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Inertia and Reform in the Pre-Tridentine French Church: the Response to Protestantism in the Diocese of Rouen, 1520–1562

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

David Nicholls
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Extract

The French Church on the eve of the Reformation presents a varied and complex spectacle. Since the end of the Hundred Years War the number of clergy had grown significantly, much of the material damage caused by the war had been made good, and an army of administrators had placed the Church on what seemed to be a healthy financial base. In the diocese of Rouen under Guillaume d'Estouteville (1453–83) the archbishop's annual revenues rose from about 4,000 to about 10,000 livres; the Church was served by an excellent administration; and an abundance of priests ensured that there were few or no empty benefices. Yet neither a more numerous clergy nor sound finances could guarantee a religious revival or an active faith. The Church's aim never went beyond an attempt to turn the clock back, and it did not adapt to the expanding economy of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Ecclesiastical institutions failed to invest in anything other than land and, to a lesser extent, urban property, and too much capital was immobilised in land and ‘treasure’, while the expanding commercial sectors of the upper-Norman economy went ignored. Similarly, corruption, abuses and apathy existed alongside the first glimmerings of new attitudes, and without a lead from the top the forces of regeneration would be blocked by traditional attitudes and styles of administration, and the combined effects of the rise of Protestantism and the raging inflation of the sixteenth century could be temporarily disastrous.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , April 1981 , pp. 185 - 197
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

1 Delsalle, L.-R., ‘De l’Église installée a l’Église contestée (1450–1600)’, in Chaline, N.-J. (ed.), Le Diocèse de Rouen-Le Havre, Paris 1976, 64–78Google Scholar.

2 Bordeaux, G., Aspects économiques de la vie de I’Eglise aux XIVe, et XVe. Siècles, Paris 1969, 291–362Google Scholar.

3 Delumeau, J., Le Catholicism entre Luther et Voltaire, Paris 1971, 37Google Scholar.

4 See D. J. Nicholls, ‘The Origins of Protestantism in Normandy, 1520–1568: a social study’ (unpublished Birmingham Ph.D. thesis, 1977), chapter 3.

5 See Renaudet, A., Préréforme et humanism à Paris pendant Its premieres guerres d’ltalie, Paris 1916Google Scholar.

6 Cf., for the general picture, Edelstein, M. M., ‘The social origins of the episcopacy in the reign of Francis i’, French Historical Studies, viii (1974), 377–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Aubenas, R. and Ricard, R., L’Église et la Renaissance (Histoire de l’Église, ed. Fliche et Martin, vol. xv), Paris 1951, 313Google Scholar.

8 Delsalle, ‘De l’Église instailée …’, 74.

9 Archives Départementales de la Seine-Maritime (hereafter cited as ADSM), G2154 (28 Jan. 1535).

10 ADSM, G2151 (22 April 1522); 02153(31 Oct. 1527).

11 ADSM, G2157 (27 March 1542).

12 ADSM, G2158 (16 Feb. 1545).

13 See, for example, ADSM, G2151 (6, 8, 25 Feb. 1522, 7 March 1522, 3 May 1522); G2152 (1 April 1525). This did not prevent them from secretly buying corn outside the city, at the lowest possible price, for their own use: 02153(31 Oct. 1527, 15 Nov. 1527).

14 ADSM, G2154 (28 Jan. 1535); GS163, fo. 11r.

15 ADSM,G2i54(27 Jan. 1535).

16 ADSM, G2164, fos. 73v-74r. During the religious wars the chapter was of course forced, like the rest of the Church, to alienate property in the Catholic cause.

17 Ibid., fo. 77V.

18 Delsalle, ‘De L’Écglise installee…’, 94.

19 ADSM, G5274, fo. i6v; G378; G393; G403.

20 Delsalle, op. cit., 76.

21 ADSM, G2150 (2 Jan. 1520); GS151 (2 Jan. 1522).

22 ADSM, G2150 (17 Aug. 17 Oct. 1521); G2151 (s May 1522). On the attempted suppression of artisan confraternities in 1540–1, see ‘Chronique de Rouen des origines à 1544’, in Deux chroniques de Rouen, ed. A. Héron, Rouen and Paris 1900, 160–1.

23 ADSM, G373, G376, G378, G383.

24 For Protestant attitudes, see Nicholls, ‘Protestantism in Normandy’, 104–11.

25 See Mellottée, P., Histoire économque de l’imprimene, Paris 1905, 27Google Scholar.

26 Delumeau, Le Catholicism, 84; Burke, P., Popular Culture in Early Modem Europe, London 1978, 233–4Google Scholar.

27 ADSM, B, Parlement: Arrêt, 6 Sept. 1527.

28 ADSM, B, Parlement: Arrêt, 22 March 1532.

29 See Lepreux, G., Gailia typographica, ou répertoire biographique et chronologique de tous les imprimeurs de France. Tome j. Province de Normandie, Paris 1912, i. 87–9Google Scholar.

30 ADSM, G118, G119, G130.

31 ADSM, G2534.

32 ADSM, G2545, fo. 43V; G2554.

33 ADSM.G2539.

34 Giese, F. S., Artus Désiré. Priest and Pamphleteer of the Sixteenth Century, Chapel Hill 1973Google Scholar, passim.

35 ADSM, G231, G232.

36 ADSM, G244; A. E. Borély, Histoire de la ville du Havre et de son ancien gouvemement, Le Havre 1880—1, ii. 14.

37 ADSM, G2153 (20 Aug. 1528); G2154 (26 Nov. 1534).

38 The symbolism of processions is discussed in Toussaert, J., Le Sentiment uligieux en Flandre à la fin du moyen âge, Paris 1963, 244–67Google Scholar, and in Heers, J., Fetes, jeux etjoutes dans les sociétés d’accident à la fin du moyen âge, Montreal and Paris 1971, 53—63Google Scholar. For England, see Thomas, K., Religion and the Decline of Magic, Harmondsworth 1973, 71Google Scholar.

39 Figures based on ADSM, G2150–64.

40 ADSM, G2153 (20 Aug. 1528); G2154 (8 Sept. 1531).

41 ADSM, G2154 (8 June, 26 Nov. 1534).

42 Ibid. (27, 28 Jan. 1535).

43 ADSM, G2155 (21 June 1539); Archives Municipals de Rouen (hereafter cited as AMR), A15 (i4june 1542).

44 ADSM, G2161. fo. 14V.

45 Crespin, J., Histoire des martyrs perseatéz et mis à mart pour la vérité de l'Évanp.le, depuis le temps des Apostres jusques à présent (1619), ed. Benoît, D., Toulouse 1885–1889, ii. 706–7Google Scholar.

46 ADSM, G2164, fo. 31V.

47 These details are in ADSM, 02154 (28 Jan. 1535).

48 The non-clerical sections of the procession are described in AMR, A13 (27 Jan. 1535).

49 The following account is based on AMR, A15 (14, 18 June 1542).

50 Nicholls, ‘Protestantism in Normandy’, 189–90.

51 Delsalle, ‘De l’Éeglise installée … ‘, 90.

52 On education, see Beaurepaire, C. de Robillard de, Rechtrches sur I’instruction publique dans le diocese de Rouen avant 1789, Evreux 1872, 1Google Scholar. passim.

53 G. and J. Daval, Histoire de la Reformation à Dieppe, ed. E. Lesens, Rouen 1878, i. 10–11.

54 ADSM, G2164, fo. 8IV.