By 1562 there were as many as two million Protestants (perhaps ten percent of the population) and over two thousand reformed churches in France, despite repeated royal censures and harsh persecutions. Some of the Huguenot churches, such as the church of Orleans, which had seven thousand communicants and five pastors, were very large.
Massacre of a group of Huguenots, worshiping in a barn in the small town of Vassar on the first day of March 1562, began a series of cruel and desolating religious wars that lasted over thirty years. By now the Huguenots were not only a church but (against Calvin's counsel) also a political party and a military force. Times of war alternated with intervals of armed peace. The Peace of St. Germain in 1570 advanced the Huguenot cause, led now by Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France. The national synod that met in La Rachelle in 1571 was the high point of Huguenot history in France. Theodore Beza came from Geneva to moderate the sessions. The queen of Navarre, Jeanne d'Albert, and her son Henry, who later would wear the crown of France, were present, as was Coligny.
Great hopes to transform France into a Protestant country were dashed, however, when, on August 24, Saint Bartholomew's Day 1572, Catholic conspirators with royal support massacred thousands of Huguenots in Paris and throughout France, including the Huguenot leader Coligny. Although these numbers are disputed, it appears that about then thousand persons were slain in Paris, and throughout the kingdom not less than seventy thousand. In the months that followed, thousands of Protestants recanted their faith, thousands more fled, yet many others remained in France. The massacre stimulated Huguenot political thinking; writers such as Philippe du PLessis Mornay, Francois Hotman, and Hubert Languet called for representative government and constitutional limitation of the power of the monarchy and defended the use of forceful resistance to the state if necessary. (THE HUGUENOTS OR REFORMED FRENCH CHURCH, by William Henry Foote D.D., Intro., pegs 12-14.)
The Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre
An Eyewitness Account of the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre
by François Dubois
From the Musée Cantonal Des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne Switzerland
August 24, 1572, was the date of the infamous St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in France. On that day, over 400 years ago, began one of the most horrifying holocausts in history. The glorious Reformation, begun in Germany on October 31, 1517, had spread to France - and was joyfully received. A great change had come over the people as industry and learning began to flourish, and so rapidly did the Truth spread that over a third of the population embraced the Reformed Christian Faith.
However, alarm bells began to ring at the Vatican! France was her eldest daughter and main pillar - the chief source of money and power. . . . King Pepin of the Franks (the father of Charlemagne) had given the Papal States to the Pope almost 1000 years earlier. Almost half the real estate in the country was owned by the clergy. . . . Meanwhile, back in Paris, the King of France and his Court spent their time drinking, reveling and carousing. The Court spiritual adviser - a Jesuit priest - urged them to massacre the Protestants - as penance for their many sins! To catch the Christians off-guard every token of peace, friendship, and ecumenical good will was offered.
Suddenly - and without warning - the devilish work commenced. Beginning at Paris, the French soldiers and the Roman Catholic clergy fell upon the unarmed people, and blood flowed like a river throughout the entire country. Men, women, and children fell in heaps before the mobs and the bloodthirsty troops. In one week, almost 100,100 Protestants perished. The rivers of France were so filled with corpses that for many months no fish were eaten. In the valley of the Loire, wolves came down from the hills to feel upon the decaying bodies of Frenchmen. The list of massacres was as endless as the list of the dead!
Many were imprisoned - many sent as slaves to row the King's ships - and some were able to escape to other countries. . . . The massacres continued for centuries. The best and brightest people fled to Germany, Switzerland, England, Ireland and eventually America and brought their incomparable manufacturing skills with them. . . . France was ruined. . . . Wars, famine, disease and poverty finally led to the French Revolution - the Guillotine - the Reign of Terror - the fall of the Roman Catholic Monarchy - atheism - communism etc., etc.
When news of the Massacre reached the Vatican there was jubilation! Cannons roared - bells rung - and a special commemorative medal was struck - to honor the occasion! The Pope commissioned Italian artist Vasari to paint a mural of the Massacre - which still hangs in the Vatican!
The Huguenots won a short period of relief from persecution with the ascension of Henry IV to the throne. The Edict of Nantes gave full freedom to his Protestants subjects. The signing of this Edict inaugurated an era of peace and great prosperity for France. However, for granting his subjects liberty of conscience, the king was stabbed to death by a Jesuit named Ravaillac. This Edict of Toleration was revoked in 1685, and a new storm of persecution ensued. The exodus began again with over a million Huguenots fleeing France to avoid certain torture and death.
The descendants of the survivors that reached America were determined that this tragedy should not occur here. Many of them were prominent in the founding of the country. They knew that an armed citizenry in France would have prevented this tragedy from ever happening - and as a result - they gave us the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution. They knew that freedom of religion and an armed citizenry go hand in hand:Amendment 1
Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.Amendment 2
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are, Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. . . .
The French Protestants were called Huguenots: President George Washington had a Huguenot ancestor, as did at least 5 other Presidents: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, John Tyler, James Garfield, and Theodore Roosevelt. A Huguenot refugee named Apollos de Revoire settled in Boston, and had a son who signed his name Paul Revere! Remember his famous midnight ride? Three members of the Continental Congress - Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and Elias Boudinot were Huguenots. Other great names include Francis Marrion, General George Patton, Clair Chennault, Admiral Dewey, Du Ponts, Henry Thoreau, Longfellow etc., etc. A Huguenot colony was founded in Florida in 1562 (years before the English landed), but was later destroyed by Spanish raiders.References
Foxe's Book of Martyrs
Janet Glenn Gray, The French Huguenots, Anatomy of Courage.
O.I.A. Roche, The Days of the Upright.
Henri Nogueres, The Massacre of Saint Bartholomew.
1565: The Massacre Of The Huguenots By The Spanish In Florida
POSTED ON AUGUST 27, 2020 BY CALVIN BRYANT
The early history of Florida, was a time of turmoil, as the race to establish colonies in the New World began to take place. Coinciding with the religious wars of the Catholic Church that were taking place in Europe, the scene was set for religious conflict and bloodshed. However, it was far from the shores of Europe, in the unlikely destination of St. Augustine, Florida, that one of the most brutal massacres of the time took place. In fact, Fort Matanzas, just south of St. Augustine, earned its name from the killings that took place here, as 'Mantanzas', translates to 'Slaughter' in Spanish.
To truly understand the history surrounding the massacre of the Huguenot by the Spanish in Florida, it's important to have a little bit of backstory to what was happening in Europe at the time. In April 1517, Martin Luther, a young lecturer of biblical studies, witnessed a representative of the Pope selling absolutions from sin to the locals in a small German market town. Outraged by what he saw, Luther drafted a list of ninety-five reasons that this practice went against the doctrine of the Catholic Church. He sent a letter to his archbishop outlining his views and soon other protestors, or Protestants, began supporting Martin Luther and his views. What followed was the Protestant Reformation, a period of decades of religious conflict.
French Huguenots Settle In Fort Caroline
In the 1560s the French Protestants, also known as Huguenots, were seeking out a location in the New World to establish a protestant state. From this protestant state, they would be free to practice their religion without persecution from any outside parties. Sending an expedition to, what is now the St. John's River area of Florida, they successfully set up a colony called Fort Caroline, in an area near modern-day St. Augustine. Frenchman Rene de Laudonniere began the colony on land that belonged to the Spanish crown. Needless to say, the Spanish monarch was outraged by the news, especially as the settlers were French Huguenots and not devout Catholics like the Spanish King and his subjects.
Preparing For Battle
King Philip II immediately dispatched a fleet of eleven ships, carrying 1,000 soldiers and settlers. General Pedro Menendez de Aviles was one of the Spanish crowns most brutal commanders and was charged with removing the French Huguenots and setting up a Spanish colony in their place.
At the same time, Jean Ribault sailed from France on September 10th, 1565 with a further 600 troops and settlers, to resupply Fort Caroline and drive the Spanish in Florida out. Despite the King's protests with Jean Ribault's decision to set sail, he took it upon himself to cross the Atlantic to assist his fellow French Huguenots people who had started their new life in Fort Caroline.
Mendez Captures Fort Carolina
Unfortunately, for Jean Ribault and his crew, a hurricane pushed his ships too far south, leaving them shipwrecked on the Florida Coast, between, what is now, Cape Canaveral and Daytona Beach.
With only five ships left from their fleet of eleven, the Spanish fleet made landfall on September 8th, 1565. They named their new village St. Augustine as the land had been sighted on August 28th, the Feast Day of St Augustine.
Menendez and his men led an attack on Fort Caroline, where they were able to capture the French Huguenot settlement with relative ease. The Spanish soldiers killed most of the men during the battle, sparing the women and children who were sent to Havana by ship. Some of the French inhabitants, including colony founder Rene de Laudonniere and artist, Jacques LeMoyne, managed to escape to ships and return to France. However, Mendez quickly received news of a group of 127 more Frenchmen who were on the other side of an inlet, just south of Fort Caroline.
The Massacre Of The Huguenot By The Spanish In Florida
With the help of a captured Frenchman, who played the role of translator, Menendez informed the surviving Huguenot inhabitants that Fort Caroline had been captured and they needed to surrender. With all of their weapons, food, and supplies onboard the ships they were trying to prepare to sail back to France, the French had no choice but to surrender.
Chaplain Francisco Mendoza asked Menendez to spare any Catholic French. In the end, the majority refused, resulting in the brutal killing of 111 Frenchmen. Just sixteen men were spared including four artisans whose skills were required, some who professed to be Catholic, and a handful of impressed Breton sailors.
Just two weeks later, the same thing happened again as more French survivors appeared at the inlet, including Jean Ribault and his men. On October 12th Ribault and his crew surrendered but refused to give up their Protestant faith and convert to Catholics. On this occasion, 134 were savagely killed by the Spanish.
Because of these events, the inlet was known as 'Mantanzas', which means 'slaughters' in Spanish.
Pragmatic Sanction of St. Louis
It is a somewhat anomalous circumstance that the first decided step in repressing the arrogant claims of the Papal See was taken by a monarch whose singular merits have been deemed worthy of canonization by the Roman Church. Louis the Ninth had witnessed with alarm the rapid strides of the Papacy toward universal dominion. His pride was offended by the pretension of the Pontiff to absolute superiority; his sovereign rights were assailed when taxes were levied in France at the pleasure of a foreign priest and prince. He foresaw that this abuse was likely to take deep root unless promptly met by a formal declaration placing the rights of the French monarch and nation in their true light. For this reason he issued in 1268 a solemn edict, which, as emanating from the unconstrained will of the king, took the name of the "Pragmatic Sanction of Saint Louis."
The preamble of this famous ordinance, upon the authenticity of which doubts have been unnecessarily cast, declares the object of the king to be to secure the safety and tranquillity of the church of his realm, the advancement of divine worship, the salvation of the souls of Christ's faithful people, and the attainment of the favor and help of Almighty God. To his sole jurisdiction and protection had France ever been subject, and so did Louis desire it to remain. The provisions of the Pragmatic Sanction were directed chiefly to guarding the freedom of election and of collation to benefices, and to prohibiting the imposition of any form of taxes by the Pope upon ecclesiastical property in France, save by previous consent of the prince and clergy.
In this brief document had been laid the foundation of the liberties of the Gallican Church, not under the form of novel legislation, but of a summary of previous usage.
Philip the Fair and Boniface
Political reasons, not long after the death of Louis, gave new vigor to the policy of opposition to which this king had pledged France. His grandson, the resolute Philip the Fair, found fresh incitement in the extravagant conduct of a contemporary Pope, Boniface the Eighth. The bold ideas advanced by Hildebrand in the eleventh, and carried into execution by Innocent the Third in the thirteenth century, were wrought into the very texture of the soul of Boniface, and could not be concealed, in spite of the altered condition of mediæval society. Intolerant, headstrong, and despotic, he undertook to exercise a theocratic rule, and commanded contending monarchs to lay down their arms, and submit their disputes to his arbitrament. To such a summons Philip was not inclined to submit. The crafty and unscrupulous prince, whose contempt for divine law was evidenced by his shameless practice of injustice, whose coffers were filled indifferently by the confiscation of the rich spoils of the commanderies of the Templars, and by recklessly debasing the national currency, did not hesitate to engage in a contest with the most presumptuous of Popes. He appealed to the States General, and all three orders indignantly repudiated the suggestion that their country had ever stood to the Papacy in the relation of a fief. The disastrous example of the English John Lackland had found no imitator on the southern side of the channel. The Pope was declared a heretic. Emissaries of Louis seized him in his native city of Anagni, within the very bounds of the "Patrimony of St. Peter," and the rough usage to which he was then subjected hastened his death. His successors on the pontifical throne proved somewhat more tractable.
During his short and unimportant pontificate, Benedict the Eleventh restored to the chapters of cathedrals the right of electing their own bishops. Upon his death, Philip secured the elevation to the pontifical dignity of an ecclesiastic wholly devoted to French interests, the facile Clement the Fifth, who, in return for the honor conferred upon him, removed the seat of the Papacy to Avignon. Here for the seventy years of the so-called "Babylonish Captivity," the Popes continued to reside, too completely subject to the influence of the French monarchs to dream of resuming their tone of defiance, but scarcely less exacting than before of homage from other rulers. In fact, the burden of the pecuniary exactions of the Popes rather grew than diminished with the change from Rome to Avignon, and with the institution of rival claimants to the tiara, each requiring an equal sum to support the pomp of his court, but recognized as legitimate by only a portion of Christendom. The devices for drawing tribute from all quarters were multiplied to an almost insupportable extent. So effectual did they prove, that no pontiff, perhaps, ever left at his death a more enormous accumulation of treasure than one of the Popes of Avignon, John the Twenty-second. Much of this wealth was derived from the rich provinces of France.
Close upon the "Captivity" followed the "Schism," during which the generally acknowledged Popes, who had returned to Rome, were opposed by pretenders at Avignon and elsewhere. A double incentive was now given to the monarchs of Europe for setting bounds to the ambition of the Papacy. For while the Popes, through the loss of a great part of their authority and prestige, had become less formidable antagonists, their financial extortions had waxed so intolerable as to suggest the strongest arguments appealing to the self-interest of kings. Hence the frequency with which the demand for "a reformation in the head and the members" resounded from all parts of the Western Church. And hence, too, those memorable councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basle, which, coming in rapid succession at the commencement of the fifteenth century, bade fair to prove the forerunners of a radical reformation. It does not belong here to discuss the causes of their failure to answer this reasonable expectation. Yet with one of these assemblages is closely connected a very important incident in the history of the Gallican Church.
The Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges
The Pragmatic Sanction, as it is often called by way of preeminence, is the magna charta of the liberties of the Gallican Church. Founded upon the results of the discussions of the Council of Basle, it probably embodies all the reformatory measures which the hierarchy of France was desirous of effecting or willing to accept. How far these were from administering the needed antidote to the poison which was at work and threatened to destroy all true religious life—if, indeed, that life was not already too near extinction—may readily be understood when it is discovered that, with the exception of a few paragraphs relating to ecclesiastical discipline and worship, the following comprise all the important provisions:
The Pragmatic Sanction establishes the obligation of the Pope to convene a general council of the church at least every ten years. The decisions of the Council of Basle are declared to be of perpetual force. Far from deriving its authority from the Holy See, the Œcumenical Council, it is affirmed, depends immediately upon Christ, and the Pope is no less bound than all other Christians to render due obedience to its decisions. The right of appeal from the Pope to the future council—a claim obnoxious in the last degree to the advocates of papal supremacy—is distinctly asserted. The Pope is declared incapable of appointing to any high ecclesiastical dignities, save in a few specified cases; in all others recourse is to be had to election. The pontiff's pretensions to confer minor benefices are equally rejected. No abuse is more sharply rebuked and forbidden than that of expectatives—a species of appointment in high favor with the papal chancery, whereby a successor to ecclesiastical dignities was nominated during the lifetime of the incumbent, and in view of his decease.
The Pragmatic Sanction restricts the troublesome and costly appeals to Rome to cases of great importance, when the parties in interest reside at a distance of more than four days' journey from that city. At the same time it prescribes that no one shall be vexed by such appeals after having enjoyed actual possession of his rank for three years. Going beyond the limits of the kingdom, it enters into the constitution of the "Sacred College," and fixes the number of the cardinals at twenty-four, while placing the minimum age of candidates for the hat at thirty years. The exaction of the annats is stigmatized as simony. Priests living in concubinage are to be punished by the forfeiture of one-fourth of their annual stipend. Finally the principle is sanctioned that no interdict can be made to include in its operation the innocent with the guilty.
So thorough a vindication of the rights of the Gallican Church had never before been undertaken. The axe was laid at the root of formidable abuses; freedom of election was restored; the kingdom was relieved of a crushing burden of tribute; foreigners were precluded from interfering with the systematic administration of the laws. The clergy, both regular and secular, received the greatest benefits, for, while they could no longer be plundered of so large a part of their incomes, their persons were protected from arbitrary arrest and hopeless exile beyond the Alps.
The council had not adjourned when the tidings of the transactions at Bourges reached the city of Basle. The members were overjoyed, and testified their approval in a grateful letter to the Archbishop of Lyons. But their exultation was more than equalled by the disgust of Pope Eugenius the Third. Indeed, the pontificates of this pope and his immediate successors were filled with fruitless attempts to effect the repeal of the Pragmatic Sanction. A threat was made to place France under an interdict; but this was of no avail, being answered by the counter-threat of the king's representative, who proposed to make a practical application of the instrument, by appealing from his Holiness to a future general council. So the Pope, having a vivid recollection of the perils attending a contest with the French crown, wisely avoided the hazardous venture.
Louis XI. consents to its abrogation
In Louis the Eleventh the papal court seemed to have found a more promising prince to deal with. Animated by hatred of his father, and disposed to oppose whatever had met his father's approval, Louis had, while yet dauphin, given the Pope's agents flattering assurances of his good intentions. On ascending the throne, he permitted his father's memory to be treated with disrespect, by suffering a nuncio to pronounce absolution over the corpse for the heinous sin of originating the Pragmatic Sanction. Later, on receiving the assurance of the Pope's support for the house of Anjou in Naples, he consented to repeal the hateful ordinance. A royal declaration for this purpose was published in 1461, contrary to the advice of the king's council.2 It met with universal reprobation. The Parliament of Toulouse would register the document only with an accompanying note stating that this had been done "by the most express command of the king." The Parliament of Paris absolutely declined to admit it in its records, and sent a deputation to Louis to set forth the pernicious results that were to be expected from the overthrow of his father's wise regulations. The University made bold to appeal to a general council of the Church.But subsequently re-enacts it
Meanwhile it happened that Louis made the unwelcome discovery that his Italian friends had deceived him, and that the prospect was very remote of obtaining the advantages by which he had been allured. It was not very difficult, therefore, to persuade him to renounce his project. Not content with this, three years after his formal revocation of the entire Pragmatic Sanction, he even re-enacted some of the clauses of the document respecting "expectatives" and "provisions."
But a few years later, in 1467, Louis again conceived it to be for his interest to abrogate the Pragmatic Sanction. At the suggestion of Cardinal Balue, the recent enactment against "expectatives" was repealed. The Parliament of Paris, however, refused to record the letters patent. Among other powerful arguments adduced was the fact that a recent investigation had proved that, in the three years of the pontificate of Pius the Second during which the Pragmatic Sanction had been virtually set aside (1461–1464), Rome drew from the kingdom not less than 240,000 crowns in payment of bulls for archbishoprics, bishoprics, and abbeys falling vacant within this term; 100,000 for priories and deaneries; and the enormous sum of 2,500,000 crowns for "expectatives" and "dispensations." This startling financial exhibit was accompanied by statements of the indirect injury received by the community from the great number of candidates thrown on the tender mercies of relations and friends, whom they thus beggared while awaiting a long deferred preferment.3 Even when successful, "they received only lead for gold." Frequently, when they were about to clutch the coveted prize, a rival stepped in armed with documents annulling those previously given. Cases had, indeed, been known in which ten or twelve contestants presented themselves, all basing their claims upon the pontifical warrant.
Cardinal Balue was not slow in finding means to remove from office the intrepid Procureur-général, who had been prominent in urging parliament to resist the measure of repeal. But Saint-Romain's bold stand had confirmed both parliament and university, and neither body would acquiesce in the papal demands. Louis, however, was reconciled to a second abandonment of the scheme by the opportune discovery of the cardinal's treachery. The unhappy prelate met with deserved retribution, for his purple did not save him from enduring his own favorite mode of punishment, and being shut up in a great iron cage. The new Perillus was thus enabled—to the intense satisfaction of many whom he had wronged—to test in his own person the merits of a contrivance which he was reputed himself to have invented.
A concordat subsequently agreed upon by Louis and the Pope fared no better than the previous compacts. Parliament and university were resolute, and the king, having no further advantage to gain by keeping his word, was as careless in its fulfilment as was his wont. The Pragmatic Sanction was still observed as the law of the land. The highest civil courts, ignoring the alleged repeal, conformed their decisions to its letter and spirit, while the theologians of the Sorbonne taught it as the foundation of the ecclesiastical constitution of France. Yet, public confidence in its validity having been shaken, it was desirable to set all doubts at rest by a formal re-enactment. This was proposed by the Dean of St. Martin of Tours, in the States General held during the minority of Charles the Eighth; but, notwithstanding the well-known opinion of all the orders, this reign passed without the adoption of any decided action.
It was reserved for Louis the Twelfth to take the desired step. In 1499 he published the Pragmatic Sanction anew, and ordered the exclusion from office of all that had obtained benefices from Rome. In vain did the Pope rave. In vain did he summon all upholders of the ordinance to appear before the Fifth Lateran Council. The sturdy prince—the "Father of his people"—who had chosen for his motto the device, "Perdam Babylonis nomen," made little account of the menaces of Julius the Second, whom death overtook, it is said, while about to fulminate a bull transferring the title of "Very Christian King" from Louis the Twelfth of France to Henry the Eighth of England.
Louis XII., King of France, who died in 1515, being no lover of the Pope of Rome or his authority, was favourably impressed by a representation addressed to him by the Vaudois of Dauphiny and Provence, which declared that they held the essentials of real religion, but did not believe in the Pope or his doctrines. Royal Commissioners visited their Alpine homes, and reported to the King to the following effect: — "Among these people baptism is administered, the articles of faith and the ten commandments are taught, the Sabbath is solemnly observed and the word of God is expounded; as to the unchastity and the poisonings of which they are accused, not a single case is to be found." Louis exclaimed, "These people are much better than myself and than all my catholic subjects." This king was the responsible author of a medal with the inscription, "Perdam Babylonis nomen" [I will destroy the name of Babylon], occasioned by the domineering and warlike spirit of the sovereign Pontiff.
These Vaudois of France, the next king, Francis I., almost exterminated by military executions and wholesale massacres, which the inhabitants of Cabrieres, in Provence, resisted by force of arms, driving a regiment of papal mercenaries to the very gates of Avignon. This was a small foretaste of the future civil wars, necessitated by the unprovoked substitution of dragoon-law for regular and genuine government.
Concordat of Leo X. and Francis I
Thirsting for military distinction, Francis the First had no sooner obtained the throne than he entered upon the career of arms in northern Italy, and the signal victory of Marignano, won less than ten months after his accession (September 13, 1515), closed his first campaign. This success was productive of more lasting results than merely the temporary possession of the Milanese. It led to a reconciliation with the Pope, and to a stately interview in the city of Bologna. All that was magnificent and captivating to the senses had been studied to dazzle the eyes of a young and imaginative prince; for Leo the Tenth, patron of the arts and of artists, was an adept in scenic effects. Certainly never did pomp and ceremony more easily effect the object for which they were employed. The interview of Bologna paved the way for a concordat, in which the rights of the Gallican Church were sacrificed, and the spoils divided between king and pontiff. Three cardinals took part in the elaboration of the details of the instrument—two on the pontifical, the third on the royal side. The last was the notorious Cardinal Duprat, elevated by Francis to the office of chancellor—a minister of religion who was soon to introduce venality into every department of government. The source of the concordat determined tolerably well its character.
Appreciating the strength of the opposition its pretensions had always encountered in France, the papal court had resolved to renounce a portion of its claims in favor of the king, in order to retain the rest more securely. Under the pretext that the right of election vested in the chapters had been abused, partly by the choice of illiterate and improper men, partly through the practice of simony, the selection of archbishops and bishops was taken from them and confided to the king. He was empowered to choose a doctor or licentiate of theology or law, not less than twenty-seven years of age, within six months after the see became vacant. The name of the candidate was to be submitted to the Pope for approval, and, if this first nomination was rejected, a second was to be made by the king. Similar regulations were made respecting abbeys and monastic institutions in general, a few exceptions being allowed in favor of those patrons and bodies to whom special privileges had been accorded. The issue of "expectatives" was prohibited; but, as no mention was made of the "annats," it followed, of course, that this rich source of gain to the papal treasury was to lie open, in spite of the provisions of the Pragmatic Sanction to the contrary.
Such were some of the leading features of the concordat between Leo the Tenth and Francis the First—a document introducing changes so violent as to amount almost to a complete revolution in the ecclesiastical constitution of the land.Dissatisfaction of the French
After receiving the unqualified approval of the Lateran Council, in a session at which few prelates were present from outside of Italy, the concordat, engrossed on white damask, and accompanied by a revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction on cloth of gold, was forwarded to Francis, who had now returned to his kingdom. The latter, not ignorant of the discontent already engendered by the mere rumor of the transaction, first submitted the concordat alone to a mixed assembly composed of prelates and canons, of presidents and counsellors of parliament, doctors of the university, and other prominent personages. But the king's caution failed of accomplishing what had been intended. The general dissatisfaction found expression in the speech of Cardinal Boissy, demanding that the clergy be consulted by itself on a matter so vitally affecting its interests, and suggesting the necessity of a national council for that purpose. Francis angrily retorted that the clergy must obey, or he would send its bishops to Rome to discuss with the Pope.Struggle with the parliaments
Failing in the attempt to forestall the expression of disapprobation of the judiciary by securing the favorable verdict of a picked assembly of influential persons, the king, nevertheless, proceeded to carry into execution that clause of the concordat which enjoined ratification by the parliaments. Letters patent were first dispatched commanding all judges to conform to its provisions, and these were followed shortly by copies of the instrument itself and of the revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction, for registry. At this point properly began one of the most notable contests between the crown and parliaments of France. The Parliament of Paris, taking the ground that so fundamental a change in the national customs demanded mature consideration, deferred action. With the view of exercising a pressure on its deliberations, Francis now commissioned his uncle, the Bastard of Savoy, to be present at the sessions. Against this unprecedented breach of privilege parliament sent a deputation humbly to remonstrate; but all to no purpose. The irritated prince, who entertained the most extravagant views of the royal prerogative, declared his intention to satisfy himself concerning the real disposition of his judges, and assured the deputies that he had firmly resolved to despatch the disobedient to the inferior parliaments of Bordeaux and Toulouse, and fill their places with "men of worth." "I am your king," was his constant exclamation, and this passed with him for an unanswerable argument in support of his views. But the members of parliament were not easily moved. Undoubtedly the success attending their previous resistance to the repeal of the Pragmatic Sanction, on at least three occasions in the reign of Louis the Eleventh, emboldened them in the present instance. Unawed by the presence of the Bastard of Savoy, they refused to concede the registration of the concordat, and declared that they must continue to observe the Pragmatic Sanction, endorsed, as that ordinance had been, by the representatives of the entire nation. Not only did they protest against suffering the Sanction to be annulled, but they insisted upon the convocation of the clergy in a body similar to that assembled by Charles the Seventh, as an indispensable preliminary to the investigation of the matter.
Francis, who happened to be at his castle of Amboise, on the Loire, now sent word that parliament should appoint a deputation to convey to him the reasons of its refusal. But when the delegates reached the castle-gate, an entire month elapsed before Francis would condescend to grant them audience. They were at length admitted, only to be treated with studied contempt. "There can be but one king in France," was the arrogant language of the young prince to the judges who had grown gray in the service of Charles the Eighth and the good King Louis. "You speak as if you were not my subjects, and as if I dared not try you and sentence you to lose your heads." And when the indignity of his words awakened the spirited remonstrance of the deputies, Francis rejoined: "I am king: I can dispose of my parliament at my pleasure. Begone, and return to Paris at break of day."
A formal command was now addressed to the Parliament of Paris, and the bearer, La Trémouille, informed that body, as it listened to the message, that Francis had repeated to him more than ten times within a quarter of an hour, "that he would not for half his kingdom fail of his word to the Pope, and that if parliament rebelled, he would find means to make it repent of its obstinacy." Under these circumstances, further resistance from a body so completely dependent on the sovereign was not to be thought of. Yet, even when compelled to yield, parliament, at the suggestion of the gens du roi, coupled the registry of the concordat with a declaration that it was made at the express command of the king several times reiterated, that parliament disapproved of the revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction; and that, in the adjudication of causes, it would continue to follow the ordinance of Charles the Seventh, while appealing to the Pope under better advisement, and to a future council of the church. Thus the concordat, projected at Bologna in 1515, and signed at Rome on the sixteenth of August, 1516, was registered by the Parliament of Paris de expressissimo mandato regis, on the twenty-second of March, 1518.
An age of blood
Yet, by the side of these manifestations of a growing appreciation of art, science, and letters, it must be confessed that there were indications, no less distinct, of a lamentable neglect of moral training, and of a state of manners scarcely raised above that of uncivilized communities of men. It was still an age of blood. The pages of chronicles, both public and private, teem with proofs of the insignificant value set upon human life and happiness. In many parts of France the peasant rarely enjoyed quiet for even a few consecutive months. Organized bands of robbers, familiarly known as "Mauvais Garçons," infested whole provinces, and laid towns and villages under contribution. Not unfrequently two or three hundred men were to be found in a single band, and the robberies, outrages, and murders they committed defy recital. Often the miscreants were aventuriers, or volunteers whose employers had failed to furnish them their stipulated pay, and who avenged their losses by exactions levied upon the unfortunate peasantry. Indeed, if we may believe the almost incredible statements of one of the laws enacted for their suppression, they had been known to carry by assault even walled cities, and to exercise against the miserable inhabitants cruelty such as disgraces the very name of man.Barbarous punishments
The character of the punishments inflicted for the commission of crime furnishes a convenient test of national civilization. If France in the sixteenth century be tried by this criterion, the conclusion is inevitable that for her the age of barbarism had not yet completely passed away. The catalogue of crimes to which death was affixed as the penalty is frightfully long; some of them were almost trivial offences. A boy less than sixteen years of age was hung for stealing jewelry from his master. On the other hand, with flagrant inconsistency, a nobleman, René de Bonneville, superintendent of the royal mint, for the murder of his brother-in-law, was dragged to the place of execution on a hurdle, but suffered the less ignominious fate of decapitation. A part of his property was given to his sister, and the rest confiscated to the crown, with the exception of four hundred livres, reserved for the purchase of masses to be said for the benefit of the soul of his murdered victim.Especially for heresy
For other culprits extraordinary refinements of cruelty were reserved. The aventuriers, when so ill-starred as to fall into the hands of justice, were customarily burned alive at the stake. The same fate overtook those who were detected in frauds against the public treasury. More frightful than all the rest was the vengeance taken by the law upon the counterfeiter of the king's coin. The legal penalty, which is said to have become a dead letter on the pages of the statute-book long before the French revolution, was in the sixteenth century rigidly enforced: on the 9th of November, 1527, a rich merchant of Paris, having been found guilty of the crime in question, was boiled alive before the assembled multitude in the Marché-aux-pourceaux. Heresy and blasphemy were treated with no greater degree of leniency than the most infamous of crimes. Even before the reformation a lingering death in the flames had been the doom pronounced upon the person who dared to accept or promulgate doctrines condemned by the church. But when the bitterness of strife had awakened the desire to enhance the punishment of dissent, new or extraordinary tortures were resorted to, of the application of which this history will furnish only too many examples. The forehead was branded, the tongue torn out, the hand cut off at the wrist, or the agonies of death prolonged by alternately dropping the wretched victim into the fire and drawing him out again, until exhausted nature found tardy release in death.
But if we can to some extent account for the excess of cruelty which blind frenzy inflicted on the inflexible martyr to his faith, it is certainly more difficult to explain the severity exercised upon the more pliable, whom the arguments of ghostly advisers, or the terrors of the Place de Grève, had induced to recant. Generally the judge did nothing more in their behalf than commute their punishment by ordering them to be strangled before their bodies were consigned to the flames. Yet in one exceptional case—that of a servant whose master, a gentleman and one of the men-at-arms of the Regent of Scotland, was burned alive—the court went to such a length of leniency as to let the repentant heretic off with the sentence that he first be beaten with rods at the cart's end, and afterwards have his tongue cut out. Even the clearest evidence of insanity did not suffice to remove or even mitigate the penalties of impiety. A poor, crazy woman, who had broken the consecrated wafer when administered to her in her illness, and had applied to it some offensive but absurd epithet, was unhesitatingly condemned to the stake. An appeal to a superior court procuring no reversal of her sentence, she was burned at Tours in the year 1533.
The Cathari and Albigenses
Foremost among the popular opponents of the papacy were the Cathari and Albigenses. The accounts of the origin of the sect or sects bearing these names are vague and unsatisfactory, and the reports of their creed and worship are inconsistent or incredible. The ruin that overwhelmed them spared no friendly narrative of their history, and scarcely one authoritative exposition of the belief for the profession of which their adherents encountered death with heroic fortitude. Defeat not only compelled the remnants of the Albigenses to succumb to Simon de Montfort and his fellow crusaders, but reduced them to the indignity of having the record of their faith and self-devotion transmitted to posterity only in the hostile chronicles of Roman ecclesiastics. But even partisan animosity has not robbed the world of the edifying spectacle of a large number of men and women, of a quiet and peaceable disposition, persistently and fearlessly protesting, through a long series of years, against the worship of saints and images, resisting the innovations of a corrupt church, and adhering with constancy to a simple ritual unencumbered with superstitious observances. Careful investigation establishes the fact that the Holy Scriptures were read and accepted as the supreme authority as well in doctrine as in practice, and that the precepts there inculcated were adorned by lives so pure and exemplary as to evoke an involuntary expression of admiration from bitter opponents.
There is little doubt that strange doctrinal errors found a foothold in parts, at least, of the extensive territory in southern France occupied by the Albigenses. Oriental Dualism or Manichæism not improbably disfigured the creed of portions of the sect; while the belief of others scarcely differed from that of the less numerous Waldenses of Provence or their brethren in the valleys of Piedmont. But, whatever may be the truth on this much contested point, the remarkable spread of the Albigenses during the latter part of the twelfth century must be regarded as strongly marking the revolt of the French mind, especially in the more impetuous south, against the priestly absolutism that crushed all freedom of religious thought, and equally against a church tolerating the most flagrant abuses. Nor can the historian who desires to trace the more remote consequences of important moral movements fail to notice the singular fact that the soil watered by Albigensian blood at the beginning of the thirteenth century was precisely that in which the seed sown by the reformers, three hundred years later, sprang up most rapidly and bore the most abundant harvest. After so long a period of suspended activity, the spirit of opposition once more asserted its vital energy—soon, it is true, to meet fresh difficulties, but only such difficulties as would tend to develop and strengthen it.
With the suppression of the Albigenses all open popular protest against the errors of the church ceases until the advent of the Reformation. The latent tendency did, indeed, manifest its continued existence in those obscure practices known as vauderie, which, distorted by the imagination of reckless informers and interested judges, and converted into the most monstrous crimes against religion and morality, occasioned the death of countless innocent victims. But it was chiefly among the learned, and particularly in the bosom of the University of Paris, that the pressing need of a thorough purification of the church found expression. Not that the remedies advocated were so definite and radical, or based upon so full a recognition of the distinctive character of Christianity, as to merit the name of reformatory projects. Yet, standing somewhat in advance of their contemporaries, a few theologians raised their voices in decided condemnation of those evils which needed only to be held up to public notice to incur the universal reprobation of mankind.
The woolcarder, Jean Leclerc, tears down a papal bull
His barbarous sentence
Among the first fruits of the Reformation in Meaux was a wool-carder, Jean Leclerc, into whose hands had fallen one of Lefèvre's French Testaments. He was a man of strong convictions and invincible resolution. A bull, issued by Clement the Seventh in connection with the approaching jubilee, had been posted on the doors of the cathedral (December, 1524). It offered indulgence, and enjoined prayers, fasting, and partaking of the Communion, in order to obtain from heaven the restoration of peace between princes of Christendom. Leclerc secretly tore the bull down, substituting for it a placard in which the Roman pontiff figured as veritable Antichrist. Diligent search was at once instituted for the perpetrator of this offence, and for the author of the subsequent mutilation of the prayers to the Virgin hung up in various parts of the same edifice. A truculent order was also issued in the bishop's name, threatening all persons that might conceal their knowledge of the culprits with public excommunication, every Sunday and feast-day, "with ringing of bells and with candles lighted and then extinguished and thrown upon the earth, in token of eternal malediction." Leclerc was discovered, and taken to Paris for trial. The barbarous sentence of parliament was, that he be whipped in Paris by the common executioner on three successive days, then transferred to Meaux to receive the like punishment, and finally branded on the forehead with a red-hot iron, before being banished forever from the kingdom.
The cruel prescription was followed out to the letter (March, 1525). A superstitious multitude flocked together to see and gloat over the condign punishment of a heretic, and gave no word of encouragement and support. But, as the iron was leaving on Leclerc's brow the ignominious imprint of the fleur-delis, a single voice suddenly broke in upon the silence. It was that of his aged mother, who, after an involuntary cry of anguish, quickly recovered herself and shouted, "Hail Jesus Christ and his standard-bearers!" Although many heard her words, so deep was the impression, that no attempt was made to lay hands upon her.
From Meaux, Leclerc, forced to leave his home, retired first to Rosoy, and thence to Metz. Here, while supporting himself by working at his humble trade, he lost none of his missionary spirit. Not content with communicating a knowledge of the doctrines of the Reformation to all with whom he conversed, his impatient zeal led him to a new and startling protest against the prevalent, and, in his view, idolatrous worship of images. Learning that on a certain day a solemn procession was to be made to a shrine situated a few miles out of the city gates, he went to the spot under cover of night, and hurled the sacred images from their places. On the morrow the horrified worshippers found the objects of their devotion prostrated and mutilated, and their rage knew no bounds. It was not long before the wool-carder was apprehended. His religious sentiments were no secret, and he had been seen returning from the scene of his nocturnal exploit. He promptly acknowledged his guilt, and was rescued from the infuriated populace only to undergo a more terrible doom at the hands of the public executioner (July 22, 1525). His right hand was cut off at the wrist, his arms, his nose, his breast were cruelly torn with pincers; but no cry of anguish escaped the lips of Leclerc. The sentence provided still further that, before his body should be consigned to the flames, his head be encircled with a red-hot band of iron. As the fervent metal slowly ate its way toward his very brain, the bystanders with amazement heard the dying man calmly repeat the words of Holy Writ: "Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands." He had not completed the Psalmist's terrific denunciation of the crime and folly of image-worship when his voice was stifled by the fire and smoke of the pyre into which his impatient tormentors had hastily thrown him. If not actually the first martyr of the French Reformation, as has commonly been supposed, Jean Leclerc deserves, at least, to rank among the most constant and unswerving of its early apostles.
The poor wool-carder of Meaux was succeeded by more illustrious victims. One was of the number of the teachers who had been attracted to Bishop Briçonnet's diocese by the prospect of contributing to the progress of a purer doctrine. Jacques Pauvan was a studious youth who had come from Boulogne, in Picardy, to perfect his education in the university, and had subsequently abandoned a career in which he bade fair to obtain distinction, in order to assist his admired teacher, Lefèvre, at Meaux. He was an outspoken man, and disguised his opinions on no point of the prevailing controversy. He asserted that purgatory had no existence, and that God had no vicar. He repudiated excessive reliance on the doctors of the church. He indignantly rejected the customary salutation to the Virgin Mary, "Hail Queen, Mother of mercy!" He denied the propriety of offering candles to the saints. He maintained that baptism was only a sign, that holy water was nothing, that papal bulls and indulgences were an imposture of the devil, and that the mass was not only of no avail for the remission of sins, but utterly unprofitable to the hearer, while the Word of God was all-sufficient.
Pauvan was put under arrest, and his theses, together with the defence of their contents which one Matthieu Saunier was so bold as to write, were submitted to the Sorbonne. Its condemnation was not long withheld. "A work," said the Paris theologians, "containing propositions extracted and compiled from the pernicious errors of the Waldenses, Wickliffites, Bohemians, and Lutherans, being impious, scandalous, schismatic, and wholly alien from the Christian doctrine, ought publicly to be consigned to the flames in the diocese of Meaux, whence it emanated. And Jacques Pauvan and Matthieu Saunier should, by all judicial means, be compelled to make a public recantation."
Even strong men have their moments of weakness. Pauvan was no exception to the rule. Besides the terrors of the stake, the persuasions of Martial Mazurier came in to shake his constancy. This latter, a doctor of theology, had at one time been so carried away with the desire of innovation as to hurl down a statue of their patron saint standing at the door of the monastery of the Franciscans. He had now, as we have already seen, become the favorite instrument in effecting abjurations similar to his own. His suggestions prevailed over Pauvan's convictions. The young scholar consented to obey the Sorbonne's demand. The faculty's judgment had been pronounced on the ninth of December, 1525; a fortnight later, on the morrow of Christmas day—a favorite time for striking displays of this kind—Pauvan publicly retracted his "errors," and made the usual "amende honorable," clad only in a shirt, and holding a lighted taper in his hand.He is burned on the Place de Grève
If Panvan's submission secured him any peace, it was a short-lived peace. Tortured by conscience, he soon betrayed his mental anguish by sighs and groans. Again he was drawn from the prison, where he had been confined since his abjuration, and subjected to new interrogatories. With the opportunity to vindicate his convictions, his courage and cheerfulness returned. As a relapsed heretic, no fate could be in store for him but death at the stake, and this he courageously met on the Place de Grève. But the holocaust was inauspicious for those who with this victim hoped to annihilate the "new doctrines." Before mounting the huge pyre heaped up to receive him, Pauvan was thoughtlessly permitted to speak; and so persuasive were his words that it was an enemy's exclamation that "it had been better to have cost the church a million of gold, than that Pauvan had been suffered to speak to the people."
The hermit of Livry
Scarcely more encouraging to the advocates of persecution was the scene in the area in front of Notre-Dame de Paris, when, at the sound of the great cathedral bell, an immense crowd was gathered to witness the execution of an obscure person, known to us only as "the hermit of Livry"—a hamlet on the road to Meaux. With such unshaken fortitude did he encounter the flames, that the astonished spectators were confidently assured by their spiritual advisers that he was one of the damned who was being led to the fires of hell.
Bishop Briçonnet becomes the jailer of the "Lutherans"
Where less rigor was deemed necessary, the penalty for having embraced the reformed tenets was reduced to imprisonment for a term of years, often with bread and water for the only food and drink. The place of confinement was sometimes a monastery, at other times the "prisons of Monseigneur the Bishop of Meaux" Thus Briçonnet enjoyed the rare and exquisite privilege of acting as jailer of unfortunates instructed by himself in the doctrines for the profession of which they now suffered! Meantime their companions having escaped detection, although deprived of the advantage of public worship, continued for years to assemble for mutual encouragement and edification, as they had opportunity, in private houses, in retired valleys or caverns, or in thickets and woods. Their minister was that person of their own number who was seen to be the best versed in the Holy Scriptures. After he had discharged his functions in the humble service, by a simple address of instruction or exhortation, the entire company with one voice supplicated the Almighty for His blessing, and returned to their homes with fervent hopes for the speedy conversion of France to the Gospel. Thus matters stood for about a score of years, until a fresh attempt was made to constitute a reformed church at Meaux, the signal, as will appear in the sequel, for a fresh storm of persecution
Jean Châtellain, of Metz
In Metz the powerful appeals of an Augustinian monk, Jean Châtellain, had powerfully moved the masses. He was as eloquent as he was learned, as commanding in appearance as fearless in the expression of his belief. The attempt to molest him would have proved a very dangerous one for the clergy of Metz to make; for the enthusiasm of the laity in his support knew no bounds, and the churchmen prudently avoided giving it an occasion for manifestation. But, no sooner had Châtellain been induced on some pretext to leave the safe protection of the walls, than a friar of his own order and monastery betrayed him to the bishop. He was hurriedly taken to Nommeny, and thence to Vic for trial and execution. In vain did the Inquisitor of the Faith strive to shake his constancy. His judges were forced to liken their incorrigible prisoner to the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear. As "a preacher of false doctrines," an "apostate" and a "liar toward God Almighty," they declared him excommunicated and deprived of whatever ecclesiastical benefices he might hold. The faithful compiler of the French martyrology gives in accurate, but painful, detail the successive steps by which Châtellain was stripped of the various prerogatives conferred upon him in ordination. I shall not repeat the story of sacred vessels placed in his hands only to be hastily snatched from them, of the scraping of his fingers supposed to remove the grace of consecration, of chasuble and stole indignantly taken away—in short, of all the petty devices of a malice at which the mind wearies and the heart sickens. It was perhaps a fitting sequel to the ceremony that the degrading bishop should hand his victim over to the representative of the secular arm to be put to death, with a hypocritical recommendation to mercy: "Lord Judge, we entreat you as affectionately as we can, as well by the love of God, as from pity and compassion, and out of respect for our prayers, that you do this wretched man no injury tending to death or the mutilation of his body."2 The prayer was granted—according to the intent of the petitioner. On the twelfth of January, 1525, Châtellain was led to the place of execution, as cheerful in demeanor, the witnesses said, as if walking to a feast. At the stake he knelt and offered a short prayer, then met his horrible sentence with a constancy that won many converts to the faith for which he had suffered. At the news of the fate of their admired teacher, the citizens of Metz could not contain their rage. A tumultuous scene ensued, in which it was well that the ecclesiastics—there were more than nine hundred within the walls—escaped with no greater injury at the hands of the angry populace than some passing insults. John Vedast, an evangelical teacher, was at that time in confinement, reserved for a similar doom to that of Châtellain. He was liberated by the people, who, in a body membering several thousand men, visited his prison and enabled him to escape to a safe refuge. It was not until a strong detachment of troops had been thrown into the city that the burgesses were reduced to submission.2 "None the less," admits a Roman Catholic historian, "did Lutheranism spread over the entire district of Metz."
At St. Hippolyte, a town near the Swiss frontier, dependent upon the Duke of Lorraine, similar success and a similarly tragic end were the results of the zealous labors of Wolfgang Schuch, a priest of German extraction. The "good duke" Antoine, having been led to confound the peaceable disciples of Schuch with the revolted peasants, whose ravages had excited widespread alarm throughout Germany, publicly proclaimed his intention of visiting the town that harbored them with fire and sword. To propitiate him by removing his misapprehension, Schuch wrote to the duke a singularly touching letter containing a candid exposition of the religion he professed; but finding that his missive had been of no avail, he resolved to immolate himself in behalf of his flock. At Nancy, the capital of the duchy, whither he had gone to dissuade Antoine from executing his savage threats, he was thrown into a loathsome dungeon, while the University of Paris was consulted respecting the soundness of thirty-one propositions extracted from his writings by the Inquisitor of Lorraine. On the nineteenth of August, 1525—the theologians of the Sorbonne having some months before reported unfavorably upon the theses submitted to them—Wolfgang Schuch was consigned to the flames.
A commission appointed to try "Lutherans"
After mature deliberation, the privy council resolved upon a plan which was virtually to remove the cognizance of crimes against religion from the clergy, and commit it to a mixed commission. The Parliament of Paris was accordingly notified that the bishop of that city stood ready to delegate his authority to conduct the trial of all heretics found within his jurisdiction to such persons as parliament might select for the discharge of this important function; and the latter body proceeded at once to designate two of its own members to act in conjunction with two doctors of the Sorbonne, and receive the faculties promised by the Bishop of Paris. A few days later (March 29, 1525), in making a necessary substitution for one of the members who was unable to serve, parliament not only empowered the commission thus constituted to try the "Lutheran" prisoners, Pauvan and Saulnier, but directed the Archbishops of Lyons and Rheims, and the bishops or chapters of eight of the remaining most important dioceses, to confer upon it similar authority to that already received at the hands of the bishop of the metropolis.The inquisition hitherto jealously watched
It was, however, no ordinary tribunal which the highest civil court of the kingdom was erecting. The commission was in effect nothing less than a new phase of the Inquisition, embodying many of the most obnoxious features of that detested tribunal. It is true that the "Holy Office," in a modified form, had existed in France ever since the persecutions directed against the Albigenses and the bloody campaigns of Simon de Montfort. But the seat of the solitary Inquisitor of the Faith was Toulouse, not Paris, and his powers had been jealously circumscribed by the courts of justice and the diocesan prelates, both equally interested in rearing barriers to prevent his incursions into their respective jurisdictions. The Inquisitor of Toulouse was now only a spy and informer. Parliament, in particular, had clearly enunciated the principle that neither inquisitor nor bishop had the right to arrest a suspected heretic, inasmuch as bodily seizure was the exclusive prerogative of the officers of the crown. The judges of this supreme court had summoned to their bar a bishop, and his "official," or vicar, and had exacted from them an explicit disavowal of any intention to arrest, in the case of a person whom they had merely detained, as they asserted, until such time as they could deliver him into the hands of a competent civil officer.3 And it had become a maxim of French jurisprudence, that "an inquisitor of the faith has no power of capture or arrest, save with the assistance, and by authority, of the secular arm."
But the Parliament of Paris, at the instigation of the regent's advisers, and with the consent of the bishops, was breaking down these important safeguards of personal liberty. It not only accorded to the mixed inquisitorial commission, consisting of two lay and two clerical members, the authority to apprehend persons suspected of heresy, but removed the proceedings of the commission almost entirely from review and correction. A pretext for this extraordinary course was found in the delays heretofore experienced from the interposition of technical difficulties. "The commissioners," said parliament, "by virtue of the authority delegated to them, shall secretly institute inquiries against the Lutherans, and shall proceed against them by personal summons, by bodily arrest, by seizure of goods, and by other penalties. Their decisions shall be executed in spite of any and every opposition and appeal, save in case of the final sentence." While conferring such extravagant privileges, parliament took pains to prescribe that the decisions of the commission should be executed precisely as if they had emanated from the supreme court itself. Such were the lengths to which the most conservative judges were willing to go, in the hope of speedily eradicating the reformed doctrines from French soil.
: Amo Sat Apr 13, 2024 - 16:19:57Good history to understand what happened..Excerpts from -
HISTORY OF THE
RISE OF THE HUGUENOTS
by
HENRY M. BAIRD,
professor in the university of the city of New York
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I
FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE FRENCH REFORMATION TO THE EDICT OF JANUARY (1562)
Pragmatic Sanction of St. Louis
It is a somewhat anomalous circumstance that the first decided step in repressing the arrogant claims of the Papal See was taken by a monarch whose singular merits have been deemed worthy of canonization by the Roman Church. Louis the Ninth had witnessed with alarm the rapid strides of the Papacy toward universal dominion. His pride was offended by the pretension of the Pontiff to absolute superiority; his sovereign rights were assailed when taxes were levied in France at the pleasure of a foreign priest and prince. He foresaw that this abuse was likely to take deep root unless promptly met by a formal declaration placing the rights of the French monarch and nation in their true light. For this reason he issued in 1268 a solemn edict, which, as emanating from the unconstrained will of the king, took the name of the "Pragmatic Sanction of Saint Louis."
The preamble of this famous ordinance, upon the authenticity of which doubts have been unnecessarily cast, declares the object of the king to be to secure the safety and tranquillity of the church of his realm, the advancement of divine worship, the salvation of the souls of Christ's faithful people, and the attainment of the favor and help of Almighty God. To his sole jurisdiction and protection had France ever been subject, and so did Louis desire it to remain. The provisions of the Pragmatic Sanction were directed chiefly to guarding the freedom of election and of collation to benefices, and to prohibiting the imposition of any form of taxes by the Pope upon ecclesiastical property in France, save by previous consent of the prince and clergy.
In this brief document had been laid the foundation of the liberties of the Gallican Church, not under the form of novel legislation, but of a summary of previous usage.
Philip the Fair and Boniface
Political reasons, not long after the death of Louis, gave new vigor to the policy of opposition to which this king had pledged France. His grandson, the resolute Philip the Fair, found fresh incitement in the extravagant conduct of a contemporary Pope, Boniface the Eighth. The bold ideas advanced by Hildebrand in the eleventh, and carried into execution by Innocent the Third in the thirteenth century, were wrought into the very texture of the soul of Boniface, and could not be concealed, in spite of the altered condition of mediæval society. Intolerant, headstrong, and despotic, he undertook to exercise a theocratic rule, and commanded contending monarchs to lay down their arms, and submit their disputes to his arbitrament. To such a summons Philip was not inclined to submit. The crafty and unscrupulous prince, whose contempt for divine law was evidenced by his shameless practice of injustice, whose coffers were filled indifferently by the confiscation of the rich spoils of the commanderies of the Templars, and by recklessly debasing the national currency, did not hesitate to engage in a contest with the most presumptuous of Popes. He appealed to the States General, and all three orders indignantly repudiated the suggestion that their country had ever stood to the Papacy in the relation of a fief. The disastrous example of the English John Lackland had found no imitator on the southern side of the channel. The Pope was declared a heretic. Emissaries of Louis seized him in his native city of Anagni, within the very bounds of the "Patrimony of St. Peter," and the rough usage to which he was then subjected hastened his death. His successors on the pontifical throne proved somewhat more tractable.
During his short and unimportant pontificate, Benedict the Eleventh restored to the chapters of cathedrals the right of electing their own bishops. Upon his death, Philip secured the elevation to the pontifical dignity of an ecclesiastic wholly devoted to French interests, the facile Clement the Fifth, who, in return for the honor conferred upon him, removed the seat of the Papacy to Avignon. Here for the seventy years of the so-called "Babylonish Captivity," the Popes continued to reside, too completely subject to the influence of the French monarchs to dream of resuming their tone of defiance, but scarcely less exacting than before of homage from other rulers. In fact, the burden of the pecuniary exactions of the Popes rather grew than diminished with the change from Rome to Avignon, and with the institution of rival claimants to the tiara, each requiring an equal sum to support the pomp of his court, but recognized as legitimate by only a portion of Christendom. The devices for drawing tribute from all quarters were multiplied to an almost insupportable extent. So effectual did they prove, that no pontiff, perhaps, ever left at his death a more enormous accumulation of treasure than one of the Popes of Avignon, John the Twenty-second. Much of this wealth was derived from the rich provinces of France.
Close upon the "Captivity" followed the "Schism," during which the generally acknowledged Popes, who had returned to Rome, were opposed by pretenders at Avignon and elsewhere. A double incentive was now given to the monarchs of Europe for setting bounds to the ambition of the Papacy. For while the Popes, through the loss of a great part of their authority and prestige, had become less formidable antagonists, their financial extortions had waxed so intolerable as to suggest the strongest arguments appealing to the self-interest of kings. Hence the frequency with which the demand for "a reformation in the head and the members" resounded from all parts of the Western Church. And hence, too, those memorable councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basle, which, coming in rapid succession at the commencement of the fifteenth century, bade fair to prove the forerunners of a radical reformation. It does not belong here to discuss the causes of their failure to answer this reasonable expectation. Yet with one of these assemblages is closely connected a very important incident in the history of the Gallican Church.
The Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges
The Pragmatic Sanction, as it is often called by way of preeminence, is the magna charta of the liberties of the Gallican Church. Founded upon the results of the discussions of the Council of Basle, it probably embodies all the reformatory measures which the hierarchy of France was desirous of effecting or willing to accept. How far these were from administering the needed antidote to the poison which was at work and threatened to destroy all true religious life—if, indeed, that life was not already too near extinction—may readily be understood when it is discovered that, with the exception of a few paragraphs relating to ecclesiastical discipline and worship, the following comprise all the important provisions:
The Pragmatic Sanction establishes the obligation of the Pope to convene a general council of the church at least every ten years. The decisions of the Council of Basle are declared to be of perpetual force. Far from deriving its authority from the Holy See, the Œcumenical Council, it is affirmed, depends immediately upon Christ, and the Pope is no less bound than all other Christians to render due obedience to its decisions. The right of appeal from the Pope to the future council—a claim obnoxious in the last degree to the advocates of papal supremacy—is distinctly asserted. The Pope is declared incapable of appointing to any high ecclesiastical dignities, save in a few specified cases; in all others recourse is to be had to election. The pontiff's pretensions to confer minor benefices are equally rejected. No abuse is more sharply rebuked and forbidden than that of expectatives—a species of appointment in high favor with the papal chancery, whereby a successor to ecclesiastical dignities was nominated during the lifetime of the incumbent, and in view of his decease.
The Pragmatic Sanction restricts the troublesome and costly appeals to Rome to cases of great importance, when the parties in interest reside at a distance of more than four days' journey from that city. At the same time it prescribes that no one shall be vexed by such appeals after having enjoyed actual possession of his rank for three years. Going beyond the limits of the kingdom, it enters into the constitution of the "Sacred College," and fixes the number of the cardinals at twenty-four, while placing the minimum age of candidates for the hat at thirty years. The exaction of the annats is stigmatized as simony. Priests living in concubinage are to be punished by the forfeiture of one-fourth of their annual stipend. Finally the principle is sanctioned that no interdict can be made to include in its operation the innocent with the guilty.
So thorough a vindication of the rights of the Gallican Church had never before been undertaken. The axe was laid at the root of formidable abuses; freedom of election was restored; the kingdom was relieved of a crushing burden of tribute; foreigners were precluded from interfering with the systematic administration of the laws. The clergy, both regular and secular, received the greatest benefits, for, while they could no longer be plundered of so large a part of their incomes, their persons were protected from arbitrary arrest and hopeless exile beyond the Alps.
The council had not adjourned when the tidings of the transactions at Bourges reached the city of Basle. The members were overjoyed, and testified their approval in a grateful letter to the Archbishop of Lyons. But their exultation was more than equalled by the disgust of Pope Eugenius the Third. Indeed, the pontificates of this pope and his immediate successors were filled with fruitless attempts to effect the repeal of the Pragmatic Sanction. A threat was made to place France under an interdict; but this was of no avail, being answered by the counter-threat of the king's representative, who proposed to make a practical application of the instrument, by appealing from his Holiness to a future general council. So the Pope, having a vivid recollection of the perils attending a contest with the French crown, wisely avoided the hazardous venture.
(Henry M. Baird, History of the Rise of the Huguenots, vol. 1 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1880), 26–31.)
The above is the first of continuing quotes from Henry M. Baird's 2 volumes of the History of the Rise of the Huguenots. To be built upon as time and opportunity afford. My comments if any will be in blue.
The commission endorsed by Clement VII
The regent and her master-spirit, the chancellor, did not rest here. The commission was not irrevocable; and its authority might be disputed. The work of parliament must receive the papal sanction. For this Clement the Seventh did not keep them long waiting. He addressed to parliament (May 20, 1525) a brief conceived in a vein of fulsome eulogy, expressing his marvellous commendation of their acts—acts which he declared to be worthy of the reputation for wisdom in which the French tribunal was justly held. And he incited the judges to fresh zeal by the consideration that the new madness that had fallen upon the world was prepared to confound and overturn, not religion alone, but all rule, nobility, pre-eminence and superiority—nay, all law and order. The reader, it may be feared, will tire of the frequency with which the same trite suggestions recur. It is, however, not a little important to emphasize the argument which the Roman Curia, and its emissaries at the courts of kings, were never weary of reiterating in the ears of the rich and powerful. And as they seized with avidity every slight incident of disorder that could by any means be associated with the great religious movement now in progress, and presented it as corroboratory proof of the charge preferred against the "Lutherans," it is not surprising that they were generally successful in their appeal to the fears of a class which had so much at stake.
In addition to his endorsement of their pious zeal, Clement's brief informed the judges of parliament that they would find in the accompanying bull his formal confirmation of the inquisitorial commission.
This "letter with the leaden seal," dated the seventeenth of May, might well have opened the eyes of less devoted subjects of the Roman See to the injury they were inflicting upon the French liberties, heretofore so cherished an object of judicial solicitude. Addressing itself to the four commissioners named by parliament, the bull recited the lamentable progress of the doctrines of that "son of iniquity and heresiarch, Martin Luther," and praised the ardor displayed to stay their dissemination in France. It next declared that the Pope, by the advice and with the unanimous consent of the cardinals, instructed the commissioners to proceed either singly or collectively against those persons who had embraced heretical views, "simply and quietly, without noise or form of judgment." He empowered them to act independently of the prelates of the kingdom and the Inquisitor of the Faith, or to call in their assistance, as they should see fit. They might summon witnesses, under pain of ecclesiastical censures. They might make investigations against and put on trial all those infected with heresy, even should the guilty be bishops or archbishops in the church, or be clothed with the ducal authority in the state. When convicted, such persons were to be punished by arrest and imprisonment, or cut off, "like rotten members, from the communion of the church, and consigned to eternal damnation with Satan and his angels." The commissioners were further authorized to grant permission to any one of the faithful who chose so to do to invade, occupy, and acquire for himself the lands, castles, and goods of the heretics, seizing their persons and leading them away into life-long slavery. From the sentence of the commissioners all appeal, even to the "Apostolic See" itself, was expressly cut off.
Its powers enlarged by the papal bull
Rome had made one of its most brilliant strokes. While adopting as his own the commissioners appointed by parliament, Clement had enlarged their already exorbitant prerogatives, and consummated their independence of secular interference. A new and more efficient inquisition was thus introduced into France, with its secret investigation and unlimited power of inflicting punishment.[/upon] The Parliament of Paris had, however, committed itself too fully to think of demurring. Accordingly, it proceeded (June 10th) to enter on its records both the regent's letter and the bull of the Pope, to which the letter enjoined obedience. We have in a previous chapter seen some of the first fruits of the establishment of the inquisitorial commission, in the proceedings instituted against Lefèvre d'Étaples, Gérard Roussel, and others who took part in the attempted reformation of the diocese of Meaux. But, chief among those whom it was sought to destroy, through the agency of the new and well-furbished weapon against heretics, was a nobleman of Artois, whose repeated and remarkable escapes from the hand of the executioner, viewed in connection with the tragic fate that at last overtook him, invest his story with a romantic interest.
Henry M. Baird, History of the Rise of the Huguenots, vol. 1 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1880), 126–128.
His first imprisonment
In the spring of 1523, De Berquin's house was visited, his books and papers were seized, and an inventory was made. Beda was the leader of the authorities in the whole affair. Parliament ordered the books and manuscripts to be examined and reported upon by the theological faculty. What the report would be, it was not hard to surmise. When such works were found in De Berquin's possession as that entitled "Speculum Theologastrorum," and another giving Luther's reasons for maintaining the universal priesthood of Christian believers; when the notes in De Berquin's own handwriting condemned as blasphemous, and as derogatory to the power of the Holy Ghost, the ascription of praise to the Virgin Mary as the "fountain of all grace"—but one answer could be expected to the requisition of parliament. The books and manuscripts were pronounced heretical; their author was commanded to retract. This De Berquin refused to do, and he was, consequently, shut up in the conciergerie—the civil prison within the walls of the ancient palace in which parliament sat. Four days later he was transferred to the dungeons of the Bishop of Paris, to be judged by him with the aid of two counsellors of parliament and of such theologians as he should see fit to call in.He is released by order of the king
The case was fast becoming serious. De Berquin was made of sterner stuff than the weaklings who recant through fear of the stake; and the syndic of Sorbonne was fully resolved to have him burned if he remained constant. Happily, just at this critical moment the king interfered. From Melun, which he had reached on his way toward the south of France, he despatched an officer—one "Captain Frederick," as his name appears in the records—to demand the release of De Berquin, whose trial he had evoked for the consideration of his own royal council. Parliament attempted to interpose technical difficulties, and responded that the prisoner was no longer in its keeping. But "Captain Frederick" was provided against any quibbling. As his instructions were to break open whatever prison-doors might be barred against him, it was not long before the expected prey of the theologians was given into his custody. In the end De Berquin was set at liberty, such an examination of his case having been made by the king's council as courtiers are wont to institute when the accused is the favorite of the monarch.Advice of Erasmus
It was about this time that Erasmus first made the acquaintance of Louis de Berquin. The Artesian nobleman took occasion to write to the great Dutch humanist, of whom he stood in great admiration, to inform him of the position assumed in reference to the writings of the latter by Beda and Du Chesne. Erasmus tells us that he was delighted with his new correspondent. But the constitutional timidity of the scholar compelled him to answer De Berquin by words of caution rather than of encouragement: "If you are wise, repress your encomiums; do not disturb the hornets, and spend your time in your favorite studies. At all events, do not involve me; for the consequences might be inconvenient for us both." But the dictates of worldly wisdom had no influence over De Berquin. Presently Erasmus was vexed to find that De Berquin in his writings was appealing to his friend's authority, and quoting the sentiments of the latter in defence of his own opinions. Now thoroughly alarmed at De Berquin's imprudence, Erasmus remonstrated, plainly intimating that whatever delight others might derive from conflicts such as he saw approaching, nothing was less grateful to himself.Berquin's second imprisonment
Francis again orders his release
Meantime Louis de Berquin had retired to his own estates, in the expectation of pursuing his plans with less danger of interference than in the capital. Even there, however, he was not safe. The propitious moment for striking a decisive blow seemed to his enemies to have come when, the king being a captive, his mother, the regent, had permitted Pope and parliament to erect a tribunal for the summary trial and execution of heretics. The Bishop of Amiens, in whose diocese De Berquin's lands were situated, having applied to parliament, easily obtained the authority to seize him, disregarding even the ordinary rights of asylum. After his arrest he was again transferred from the episcopal palace to the conciergerie at Paris, and his trial entrusted to the new inquisitorial commission. A series of propositions extracted from his writings, and censured by the Sorbonne, insured his condemnation as a relapsed heretic, and De Berquin was handed over to the secular arm for condign punishment. But again, at the very instant when his ruin was imminent, he met with unexpected deliverance. The sympathy of the king's sister was enlisted, and she used her influence with her mother to obtain an order adjourning all proceedings against De Berquin until the monarch should be released. Meanwhile she wrote urgent letters in his behalf to Francis and to his favorite, the grand master of the palace and future constable of France, Anne de Montmorency. The reply came in an order from the king, at Madrid, directing his parliament to cease from giving disturbance to Berquin and such men of learning.Dilatory measures of parliament
It is suggestive of the delays attending even the execution of the will of so arbitrary a prince as Francis, that, although De Berquin was thus delivered from the immediate prospect of death, months passed before he regained his liberty. Successive royal orders were required to secure any alleviation of his hard confinement. Thus, when his health suffered from want of exercise and pure air, parliament grudgingly permitted him to leave his solitary cell for an hour morning and evening, at such time as the court might be clear of other prisoners whom he could contaminate. And when De Berquin complained that his books and writing materials had been denied him, the extent of the parliament's generosity was to grant him "the epistles of St. Jerome and some other Catholic books." At length, the king's patience becoming exhausted by the court's procrastination and technical objections, he sent (November 21, 1526) the Provost of Paris forcibly to remove De Berquin from the conciergerie to the Louvre, where he was soon restored his freedom.
Henry M. Baird, History of the Rise of the Huguenots, vol. 1 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1880), 129–132.
Francis I. violates his pledges to Charles V
Here was the secret! Unfortunately for the Reformation, policy was supposed to make it an imperative duty to conciliate the favor of the Pope, no less after the release of Francis than while he was yet a prisoner. There were the young princes sent by the regent as hostages for the fulfilment of the treaty with Charles of Spain, for whose liberation measures were to be devised. And there was the oath—to the shame of Francis, it must be added—from the binding force of which the king hoped to be relieved by authority of the Roman bishop; for scarcely had Francis set foot on his own dominions, when he unblushingly retracted all his treaty stipulations. He announced to the emperor that the cession of Burgundy, the Viscounty of Auxonne, and other territories, which had been made by his imperial captor the indispensable condition of his release, was entirely out of the question; and that his promises, extorted while he was in duress, were of no validity! Nevertheless, he offered, in lieu thereof, the payment of a larger ransom than had ever been proffered by a king of France. Indignant at a perfidy somewhat flagrant, even for an age tolerably well accustomed to breaches of faith, the emperor refused the substitute. The arms recently laid aside were resumed. Clement the Seventh and Venice became the allies of Francis, who for the present figured as the champion of the papacy; while his rival, by suffering the traitor Constable de Bourbon with an army of German soldiers to besiege the pontiff in his capital, became responsible in the eyes of the world for all the atrocities of the famous sack of the city of Rome. When, at length, after three years of hard fighting, peace was concluded by the treaty of Cambray (July, 1529), the terms agreed upon at Madrid were virtually carried into effect; but the emperor consented to receive the sum of two millions of crowns—écus-au-soleil—in place of Burgundy, and on payment to restore to the French the dauphin and the Duke of Orleans, the future Henry the Second, so long detained as hostages in Spain.
Meantime the revenues of the royal domain, having during the late wars been subjected to a long and unremitting drain, had proved utterly inadequate to meet the extraordinary demand of treasure for the resumption of the hostilities following close upon Francis's release. Recourse must be had to the purses of the king's subjects. The right to levy taxes resided in the States General alone, and Francis was reluctant, at so critical a juncture, to trample on a time-hallowed principle. He did not, indeed, hesitate to admit that he had been gravely counselled by some of his advisers to resort to a more despotic course; for they maintained that, in so praiseworthy an undertaking as the effort to recover the young princes, the king was warranted by all laws, divine and human, in laying under contribution every one of his subjects, of whatever rank or condition. But, as the same ends might be attained by methods more agreeable to law and precedent, Francis preferred to have recourse to them.
On the sixteenth of December, 1527, one of those anomalous political bodies was convened in the palace of the of Parisian parliament to which the name of an assembly of notables is given. All the orders of the state were represented; but the form of a meeting of the States General (as we have seen, most distasteful to the despotic monarch) was studiously avoided. In reply to a very full exposition of the present condition of the kingdom and of the incidents of his capture, made by Francis in person to the assembled clergymen, nobles, jurists, and burgesses of Paris, each order in turn gave its opinion. All united in approving the refusal of the king to surrender Burgundy to the emperor, and in expressing their unwillingness to allow his Majesty to return to Spain and thus redeem the promise he had given in case the treaty failed to be carried into effect. All likewise professed their readiness to contribute, according to their ability, to the necessities of the crown. The first president, M. de Selve, in the name of parliament, delivered a discourse which the clerk of the assembly, no doubt aptly, describes as "crammed with Latin and with quotations from Scripture, to prove that the treaty of Madrid was null and void." His grounds were that the king could neither dispose of his own person, which belonged to the state, nor alienate Burgundy, which, being a fief of the first rank and a bulwark of the kingdom, was inseparable from France. But probably the whole prodigious mass of classic lore, and of scriptural quotation, even more unfamiliar to most of his hearers, which the pedantic president forced upon the digestion of the unfortunate notables, was required to prove to their satisfaction that Francis had in this affair played the part of the "gentilhomme" he boasted of being.
The speech of the Cardinal of Bourbon was especially important. He announced the willingness of the representatives of the French clergy cheerfully to supply the 1,300,000 livres asked of their order, although at the same time he suggested the propriety of first convoking provincial councils, in which the church might be more fully consulted. With this gracious concession, however, the cardinal coupled three requests, of which the first and third concerned the liberation of the Pope from his imprisonment and the conservation of the liberties of the Gallican church; but the second had a pointed reference to the Reformation: he prayed "that the king might be pleased to uproot and extirpate the damnable and insufferable Lutheran sect which had, not long since, secretly entered the realm, with all the other heresies that were multiplying therein." By thus acting, he assured him, Francis "would perform the duty of a good prince bearing the name of Very Christian King."
Henry M. Baird, History of the Rise of the Huguenots, vol. 1 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1880), 134–137.
Francis promises to prove himself "Very Christian"
The gratified monarch, delighted with the complaisance of his clerical subjects, did not hesitate to accede to all the petitions the Cardinal offered, and declared that, "so far as concerned heresies, he was determined not to endure them, but would cause them to be wholly extirpated and driven from his kingdom," inflicting on any found tainted therewith such exemplary punishment as to demonstrate his right to the honorable title he bore.
It was a rash promise that Francis had made. Like many other absolute monarchs, he expected without trouble to bring the religious convictions of his subjects into conformity with the standard he was pleased to set up. He had yet to learn that there are beliefs which, when they take root in the hearts of humble and illiterate peasants or artisans, are too firmly fixed to be eradicated by the most excruciating tortures man's ingenuity has been able to contrive. Through fire and sword, the victim now of persecution, again of open war, the faith denominated heresy was yet to survive, not only the last lineal descendant of the king then sitting on the throne of France, but the rule of the dynasty which was destined to succeed to the power, and reproduce not a few of the mistakes, of the Valois race.
Henry M. Baird, History of the Rise of the Huguenots, vol. 1 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1880), 137–138.
The provincial council of Sens
In accordance with the suggestion of the Cardinal of Bourbon, three provincial councils were held early in the ensuing year (1528). The most important was the council of the ecclesiastical province of Sens, which met, however, in the Augustinian monastery at Paris. It was scarcely to be expected that a synod presided over by Antoine Duprat, who, to the dignity of cardinal and the office of Chancellor of France, added the Bishopric of Albi and the Archbishopric of Sens, with the claim to be Primate of the Gauls and of Germany, should discuss with severity the morals of the clergy, or issue stringent canons against the abuse of the plurality of benefices. As an offset, however, the Council of Sens had much to say respecting the new reformation. The good fathers saw in the discordant views of Luther and Carlstadt, of Melanchthon and Zwingle, proof positive that the new doctrines the reformers advanced were devoid of any basis of truth. They ridiculed the claim of the Protestants to the presence of the Spirit of God. But they reserved their severest censures for the practice of holding secret conventicles, and, with an irony best appreciated by those who understand the penalties inflicted by the law on the discovered heretics, they gently reminded the men and women to whom the celebration of a single religious service according to the dictates of their conscience would have insured instantaneous condemnation and a death at the stake, that God hates the deeds of darkness, and that Christ himself said, "What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light."
More practical were the prescriptions of the council's decrees respecting the punishment of offenders against the unity of the faith. Heretics who, after conviction, refused to be "united to the church," were to be consigned to prison for life, priests to be degraded, the relapsed to be given over to the secular arm without a hearing. Heretical books, including translations of the Bible, were to be surrendered to the bishop. Indeed, it was stipulated that every book treating of the faith, and printed within the past twenty years, should be submitted to him for examination. Nor was the council satisfied to leave the discovery of heresy to accident. It was particularly enjoined upon every bishop that he, or some competent person appointed by him, should visit any portion of his diocese in which the taint of unsound doctrine was reported to exist, and compel three or more persons of good standing, or even the entire body of the inhabitants of a neighborhood, to denounce under oath those who entertained heretical views, the frequenters of secret conventicles, and even those who merely held aloof from the conversation of the faithful. Lest this stimulus to informers should prove insufficient to extract the desired knowledge, the threat was added that persons refusing to testify would be treated as suspected, and themselves proceeded against.
The councils of Bourges and Lyons
Not less severe toward the "Lutheran" doctrines did the other two provincial councils show themselves. At the Council of Bourges, the Cardinal of Tournon presided as archbishop—a prelate who was to attain unenviable notoriety as the prime instigator of the massacre of Mérindol and Cabrières, of which an account will be given in a subsequent chapter. Besides the usual regulations for the censure of heretical books and the denunciation of "Lutherans," the decrees contain the significant direction that the professors in the University of Bourges shall employ in their instructions no authors calculated to divert the students from the ceremonies of the church—a caution deriving its importance from the circumstance that the university, under the patronage of Margaret of Angoulême, now Duchess of Berry as well as Queen of Navarre, had become a centre of reformatory activity.
The letter in which the king had called upon the Archbishop of Lyons to convene the clergy of his province, declared that Francis had ever held the accursed sect of the "Lutherans" in hatred, horror, and abomination, and that its extirpation was an object very near his heart, for the accomplishment of which he would employ all possible means; and the Council of Lyons responded by cordial approval and by the enactment of fresh regulations to suppress conventicles, to prevent the farther dissemination of Luther's writings, and, indeed, to forbid all discussion of matters of faith by the laity. At the same time the council unconsciously revealed the necessity imposed on the private Christian to investigate for himself the nature and grounds of his belief, by strongly reprobating the disastrous custom of admitting into sacred orders a host of illiterate, uncultivated persons of low antecedents—beardless youths—and by confessing that this wretched practice had justly excited the contempt of the world.
Financial help bought by persecution
Everywhere the clergy conceded the subsidy required by the exigencies of the kingdom. But they left Francis in no doubt respecting the price of their complaisance. This was nothing less than the extermination of the new sect that had made its appearance in France. And the king comprehended and fell in with the terms upon which the church agreed to loosen its purse-strings. No doubtful policy must now prevail! No more Berquins can be permitted to make their boast that they have been able, protected by the king's panoply, to beard the lion in his den!
Berquin sentenced to public penance, branding, and imprisonment
The sentence was rendered on the sixteenth of April, 1529. De Berquin, being found guilty of heresy, was condemned to do public penance in front of Notre Dame, with lighted taper in hand, and crying for mercy to God and the blessed Virgin. Next, on the Place de Grève, he was to be ignominiously exhibited upon a scaffold, while his books were burned before his eyes. Taken thence in a cart to the pillory, and again exposed to popular derision on a revolving stage, he was to have his tongue pierced and his forehead branded with the ineffaceable fleur-de-lis. His public disgrace over, De Berquin was to be imprisoned for life in the episcopal jail.He appeals, is sentenced to death, and is executed
More than twenty thousand persons—so intense a hatred had been stirred up against the reformers—assembled to witness the execution of a sentence malignantly cruel. But, for that day, their expectation was disappointed. Louis de Berquin gave notice that he appealed to the absent king and to the Pope himself. It was no part of the programme, however, that the thrice-convicted heresiarch should gain a fresh respite and enlist powerful friends in effecting his release. No sooner were the judges satisfied that he persisted in his appeal, in spite of the secret and urgent advice of Budé and others, than they rendered a new and more severe sentence (on the seventeenth of April): he must pay the forfeit of his obstinacy with his life, and that, too, within a few hours.
The cause of this intemperate haste is clearly set forth by a contemporary—doubtless an eye-witness of the execution—all whose sympathies were on the side of the prosecution. It was "lest recourse be had to the king, or to the regent then at Blois;" for the delay of even a few days might have brought from the banks of the Loire another order removing De Berquin's case from the commission to the royal council.
The historian must leave to the professed martyrologist the details of the constant death of Louis de Berquin, as of the deaths of many other less distinguished victims of the intolerant zeal of the Sorbonne. Suffice it to say that although, when he undertook to address the people, his voice was purposely drowned by the din of the attendants, though the very children filled the air with shouts that De Berquin was a heretic, though not a person was found in the vast concourse to encourage him by the name of "Jesus"—an accustomed cry even at the execution of parricides—the brave nobleman of Artois met his fate with such composure as to be likened by a by-stander to a student immersed in his favorite occupations, or a worshipper whose devout mind was engrossed by the contemplation of heavenly things. There were indeed blind rumors, as usual in such cases; to the effect that De Berquin recanted at the last moment; and Merlin, the Penitentiary of Notre Dame, who attended him, is reported to have exclaimed that "perhaps no one for a hundred years had died a better Christian."4 But the "Lutherans" of Paris had good reason to deny the truth of the former statement, and to interpret the latter to the advantage of De Berquin's consistent faith—so great was the rejoicing over the final success attained in crushing the most distinguished, in silencing the boldest and most outspoken advocate of the reformation of the church. For, in the eyes of the theological faculty and of the clergy of France, Louis de Berquin merited to be styled, by way of pre-eminence, a heresiarch.
Francis refuses to join in a crusade against heresy
There was another part of the Pope's designs in the execution of which he was less successful. He could not persuade Francis to join in a general scheme for the extermination of heresy. In the very first interview, Clement had sounded his host's disposition respecting the propriety of a new crusade. He had bluntly submitted for consideration the question, "Ought not Francis and the pious princes of Germany, with the emperor at their head, to gather up their forces, enlist troops, and make all needful preparations, to overwhelm the followers of Zwingle and Luther; in order that, affrighted by the terrible retribution visited upon their fellows, the remaining heretics should hasten to make their submission to the Roman Church?" At the same time he threw out hints of his ability to assist in the good work if only the French monarch would not refuse his co-operation. But Francis was not ready for so sanguinary an undertaking. Unmoved by the Pope's repeated solicitations, he replied that it seemed to him that "neither piety nor concord would be promoted by substituting an appeal to arms for the appeal to the Holy Scriptures, to whose ultimate decision both Zwinglians and Lutherans professed themselves at all times anxious to submit their doctrines and practice." He added the unpalatable advice that the matters in dispute be considered by a free and impartial council, and declared that, when the council had rendered its verdict, he would spare no pains to sustain it. All the usual pontifical artifices proved abortive. Francis, while valuing highly the friendship of Rome, was not willing to forego the advantages of alliance with the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse.
While the fickle monarch was thus drawn in opposite directions by conflicting political considerations—at one time strengthening the hands of the Protestant princes of Germany, at another, making common cause with the Pope—the same diversity characterized the internal condition of France.Execution of Jean de Caturce at Toulouse
At Toulouse, the seat of one of most noted parliaments, Jean de Caturce, a lawyer of ability, was put to death by slow fire in the summer of 1532. His unpardonable offence was that he had once made a "Lutheran" exhortation, and that, in the merry-making on the Fête des Rois—Epiphany—he had recommended that the prayer, "May Christ reign in our hearts!" be substituted for the senseless cry, "The king drinks!" No more ample ground of accusation was needed in a city where the luckless wight who failed to take off his cap before an image, or fall on his knees when the bell rang out at "Ave Maria," was sure to be set upon as a heretic.Le Coq's evangelical sermon
In striking contrast with the tragedy enacted in the chief city of the south was the favor openly showed to the reformers by the Queen of Navarre, not only in her own city of Bourges, but in Paris itself. The intercessions she had addressed to her brother for the victims of priestly persecution had long since betrayed her secret leaning; and the translation of her "Hours" into French by the Bishop of Senlis, who, by her direction, suppressed all that most directly countenanced superstitious beliefs, was naturally taken as strong confirmation of the prevalent suspicion. But, when she introduced Berthault, Courault, and her own almoner, Roussel, to the pulpits of the capital, and protected them in their evangelical labors, the case ceased to admit of doubt. She even persuaded the king to listen to a sermon in which Le Coq, curate of St. Eustache, argued with force against the bodily presence or Christ in the eucharist, and maintained that the very words, "Sursum corda," in the church service, pointed Him out as to be found at the right hand of God in heaven. Indeed, the eloquent preacher had nearly convinced his royal listener, when the Cardinals of Tournon and Lorraine, by a skilful stratagem, succeeded in destroying the impression he had received, and, it is said, in inducing Le Coq to make a retraction. But the opposition to the public proclamation of the reformed doctrines was too formidable for their advocates to stem. Beda and his colleagues in the Sorbonne left no device untried to silence the preachers: and, although the restless syndic was in the end forced to expiate his seditions words and writings by an amende honorable in front of the church of Notre Dame, and died in prison, Roussel and his fellow-preachers had long before been compelled to exchange their public discourses for private exhortations, and finally to discontinue even these and retreat from Paris.