. Bartholomew
Medard's
it
had
moreexplicit
the
Saint
a biggeraffair
riot,
than,say,
sanction from political authority,it had elaborate networksof
communication
at thetoplevelthroughout
France,andit tooka more
terribletollin deaths. Perhapsits mostunusualfeaturewas thatthe
did notfightback.124 But on the whole,it stillfitsinto
Protestants
a wholepatternof sixteenth-century
religiousdisturbance.
This inquiryalso pointsto a moregeneralconclusion. Even in the
extremecase of religiousviolence,crowdsdo not act in a mindless
way. Theywillto somedegreehavea sensethatwhattheyaredoing
is legitimate,
theoccasionswillrelatesomehowto thedefenceoftheir
to it cause, and theirviolentbehaviourwill have some structure
heredramaticand ritual. But theritesofviolenceare nottherights
of violencein anyabsolutesense. They simplyremindus thatif we
guaranteethat
tryto increasesafetyand trustwithina community;
and lesscruelforms,
willtakelessdestructive
theviolenceit generates
thenwe mustthinkless about pacifying
"deviants"and moreabout
changingthe centralvalues.
NatalieZemonDavis
of California,
Berkeley
University
124 The non-resistanceof the Protestants is an
extraordinaryfact, which
emergesfromall accounts of the 1572 massacres,and which is in contrastwith
the militanthigh morale of the Protestantswhen they were attacked in, say,
1561-2. The Protestantmartyrsdescribed in Crespin in 1572 eithertryto run
away - the males sometimes dressed in their wives' clothes (Martyrs,iii, p.
698) - or die bravely in their faith. When an individual does try to resist
(such as Maistre Mamert, a school-teacherand swordmasterin Orleans), it is
the occasion of some notice by Crespin: Martyrs,iii, p. 697.
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