French History, Vol. 24, No.

4 (2010)
doi:10.1093/fh/crq037
Advance Access published on 19 August 2010

THE FORTIFIED PARISH CHURCH:

PACIFICATION, PROTECTION OR
PROVOCATION DURING THE FRENCH
WARS OF RELIGION?

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PHILIPPAWOODCOCK*

AbstractFew examples of fortified churches survive from the French Wars of Religion. This
article considers how rural parish church building was adapted to war in the diocese of
Le Mans. It asks whether such building had continuity with defences dating from the Hundred
Years War, or reflected changes in weaponry and military technology. Using the parish of St-
Georges-du-Rosay as an example, it explores the influence of iconoclasm, pacification
strategies and military campaigns on the construction of a fortified porch at the naves west
end. Comparison with neighbouring churches shows that the surrounding countryside was
fortified when League and Royalist troops invested the area in 158990; the role of the local
seigneur and his affinity to Bourbon or Guise was decisive in the process. However, the article
concludes that, as these works were paid for by the curate or fabrique, the fortification of the
parish church was principally for parochial defence.

When the Edict of Nantes was issued in 1598, Claude dAngennes, the bishop of
Le Mans, ordered that all the forts and fortifications erected before the houses
of God [should be] demolished and that all the coffers and furnishings that the
troubles of the wars have caused to be hidden there are returned and that the
said churches should not be used for profane causes but that they should be
houses of praise and devotion.1 The diocese of Le Mans, lying between the
more turbulent Loire valley and Normandy, had suffered from the brief Huguenot
occupation of Le Mans in 1562 and continued iconoclasm throughout the wars.
The area, roughly synonymous with the county of Maine, was also riven by
factional divisions, traversed by soldiers of the League and the Crown, led by
nobles with local powerbases. The Wars of Religion transformed the religious
landscape and the role of sacred buildings, not just at the cathedral of St-Julien
and the great religious houses, but also at the ordinary parish churches. This was

* This article results from work undertaken for the AHRC funded The Parish Church and the
Landscape project, based at Oxford Brookes University and led by Professor Andrew Spicer. I must
thank Professor Spicer for his generous editorial assistance and expertise as to the content and
structure of the article; equally thanks are due to the AHRC for their financial support.
1 J. Cme, Lglise fortifie de Saint Georges du Rosay, in Pays dart et dhistoire du Perche

Sarthois: St-Georges-du-Rosay (Le Mans, 2002), 7: que tous les forts et fortifications faites ci devant
les glises et les maisons de Dieu soient demolis et que tous les coffres et meubles que le malheur
des guerres y avait fait retirer en soient ts et que les dites glises ne servent plus dornavant pour
actions profanes mais quelles soient maisons doraisons et de dvotion.

The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Study of French History.
All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
 PHILIPPAWOODCOCK 525

an abnormal situation, since at times of peace the parameters of font and fort
can be used to define the state; as Buisseret argues, if the churches represented
as it was saidFrance kneeling at prayer, the fortresses signified to all the
French that they were the subjects of monarchs governing a strong and
seemingly united realm.2 The dioceses inhabitants wanted to return to this
distinction: Bishop Angennes edict was apparently obeyed, as very little
fortification remains today, indicating that social order was equated with a
pacific parish church. This article will show that the Catholic parish church was
fortified during the Wars of Religion, not just for the protection of its parishioners

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and their goods, but also to become an active part of the military landscape,
reviving a role inherited from the Hundred Years War. It will question who led
this fortification, and which threats it responded to.
The fortified church is a chimera that is rarely commented upon in military
histories or accounts of the French Wars of Religion. Indeed, treatises seldom
combine work on churches and military emplacements: when the Huguenot
Bernard Palissy considered how to make the perfect fortified town in 1563, he
was inspired by unlikely models from nature, rather than traditional fortifications.
His ideal did not explicitly use temples as part of urban defences for the
Reformed faithful.3 The first architect to do so was Jacques Perret, a Savoyard
Huguenot, in his Des fortifications et artifices. Architecture et perspective
(1601): This mix of styles, military and religious architecture, is without
precedent in the history of treatises of fortification.4 This work was published
just three years after the Edict of Nantes: Perrets designs for temples recognize
the precarious legal protection given to Huguenots, advising that, as for
chteaux, protective ditches or gatehouses might be installed.5 Of course, for
Perret, as for Palissy, fortification was owed to divine will, as much as to physical
protection. In 1611, Claude Flamand, a military engineer, ignored the role of the
parish church in warfare: only secular buildings were of interest to his theories
of defence.6 Even Blaise de Monluc, a soldier who otherwise noted minute
details of the Wars, did not record church fortification. However, this does not

2 D. Buisseret, Ingnieurs et fortifications avant Vauban, Lorganisation dun service royal

aux XVI eXVII e sicles (Paris, 2002), 124: les glises reprsentaienta-t-on dit la France agen-
ouille en prire, les forteresses rappelrent toutes les Franaises et tous les Franais quils tai-
ent les sujets de monarques gouvernant un royaume fort et apparament uni.
3 B. Palissy, De la ville de forteresse (La Rochelle, 1563). This text is discussed in N. Kamil, Fortress

of the Soul: Violence, Metaphysics, and Material Life in the Huguenots New World, 15171751
(Baltimore, 2005), 5999.
4 . dOrgeix, Jacques Perret: Des fortifications et artifices, online resource: Architectura: Ar-

chitecture, Textes et Images, <http://architectura.cesr.univ-tours.fr/Traite/Notice/ENSBA_LES1698

.asp?param>, consulted 10 July 2009: Ce mlange des genres, architecture militaire et religieuse,
est sans precedent dans lhistoire des traits de fortification.
5 J. Perret, Des fortifications et artifices. Architecture et perspective (Paris, 1601), using transcrip-

tion <http://architectura.cesr.univ-tours.fr/Traite/Textes/LES1698.pdf>, consulted 10 July 2009, 22.

6 C. R. Flamand, La Guide des fortifications et conduite militaire. Les mathmatiques et

gomtrie dparties en cinq livres. La practique et usage darpenter et mesurer toutes superficies
de terre de M. Cl. Flamand (Montbeliart, 1611).
526 THE FORTIFIED PARISH CHURCH

reflect the full array of defences added to Catholic churches, and cannot be
directly linked to practical experience of the Wars. This article contends that
the fortified church was an unacknowledged feature of the French Wars of
Religion, its development practical, rather than theoretical. Enough evidence
remains to show that the parish church did play a defensive role. Parishioners
might muster to the sound of a tocsin, a ruined church could be used to rebuild
walls or, in rare cases, become a depot for gunpowder.7 Elsewhere, churches
were used to actually protect their parishioners. This revived a role previously
played by churches during the Hundred Years War. Yet, in a period when the

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central, institutional power of the Church was weak, it is to be expected that
fortification took place on an individual parish basis, rather than following a
central programme or a single idea.
Where the fortified parish church is discussed by historians, it is linked to
periods of sustained conflict, and the presence (or not) of strong seigneurial
power, rather than clerical leadership.8 There had been significant fortification
of churches during the Hundred Years War, and in the fifteenth century the
impulse to fortify came from two sources; rural peasant communities,
occasionally with seigniorial or ecclesiastical financial help, and the powerful
church hierarchy.9 However, during a religious war, the Church as an institution
held an awkward and compromising position: Roberts and Sandbergs research
shows that it lost its role altogether in the management of peace and war.10 It
could not be an impartial mediator: it was the guarantor of the most Christian
king, and had crowned a sacral monarch at Reims, yet was asked to uphold this
position for a Valois monarchy that supported toleration, an offence to the
Catholic Church. How could it broker peace when contemporary rhetoric
spoke of religious existence in universal rather than confessional terms? Indeed,
the moral and practical leadership of the one Church was questionable when
the Reformed Church was also officially recognized: whose laws should be

7 P.-J. Souriac, Une guerre civile: affrontements religieux et militaires dans le Midi toulousain,

15621596 (Seyssel, 2008), 93 and 278 (for tocsin), 280 (for rebuild); L. Bourrachot, A.-M. Labit,
Histoire du protestantisme en Agenais, Muse dAgen, 12-12-65 au 31-3-66 (Agen, 1965), 15 (for
depot). There are very infrequent references to the church being used as a fort by the Huguenots:
C. Douais (ed.), Les Guerres de religion en Languedoc, daprs les papiers du Bon de Four-
quevaux, 15721574, (Toulouse, 1892), doc. LVI, 126, J. Dastis to Mons. de Fourquevaux, reports
that in February 1573 ceulx qui sont dans lesglise quest le principal fort dud. lieu. C. Rabaud
(ed.), Les guerres de religion Castres et dans le Languedoc (15551610/1685) vcues et dcrites
par Jacques Gaches (La Roque Gageac, 2007), 155, which describes fortification of the church of
Pradelles-Cabardes in 1573.
8 P. Harrison, Castles of God (Woodbridge, 2004), 98; S. Bonde, Fortress-Churches of Languedoc

(Cambridge, 1994); N. A. R. Wright, The fortified church at Chitry, Fort, 19 (1991), 510. Chitry
and its neighbour at Manlay are also discussed in P. Barbier, La France fodale (Saint-Brieuc, 1968),
409, 4436.
9 Harrison, Castles, 120.
10 B. Sandberg, Warrior Pursuits: Noble Culture and Civil Conflict in Early Modern France

(Baltimore, forthcoming), otherwise communicated in Sandberg, verbal communication, Put us all

in good peace and union: religious peacemaking in Languedoc after the Edict of Nantes, SCSC,
Geneva, May 2009; P. Roberts, The languages of peace during the French Religious Wars, Cult and
Soc Hist, 4 (2007), 297315.
 PHILIPPAWOODCOCK 527

followed? As such, Sandberg argues, the Church was replaced as a mediator of

the peace by a military leadership: confessional peace depended on military
possessions and strategy, rather than religious understanding.11 The Catholic
Church could only preach mobilization, as in Toulouse in 1563, rather than
respond practically to the threat of attack, while clerical financial contributions
to urban defence are hard to trace.12 Indeed, for contemporaries in the turbulent
south-west of France, the Church and clergy withdrew from active participation
in the fight: churches fell into disrepair, and were neglected until the return of
central authority.13

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Furthermore, the process of peacemaking, and contemporary recognition of
the need for such pacts, is something that belongs to the urban contextfor
example in Pierre Ayraults Consideration sur les troubles, et le juste moyen de
les appaiser: Aux villes de Paris, Rouen, Tholoze, Orleans, Lyons et autres of
1591. Pactes damiti were named for the urban populations that they regulated,
not the rural communities, and these became less frequent as the wars
progressed into their third decade.14 For Racaut and Foa, the rhetoric of
conciliation belongs to the courtly and military elites, while the study of
everyday survival and reaction to royal policy has tended to use towns as
discrete case studies, for example Roberts work on Troyes or Benedicts focus
on Rouen.15 Equally, discussion of contemporary fortification belongs to the
towns and their secular defences, with Conner arguing that when war arrived
in a locality, the atmosphere of despair prompted villagers to flee the countryside
and seek relative safety behind city walls.16 Souriacs study of the Wars
intrusion into southern society considers urban fortification as the principal
answer to unrest: towns were of premier importance due to their walls, their
human potential and their financial resources.17 However, he makes the

11 Sandberg, Warrior Pursuits, n.p.

12 P.-J. Souriac, Une guerre civile, 121, 138.
13 This is reflected in the report on the tat du clerg in the dioceses of Castres and Montpellier,

submitted in 1573 and collated in C. Douais (ed.), Mmoires ou Rapports indits sur ltat du
clerg, de la noblesse de la justice et du peuple, dans les diocses de Narbonne, de Montpellier et
de Castres en 1573 (Toulouse, 1891), 813.
14 J. Foa, Le Tour de la paix. Mission et commissions dapplication des dits de pacification sous

le rgne de Charles IX (15601574) (PhD, Universit Lumire-Lyon, 2008) ; J. Foa, Making peace:
the commissions for enforcing the pacification edicts in the reign of Charles IX (15601574), Fr
Hist, 18 (2004), 25674. This was discussed verbally in Frres, amis et concitoyens: Les pactes
damiti entre protestants et catholiques pendant les guerres de Religion, SCSC, Geneva, May
2009, Table 1.
15 L. Racaut, The cultural obstacles to religious pluralism in the polemic of the French Wars of

Religion, in The Adventure of Religious Pluralism in Early-Modern France, ed. K. Cameron,

M. Greengrass and P. Roberts (Bern, 2000), 11527; Foa, ibid.; P. Roberts, A City in Conflict: Troyes
During the French Wars of Religion (Manchester, 1996); P. Benedict, Rouen During the Wars of
Religion (Cambridge, 1981).
16 P. Conner, Peace in the provinces: peace-making in the Protestant south during the later Wars

of Religion in The Adventure of Religious Pluralism in Early Modern France, ed. Cameron,
Greengrass and Roberts, 179.
17 Souriac, Une guerre civile, 93: premire importance grce leurs murailles, leur potentiel

humain et leurs ressources financires.

528 THE FORTIFIED PARISH CHURCH

important point that the militarization of a place did not solely depend on its
physical strength, but on the collective decisions taken by its leaders, particularly
the urban magistrates.18 Might this apply to rural elites too? Elsewhere, existing
studies of secular uses of the parish church likewise focus on the towns and
their elites.19 Rural churches themselves are rarely included in encyclopaedias
of fortifications: indeed, the most recent encyclopaedia of French fortifications
consulted, Mesquis Chteaux forts et fortifications en France (1997), does not
include churches as a category of stronghold.20 Barbier estimates there are
relatively few examples of stand-alone fortified parish churches.21 But we know

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that they existed, particularly along the north-eastern frontier of France.22
However, while such churches were in use during the French Wars of Religion,
they were built against the external threat of Habsburg troops, and do not relate
specifically to religious war.
The circumstances in villages might be entirely different to those in towns,
which had a larger, and probably more confessionally divided, religious
community. However, a village might belong to a single faith, but be constantly
crossed or attacked by troops of different confessions, something that might not
trouble a well-defended town so much. This was particularly true of more rural
populations without walls to either protect or define their communities. Indeed,
during the Wars of Religion, some villagesfor example St-Georges-de-la-Coue
in 1589built walls for defence, thus transforming their legal status.23 This
article contends that the evidence for the fortified churches of the diocese of Le
Mans, and in particular the deaneries of Bonntable and La Fert-Bernard,
offered a practical solution to survival for rural parishioners, when negotiation
was either inadequate or inappropriate, and peace pacts irrelevant in an
otherwise confessionally united parish.
Before analysing the evidence for fortified churches, it is important to note that
their testimony is incomplete, not least because obedience to Angennes edict
demanded that the fortifications should be demolished. While this may have
reassured the community that they were now safe, it makes it difficult for us to
assess the extent of a regions fortification. Analysis is based upon recognizing a
fortified church of the Wars of Religion from architectural or archival evidence.
There are disparities between the criteria used in reference works to identify
fortified churches, and, of course, the problems of disappearing evidence as
churches evolve. Abbeys and cathedrals may have closely documented the costs

18 Ibid.,10: intrusion dans la societ mridionale; 13 for discussion of collective militarization.

19 M. de Smet, Heavenly quiet and the din of war: use and abuse of religious buildings for pur-
poses of safety, defence and strategy, in The Use and Abuse of Sacred Places in Late Medieval
Towns, ed. P. Trio and M. de Smet (Leuven, 2006), 126.
20 J. Mesqui, Chteaux forts et fortifications en France, (Paris, 1997).
21 Barbier, La France fodale, 390, 4038.
22 For works on the fortified churches of the Ardennes: Wright, The fortified church at Chitry,

510; Chitry and its neighbour at Manlay are also discussed in Barbier, La France fodale,.409,
4436.
23 A[rchives] D[partementales de la] S[arthe] 18 J 517. St-Georges-de-la-Coue was henceforth

known as a ville or bourg.

 PHILIPPAWOODCOCK 529

of their fortifications, but parish churches may not have noted the hasty creation
of a gun loop. Cemetery walls now lost must also have played a part in many a
parish, providing an enceinte that marked holy ground as well as a defensible
cordon. In this instance, any surviving evidence of fortification, whether massive
architectural additions (towers or perons) or smaller military features (e.g. gun
loops) qualifies a church as being fortified. Finally, while Harrison suggests that
the route to creating a new encyclopaedia of religious fortification is to study the
parish archives, this in itself is problematic; while this paper draws on such
records, it notes that, at least for the diocese of Le Mans, these are not as

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numerously extant or complete as he indicates for other parts of France.24 Useful,
yet incomplete series of Comptes des fabriques survive for the parishes of St-
Georges-du-Rosay, Dhault, St-Jean-des-chelles and La Fert-Bernard, while
transcribed parish registers in the Archives Dpartementales de la Sarthe, series
GG, also contribute useful material. Using this documentation, and the remaining
physical evidence, this article will outline the range of fortifications added to
churches, assessing continuity with earlier campaigns, and architectural responses
to weaponry. It will evaluate the motivation behind the fortification of parish
churches, whether it was to deter or to defend. Finally, using the parish of St-
Georges-du-Rosay as a case study, it will examine the role played by one church
in national politics and local defence.

I
The diocese of Le Mans bears witness to several very different programmes of
fortification. Traces of original, early medieval meurtrire-type windows
commonly survive; these were narrow openings, placed high on Romanesque
naves to illuminate the building without making it vulnerable to marauders.
They also provided cover for archers defending the building. Meurtrires can be
seen in the diocese at Villaines-sous-Luc, Requiel, Souill and Les Loges, proof
that the church had long doubled as a place of refuge for its worshippers.25
Other defences are directly related to unrest: predominantly dating from the
early period of the Hundred Years War, the massive fortifications added to the
churches of the Perche Sarthois typify the need to defend against attack from
English and French raiders and primitive artillery. Looming stone towers and
heavily built walls provided shelter to whole communities and their animals.
These churches are frequently linked to an adjacent priory, as at Avez: the
church formed a donjon defended by the priory bailey walls.26 The priory
house abutted the west end of the church at Avez, reinforcing its ability to
defend the parishioners, and controlling access to a valuable freshwater spring.
At St-Germain-de-la-Coudre, the church neighboured a secular fortification and
could only be approached through defended gateways; its Romanesque tower

24 Harrison, Castles, 98.

25 M. Samson (ed.), A la dcouverte des glises rurales de la Sarthe (Le Mans, 1992), 2021.
26 For Avez: R. Pesche, Dictionnaire topographique, historique et statistique de la Sarthe,

suivi dune biographie et dune bibliographie, vol. 1 (Paris, 1999), 77.

530 THE FORTIFIED PARISH CHURCH

was enclosed in the fifteenth century to allow safer firing against attackers
approaching its hilltop position. These fortifications have survived Bishop
Angennes edict as they have become structurally integral to subsequent
enlargement and modifications of the church complex. They were perhaps still
a deterrent in the late sixteenth century as neither of these two churches were
attacked, despite their proximity to other churches visited by iconoclasts.
These examples show that builders of parish churches were aware of the
buildings location and strategic value, but also of how architectural features
could be built or adapted to defend the parishioners. The Hundred Years War

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also saw churches serve direct military needs. When watchtowers (tours de
guet) were added to parish churches they not only strengthened the building,
but also its strategic value. These towers are seen both on hilly positions and on
flat landscapes, suggesting that they were used for communication, as well as to
monitor the movements of troops. They were solidly constructed and could
serve as peasant fortresses, but, as Potter argues, they were not strong enough
to withstand professional artillery by the sixteenth century.27 The insertion of
cannoniresopenings to allow archers to shootwas a frequent addition to
these towers (as at St-Georges-du-Rosay or Thligny), suggesting their occupation
by defenders, whether professional or peasant. This far from passive role is also
seen in the presence of bretches, openings above doors and windows to allow
the pouring of oil or other foul substances on attackers. The church expected
to be attacked, not only for its treasures, but also for its role in the military
geography.
Huge watchtowers were still being added to parish churches into the late
sixteenth century, suggesting that the role of the parish church in surveying the
countryside was accepted as a military one. At St-Jean-des-chelles payments
were made in the 1570s for a tower to be added to the south side of the church,
overlooking the cemetery and the crest of the hill upon which the village was
built. The tower is built of very rough, undressed stone, and has not been
properly meshed into the existing nave wall, suggesting the necessity of rapid
construction as the area was troubled by religious divisions and the presence of
gendarmes.28
Further fortifications were added to the churches of the diocese of
Le Mans, directly related to the continuing troubles of the Wars of Religion.
This supplemented an acknowledged ecclesiastical debt to the crown for
their defence. As elsewhere in France, the Church was taxed by the crown to
fund its wars, as well as to provide funds for local defences; indeed, parish
representatives from Pirmil and St-Georges-du-Rosay were jailed when taxes

27 D. Potter, War and Government in the French Provinces, Picardy 14601560 (Cambridge,

1993), 2223.
28 ADS 7 F 51 (1576), fo. 213v: Pay la somme de XIII l pour rembourser Monsr de Planchettes

qui avoyt desbours et paye p[a]r[ei]lle somme de treze livres a monsr de Lavardin estant en la ville
et p[ar]oisse de Montoire avec une grande compaignie de gens de guerre p[ ] composition f[ ]cte
avecques led. Sieur de Lavardin p[ ]r empescher la compaignie de venir en lad. p[ar]oisse de Sainct
Jehan.
 PHILIPPAWOODCOCK 531

could not be raised.29 Unlike the situation in the south-west of France, there
is little mention of clerical absenteeism. Instead there is evidence that the
clergy took some responsibility for their own protection. Throughout the
conflict, the cathedral of St Julien was responsible (fiscally and physically) for
some of the walls of Le Mans.30 The cathedral canons deliberated several
times on how to defend the city when they feared further Huguenot attack.31
Later, the Catholic League defence of the city was partly entrusted to its
curates.32 Additional fortifications were provided by the great monasteries of
Le Mans that had developed at the edge of the old town, forming a symbolic,

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protective, holy cordon. However, immense damage was inflicted on these
buildings during the Huguenot occupation of 1562, rendering them rather
feeble parts of the towns fortifications. Such clerical efforts reflect the fact
that the diocese, while troubled by the religious divide, was occupied by a
Huguenot majority in only a few places. The Catholic Church was able to
respond more effectively than in the Midi.
Beyond Le Mans, the dioceses towns also reacted vigorously. The monks of
the Romanesque abbey of Evron transformed their urban landscape into a
fortified complex in 1577.33 As Huguenot soldiers approached, the immediate
abbey close was changed into two lines of defences of a ditch and walls; the
modern curving street plan still follows these lines, while the fortified gatehouse
remains at the abbey enceintes west end.34 The abbeys south door was also
fitted with a drawbridge.35 Part of the abbeys defences was formed by the
existing parish church of Saint Martin. Similarly, at La Fert-Bernard, extensions
to the west wall of the impressive Notre-Dame-de-la-Marais, reinforced the town
walls. The scale of construction of the south tower (completed 1589) was
arguably a military rather than a spiritual response, built as work started on a
new peron for the towns walls. This tower acted as a firearms and observation
emplacement during the siege of the town.36 The church fabrique even

29 ADS 7 F 70 (158788), 8390, 956, 99; ADS 7 F 74 (1585/86), 109: A Hierosme la Poustire

qui se seroit a la prire de plusieurs desd. habitans en la ville du Mans lorsque icelluy Levasseur y fut
mn prisonnier pour le payement ... de greffe de lad. paroisse.
30 P. Piolin, Histoire de lglise du Mans, vol. 5 (Paris, 1861), 461.
31 Ibid., 494, 508.
32 A. Ledru, Urbain de Laval-Bois-Dauphin, Marquis de Sabl, Marchal de France R[evue]

H[istorique et] A[rcheologique du] M[aine] 2 (1877), 675.

33 Barbier, La France fodale, 460 discusses the earlier fortification of the abbey; for a plan of the

abbey: M. Pass, Lanien logis des Abbs dEvron, RHAM 63 (1908), 77.
34 C-L. Salch, LAtlas des villes et villages fortifis en France(Moyen-Age) (Strasburg, 1978), 355.

Despite these interventions, the abbey was unable to hold off attack, and the monks and inhabitants
were forced northwards to the chteau of Le Rocher at Mzangers. The losses sustained by the ab-
bey are recorded in A[rchives] D[partementales de la ] M[ayenne] H 10 bis (1577), Proces verbal
du Pillage des Titres de labbaye dEvron qui estoint au Tresor.
35 C.-L. Salch, Dictionnaire des chteaux et des fortifications du Moyen-Age en France

(Strasburg, 1979), 461.

36 Pesche, Dictionnaire, vol. 1, 183; ADS 7 F 64, Histoire de la ville de la Fert-Bernard, 89 in-

cludes a note from unspecified fabrique accounts to indicate that the church had long worked to
improve La Fert-Bernards defences. Mery ou Hemery Chevallier, the founder who had made the
font, was also commissioned to direct letablissment de batterie dartillerie en primeur de troubles.
532 THE FORTIFIED PARISH CHURCH

contributed expertise to the towns fortification, suggesting a founder and

artillery expert for the construction of a gun platform in the town walls. At
Mamers, the towns makeshift defences were penetrated by both Huguenots
and Catholics, with only the fortifications outside the towns church of St
Nicolas providing any protection.37
Smaller, yet no less important examples of fortifications can be found in the
dioceses rural parish churches. Earlier defences were adapted to new military
demands, producing fortification that relied on physical geography and
engineering innovation. At Tass conventual walls were used to provide an

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enceinte around the church. The stone cemetery walls remaining at Thligny
point to their role in this parishs fortification and response to modern weaponry:
the walls were extended to protect the church and presbytery (itself defended
by a turret).38 Aspects of trace italiennereinforcing the low walls with earth
to absorb the impact of cannonballscan be seen in their construction. perons
and guardhouses were included in the design, while the medieval houses
bordering the approaches to the church bear signs of reinforcement: the parish
church enclosure became a true place fortifie. While these made the church
a place of safety for parishioners, the fortifications at Thligny transformed the
church square into a fortress with military readiness.
As well as many churches preserving medieval meurtrires, the installation in
the sixteenth century of gun loops (also known as meurtrires) on the parish
churches at Thligny, Dhault, St-Aubin-des-Coudrais, St-Georges-du-Rosay and
Prval shows that these buildings were defended by firearms. At Dhault, to the
north-west, gun loops were added to the church tower after Contis soldiers
killed several parishioners.39 Was the continued insertion of gun loops on
churches reflective of the more widespread use of firearms among the peasantry,
or were these to be manned by local militias or gendarmes? Unfortunately, the
debate on the prevalence of firearms among the peasantry is inconclusive: by
this period the matchlock musket, de Monlucs artifices du diable, would also
have been known to parishioners, and it proliferated among Conds Huguenot
armies by the late 1570s.40 However, Souriacs survey of available weapons in

37 G. Fleury, Recherches sur les fortifications de larondissement de Mamers du X e au XVI e

sicle (Mamers, 1888), 79.

38 For the works at Thligny: K. Bergeot et al., glises de la Sarthe (Le Mans, 2006), 467.
39 M. Le Men et al., Canton de la Fert-Bernard: Inventaire gnral des monuments et des

richesses artistiques de la France (Paris, 1983), 183 for details of the meurtrire. It is unclear from
the surviving transcription of Contis attack whether his soldiers broke the fon, i.e. the font, or the
for of the church: ADS 7 F 23 (1590) fo. 25v: Le xxviie jour de april vciiiixx et dix le fon/r [my n/r]
de Dehault fut rompue par les garnisons du Mans, et furent tuez en leglise dudit Dehault Jehan
Flurian secretaire de ladite eglise et Victor Pagner, et Mathurin Angis, Magdalen Ville [sic.], Ches-
neau et...[sic.], Quetin, et aultres blesss.
40 B. de Monluc, Commentaires 15211576, ed. P. Courteault (Paris, 1964), 345: Que pleust

Dieu que ce malheureux instrument neust jamais est invent! ... Mais ce sont des artifices du di-
able pour nous faire entre-tuer. De Monluc reported that there were very few French soldiers in the
Italian campaigns of the 1520s who used the arquebus. By contrast, in 1568, Conds Huguenot
Provenal army had at least 6,000 arquebusiers, who were all experienced soldiers, far more than
had ever been seen in the royal army.
 PHILIPPAWOODCOCK 533

the Midi of the 1560s suggests very variable rates of ownership, with perhaps
only one proper weapon, let alone a firearm, for every man defending a parish.41
Without documentary proof of soldiers being installed in churches, it is
important to note that the church was often the only stone-built building
available to parishioners, and so was probably built primarily for their use and
requirements, rather than just serving as a military outpost.
A final element in fortification that demonstrates the churchs architectural
response to new weaponry is the adaptation or construction of porches. Known
in local architectural terminology as a balet or chapitreau, such porches are

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normally described as functioning as extra non-liturgical space, housing parish
meetings or business transactions.42 They are particularly prevalent in the north
of the diocese, with celebrated sixteenth-century examples at Gesnes-le-
Gandelin and St-Michel-des-Monts. At Gesnes-le-Gandelin, the open-sided, west-
end porch has stone benches for meetings, and evidence of doric mouldings on
its massive stone pillars. St-Michel-des-Monts is more sylvan, combining plaster
walls and a low wooden tiled roof, reminiscent of English church porches.
However, the porches at St-Aubin-des-Coudrais and St-Georges-du-Rosay were
designed as fortifications. Others probably existed but were dismantled or were
remodelled into less military structures, as at St-Cosme-en-Vairais, which was
once fully enclosed.43 St-Aubin-des-Coudrais modified its porch for war: it was
originally an arcaded, Romanesque structure. At some point during the Wars, at
least three of its arches were filled in, leaving only narrow openings for musket
barrels to protrude (Fig. 1).44 Lateral windows were also similarly filled in. The
balet at St-Georges-du-Rosay was an entirely new structure, built to be the fort
of the church, and included gun loops at two levels, allowing a sophisticated
defence of the church (Fig. 2).45
It is clear from this evidence that the rural parish church responded to the
presence of troops in the diocese with a variety of measures. Old, habitual
defences such as strongly built walls and towers were deployed, and the parish
church continued to act as both a surveillance and communications post. The
fortified churches of the Hundred Years War meshed with the new military
requirements of the Wars of Religion. New additions, such as porches and
reinforced walls, were created in response to developments in artillery and the
proliferation of hand weapons. While studies of the response of the Church
to the Wars are not yet encyclopaedic, there was clearly some corporate
organization in the urban context; the variety of responses in rural parishes
speaks no less strongly of a pro-active Church, yet, as with urban solutions to

41 Souriac, Une guerre civile, 1924.

42 J-Y. Besselivre, Balets et caquetoires, in M.-M. Compre et al., Lieux de Parole en
Sarthe (Le Mans, 2007), 1926.
43 Ibid., 20.
44 Le Men, Canton de la Fert-Bernard, 3212.
45 ADS 7 F 74 (1590), 113: fort de lesglize. This church is noted in Salch, Dictionnaire, 1033

and Pesche, Dictionnaire, vol. 5, 224.

534 THE FORTIFIED PARISH CHURCH

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Figure 1 The blocked Romanesque arches and gun holes, St-Aubin-des-Coudrais.

the Wars, there was no single blueprint for church fortification. The following
section will examine which factors influenced fortification; were they as varied
as the solutions to parish defence?

II
While Le Mans was not a main area of conflict during the Wars of Religion, the
diocese as a whole was characterized by politico-religious divides among its
nobility, towns and parishes. The house of Laval-Montmorency dominated the
west of the diocese, while Guise and Bourbon influence was felt strongly in
towns en route to Normandy and along the Loir valley at Sabl and La Fleche. In
April 1562 Le Mans was seized by influential members of its Huguenot consistory,
in support of similar actions in Rouen and Orlans, coordinated by the Protestant
nobility. Royal troops advanced on Le Mans, and on 11 July 1562 the Huguenots
departed from the town, travelling north towards Normandy. En route they
 PHILIPPAWOODCOCK 535

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Figure 2 The balet, St-Georges-du-Rosay.
devastated church property, buildings and titles to land, especially in Fresnay-le-
Vicomte and Beaumont-le-Vicomte, towns affiliated to the house of Bourbon-
dAlbret and where there were already a number of Huguenots to support them.
Catholic reprisals in Le Mans itself were arguably limited by the influence of
officials identified with the emergent politique grouping, but the region
nevertheless experienced political and social upheaval throughout the Wars.46
As the royal policy of pacification broke down in the 1580s, the areas
instability increased. When the new bishop, Claude dAngennes, was appointed
in 1588 (as successor to his brother, Charles), his familys control over Le Mans
seemed assured: his brother, Philippe dAngennes, sieur du Fargis was also
made royal governor of the county of Maine. But, in July 1588 the city was
betrayed to the League forces led by Urbain de Laval, marchal de Boisdauphin,
by, among others, some of the cathedral canons; other significant towns in the
diocese also transferred their loyalty from the crown to the League, as at Sabl
and Laval. However, Henri IV returned to Le Mans with his troops in November
1589 and regained the city on 2 December 1589. Du Fargis was restored as
governor, and his brother the bishop reinstalled in his palace. Across the
diocese, League resistance to Henri IV seemed to decline; Urbain de Lavals
attempt to hold Sabl for the duc de Mayenne was overthrown by the
townspeople. In Le Mans the king received declarations of loyalty from
Beaumont-le-Vicomte, Laval, Chteau-Gontier and Mayenne. The only significant

46 For attempts to control factional feeling in Le Mans: M. V. Alouis, Le Mans au mois doctobre

1562, RHAM 6 (1879), 5860; H. Chardon, Les Protestants au Mans en 1572 pendant et aprs la
Saint-Bathlmy (Mamers, 1881).
536 THE FORTIFIED PARISH CHURCH

town in the diocese still loyal to the League was La Fert-Bernard, under the
governorship of Dagues de Commene.47
This division resulted in turbulence which was particularly marked in the
deaneries of La Fert-Bernard and Bonntable, where the larger settlements
held clear affinities to either the House of Bourbon or Guise. Hence, it is not
surprising that more instances of church fortification can be traced in the
localitys towns and villages (Fig. 3). To the west, from 1581, Bonntable and its
town chteau were controlled through marriage by the Protestant Franois de
Bourbon, prince de Conti (15581614), a paternal cousin of Henri of Navarre.48

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Figure 3 Map of the Fertois from Bonntable to La Fert-Bernard, Pesche, Dictionnaire,

vol. 2, 336.
47 Ledru, Urbain de Laval, 6823.
48 Pesche, Dictionnaire, vol. 1, 183 dates this marriage after 1588; ADS 7 F 50 gives an earlier
date, F. Piel, Le Chateau de Bonntable, 1920: Jeanne se remaria en 1581 a Francois de Bourbon
prince de Ceonty, souverain de Chateau Renaud.
 PHILIPPAWOODCOCK 537

While the town had previously been sympathetic to the Catholic Guise faction,
this changed under Conti.49 In 1590 he armed the town, using barriers and the
gates of the town and installed a good sized garrison.50 Nobles sympathetic to
Protestantism found toleration of their beliefs in the region, and chteaux such
as La Goupillire had been centres of Reformed worship since the 1560s.51
In contrast, La Fert-Bernard, only 20 km to the east, had been part of the
appanage of the Guise House of Lorraine since the late fifteenth century. Like
other Guise towns, after the massacre of Vassy in 1562 it expelled all those
suspected of Protestant opinions.52

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Its rigorous Catholicism and strong civic identity was expressed through the
continued lavish building programme at Notre-Dame-des-Marais (Fig. 4). This
church is perhaps the most magnificent in the diocese after St Julien, and its
decoration spoke as much of urban as of seigneurial power.53 The display of
Guise iconography on the external choir balustrade glorified the elevation of
the family, but was funded and designed by the parish and burghers who
profited from ducal patronage. As Protestantism spread, the town placed its
faith in the protection of the Guise and latterly the Catholic League, but also in
a series of iconic protective statues placed at the town gates.54 Physical defences
included the chteau, the parish church of Notre-Dame, the towns fifteenth-
century walls, partly maintained by the church fabrique, the towns canals and
marshes and two fortresses built at Chronne, in the faubourg of St-Antoine-de-
Rochefort.55 It only submitted to Henri IV after a month-long siege, led by Conti,
in 1590.56 Encircling it were seigneuries under the control of Urbain de Laval,
now the Lieutenant for the League in Maine: in the diocese of Le Mans he was
also seigneur of Precign, of St-Aubin-des-Coudrais and of St-Mars. His eventual
change of allegiance in favour of Henri IV in April 1597 was instrumental in

49 G. Herv, Lhistoire de Bonntable, 37 and A. Guy, Histoire de Bonntable (Paris, 1990),

701 give details of the attack on Bonntable by the Huguenots in 1562 after their exit from Le
Mans. They attacked the church and allowed their horses to drink from the stoops. The town was
liberated by an army from La Fert-Bernard in April 1563.
50 ADS 7 F 50, Piel, Le chateau, 1920: Ce prince avoit fait fermer la place de Bonntable (vers

1590), par des barrieres et des portes de ville et y avait mis bonne garrison, et fut garnir les meurtri-
eres du chateau de longues coleuremes lan les guerres civiles, la religion pretendue rforme
avoient accabl le peuple, on ne voyait quglises renverses et profanations; Guy, Histoire, 81
links Conti to Jean de la Vignolles, the leader of the Huguenots of Le Mans in 1562, through a shared
game of tennis in April 1582.
51 For la Goupillire family: ADS 7 F 23, St Hillaire le Lierru; for Protestantism at the chteau:

P. Cordonnier Dtrie, Au long de la Chronne, RHAM 110/34 (1954), 151 ; for the chteau: Pesche,
Dictionnaire, vol. 5, 284.
52 ADS 7 F 62, Histoire de la ville de la Fert-Bernard jusquen 1789, rdige vers 184042,

Lopold Charles draft copy, 105.

53 M. Pflieger, Une paroisse en chantier: La construction du choeur de lglise Notre-Dame-des-Marais

de la Fert-Bernard entre 1535 et 1544, RHAM 157 (2006), 73100.

54 ADS 18 J 502, Le Maine Libre lundi 8 fev.1965: La statuette ayant protg la ville en 1652 va

retrouver place rue dOrlans.

55 For fortresses: Pesche, Dictionnaire, vol. II, 26.
56 For legends attached to the siege: ADS 18 J 502, Supplment au Pays Fertois, 29 fev. 1924, 2.
538 THE FORTIFIED PARISH CHURCH

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Figure 4 Notre-Dame-des-Marais, La Fert-Bernard.

finally bringing peace to the region (as well as giving Henri several fortified
parishes from which to monitor La Fert-Bernard).
From this evidence, it is clear that the local fortification that took place
predominantly in the north-west of the diocesethat is, the most militarized
area and one in which there were clearly defined Protestant and Catholic
communities was a response to the factional division. However, it was not
the simple response of a Catholic church against growing Huguenot power, or
an attempt to keep peace in a rural area where peace pacts were not necessarily
appropriate. While there were Huguenot congregations, this was not an area
 PHILIPPAWOODCOCK 539

troubled by multi-confessional towns. Strong Huguenot communities existed in

Maine, but either in towns where they held political ascendancy, for example
in Bonntable, or in those where no guarantee of worship applied, such as
Mamers. However, parish registers do not speak of particularly sustained
sectarian problems between Protestant worshippers and local Catholics.
Where Huguenots are mentioned it is either as a temporary, iconoclastic threat,
especially in the 1560s1570s, as landsknechts in the 1580s1590s, or as a
seigneur who had withdrawn from the community to conduct private worship.
This makes it hard to see the fortification as evidence of peace-making, or of the

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Catholic Church asserting itself against the threat of Protestant dominance.
Indeed, from Bishop Angennes statement, fortification was clearly viewed as
provocation rather than pacification. Further, Bishop Angennes spoke of the
deprivations of iconoclasm, and many rural churches suffered financially during
the Wars, losing revenues from land as well as paying for rebuild. From this
standpoint, fortifying a church would act as a deterrent to raiders and there are
certainly examples of fortified churches, such as Thligny, that seem to have
suffered less damage and conserved more medieval fabric than others. However,
with the problematic evidence it is hard to decide whether this was because they
were effective deterrents, or just not visited with great ferocity by iconoclasts.
There is a relationship between certain churches that suffered iconoclastic
attack and those that fortified: for example at Prval, St-Jean-des-chelles and
St-Georges-du-Rosay.57 Yet this iconoclasm, which occurred mainly during the
1560s and 1570s, does not correlate entirely with our knowledge of when the
churches were actually fortified, mainly during the 1580s and 1590s. This
suggests that fortification was not simply a response to iconoclasm. From the
early 1560s parish churches were ravaged periodically, and the patterns of
attack are informative. The first wave of iconoclasm came immediately after
leading members of the Huguenot congregation left Le Mans in July 1562. Attack
was usually as destructive as possible and focused on high status items, leaving
bells destroyed and images and furnishings smashed. Flash raids targeted
precious materials to fund the Huguenot war effort, while metal objects were
taken to be refounded as weaponry. Parish churches worked hard to repair the
damage, but must have been impoverished by repeated attacks. Instead of
fortification, coping strategies were developed by the rural parish: at St-Georges-
du-Rosay, the parishioners turned to their saints when the inhabitants, at the
approach of the enemy, gave themselves to the church with their most precious
goods, and there, believing themselves to be out of danger at Marys feet, so
venerated in the countryside under the name of Our Lady of Pity, they defended
themselves vigorously.58 More practically, in 158485, having heard that those
of the new opinion wanted to take them away, the procurer [took] the cross

57For iconoclasm at, for example, St-Jean-des-chelles: ADS 7 F 51, 20515; for Prval, ibid., 92.
58Cme, Lglise, 8: Les habitants, lapproche de lennemi, se rendaient lglise avec ce quils
avaient de plus prcieux et l se croyant hors dangers aux pieds de Marie, si vnre dans le pays
sous le nom de Notre Dame de Piti, ils se dfendaient hardiment.
540 THE FORTIFIED PARISH CHURCH

of the said church, and other precious jewels, and ... took them to the place of
Loupiette to hide them.59 St-Georges-du-Rosay did not fortify in response to this
iconoclasm, waiting instead until 158990. Indeed, there were areas attacked
by iconoclasts elsewhere in the diocese that did not fortify at all: for example
the parishes along the Loire valley.
During the 1560s and 1570s rural parish churches did all they could to replace
their decorative, holy fabric, but when attack continued into the late 1580s,
there was no money to do so, and the focus of attack fell more on sectarian
hatred and military advantage, rather than iconoclastic destruction.60 The

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church became responsible for the defence of bodies, rather than of images.
This, of course, is linked to the escalating hostilities between the great factions,
the Royalists, the Protestants and the Catholic League, a conflict into which
these parishes were inevitably bound. Closer analysis of construction at St-
Georges-du-Rosay reveals that fortification was closely tied to the increasingly
militarized countryside, and in particular the struggle between Royalists and the
League. In this case, was the fortified church defending a Catholic parish or a
strategic Protestant stronghold?

III
St-Georges-du-Rosay lay on a notional administrative border between Bonntable
and La Fert-Bernard; it belonged to the doyenn and baronnie of Bonntable
(7 km), but was part of the bailliage of La Fert-Bernard, distant by two great
leagues (14 km), with fiefs belonging to both seigneuries.61 In the sixteenth
century it was divided from Bonntable by forest, and stood at the crossroads of
the main route to La Fert-Bernard and tracks to St-Denis-des-Coudrais.62 Even
before 1560, its interests were schizophrenic, divided between the two local
towns. As with many other local churches, its fabrique was a patron of the
glaziers working at La Fert-Bernard, but also paid artisans working in Bonntable
for statuary and silver, while other commissions went to workshops in Le
Mans.63 These commissions only abated in 158990 during the worst of the
local troubles. The church itself dates originally from the eleventh century but
was largely rebuilt in the fifteenth century, from rough local granite. It is built
on a slope, with the east end higher than the west, the rise noticeable in the
modern houses that surround the south and east ends, tracing the line of the

59 ADS 7 F 74 (158485), 108: ayant entendu ceulx de la nouvelle opinion se vouloir eslever, led.

[ ] procureur a este la croix de la dite glise, et autres precieux joyaulx et les auroit transportez et
fait transporter au lieu de Loupiette.
60 P. Woodcock, Was original best? Refitting the churches of the diocese of Le Mans during the

French Wars of Religion, in The Archaeology of Post-Medieval Religion, ed. C. King and D. Sayer
(Leeds, forthcoming).
61 ADS 7 F 74 (1569), 103: deux grandes lieues.
62 For the forest and road: Pesche, Dictionnaire vol. 1, 18990. This road is also indicated as the

main route on the Cassini map of the mid-eighteenth century.

63 ADS 7 F 74, 120 for commissions to La Fert-Bernard; ADS 13 F 2363 for commissions to

Bonntable.
 PHILIPPAWOODCOCK 541

former cemetery, destroyed in 1831.64 The graveyard could have been defended,
for work was undertaken on the walls in 157980 and grills installed to control
access to the space.65 The church at St-Georges-du-Rosay was of tactical
importance on the road from Bonntable to La Fert-Bernard because it was
built on solid ground in an otherwise marshy, wet countryside which only rose
towards St-Aubin-des-Coudrais.66 Its physical position had made it a focus of
English attack in the 1400s, as well as attracting iconoclasts, and strategists who
wished to control the road.
What makes the church remarkable is its porch at the west end, whichextends

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beyond the entire width of the nave. It was built to be the fort de lesglize and
is a unique piece of ecclesiastical military architecture.67 Rather than adapting
existing features of a church tower or porch (as at St-Aubin-des-Coudrais), it
directly transforms the function of the main entrance and extends beyond the
entire width of the church at the west end. It is constructed of undressed
cemented rocks, with plaster of a salmon hue, and accented with quoins of
roussard at the corners and windows. Unlike the other balet it has massively
thick walls, slanted inwards, and of a visibly greater depth at their base, la
trace italienne. It has a central door and a steep, slate-tiled roof which rises to
a few feet below the original roof level of the west end. The nineteenth-century
antiquarian Rmy Pesche reported that it originally had a crenellated balustrade
rather than the current sloping roof, while mixed fenestration suggests l
ater remodelling.68 At the north and south corners are pepperpot towers,
chauguettes or tourelles, built of narrow bricks and topped with steep conical
towers (Fig. 5). The use of such materials suggests the need for rapid, fireproof
construction: it is interesting that bricks and a similar design were also used at
Englancourt and Marly-Gomont in the Ardennes, fortified at the same period
against Spanish troops.69
The sophistication of the balet suggests that personnel with military
experience were involved in its construction and in the choice of site, for, as
Perret stated, One must always fortify according to the site and the enemy that

64 The new cemetery was developed in the 1630s to the north-west of the church to cope with

the plague epidemic. Pesche, Dictionnaire, vol. 5, 225 indicates that the old enclosure still existed
in 1830.
65 ADS 13 F 2363, penultimate page (no pagination): Compte ledict p[rocureur] avoir paye ce

Jehan Davyd machon pour avoir par le dict Davyd faict la machonnerye tout du murs du cymetiere
que de grilles dicell.
66 Guy, Histoire, 82: Ils [the church buildings] dominaient une chausse tablie dans les marais

qui se trouvaient sur la route de Bonntable, do devaient venir les Huguenots.

67 See n. 37.
68 Pesche, Dictionnaire, vol. 5, 224: Celle-ci, fort belle, contreforts en pierre de taille, flan-

que, aux deux angles de son extremit occidentale, de deux tourelles suspendues, toutes deux en
brique, prenant naissance 4 metres environ du sol, et supports par des consoles en pierre de grs.
Ces espces de gurites, et les crnaux dont lglise est entoure, font prsumer que celle-ci a t
construite une poque o lon devait songer en faire un point de dfense.
69 Cme, Lglise, 9: Il fut difi la hte comme le prouve sa construction en grande partie en

brique plus conomique.

542 THE FORTIFIED PARISH CHURCH

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Figure 5 Detail of the turrets and materials, the balet, St-Georges-du-Rosay.

one fears one must face.70 Its west door is approached by wide steps that lead
to a broad platform, capable of bearing an artillery piece. Its width allows fire to
cover the rear angles to the nave, while the relative thickness of the walls would
withstand attack. The two levels of gun loops suggest organized teams of
defenders; we know that there were troops with some level of training available
to defend the church because in 158485 payments were made to Levasseur,

70 Perret, Des fortifications, 8: Il faut toujours fortifier selon le site et lennemi que lon craint

davoir affaire.
 PHILIPPAWOODCOCK 543

Loys Drouet, and Hierosme de Pousterie ... to go to Sainct Denys de Couldrs

to beg the captain of our companies of gendarmes who were there to come to
the said St Georges.71 Among the local seigneurs were several military
personnel: Estienne Thomas, archer des gens du roi, Andr Huger, lieutenant de
monseigneur le bailli de Bonntable and Jehan de Chahannay, commissaire
royale en ceste partie.72
This structure, so obviously intended for defence of the community, helps us
to understand why local churches armed at this point rather than before, and
how the process was achieved. By 1589 habitual strategies for defence were

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insufficient, let alone relying on heavenly protection. The campaign season of
158990 saw an increased number of troops of both religious persuasions, and
St-Georges-du-Rosay seemed isolated. It was theologically out of sympathy with
Bonntable, controlled by Protestants, but was physically remote from La Fert-
Bernard, soon to become besieged. Here, the balet could be interpreted as the
parish having to assume responsibility for its own defence. It had previously
tried to draw back all of its manpower from service, with letters sent to
Bonntable, via the local lord, Jehan de Chahannay, to beg Monsieur le Prince
to exempt the inhabitants of the said parish from service in the company of the
captain of St Denys du Couldrais.73 St-Georges-du-Rosay did not automatically
support calls for assistance from co-religionists at La Fert-Bernard; when
defensive preparations for the siege began, St-Georges-du-Rosay pleaded for
exemptions for the said inhabitants to go to work on the peron that is being
built at the said Fert.74
Caught between the two centres of factional activity, the parish of St-Georges-
du-Rosay was forced into the conflict, and its priest and lord occasionally acted
as go-betweens amidst Protestant and Catholic rivals. A representative was
reimbursed for carrying letters from Monseigneur le Prince to Monsieur de la
Frette at La Fert-Bernard.75 The Catholic curate also visited Protestant
Bonntable to carry letters in return from La Fert-Bernard.76 In 1589 the
parish paid for letters to be carried to Philippe dAngennes, seigneur du Fargis,

71 ADS 7 F 74 (158485), 109: Levasseur, Loys Drouet, et Hierosme de Pousterie ... pour aller

Sainct Denys de Couldrs prier le capitaine de nos compaignes de gens darmes y estant ne venir
logir aud. St Georges.
72 These titles are noted in the comptes de la fabrique for 158283 and 158788.
73 ADS 7 F 74 (1586), 110: Item baille a Monseigneur de Saint Georges ung escu ung tiers por

aller au chasteau [de Bonntable] pryer Monseigneur le Prince exempter les habitans de lad. par-
oisse de la compaignie du cappitaine St Denys du Couldrais ce que led[ ] sieur cur aurait faict en
presence de plusieurs paroissiens et par son moyen seroient exempts des gens darmes pour ce
..iiii. e.
74 ADS 7 F 74 (1590), 112: Item pour estre a Fert Bernard a la prire des d[ ] habitans pour

porter letters de Monseigneur le Prince a Monsieur de la Frette pour exempter les d[ ] habitans
daller travailler a leperon que lon faisait a la dite Fert tant pour ma despence que pour ps estre
all par deux foys que pour le louage dun cheval.
75 Ibid.
76 ADS 7 F 74 (158990): Item bailli aud[ ] sieur cure qui alla a bonnestable qurir lesd[ ] letters

ung escu iii L.

544 THE FORTIFIED PARISH CHURCH

asking that he support their refusal to pay the taille to La Fert-Bernard, which
this town had commanded to assist its siege preparations.77 Simultaneously, the
religious and secular military landscape merged: the gun loops at the fief of Le
Mortier are similar to those at the church of Nogent-le-Bernard, while other fiefs
were fortified.78
What then was the link between this fortification and the relative questions
of religious and political allegiance? The partnership between the nobility and
parish is crucial to answering this question. It is unlikely that any fortification
took place without some involvement of the nobilitywhether secular or

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ecclesiasticalfor, as Triolet notes, the fortification of a church required, in
principle, the permission of its seigneur.79 At Raillicourt in the Ardennes, the
inhabitants were asked to pay an extra tax of a live cockerel to the seigneur
each year for the right to fortify their parish church and cemetery walls.80
Permission was unlikely to be granted except in the most trying circumstances,
as the building might be seen as a stronghold against seigneurial authority, or
deprive him of a source of revenue; indeed, a lord may have preferred defences
to be built from wood, emphasizing the temporary nature of other fortified
churches.
At this point it is arguable that the parish church became part of the Royalist
military topography. It was fortified as much for its own defence as that of
Bonntable, in association with its key seigneur. The most prominent noble
mentioned in St-Georges-du-Rosays registers was Jean de Chahannay, chevalier
de lordre du roi, ecuyer, commisaire en ceste partie (158283, 158788,
1589), seigneur de Cheronn, and Monsieur de Sainct Georges.81 His influence
upon the church was strong as, along with Christophe Le Moyne, the cur, he
was presented with the church accounts by its officers and in this period had
the right of presentation.82 His family had founded the parish: the senior
Chahannay was described as the Lord founder of the church and parish of the
said Saint Georges.83 Their continued local influence is evident in their heraldry

77 ADS 7 F 74 (1589), 112: Item pour estre all au Mans par la prire de monsieur le cur dud[ ]

saint georges Marin le paster Michel Landavy Gregoire le priere Jehan Ast Francoys le Mordau et
aultres paroissiens pour porter une lestre a monsieur du Fargis pn[ ]t de------t pour le gouverneur
du pais du Maine, que le gouverneur de la Fert Bernard avait envoye aux d. habitans dud. St
Georges, par laquelles ils demandaient les tailles dud. S Georges pour une despence que pour retirer
lespence dud. Sieur de Fargis. VII l X s.
78 J. Hardy, Les Seigneuries de St-Georges-du-Rosay, in Pays dart et dhistoire du Perche

Sarthois: St-Georges-du-Rosay (Le Mans, 2002), 6. This house is mentioned in Pesche, Diction-
naire, vol. 5, 227: Le fief et domaine des Mortiers, pour lequel le seigneur, qui nest pas nomm,
est tax x l., au rle de larrire-ban de 1639; ADS 7 F 27 contains photos of the fortified Ferme de
la Croix with the arms of Jean de Chahannays parents.
79 J. Triolet and L. Triolet, Les Souterrains: le monde des souterrains-refuges en France (Paris,

1995), 84.
80 Ibid.
81 For the family, seigneury and lands: Pesche, Dictionnaire, vol. 5, 146, 226.
82 ADS 13F 981 gives Chahannay as a member of the Order of St Michel, seigneur de Chronne

et du Rosay.
83 ADS 7 F 74, 129: seigneur fondateur de lglize et paroisse dudict Sainct Georges.
 PHILIPPAWOODCOCK 545

in the church, a silver shield with two black leopards: their arms are also on a
large granite cross, now in a central position in the graveyard.84 Jean de
Chahannay remained a member of the fabrique, and a Catholic, giving votive
candles to the church in 1569.85 In 1577 Chahannay and Marin de Villires,
seigneur de la Rame, were both described as pious and living according to the
rules of the Roman Catholic Church by the priest of Tuff, Olivier Leclosier.86
However, during the Wars he seems to have fallen foul of the good graces of the
abbot of St Vincent, as there was a dispute over the burial of his mother in the
choir of the parish church at Tuff. This was finally resolved in Chahannays

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favour due to his position as a man feared and redoubted at the said place of
Tuff; these doubts perhaps reflect his alliance to the royal household, where
his continued position depended upon support for Conti and Navarre, now
Henri IV after the assassination of Henri III on 1 August 1589.87 Good relations
with Henri IV are indicated by Chahannays actions as an emissary for the parish
to Bonntable, and his delivery in 1586 and 1590 of moneys collected from the
parish to the local commanders of the royal troops, the Captain Normande and
others.88 After Henri IVs coronation in 1594 he maintained his lands and
position.89 His son Charles was snchal du Maine in 1624, continuing a family
tradition of royal service.90
As seigneur de Chronne his lands also included St-Denis-des-Coudrais
where his gendarmes were based.91 It is arguable that his interest in the parish
of St-Georges-du-Rosay led to its fortification, as other parishes where he held
influence, such as Tuff, were also strengthened.92 Chahannays support
made the balet another line in Bonntables defences, a sacred site made into
a military outpost. Other churches were later fortified by military nobles in
similar style: Saint Juvin, near Vouziers, was constructed in 1624 by the comte
de Grande as a defence against Spanish troops. Furthermore, Chahannays

84 S. Degouzon, Un portrait de Francois de Maill de la Tour-Landry (vers 1564), dcouvert au

chteau de Chronne, Tuff, La Province du Maine, 69 (1967), 431: dargent aux deux lions
lopards de sable.
85 ADS 7 F 74, Inventaire (1569), 71: Deux cierges de la reault de Monseig[ ]r de St Georges

quil ait avoir faict fonder paye ung an ensemble troys petits cierges lun servant devant Monseign
[ ]r St Sbastien lautre devant Madame Saincte Barbe.
86 Cordonnier-Dtrie, Au long, 174, citing Certificat de Catholicit dOlivier Leclosier, vicaire

de Tuff envoy au doyen de Montfort: pieux et vivant selon la rgle de lglise catholique et ro-
maine.
87 Cordonnier-Dtrie, Au long, 175: craint et doubt audit lieu de Tuff. A similar dispute oc-

curred at St Hillaire le Lierru: ibid., n. 21.

88 ADS 7 F 74 (158990), 112: Item pour avoir baill a Monsr de Sainct Georges a la prire des d.

habitants sept livres dix sous pour traicter le capitaine Normande et aultres.
89 For an example of his sustained position: ADS 7 F 74 (1613), 81: Present. . . par devant

messier Charles de Chahannay Cheval. de lOrdre du roy, gentilhomme ordinaire de la chambre,

seigneur de Cheronne, Chahannay, Rouzay.
90 Pesche, Dictionnaire, vol. 6, 403: Chronne ... dont Ch. de Chahanay, seign. de Chronne,

snchal du Maine, en 1624.

91 Pesche, Dictionnaire, vol. 6, 403, for lands in St Denis.
92 For the history of the family in Tuff: Cordonnier-Dtrie, Au long, 173.
546 THE FORTIFIED PARISH CHURCH

lands also touched the edge of La Fert-Bernard, making him a vital partner to
Contis attack on the town.93 Conti also sponsored the letters of exemption
for parishioners of St-Georges-du-Rosay to La Fert-Bernard in 1589, so it
seems that he considered the parish within the orbit of the centre of command
at Bonntable. In 1616 he was involved in the construction of a new balet to
the side of the watchtower as part of the renewed fortification of the town,
and in 1630 it was at the advice of a Chahannay to repaire the said ballet
[sic.].94
From this perspective, we can see the landscape partitioned between

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Protestant and Catholic, a divide articulated along the boundaries of Catholic
parishes and the loyalties of the areas great lords and their clients. It was
marked physically by these fortress churches whose fortifications were
coordinated by their local lords. The buildings served to further the military
aims of Conti, Henri IV and Guise, resulting in a potentially rich network of
defences. Indeed, one can discern frontiers in church fortification. Running
northsouth before Bonntable were a series of parishes or fortified places
with lords sympathetic to Conti: Mamers, St-Cosme-en-Vairais, Nogent-le-
Bernard, St-Georges-du-Rosay, Mondragon, La Bosse, St-Denis-des-Coudrais,
Tuff, Torc-en-Valle and La Goupillire. In contrast, La Fert-Bernard was
protected by its town walls and parishes controlled by Urbain de Laval: these
included the parishes of St-Aubin-des-Coudrais, St-Jean-des-chelles, Thligny
and Cton.
However, there is no direct evidence that Chahannay ever paid for the work;
his role instead was to donate it to Contis line of fortifications. The balet was
paid for by the fabrique, that is, the parish, as was later work on the fortification
of the town of the said St Georges.95 The accounts record the important role of
the unidentified gnral in the transformation, for it was advised by the
general that it was necessary to wall the main door of the church of the said St
Georges and to make meurtrires and other necessary things at an initial cost
of 40s for materials.96 He also authorized the purchase on several occasions [of]
twenty livres of cannon powder.97 One presumes that Chahannays permission
for such work had already been granted.

93 Pesche, Dictionnaire, vol. 2, 26 and earlier note.

94 ADS 7 F 74 (1616), 82: fortification du bourg; ibid., 83 for payments for construction and repair
of balet in accounts of 161617; ibid. (1630), 129: dict le d. comptable aprais le commandement de
monseigneur de Cheronne seigneur fondateur de leglize et paroisse dudict Sainct Georges lequel luy
auroict command et a plusieurs aultres habitans aud. Sainct Georges de faire refaire led. ballet.
95 ADS 7 F 74 (1616), 82: fortiffication du bourg du dict St. Georges.
96 For the general: ADS 7 F 74 (158990), 112: Lune a fault entendre lors que led[ ] comptable

voullut dut a --sa charge de p[ro]curerur de lad[ ] fabrique qui il fut advise par le general quil failloyt
faire rendre compte a deffunct mre hierosme la Pousterie et deffunct Mathurin la Pousterie prece-
dent p[ro]cureurs dune en r---it- faire leur fraists. For advice on construction: ibid.: il fut advis par
le general quil estoit ncessaire faire murer la grande porte de lglise dud[ ] St Georges et faire faire
des canonnieres et autre choses necessaries partant les[ ] comptable achepta une pipe de chaux.
97 Ibid.: Item pour avoir achapt par plusieurs foys vingt livres de pouldre a canon. The ac-

counts of the arsenal at Narbonne in 1573 discuss the various types of powder available: Douais
(ed.), Les Guerres de religion en Languedoc, 46.
 PHILIPPAWOODCOCK 547

Elsewhere, where the documentary evidence survives, the fortification of

churches is closely linked to the presence of an important faction, but was paid
for by the fabrique, for example at the tower of St-Jean-des-chelles.98
Seventeenth-century additions to Thlignys fortifications were paid for by the
curate and included the addition of a new balet to protect the south door. This
work coincided with the same new period of troubles of the 161617
campaigns at St-Georges-du-Rosay.99 At Avze, the balet was repaired in 1626 at
the fabriques cost, when Conds troops threatened the parish.100 Fortification
supported military strategy, but served primarily to defend the bodies of local

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parishioners when continuously exposed to troops and marauders.
Who, then, could have directed the work and what inspired the balet? The
only workman named is Jehan Goreau, the mixer of cement, and he is not
named elsewhere in the accounts. The curate played no perceivable role. Paid
for by the parish, its unique design seems nonetheless military. The pepperpot
towers were a feature of secular defencesfor example at the local chteau of
Monhoudou, which belonged to Henri IV, or the town gates of La Fert-Bernard.
However, its principal contemporary relationship is to the fortified churches of
the north-east: unfortunately, there is no proof that their design relationship is
anything more than incidental. Like the turrets of Englancourt and Marly-
Gomont the balet of St-Georges-du-Rosay was built of brick, a material that
could be erected swiftly at times of extreme military pressure. While the enemy
was international in Guise-controlled Picardy, the threat was domestic at St-
Georges-du-Rosay, and the balet could be said to be directed against the Guise
themselves. St-Georges-du-Rosay is an example of a Catholic church being used
by a Catholic parish and a Protestant leadership to protect itself against League
Catholicism. There are no blueprints for how to fortify the parish church, with
St-Georges-du-Rosay a seemingly unique, purpose-built surviving example in
this rural diocese. Other examples of fortified porches may once have existed
and been demolished after the Wars, but they were not documented or remarked
upon in architectural or military manuals. What we can say is that these
defencesbrick-built tourelles that utilized height for firearms attackwere
used across France as effective additions to the religious landscape. Equally, the
parish wanted the balet to remain to protect them from continued unrest into
the seventeenth century, suggesting its perceived efficacy.

98 For payments: ADS 7 F 51 St-Jean-des-chelles (157374), fo. 212r: A Thomas Paulmier ... la

so[mm]e de XXI l.t. a laquelle ils avoyent compos pour tyrer trois cent de pierre neuve pour faire
la tour delegl[is]e du d. St Jehan xxi L. A Francoys Briet pour quattre vinytz grandes perches du
boys p[ ] luy fournys por faire les chauffaux a faire lad. Tour xxx S/L. Work was still ongoing in
1578: ibid., 214: A est pay par led[ites] p[ro]cureurs audict Eustache Buisson pour la construc-
tion et ediffice de lad[ite ] tour ... tant pour la faczon de larche de p[ier]re de taille faicte entre lad.
Eglise et la tour que pour la facson de laviz a monter en lad. Tour la somme de cent soixante onze
livres.
99 Le Men, Canton de la Fert-Bernard, 364.
100 ADS 7 F 53 Avez (1626), 134: pr recouvert la ballet de legl[is]e iiii L xvi S.
548 THE FORTIFIED PARISH CHURCH

IV
The siege of La Fert-Bernard was preceded by fortification of the countryside,
involving secular and religious buildings, and interventions by Catholics and
Protestants. Churches and other stone structures substituted for royal forts and
strongholds in rural areas. The driving force behind each fortification is complex,
but if cash is identified as the root, then the rural parish church paid for its own
fortification and installed it for its own defence. However, it is impossible to
divorce the influence of the local seigneur and his overlords from this process,
especially if they were present in the community and serving on the fabrique.

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Ultimately it is hard to imagine a parish church being able to fortify against the
wishes of a lord: fortified churches supported the overarching political will,
rather than combating it.
This explanation also suggests why the balet at St-Georges-du-Rosay survived:
it served the royal purposes beyond the towns. The defences at the parish
church of St-George-du-Rosay shored up Protestant Bonntable and a Bourbon
powerbase. Elsewhere, royal fortifications were rebuilt at Bourbon Beaumont-
le-Vicomte and Fresnay-le-Vicomte, while the castle and walls were largely
destroyed at La Fert-Bernard under Henri IVs orders. Despite Bourbon control
in the area after 1590, St-Georges-du-Rosay did not immediately return to peace;
ordinary church activities such as baptisms were relocated to Dhault in 1591
92. While there are no records of an attack on the church, this suggests that it
was being used for other purposes. Ammunition was certainly being moved
through the parish during the siege of La Fert-Bernard; had the church been
turned over to purely military activity, perhaps as a storehouse? Later political
history also contributed to its survival. Conds passage through the diocese
revived the buildings military character, and the parish church re-emerged as
the main point of local refuge and defence.101
The balets story indicates that there are no simple explanations to the
question of how the French parish church responded to the French Wars of
Religion, in an area divided by religious and political loyalties, traditionally
Catholic and Royalist, but invested by a Protestant king and a Catholic rebel
League.102 While the guardhouses and towers at Thligny were dismantled by
the mid-seventeenth century, the balet at St-Georges-du-Rosay remains today,
distinct to the church. Rather than an extension of the nave or extra liturgical
space, it has retained its defiantly military character. When we remember the
original line of the cemetery walls, it is easy to imagine the church fortified. This
example shows that we should not merely consider parish churches as being

101Le Men, Canton de la Fert-Bernard, 100: nouvelle periode de troubles.

102ADS 7 F 74 (1590), 113: dict la d. comptable que lorsque le sige alla devant Fert Bernard,
et que le deportement des munitions de la dite arme, qui alla devant la d. Fert a fist Bonnestable,
fut advis par le gneral de ceste paroisse, quil failloyt que mondit sire le cur de ce d. lieu y allast
pour faire modere le nombre des munitions de vivre que le gnral de ceste paroisse estoit tax, ce
que led. sieur cur fist, et alla aud. Bonnestable en la compaigne de Franois Moreau.
 PHILIPPAWOODCOCK 549

the victims of iconoclasm and war damage, as in the narratives that emerge
from the Midi. Instead, they were buildings that could have a military and
political as much as a religious life, with responsibilities for defence of their
parish and an unavoidable role to play in wider conflicts in Early Modern France.
They were stone-built strategic locations, important as defensive strongholds,
lookout posts and as the home of the warning tocsin.
This article has shown that incidents of rural fortification reflected the
national military manoeuvres and were influenced by the presence of factional
leaders and their clientage networks. In the instance of the north-east of the

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diocese of Le Mans, fortification patterns followed an emergent Royalist power
grouping around Henri IV, Conti and their allies, in contrast to the movements
and influence of the League. However, the involvement of the nobility and
gentlemen was indirect; the seigneur of St-Georges-du-Rosay agreed to the
fortification and advised when it should be repaired, but did not pay for it. Nor
is there evidence of soldiers being involved in its construction; however, this
must be an omission in evidence given the coincidence in design between the
turrets and angles of fire of the balet and the fortified churches on the national
frontline.
Evidence shows that church fortification was a very real and practical
response to continued conflict; it reflected a need, rather than theoretical
practice. It may have been distasteful to those who wished to preserve the
sanctity of the building, but it emphasized the continued place of the church at
the centre of parish life. Moreover, as with the period of the Hundred Years
War, fortification was demanded by the parish for its own defence. It was paid
for from parish funds, and fortifications were maintained at parish expense. The
clergy, rather than absenteeists, were part of this parish group. At St-Georges-
du-Rosay the cur took a role in the fabriques decision to build the balet, while
at Thligny new fortifications were later paid for by a clergyman. Parish
fortification was thus to defend parish interests, as well as reinforce military
zones of influence. In this instance, the parish comprehended all three Estates.
This was a display of the resilience identified by Kmin for English communities
during Civil Wars and a return to the bonne ville of the fifteenth century. 103
The article has shown that iconoclasm was insufficient to require fortification,
even if it revealed the very real frailties of the church. Yet, when deaths
occurred, and munitions were transported across the countryside, the parish
church re-emerged as the protector of the village, and a very real voice in the
local experience of the Wars of Religion.

103 B. Kmin, The fear of intrusion: communal resilience in early modern England, in Fear in

Early Modern Society, ed. W. G. Naphy and P. Roberts (Manchester, 1997), 11836. For this psy-
chology: M. Wolfe, Building a bastion in early modern history, Proceedings of the Western Society
in French History, 25 (1998), 3648.