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Did Calvinists Have a Guilt Complex? Reformed Religion, Conscience and Regulation in Early Modern Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Graeme Murdock
Graeme Murdock*
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
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Extract

This essay assesses ideas and evidence about the response of Calvinists to sin during the Early Modern period. It takes as a starting-point the analysis provided by Max Weber about the development of Reformed salvation theology in later Calvinism. Weber suggested that Calvinists came to connect the eternal fate of their souls with their behaviour on earth, and attempted to exert systematic controls over their own conduct. Calvinists, Weber argued, developed a mind-set of methodical self-analysis and exhibited constant vigilance, concern and guilt about ongoing sin. Some early modern Calvinists certainly did demonstrate this highly refined personal anxiety about their wrong-doing, and worried about what their lack of enthusiasm and commitment to true religion and moral conduct might mean. However, most Reformed ministers across the Continent seem to have been rather more concerned that members of their congregations did not feel guilty enough about their sins, and alongside encouraging self-discipline through sermons and catechizing, turned to elders and, where possible, to state authorities, to enforce high standards of morality on often recalcitrant parishioners.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 40: Retribution, Repentance, and Reconciliation , 2004 , pp. 138 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2004

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References

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38 De Gallatin, ‘Ordonnances somptuaires’, 219–20: ‘… que quant aux chaînes d’or ou d’argent on entend celles qui se portent au col ou au bras par orgueil ou autrement en fasson de brodure et non pas des ceintures d’argent ny autres qui servent à l’usage’.

39 Ibid., 223–4.

40 Ibid., 224–5: ‘… que les présentes ordonnances soyent mieux observées, défendons sous mesme peine à tous cousturiers, ou autres ouvriers de faire habillemens, ou ouvrages contrevenans à lcelles pour les citoyens, bourgeois, habitans, ou sujets de ceste cité’.

41 Ibid., 210, 220, 228.

42 Ibid., 230–2. The Italian refugee community at Geneva, which specialized in the trade of silk and velvet, had grown substantially in the 1560s: cf. Monter, E. William, ‘The Italians in Geneva, 1550–1600: a New Look’, in Monnier, Luc, ed., Genève et l’Italie (Geneva, 1969), 53–77 Google Scholar.

43 Ibid., 235.

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid., 236, 239, 241–2.

46 Daneau, Lambert, Deux Traitez de Florent Tertullian, docteur tres-ancien, et voisin du temps des apostres, environ CLXX ans après l’incarnation de Iesus Christ: l’un des parures et omemens: l’autre des habits et aaoustremens des femmes Chrestiennes. Plus un traité de sainct Cyprian evesque de Carthage, touchant la discipline et les habits des filles (Geneva, 1580)Google Scholar; idem, Traite de l’estat honneste des Chrestiens en leur accoustrement (Geneva, 1580). Christoph Strohm, ‘Zur Eigenart der frühen calvinistischen Ethik: Beobachtungen am Beispiel des Calvin-Schülers Lambert Daneau’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 90 (1999), 230–54.

47 Daneau, Traite de lestât honneste des Chrestiens, 10, 30–1, 97, 99.

48 De Gallatin, ‘Ordonnances somptuaires’, 244–8: ‘… et en général que chacun ait à s’accoustrer honnestement et simplement selon son estate et qualité, et que tous, tant petis que grands monstrent bon exemple de modestie Chrestienne les uns aux autres’.

49 Ibid., 253.

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52 Ibid., 262.

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