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The Nature of Popular Heresy in France, 1520–1542

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

David J. Nicholls
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Extract

Ever since Lucien Febvre, in his classic essay on the origins of the French Reformation, characterized the sixteenth century as ‘ a long period of magnificent religious anarchy’, the nature of this ‘anarchy’ has remained somewhat puzzling. The question posed by Febvre - if Calvinist churches were only organized in the late 1550s, who were the protestants before this date?-retains all its interest while inevitably raising other problems. Can one make sense of this anarchy? When, if at any time in the sixteenth century, did it come to an end? Professor Mandrou has recently situated the period of anarchy between the first French manifestations of the Lutheran revolt in the early 1520s and the affair of the placards in 1534, with Calvinism bringing order to the general confusion between 1536 and 1540. But it is now established that Antoine Marcourt's placards, though important in the popular and official reactions they provoked, did not reveal protestant organization or doctrinal unity. Nor was Calvinism in a position to impose such uniformity until a much later date if at all. The rigours of Calvinist theology may have represented the logical culmination for the spiritual odyssey of a Farel or a de Bèze, but this was not necessarily so for the lower clergymen, artisans and even peasants who were attracted by one aspect or another of reformed ideas. Febvre pointed out the confusion of contemporaries, most of whom had no idea precisely what the different varieties of protestantism were: a confusion perhaps best shown in Florimond de Raemond's characterization of Lefèvre d'Étaples, Farel and Roussel as ‘Lutheran Zwinglians’. If the evangelical humanist intellectuals of the Meaux group caused such incomprehension, then how much more bewildering must have been the unsystematic beliefs and sceptical criticisms of the menu peuple, especially before the literate among them had the opportunity to read the French edition of Calvin's Institutes in 1542.

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Articles
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The Historical Journal , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , June 1983 , pp. 261 - 275
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

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