Saved work for Protestant essay

FIRST

Furthermore, moving on from Hauser’s archaic view of nobles converting due to

economic crisis after an initial urban artisanal embracing of Protestantism, 1 Sunshine argues

that nobles were more important than urbanites in the Protestant movement because they

could offer protection for communities2. Indeed, their status as individuals with land and

economic influence allowed them to host private worships and this appealed to many. This is

evident in the Bayeux elections before 1568 where forty percent of the nobility were

Protestant3. ANALYSE Yet the challenge made in Benedict’s more nuanced article on

ministers during the wars increases the role of individual belief systems within Protestantism.

He shifts from his own earlier views of clientele overlaps in Protestant conversions 4 to

amplify the complexity of elitist clientele networks have very little corroboration with

religious affiliation as Protestant towns.5 His persuasive revisionism not only devalues the

view that Condé and female elites were at the heart of Protestant movement, but also

indicates that lower societal internal networks, for examples in cities between artisans and

merchants, were more influential for consolidating Protestantism.

CONCLUSION

There was an individualistic approach to Protestantism that surrounded each French

citizen’s exposure to the new religion, and it was the urbanite community who incorporated it

most fundamentally into their lives. At a time when France adhered to the global trend of a

rural majority population, Protestantism was predominantly urban. This essay has sought to

1
See H. Hauser, Etudes sur la reforme francaise (Paris, 1909), p. 88-103.
2
Sunshine, Reforming French Protestantism, p. 21-22
3
Carroll, Noble Power, p. 101.
4
Benedict, Rouen, pp. .
5
Benedict, Benedict - Prophets in Arms? Ministers in War, Ministers on War: France 1562–74, p. 165.
assess who was closest to the heart of French Protestantism in early modern France and __.

Literacy levels were also a factor in how French individuals received Protestantism as literate

urbanites combined with social and cultural elites to force Protestantism to not be for the

peasant population. While the nobility acted for their own interests and Calvin successfully

instigated a reform in the 1550s that would be changed by cities for their own local needs,

this left the urban literate to claim Protestantism as their own. La Rochelle’s reference in the

Edict of Amboise indicate the critical status of cities independent of royal control in

cementing Protestantism’s individual and unique attraction across France. While it must be

seen that not every city was full of Protestant workers, in a society where Protestantism was

already a large minority, the city most strongly represented who Protestantism spoke to.

CONCLUSION

That more commercially and educated urbanites were drawn towards Protestantism as

a religion for them is no doubt, but their minority status in the country was heavily bolstered

by both petitioning and printing activity to create unique and powerful Protestant spaces6.

Before the wars, a collective effort to cement an individually French Protestantism resulted in

a petition in 1561 from 2,150 churches for their own places of worships. Prophetically

warning that failure to grant them church spaces would result in further “tumults”, the notion

that masses of people were worshipping in towns is clear 7. Like Haton earlier, religious

popularity became a persuasive tool of exaggeration as the sheer number of signatures was to

motivate the royal validation of their belief and raise recognition of their cause. More

subversively, their petition also inflated Protestant numbers in the towns to seem more

impressive than their Catholic counterparts but within this their individuality is evident. The

onset of the wars the following year emphasizes how being given the suburbs to worship in
6
Heller, Iron and Blood, p. 56.
7
Potter, The Protestant petition for temples, late 1561 p.30.
the Edict of January was not a success (reword). Indeed, another key spark for the wars, the

Massacre of Vassy, occurred in an urban environment at a Protestant church. Despite the

rejection of urban Protestant churches by the crown as seen by the Edict of January’s

assertion that Protestants could only worship privately, the petition succeeded in confirming

the existence of an individual French Protestant church across the country. Neither Calvin nor

the nobility instigated this request, the urban congregations may have gained recognition, but

partly instigated the wars.

CALVINIST

Both Salmon and Heller admit the existence of Protestant peasantry groups in the

south of France but place them buried within their self-centered economic focus not

religious.8 Heller goes as far as calling subsistence farmers in Vivarais “the bastion of

Calvinism” for their rebellion against royal tithes and this example of peasant views aligning

with Protestant.9 It is perhaps expected that Heller’s Marxist-leaning monograph would give

greater autonomy to the peasantry, but, as will be discussed, her thesis of an urban

Protestantism is not challenged by individually localized examples of Calvinist peasants. The

core aspect of peasant belief was for personal monetary gain, and this results in their

diminished place within Protestantism not only numerically but also spiritually due to their

manipulation of religion to gain individual and localized benefits.

LAST SECTION

8
Salmon, The Peasant Revolt in Vivarais 1575-1580, p. 6.
9
Heller, Iron and Blood, p. 92.
 A further move away from noble Protestantism and towards individual urban dwellers

is evident in the local conditions surrounding how it was the presence of intellectuals who,

through their increasingly influential status as bourgeois, directed their communities.

Becoming influential civic personnel in their cities, Protestants successfully targeted the

municipal leaders in their urban conversion, especially in response to militant Parlements

such as in Toulouse10. Comparatively, Heller goes further to use Marxist theory to place the

term elite within the growing bourgeois as part of a middle-class revolution that established

French Protestantism.11 However, the term revolution overplays the magnitude of bourgeois

influence on a French Protestant community who had been established decades before the

wars and overlooks the impact of Condé in giving hope to Protestantism. Yet, growing

affluence among artisans particularly in the Midi and cities such as La Rochelle certainly

contributed most significantly to providing a strong foundation for the minority religion of

Protestantism, despite being numerically inferior to Catholicism. Their survivability sustained

the wars through their educated view being disseminating among an urban, and not noble,

networks.

FIRST SECTION

Furthermore, moving on from Hauser’s archaic view of nobles converting due to

economic crisis after an initial urban artisanal embracing of Protestantism, 12 Sunshine argues

that nobles were more important than urbanites in the Protestant movement because they

could offer protection for communities13. Indeed, their status as individuals with land and

economic influence allowed them to host private worships and this appealed to many. This is

10
Mentzer, Calvinist Propaganda, p. 279.
11
Heller, Conquest of Poverty, 258
12
See H. Hauser, Etudes sur la reforme francaise (Paris, 1909), p. 88-103.
13
Sunshine, Reforming French Protestantism, p. 21-22
evident in the Bayeux elections before 1568 where forty percent of the nobility were

Protestant14. ANALYSE Yet the challenge made in Benedict’s more nuanced article on

ministers during the wars increases the role of individual belief systems within Protestantism.

He shifts from his own earlier views of clientele overlaps in Protestant conversions 15 to

amplify the complexity of elitist clientele networks have very little corroboration with

religious affiliation as Protestant towns.16 His persuasive revisionism not only devalues the

view that Condé and female elites were at the heart of Protestant movement, but also

indicates that lower societal internal networks, for examples in cities between artisans and

merchants, were more influential for consolidating Protestantism.

CALVINIST

It was the combined approach of personal and community focus by Calvinism that

most attracted French individuals, but his dictatorial command of defining the French

churches failed to redefine existing individual communities. A clear example of Calvinist

approach was in the definition of the églises dressées that Calvin adopted in addressing the

communities. By defining Protestant churches as églises plantées (amorphous church

gatherings) and églises dressées (formal structure) Calvin marked what he believed were the

true churches17. This strict approach encouraged Protestants in France to adhere to the

Genevan model and academies were established to ensure Calvin-approved individuals were

working in Calvinist churches18. However, while Wilcox highlights the driving force of

Calvin, an alternative view of this strict approach is that it still relied on autonomous

communities predating Calvin’s French-Genevan vision. At the heart of the deconstruction of

14
Carroll, Noble Power, p. 101.
15
Benedict, Rouen, pp. .
16
Benedict, Benedict - Prophets in Arms? Ministers in War, Ministers on War: France 1562–74, p. 165.
17
Wilcox, p. 693
18
Mentzer and Spicer – Society and Culture in the Huguenot world, p. 5
Calvinism’s place in organising French Protestantism, historiographical debate has revised

Kingdon’s initial assessment of a Genevan French Protestantism to identify how individual

French communities established their own churches before being approved by Calvin’s

missionaries19. Morély best exemplified this move away from Calvinist importance by

promoting the need for democratic churches in France led by the local congregation 20. This

reveals how even in the Calvinist view from Paris and Geneva, where Morléy resided,

individual communities should see Protestantism as a religion for all unburdened by stringent

Genevan systems. By preserving practices that challenged Genevan leadership and

consolidating even before Calvin’s missionaries crossed the Alps, French Protestantism stood

apart from Calvin’s influence even during the time of Morléy’s writing at the beginning of

the wars21.

19
Monter, Judging the French Reformation, p. 155.
20
Jean Morléy, Traicté de la discipline et police Chrestienne (Lyons, 1562) Book 2 Ch17 [166-69].
21
Connor, Huguenot Identities During the Wars of Religion: The Churches of Le Mans and Montauban
Compared (:, 2003), p. 23.