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Persecution and Protestantism: Toulouse, 1562–1575

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Joan Davies
Joan Davies
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University of Essex
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Who became protestant in sixteenth-century France? This question has long exercised historians. A contemporary, La Popelinière, himself a huguenot, pointed to the varied attractions of the reformation for the politically ambitious and for the socially and economically underprivileged. Moving on to the beginning of this century, Henri Hauser postulated a protestantism dominated by artisans and the lower urban classes, although he later emphasised the appeal of the new religion to all social groups, a point of view endorsed by Lucien Romier and E. G. Léonard. Despite the political and military significance of the adherence of both some high court nobles and lesser rural hobereaux, it is nevertheless clear that Calvinism was predominantly and intentionally an urban phenomenon; Genevan missionaries were directed primarily to the cities and towns, though there were some notable exceptions such as the Cévennes area in southern France. It is, however, possible to advance from these rather cautious generalizations and to ask whether the social and economic profile of those who converted to Calvinism reflects that of the French people as a whole or whether there is some special relationship between status and religion, and whether there is any regional differentiation. Some of the answers, which in the current state of research must remain tentative, may be drawn from lists of huguenots drawn up by judicial and municipal authorities in the course of the civil wars. These lists provide, as Jean Delumeau has recently pointed out, a marvellous introduction to the sociology of French protestantism and indeed, one of the few ways of approaching the issue. Very few registers of the état-civil of protestant churches survive from the sixteenth century and those that do often fail to note occupational status. Lists of refugees in Geneva and elsewhere offer some evidence from a protestant point of view, but are distorted by a number of factors and may be unreliable in respect of geographical distribution and occupations.

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The Historical Journal , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , March 1979, pp. 31 - 51
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

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3 Salmon, J. H. M., Society in crisis: France in the sixteenth century (London, 1975), pp. 117–43Google Scholar, discusses the progress of Calvinism immediately before the outbreak of the civil wars; Ladurie, E. Le Roy, Les paysans de Languedoc (Paris, 1966), pp. 348–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar for the Cévennes.

4 Delumeau, Naissance et affirmation, pp. 343–5.

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8 Connac, E., ‘Troubles de mai 1562 à Toulouse’, Annales du midi, III (1891), 310–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar, provides a narrative of the events.

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10 Baum, and Cunitz, (eds.) Histoire ecclésiastique des églises réformées au royaume de France (Paris, 1883–1889), III, 2Google Scholar.

11 Pastor de Nort's letter to Calvin (n. 9 above) mentions the ‘esprits curieux’ who necessitate experienced and powerful preachers to win them from their ‘mondanités’.

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14 Baum and Cunitz, Histoire ecclésiastique, III, 1–2.

15 Consistory of Toulouse to Théodore de Bèze, 28 Oct. 1564, Dufour, A. (ed.), Correspondence de Théodore de Bèze (Geneva, 1968), v, 148Google Scholar.

16 Archives municipales de Toulouse (hereafter A.M.T.), BB 12, fo. 40, 29 Sept. 1567; A.M.T., GG 825, affaíre du Castanet, Aug. 1572; Archives départementales de la Haute Garonne (hereafter A.D.H.G.), Tournelle 105, 27 Sept. 1572.

17 Baum and Cunitz, Histoire ecclésiastique, III, 39–45; Bosquet, G., Histoire sur les troubles advenus en la ville de Tolose en 1562 (Paris, 1861, originally published Toulouse, 1563), pp. 116–17Google Scholar.

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19 Carrière, V., ‘Le lendemain de la Saint-Barthélemy en Languedoc’, Revue d'histoire de I'église de France, XXVII (1941), 221–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar. One catholic, président Latomy put the number of victims as low as thirty-six in his journal cited by du Mège, A., Histoire des institutions de Toulouse (Toulouse, 1844–1846), II, 319Google Scholar, but the Jesuit Codret reported 150 deaths, Annibal Codret to Jerónimo Nadal, Toulouse, 2 Nov. 1572, Martin, A. L., ‘Jesuits and the St Bartholomew's day massacre’, Archivum historicum societatis Iesu, XLIII (1974), 123Google Scholar. Jeanne Rogier, présidente Malras to François Rogier, seigneur de Ferrals, 7 Nov. 1568, A.M.T., AA 20, no. 103.

20 Richet, D., ‘Aspects socio-culturels des conflits religieux à Paris dans la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle’, Annales: e.s.c., XXXII (1977), 776–7Google Scholar; Benedict, P., ‘Catholics and huguenots in sixteenth century Rouen: the demographic effects of the religious wars’, French Historical Studies, ix (1975), 226Google Scholar, and ‘Rouen’ pp. 176–9, 189–90.

21 The category of liberal professions includes office-holders, lawyers, teachers in the university and elsewhere, students, the religious and ex-religious, pastors and medical men (medecins, barbiers and cirurgiens); the category of artisans includes both maîtres and compagnons as the sources do not draw the distinction regularly. In cases of apparent overlap between artisans and merchants, e.g. marchand ferratier, the suspect has been counted as a merchant. The very few individuals described as bourgeois in some lists have been included with the merchants as they also receive this description and it was in fact still their active occupation, e.g. Assezat and Pastoreau; the usage of bourgeois may have indicated that they had served as capitouls.

22 The classic account of the relationship between literacy and Calvinism is Le Roy Ladurie, Paysans, pp. 333–56. Estèbe, ‘Les Saint-Barthélemy’, p. 719, emphasizes the importance of the ‘civilisation de l'ecriture et de la lecture’ amongst Toulousan protestants.

23 Baptismal registers for St Pierre and St Etienne begin in 1568, for St Sernin in 1570, for La Dalbade and La Daurade in 1571, for Le Taur in 1593 and for St Michel in 1617; continuous series are not available until the beginning of the seventeenth century. Benedict, ‘Rouen’, pp. 109, 190–7, has found rebaptisms in 1572. Montpellier, A. D. Hérault, G 1835, 1569–72.

24 Details of those admitted to the various maîtrises can be found in A.M.T., HH 79–80, for the 1550s and 1560s.

25 Geisendorf, P. (ed.), Livre des habitants de Génève (2 vols., Geneva, 1957–1963)Google Scholar; Mandrou, ‘Les protestants français’, p. 247.

26 A.D.H.G., Tournelle 84, fo. 227V, 15 June 1562; Tournelle 105, 22 Sept. 1572.

27 See Table 3.

28 A.M.T., GG 830, 1 oct. 1568, death sentences on eleven people, including 1 merchant, 1 book-seller, 1 woman and 8 artisans (1 a compagnon).

29 Above p. 34 and notes 17–19.

30 Davis, N. Z., Society and culture in early modern France (Stanford, 1975), pp. 7, 273Google Scholar; Benedict, ‘Rouen’, pp. 107–8.

31 Mégret, J., ‘Guyon de Boudeville, imprimeur toulousain 1541–1562’, Bibliothèqued'humanisme et renaissance, vi (1945), 210–301Google Scholar.

32 Corraze, R., ‘L'industrie de la soie á Toulouse au XVIe siécle’, Mémoires de l'académie des sciences, belles-lettres et inscriptions de Toulouse, 13th series, iv (1942), 73–97Google Scholar; ‘Les armuriers toulousains au XVIe siècle’, ibid. VII (1949), 39–52.

33 Apart from those actually executed, others were sentenced to death in their absence. Thirty parlementaires were suspended by their colleagues (not eight as suggested by Salmon, Society, p. 133).

34 Prévost, procureur in the parlement, and La Bornerie, secrétaire du roi, were two such who entered the queen's personal service, Bibliothéque nationale, MS fr. 3948, fos. 56V–7. Others, especially parlementaires, served in the protestant administration or in the chambres de justice as at Castres.

35 J. Mégret, ‘Guyon Boudeville’, p. 216. Indices of prohibited books were drawn up in 1549, 1556 and 1559. Unfortunately, apart from inventories of the collections of some protestants in 1572, very little evidence about book ownership in the city has come to light. Eight booksellers appeared on lists in 1568–70, but after that there were never more than one and usually none at all.

36 A.D.H.G., Tournelle 85, 1 Sept. 1562. Details of his later career, , E. and Haag, E., La France Protestante (2nd edition, Paris, 1877–1888), iv, 65–8Google Scholar; Viénot, J., Un apologiste de la Saint Barthélemy (Paris, 1902)Google Scholar.

37 In 1562, three nuns and eighteen priests, monks and friars were accused before the parlement; by 1569 only two ex-priests, both in the service of président Dufaur, can be traced; finally in 1575 one chanoine appeared, but he seems to have merely been passing through the city as he came from Carcassonne.

38 For instance, a number of young Nîmois were accused by their consistory of attending mass in Toulouse while they were studying there, which they justified on the grounds that otherwise they feared for their lives. B.N. MS fr. 8667, fo. 353V, 3 Oct. 1582.

39 Evidence about the beliefs and attitudes of the elite is rather more abundant as their careers and families may be traced with much greater ease than that of the artisans and lesser merchants, and their rôle in the protestant movement in Toulouse deserves fuller treatment than it can be given here.

40 Estimates of population, note 14 above. It is hoped to produce an analysis of the cadastre for 1570 in the near future.

41 An illuminating discussion of mid-sixteenth-century Toulouse by Benassar, B. and Tollon, B. is in Wolff, P. (ed.), Histoire de Toulouse (Toulouse, 1974), ch. viGoogle Scholar.

42 Barbara Beckerman-Davis is at present preparing a thesis for the university of California at Berkeley on the problem of poverty in Toulouse up to 1560.

43 Confiscations, A.M.T., GG 824, fos. 52–9.

44 The Tournelle register was unusable up to Dec. 1567 and thereafter only the lower half of arrêts could be read; the sentences of the capitouls seem to have been recorded erratically.

45 A.M.T., CC 1214.

46 A.M.T., GG 830, 3 June 1570, 28 Sept. 1569.

47 A.M.T., GG 836, fo. 17, 29 Oct. 1572, Catherine de Sera, wife of Jean de Peiret dit La Rossinhole, said she and their children had been catholics since 1567.

48 The register for the 1568 tax has been published with some errors in transcription, Romane-Musculus, P., ‘Les protestants de Toulouse en 1568’, Bulletin de la société de l'histoire du protestantisme français (hereafter B.S.H.P.F.), cvii (1961), 53–94Google Scholar; details of those who actually paid, A.M.T., CC 1946. Romane-Musculus also notes those put under arrest. The decision to arrest suspects was taken on 10 Sept. 1568 when the dixainiers were ordered to search the city which seems to have become part of their duty in subsequent moments of crisis, A.M.T., BB 12, fo. 147.

49 Deliberations for 09–10 1572, in extenso, Devic, and Vaissete, , Histoire de Languedoc, XII, 969–1008Google Scholar; ibid. col. 1030 for use of 1568 list of suspects.

50 Note 19 above.

51 E.g., A.M.T., GG 831, fo. 105V, property of Jacques Bodosque pillaged on St Francis' Day and day of massacre, GG 836, fo. 21, pillage of property of Bruselles and Philipon. Even the catholic président Latomy was threatened as popular violence got out of hand, du Mège, A., ‘Est-il vrai que Duranti ait donné l'ordre du massacre?’, Mémoires de l'académie de Toulouse, 3rd series, I (1844–1985), 241Google Scholar. Benedict, ‘Rouen’, pp. 153–4 finds that the victims of the massacre there came from the lower social groups because the wealthy bought off the murderers.

52 Devic and Vaissete, Histoire de Languedoc, XII, 1028; A.M.T., BB 13, fo. 450V, 22 Oct. 1574, fo. 558, 26 Sept. 1575.

53 Davies, J. M., ‘Languedoc and its gouverneur, Henri de Montmorency-Damville, 1563–1589’ (unpublished London university Ph.D. thesis, 1975), pp. 105–6Google Scholar.

54 A.M.T., BB 13, fo. 461, 3 Nov. 1574.

55 A.M.T., BB 13, fo. 448V, 22 Oct. 1574.

56 A.M.T., GG 825, appeals of Jeanne Vidale, widow of président Mansencal, and Pierre de Loupes, seigneur de Sainte Colombe.

57 The charge of protestantism, based on his having allowed a niece to eat meat in his house during Lent, was dismissed in March 1569, A.M.T., FF 374; his will, 3 June 1591, A.D.H.G., 3 E 11835.

58 Romane-Musculus, P., ‘Les protestants de Toulouse en 1574’, B.S.H.P.F., cx (1964), 272–83Google Scholar, publishes the lists for 1574 with some errors and omissions and fails to note the distinction between protestants and damvillistes.

59 Devic and Vaissete, Histoire de Languedoc, XII, 1028.

60 A.M.T., BB 14, fo. 148, 29 Oct. 1579, fo. 162, Mar. 1580, decisions to arrest suspects; the records of the deliberations have not been kept so accurately or fully as for the earlier period.

61 A.M.T., CC 1223, loan from bien-aisés, ‘sans esperance de rambourcemant’, 1589. I owe this reference to the kindness of Mark Greengrass of Sheffield university.

62 Roelker, N. L., ‘The appeal of Calvinism to French noblewomen in the sixteenth century’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, II (1972), 391–418CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘The role of noble-women in the French reformation’, Archiv für reformationsgeschichte, LXIII (1972), 168–95Google Scholar; Davis, Society, 65–95.

63 A.D.H.G., Tournelle 84, fo. 171, 8 June 1562.

64 A.M.T., BB 12, fo. 155, 6 Oct. 1568, Jean de Villeneuve, conseiller au grand conseil and Antoine de Saint-Paul, maûre des requêtes, accused of allowing wives to attend sermons.

65 A.M.T., GG 826, 4 Oct. 1568.

66 Gascon, R., Grand commerce el vie urbaine au XVIe siècle (2 vols., Paris, 1971), II, 467–535Google Scholar; Richet, ‘Aspects socio-culturels’, p. 776.

67 For a helpful discussion of the nature of urban centres in early modern France see Gascon, Histoire economique, pp. 396–420.

68 Le Roy Ladurie, Paysans, pp. 341–8.

69 Davis, Society, pp. 1–16.

70 Galpern, A. N., The religions of the people in sixteenth century Champagne (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1976), pp. 396–420Google Scholar; Guggenheim, A. H., ‘Calvinism and the political elite of sixteenth century Nîmes’ (unpublished New York university Ph.D. thesis, 1968)Google Scholar. The consistory of Toulouse in 1564 was composed of two procureurs, two very wealthy bourgeois-merchants, an apothecary and one other. The leadership of the church in 1561 may be traced in a delegation to the conseil de ville in favour of religious tolerance: 76% were of the liberal professions or merchants, only 17% were artisans. A rival catholic delegation was composed of 39% artisans and 45% of the higher social groups, P. Wolff, Histoire de Toulouse, p. 274.

71 I should like to acknowledge financial assistance from the following in the completion of research for this article: the Wolfson foundation, the International Federation of University Women (Winifrid Cullis Memorial Grant) and the British Academy – U.G.C. fund for research in the humanities. I wish to thank Mark Greengrass and members of the sixteenth century European history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, London for valuable discussions of some aspects of the problems discussed above.