I. Introduction
In the French Reformed tradition, the consistory played a pivotal role. Like its counterparts in Geneva, Scotland, and the Dutch Republic, the consistory in France was the governing body of the local Calvinist church and was responsible for the daily operation of the church and its myriad functions. It was also a disciplinary body, which sought through a variety of measures to oblige its members to lead more godly lives. Church members—both men and women—were summoned by the pastors and lay elders (who together made up the consistory) for a wide variety of offenses. Both men and women were then expected to mend their ways in a system of discipline that ranged from private admonishment to private or public repentance and, in the most intractable cases, to temporary suspension from one or more of the four annual celebrations of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper or even total excommunication from the Reformed community.Footnote 1 These penitential practices, and above all the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, or Eucharist, were crucial, shared rituals for French Protestants, for whom religious identity was essentially communal.Footnote 2
In France, the consistory's exercise of its disciplinary function (outlined in the Discipline des Églises réformées de France, the French Reformed Churches’ system of church order) was tempered, however, by other considerations not always shared by consistories in other countries.Footnote 3 In Geneva, there was a close connection between the consistory and the civil authorities that often lent greater weight to the consistory's disciplinary will. French consistories, however, typically lacked any coercive authority and had to rely on moral suasion. Moreover, while Scotland had no legal alternative to Protestantism after 1560, and Geneva was the heart of Reformed Protestantism in Europe after John Calvin's triumph in 1555, French Protestants were a distinct minority in the largely Catholic France of the early seventeenth century.Footnote 4 Apostasy by Protestants was an ever-present concern in France, especially in cities and towns where Protestants were the minority religion. In addition to the fluidity of religious allegiance that existed in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the practical difficulties of finding a Protestant spouse in a largely Catholic community increased the chances of apostasy.Footnote 5 Hence, the need for the consistory to keep the local Protestant congregation intact was another limiting factor.Footnote 6 As a result, the consistory's application of discipline was neither as straightforward nor as assured as the Discipline suggested.
In recent years, historians have shown increasing interest in women's experience of the Reformation and its impact on them.Footnote 7 Though studies of the Reformation from the 1970s and early 1980s tended to emphasize its positive impact on women, more recent studies have suggested that its impact was more negative.Footnote 8 Since consistory records provide illuminating glimpses into the daily, intimate lives of early modern French Protestants and the communities they created, they are an invaluable source for insight into these questions.
Much of the current debate about women and the Reformation has been framed by the twin themes of male patriarchy (the male domination of society) and female agency (women's efforts to advance their own interests within the confines of male-dominated institutions). The focus on the Reformation's reinforcement of male patriarchy, an essentially negative view of its impact on women, stemmed initially from Lyndal Roper's study of craft workshops in Augsburg, Germany.Footnote 9 Historians of religious women during the Counter-Reformation were among the first to argue that women could be active agents of their own destiny even when the Catholic Church sought to increase its control over them.Footnote 10 However, studies of consistory records have contributed significantly to the debate. Since the consistory was an all-male body and reflected, most historians would agree, the patriarchal values of its age, its treatment of women has generated considerable attention among historians who work with its records. Recent studies by Raymond Mentzer, Graeme Murdock, and Jeffrey Watt, for example, have provided evidence of patriarchal and sometimes deeply misogynistic attitudes toward women on the part of the consistory.Footnote 11 At the same time, recent studies have also highlighted examples of female agency in the face of consistorial action and women's skillful use of the consistory for their own purposes. Some studies have underscored, for example, that women often appealed successfully to the consistory for its help against abusive husbands.Footnote 12 In an article in 2011, Suzannah Lipscomb argued that in Languedoc, women's gossip about their neighbors played an important role in helping the consistory monitor the behavior of its members, especially the illicit sexual activity of other women.Footnote 13 More broadly, in her monograph about the ordinary urban women of Reformation Languedoc, Lipscomb argues persuasively that while women did not oppose the male patriarchy of the consistory even as they challenged it, the mutual interactions between women and consistory members unintentionally enabled and shaped both male patriarchy and female agency.Footnote 14
There are two foci to this study, which seeks to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of two interrelated issues: the operation of the consistory as a disciplinary body and the interactions of women with the consistory. Our understanding of each is strengthened when they are viewed in relationship to each other. Hence the study seeks first to understand the considerations that lay behind the consistory's exercise of discipline generally and toward women in particular and second to explain the ways that women behaved toward the consistory. How the consistory treated women and why and how women treated the consistory are, in effect, two sides of the same coin—and it is important to understand and give equal weight to each. To accomplish this, the study explores in depth a number of cases of women summoned for a variety of offenses by the consistory of Courthézon in southern France. These cases highlight the complex interplay of factors that the consistory needed to balance in its deliberations: a commitment to the ideals and maintenance of its community; an insistence on submission to its discipline; and the influence of other considerations like social standing and gender. The incidents simultaneously reveal the characteristically patient process of consistorial discipline which helped create space for women as well as men to actively participate in consistory decision-making. They also collectively make clear that in Courthézon, as elsewhere, women, like men, were not always passive recipients of consistorial discipline; in some cases they demonstrated a remarkable capability to ignore, negotiate with, or, on occasion, defy the consistory. The final case considered here, of a woman who repeatedly rebuffed the consistory's efforts to shepherd her back into the religious community, shows how sustained such defiance could be and illustrates the limits to the consistory's ability to impose discipline. Taken together, however, the cases suggest a broader conclusion: the strength of shared beliefs and practices within the Reformed community most often seemed to prevail despite the sometimes-conflicting individual interests of family, social standing, and gender.
The incidents considered here come from a remarkably complete set of seventeenth-century consistory records from the small town of Courthézon in the principality of Orange in the south of France, a bi-confessional town where Protestants were the minority religion. In a total population of no more than two thousand inhabitants, perhaps between three and four hundred were Protestants, though it is likely that Protestants made up the majority of the town's notables.Footnote 15 Though Courthézon and the principality of Orange were not technically part of France, their inhabitants were culturally French, and their ties to France were very close: for example, ecclesiastically the Reformed churches in Courthézon and the capital city of Orange belonged to the colloquy of the Baronies, part of the provincial synod of Dauphiné in France.Footnote 16 Hence, though separate from France, they were an integral part of the French Reformed Churches. Their political history was also closely linked to France. Though the independent principality of Orange had belonged to the Dutch princes of Nassau by inheritance since 1530, it lay within the Comtat Venaissin, a papal territory since 1274, and to its west and north lay the French provinces of Languedoc and Dauphiné with their many Protestant cities and towns.Footnote 17 The principality had a tumultuous history of clinging to its independence through changing fortunes and shifting alliances with France and the Holy Roman Empire. In the sixteenth century, French kings periodically seized and occupied the principality whenever war broke out between France and the empire and during the French Wars of Religion. The princes of Nassau generally ruled in absentia through governors and occasionally turned to French kings for aid, as they did in 1599 to rid themselves of a troublesome governor.Footnote 18
Continuous consistory records for Courthézon exist for the period 1617–1701 and are contained in three manuscript volumes. This study draws on my transcription of the first, hitherto largely unmined, volume of consistory records, which covers the years from 1617–1631 in three hundred thirty-nine pages.Footnote 19 All translations are by the author. The consistory record from these years presents an especially wide range of moral and ecclesiastical infractions and is particularly rich in detail, reflecting perhaps the most active years of moral reform for the Protestant church at Courthézon. Though consistory records do not exist for Courthézon for the late sixteenth century, consistory activity for moral reform for the period 1617–1631 can be compared with that of a later period in Courthézon, from 1631–1672. During the latter period, only 16% of the consistory's activity concerned moral offenses, and the range of offenses was very narrow. 84% of consistorial activity pertained to the administration of the church, with 40% of the activity devoted entirely to its financial administration. By contrast, nearly two-thirds of the three hundred thirty-nine pages of consistory records for the period 1617–1631 are largely devoted to moral and ecclesiastical offenses and concern the last six years of the pastorate of Monsieur Pierre de La Croze, who began his ministry in Courthézon in 1613 and died in 1623. This pattern of intense consistory activity devoted to moral and ecclesiastical reform in the early seventeenth century is consistent with what Philippe Chareyre found in the Protestant stronghold of Nîmes. He referred to the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries as the golden age of censure among southern French Protestants. He found that the period from 1578–1614 in Nîmes contained two-thirds of all the offenses that the consistory handled, even though that period represented only one-third of the time during which the consistory operated.Footnote 20
Historians have utilized consistory records in various ways. In the late twentieth century there was enthusiasm for a statistical approach as historians sought to quantify the kinds and frequency of offenses handled by the consistory in its efforts to promote godly behavior.Footnote 21 They soon discovered, however, that a quantitative approach could be problematic: there were gaps in the records; cases did not always lend themselves to easy categorization; often cases would appear in the record, only to disappear before any action was taken; and, as Judith Pollmann discovered through her comparison of the private journal of a Dutch elder in Utrecht in the early seventeenth century and the church's consistory records, there could be considerable disparity between the number of cases handled privately by the consistory, or some members of it, and the number of cases formally recorded.Footnote 22 Hence in recent years historians have turned more to qualitative and micro-historical studies of consistory records, which permit a deeper analysis of either individual or selective groups of incidents.Footnote 23
The consistory cases chosen for this qualitative study primarily reflect either offenses that were especially common among both men and women, like conflicts or quarrels and dancing, or marital and sexual sins involving women in the most intimate spaces of their lives: separation in marriage, cohabitation before marriage, and paillardise (typically fornication, but occasionally adultery). In some instances, the cases selected reflect the sum total of incidents involving a particular offense; sometimes the cases are representative of a kind of offense and are used to illustrate the consistory's approach to women or women's response to it. All offer sufficient detail to provide illuminating insight into the twin foci of this analysis. The final case, which examines a woman's habitual failure to attend sermons, offers compelling insights on a number of fronts.
II. Conflicts and Quarrels
Even though women most likely made up a larger share of Courthézon's Reformed congregation than men, they appeared less frequently in consistory records.Footnote 24 When they did, they often appeared for the same offenses as men and were expected to make similar kinds of reparation, that is, atonement and reconciliation. Conflicts and quarrels between church members were among the most common offenses for which both men and women were called by the consistory, and typically they were then exhorted to reconcile with each other.Footnote 25 For example, following the reconciliation of two men on Thursday, March 24, 1625, Damoiselles de Merles and Ysabeau de Buissiere reconciled with each other in the presence of the consistory and “kissed in sign of friendship,” promising in the future “to live in good harmony and concord together with their families.”Footnote 26 The two women made traditional gestures of reconciliation.
Although it is not clear in this case how long the process of reconciliation took, very often the process dragged on when church members ignored summons after summons.Footnote 27 Women engaged in these delaying tactics as well as men. Thus in one case, on Friday, September 1, 1617, the consistory decided that Judith Merles would be called for the third time to present herself to the consistory; otherwise she would not be received at communion. She obviously did not appear, however, since on Sunday, September 10, the consistory summoned both Merles and her cousin Françoise Arnaude to appear the next Sunday (presumably for the same offense for which Merles had been called). Neither one appeared since on Sunday, September 24, the consistory summoned them again for the following Sunday. The women continued to be no-shows. It was not until nearly five months later, on Sunday, February 11, 1618, that Merles and Arnaude presented themselves to the consistory and reconciled themselves “of their disagreement.”Footnote 28 This pattern of summons, delay, appearance, and eventual reconciliation was a common response among both men and women, with admonishment by the elders or the minister also typically part of the process.
III. Dancing
Dancing was a pastime that French Reformed pastors and consistories long opposed, generally fruitlessly, and Courthézon's consistory was no exception. Both men and women were warned against dancing, and in one exceptional instance, a few men appeared before the consistory alongside several women to be warned against going to the dances on pain of being deprived of the sacraments.Footnote 29 But only women actually ended up being censured. Even in these cases, however, the women were either able to avoid public reparation or to talk their way out of punishment.
In a spate of entries between Sunday, August 27, 1617 and Friday, September 3, 1621, all occurring around either the time of Carnival in late winter or at the local town fair in late summer, the consistory issued a series of warnings about the disciplinary consequences of dancing and summoned certain individuals to appear.Footnote 30 In the first entry, in August 1617, the consistory decided that those men and women who danced “would be suspended from the holy sacraments” and that Monsieur de La Croze, the pastor, would proclaim this from the pulpit.Footnote 31 Perhaps that warning sufficed at least temporarily, because no one was called before the consistory for dancing for some time. However, on Sunday, February 3, 1619, the consistory decided to summon for dancing more than a dozen parishioners, both men and women, many of them from prominent Courthézon families (some of them even the children of elders). They were to be told that henceforth anyone found at the dances would be publicly suspended from the Lord's Supper. A week later, some of the summoned individuals, both male and female, did appear before the consistory, where the warning about the sacraments was repeated, along with the threat of having to make reparation.Footnote 32
After that, no more entries about dancing appeared until Sunday, March 1, 1620. But in that entry and in the one a month later, on Wednesday, April 8, it is clear that both public and private remonstrances had already been made to offenders. Still, even though in each case both male and female dancers, unnamed in these cases, were summoned to appear before the consistory on specific days to be censured, nothing happened, though in April the threat of being named as “disobedient” in church was added.Footnote 33 It was only five months later, on Friday, September 4, 1620, that any action occurred following a summons. The consistory again concluded that all those men and women who had danced would be called to the consistory “to make reparation for their transgression”; Monsieur de La Croze was to draw up a list of names to give to the summoner. Later that same day eight women, many of them, if not all, from elite or noble families individually appeared before the consistory and were informed of their offense of having danced “against the promise that they had formerly made, in contempt of the admonitions made in the pulpit and in private.” They each asked pardon of God and the company and promised not to return to the dances, agreeing “to make public reparation on a Sunday on their knees” if they contravened this.Footnote 34 Afterward they were allowed to participate in communion.
From the evidence above, it is clear that banning dancing among church members was an issue for the consistory, but the body dragged its feet at following up with actual punishment, tried instead to persuade parishioners to stop dancing through private warnings when public summons did not work, and was apparently unsuccessful in getting people to do so.Footnote 35 Yet, while the warnings against dancing applied to both genders, only women seem to have been actually censured and forced to make amends to the consistory, though they managed to avoid making public atonement before the whole church.
The final and most dramatic case involving the censure of women for dancing occurred a year later in August and September 1621. It demonstrates a heightened sense of urgency and some anger on the part of the consistory—but also the ability of the two women charged to effectively talk their way out of immediate punishment. The stage for conflict was set on Sunday, August 8, 1621 when the consistory, mindful of the upcoming town fair when people tended “to engage in debauchery and dance,” decided to announce at the evening prayer after dinner and then again after the morning service the coming Sunday the ordinance forbidding such behavior that had been passed at the last synod in Dauphiné.Footnote 36 The ordinance was quite tough, requiring that if temporary suspension from celebrating the Lord's Supper “will not suffice to restrain such license and impurity, one should proceed to excommunication,” full exclusion from the Reformed community.Footnote 37 In addition, Monsieur de La Croze would include warnings in his sermons “so that no one could plead ignorance.”Footnote 38
However, when the consistory met a week later, on Sunday, August 15, 1621, the company noted that “notwithstanding the public and private admonitions to not go to the dances,” some members had gone to the fair anyway. It specifically named Mademoiselle de Beauchastel, a noblewoman from a distinguished local family, who had taken her daughter there along with two daughters from other prominent families. It summoned them to hear how proceedings would be taken against them according to the Discipline.Footnote 39
Once again, no one appeared. On Friday, September 3 the consistory narrowed its focus to just Mademoiselle de Beauchastel and her daughter Françon, who “have been many times summoned without them presenting themselves.” Charge was given to Sieur Roche to call them for evening prayer that day.Footnote 40
Mother and daughter duly appeared before the consistory that evening, and their exchanges with the body were recorded in great detail. The men remonstrated that they had learned that the women had been at the dances on the day of the town fair “against the commandments of God, the ordinance of the synod announced from the pulpit on the 8th of the month [and] the usual prohibitions and warnings made through the sermons.” Moreover, the women had done so “particularly even against the promise made by the said Françon in this company that they were obliged to make amends for the public scandal that they gave the church.” Moreover, “by the promise of the said Françon she agreed to make public reparation on her knees one Sunday” if she ever returned to the dances.Footnote 41
The women responded that it was true that they had gone to the dances, “the mother in order to accompany her daughter,” but that they had basically been compelled to do so by the prince of Portugal (governor of the principality of Orange and a nephew of its ruler, Prince Maurice) who had searched for the said Damoiselle Françon “through all the places of the said house where she had hidden so as not to be found by the said seigneur.” They nonetheless admitted that they had done wrong and “begged the company to excuse them this time and to ask for no other reparation,” promising never again to return there for whatever reason.Footnote 42
When the women returned after the consistory deliberated, it was clear that they had won a reprieve, though some anger clearly remained. Mademoiselle de Beauchastel was exhorted one more time “to be more steadfast in refusing to take her daughter to the dances to those demanding her to do it.” The consistory's strongest words were directed to Mademoiselle Françon who was to be severely censured for having returned to the dances; she was exhorted to no longer return to them. Otherwise (and here one senses some residual anger), “the first time she will make public reparation one Sunday on her knees and will be publicly suspended from holy sacraments as a rebel to the church and that at present she will ask pardon of God and this company for the scandal she has given.” Both she and her mother made the desired amends to the consistory.Footnote 43
In the cases above, one sees the wide range of disciplinary options engaged in by the consistory to bring offenders back into conformity with its view of godly behavior. Before the consistory made any individual summons to transgressors, the minister warned from the pulpit about the consequences of dancing. Then, when individuals did show up before the consistory, they were again warned against dancing and threatened with public suspension from the Lord's Supper and subsequent reparation if they did so.Footnote 44 But no further action was taken at that time. Later cases indicate that both private and public admonitions were made to offenders before they were summoned to the consistory and afterwards, though they were not recorded, and that some of the admonished had promised to obey. When these private and semipublic warnings were still not enough to deter them, the consistory threatened the offenders with making public atonement before the entire congregation “on their knees.” It was only after sustained and flagrant defiance of these warnings that any members were actually censured.
But while both men and women, including nobles and members of the elite, were regularly warned against dancing, threatened with punishment, and sometimes even summoned, only women seemed to have actually been forced to make amends before the consistory. Why? Any number of explanations are possible. However, it seems likely that in this case some misogyny was at work in the company's response (perhaps especially on the part of Monsieur de La Croze).Footnote 45 The French Reformed Churches disapproved of dancing because it believed it led to sexual temptation;Footnote 46 it is probable that women were singled out for censure because they were held more responsible for sexual sin and more susceptible to it.Footnote 47
IV. Marital and Sexual Irregularities
For Reformed Protestants, marriage and the family were seen as essential for living a moral and valuable life, so consistories viewed any assault on them as a serious threat.Footnote 48 Women, like men, appeared before the consistory in Courthézon for a variety of marital and sexual issues. One issue, separation in marriage, occurred only twice in the entire first volume of consistory records covering a span of fifteen years; both appear in June 1617. The first case involved a long-married couple, Catherine Merles and Florent Arnaud, a locksmith. They had married in the Reformed church in Courthézon on March 24, 1577 and had had at least seven children born to them between 1578 and 1597. Both Merles and Arnaud appear to have been solid members of the community with longstanding ties to the Reformed church.Footnote 49
Here the only party summoned was the wife, Catherine Merles. The first entry in the case appears in the consistory record on Sunday, June 11, 1617. The record indicates that Catherine Merles had previously been summoned and then summoned again to appear, to be exhorted by the pastor, Monsieur de La Croze, to reconcile with her husband, maitre Florent Arnaud, and to “live together in good union, friendship, and harmony.” Otherwise the consistory would proceed against her, following the Discipline. At that time Merles did not respond, and the consistory concluded that she would inform the body, presumably of her decision, on the coming Sunday. It also admonished her to beg God to “change her heart to obey” so that she would not defy the commandments. She finally appeared before the consistory after evening prayer on Sunday, July 2, 1617 where, after being urged once again to “make up” with her husband and to “live and remain together in good friendship according to God,” she said that she would “try” to obey.Footnote 50
The second case of a marriage separation involved dame Catherine Aultranne and capitaine Pierre Myroir (also known as capitaine Picard).Footnote 51 It is likely that both had been married before when they married at Courthézon on November 21, 1604; capitaine Myroir definitely was a widower.Footnote 52 Their social status was almost certainly more elevated than Merles and Arnaud's since capitaines at this time were always noble.Footnote 53
By June 1617, the couple were living apart and had obviously been doing so for some time. In this case, each party was separately summoned to appear before the consistory. The first to appear was capitaine Myroir, on June 25, 1617; he was exhorted by the pastor, Monsieur de La Croze, to follow the deliberations of the last synod held at Nyons, which enjoined him to be willing to come back and reconcile with his wife Catherine Aultranne and “to dwell and live together as true . . . esteemed married persons.” The consistory was most anxious for him to do this to remove the “scandal” that the separation was causing in the church community.Footnote 54
Captain Myroir responded that he and Aultranne had apparently agreed between themselves to a separation that he wanted to preserve. The minister then urged him to submit himself to the commandment of God and the ordinance of the synod; in doing so he would be keeping the promise that he had made at the celebration of his marriage, and he would also avoid having the consistory proceed further against him according to the “rigor of the Discipline.” After Myroir refused to agree, the consistory decided to call him to appear again the next Sunday for further discussion. They also decided to summon his wife to appear the coming Wednesday.Footnote 55
Catherine Aultranne appeared on Wednesday, June 28, 1617 and was urged by de La Croze to unite with her husband. He used the same language he used with Myroir and referenced the word of God and the synod's ordinance as his authority. Aultranne did not refer to any private separation agreement made between her and Myroir and agreed to obey its dictate. But she added a revealing caveat: she said she would do so “provided that he [Myroir] would give her the treatment that a good and loyal husband ought to give his wife.”Footnote 56
The outcome of this case is not entirely clear, though it seems likely that Myroir complied with the consistory's directive and that the couple reconciled. Though Myroir announced that he would not present himself on Sunday, July 2, 1617 he did in fact show up soon after. The terse (and sole) entry on Wednesday, July 9 [sic], 1621 recorded that “Captain Pierre Myroir having been summoned, appeared.”Footnote 57
These two cases show the consistory's commitment to the preservation of marriage and a certain evenhandedness in its view of marriage and its efforts to bring estranged couples together. Merles was apparently the only party summoned in the first case, while Myroir was the first to be called in the second one, suggesting that they were the more recalcitrant ones in the consistory's efforts at reconciliation. Though Aultranne clearly felt ill-treated by her husband, she more readily submitted to the consistory's urging, which the consistory could then use to press Myroir in turn. The consistory also used similar language in reminding both husbands and wives of their mutual responsibility toward each other in marriage, clearly viewing marriage as a partnership; though in Merles's case, the comment that she should beg God to incline her heart to obey the commandments also underscores its thinking that women did have an obligation of obedience in marriage. The consistory also showed persistence in pursuing reconciliation: in neither case did the parties appear when first summoned, but it appears that its efforts and threat of further disciplinary action did bring an end to the separations.
The two cases also suggest the consistory's concern not only for bringing the individual couples back into conformity with the Discipline but also for maintaining the social health of the community. The separation of a couple married for forty years must have been unsettling, while the fact that Myroir and Aultranne's separation had been taken up to the level of the synod and been the subject of one of its ordinances directing their reconciliation shows the depth of the scandal that it had caused. In a small community like Courthézon where the Protestant minority lived in watchful coexistence with the Catholic majority, these separations had the potential to seriously threaten the social fabric of the community.Footnote 58
The women's appearances before the consistory and their responses are also revealing. Though women seldom appeared in consistory records in some areas of France, particularly in rural areas, that was not the case in Courthézon, where women were often summoned for many of the same offenses as men.Footnote 59 Their appearance in cases involving their marriages reflects acknowledgment of a certain level of equality since reconciliation could hardly be unilateral or imposed by fiat.
Though neither Merles nor Aultranne spoke at length when they appeared before the consistory, unlike Myroir, their responses reveal women who had a strong sense of themselves and who gave their consent to reconciling with their husbands only conditionally: Merles said she would “try” to obey, while Aultranne said she would only do so if her husband treated her well. Their responses signal that they were not intimidated by the consistory into silence or abject submission. In fact, they seemed to feel they had every right to participate in the proceeding and even to qualify the consistory's stipulations.
V. Cohabitation Before Marriage
Sexual irregularities were another occasion for disciplinary action, and two of the most common sexual offenses were cohabitation before the marriage had been blessed and paillardise, a term used to describe both fornication and adultery.Footnote 60 These offenses were serious enough that they required sinners to acknowledge their fault publicly. In the two cases of cohabitation brought before the Courthézon consistory between 1617 and 1631, both parties acknowledged their error, not just the women.Footnote 61 The first case involved particularly egregious behavior since the cohabiting couple, Etienne Tersaut and Helene Brete, from the nearby town of Jonquières, had been living together for some time before it came to the attention of the consistory, since they were already the parents of two children.Footnote 62 On Sunday, June 30, 1619, the consistory record reported that Tersaut and Brete had made “public reparation” at the beginning of the sermon for having lived together “for long years” without having received the blessing of their marriage. After they “solemnly promised” to be willing to live and die in the faith and belief of the Reformed Churches of France, the pastor blessed their marriage at the end of the sermon.Footnote 63
In the second case, on Sunday, April 17, 1622, it was announced at the consistory meeting that Isabeau Bernaude, known as la Gresse, found herself pregnant by Andre Roy. Both parties were to be summoned for the following Wednesday. They both showed up on Friday, April 22, when they both “freely and frankly” confessed their error. They offered to repair the “scandal” that they had given the church, said they would be advised by the consistory, asked pardon of God, showed repentance, and asked that the minister bless their marriage. The consistory concluded that they would make public reparation in church the coming Sunday and would ask pardon from God for the scandal they had given. After that their marriage would be blessed. The record then duly noted that the couple had done so: on Sunday, April 24 they did make the required public reparation and their marriage was then blessed.Footnote 64 A later entry on May 29, 1622 indicates that they may also have been suspended from the Lord's Supper. Monsieur de La Croze reported that he had seen Bernaude take an entry token for communion,Footnote 65 which he objected to since the consistory had not yet “resolved to admit” Bernaude and Roy to the Lord's Supper. De La Croze had asked one of the elders to tell her not to present herself for communion, but he wanted the consistory's agreement to his action. The consistory agreed that in doing so, de La Croze had “done very well.”Footnote 66
In these two cases the consistory treated the men and women in fundamentally the same way, holding them both to the same standard. As was true in the cases involving separation in marriage, the consistory seemed to realize that in the two situations, both parties were responsible, again recognizing a certain measure of equal responsibility between men and women.
VI. Paillardise
There were three cases of paillardise brought to the consistory's attention during this period. Two of the cases involved men, which is somewhat surprising since women were generally viewed as the weaker vessel and less capable of controlling their sexual desires.Footnote 67 It was also harder for women to conceal their illicit behavior as it often resulted in out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Moreover, in some places, women were far more often charged with paillardise than men.Footnote 68 In Courthézon, on Friday, June 5, 1624, the members of the consistory considered their proposal about the paillardise committed by sieur Pierre Bernard with his servant girl, which had resulted in the birth of a daughter. Since Courthézon was between ministers at the time, the elders were more on their own than usual, though a visiting minister did attend the meeting.Footnote 69 Perhaps that explains the somewhat careful language of the entry. Bernard was a church member with enough social importance that he was chosen as an elder in 1625, so the elders undoubtedly wanted to be prudent in their treatment.Footnote 70 Making clear that their decision was reached only “after careful consideration,” the consistory members ordered that given the “scandal” that he had committed, Bernard “will abstain from the Lord's Supper until September,” considering his repentance. There was no mention of Bernard having to make public reparation.Footnote 71 In the second case, Pol Bernaud, who lived in Jonquieres, made public reparation on Sunday evening, January 29, 1625 because he had “exposed” a girl from Jonquieres, whom he had made pregnant, “to the Mass.” He asked for pardon from both God and the church, promised to “live better” in the future, and begged the church to receive him back, having seen his repentance. There is no mention of his having been suspended from the sacraments.Footnote 72
The last case of paillardise involved a young woman, a domestic servant named Catherine Colombete, who appeared before the consistory on April 4, 1621. Colombete was a recent convert to Protestantism. She was in the service of Françoise de Pluviers, the Princess of Salernes, a prominent member of the Courthézon church, when she presented herself to the consistory on March 26, 1620 and asked to be received as a member of the “church of God.”Footnote 73 She said that she had attended the sermons for several days. After renouncing the Mass as an “impious thing and fabricated by men,” she was received to the peace of the church and promised to “live in the said religion and to submit herself to the Discipline.” On the very same day, in the presence of the princess in the princess's own home, Colombete had been accosted by the local priest, who had angrily threatened her for becoming Protestant.Footnote 74
Now, a year later, she found herself in trouble. She had committed the offense of being “thrust into paillardise” and becoming pregnant and was called to “mend her ways and lead a good life.” Since Colombete gave the members hope that she would amend her life and “persevere in the religion,” while at the same time also asking for some practical help, it was concluded that she would be excluded from the sacraments and would have to make public reparation but that she would be given three sols a week “until otherwise informed.”Footnote 75
As in the other cases considered in this study, the consistory's response shows its concern not only for the moral state of its parishioners individually but also for the state of the local Protestant community. Since Reformed Protestants were defined by “strict standards of morality and godliness,”Footnote 76 paillardise and especially unwed pregnancies affected not only the offending individual's moral condition and public reputation; they threatened to undermine the reputation of the entire Protestant community. It also reveals the consistory's fear about the threat to its community from the dominant Catholic religion since Bernaud's offense seemed as much, if not more, about exposing a young girl to the Catholic Mass as it was about his impregnating her.
There were some significant differences in the way in which Bernard and Colombete were disciplined. There is no indication that Bernard's repentance was given publicly outside the consistory, while it was stipulated that Colombete would have to provide public reparation (which the third offender, Bernaud, also had to do). Also, Bernard was suspended from the sacraments for only one of the four annual celebrations of the Lord's Supper; Colombete's suspension was left open-ended. Moreover, the consistory was deferential toward Bernard in its deliberations and took action only after some reflection while it pulled no punches about Colombete's offense and showed no hesitation about disciplining her. Considerations of social standing and gender undoubtedly contributed to the consistory's reactions. No one liked the humiliation of public repentance, but Bernard, a member of the town's social elite, was able to avoid it. Colombete's gender most likely made it easier for the consistory to discipline her, since women were held more responsible for, and susceptible to, sexual sin, and she bore the physical consequences of it.
At the same time, however, these cases demonstrate that the consistory disapproved of paillardise among both men and women and would also discipline both sexes. Colombete's case also suggests that even women of lowly status felt able to approach the consistory for aid with some expectation that it would be forthcoming. Once again, the process of consistorial discipline provided the opportunity for women to participate in it and utilize it for their purposes as well.
VII. Sermons and Prayers
For Reformed Protestants, the sermon service was a central element of their religion and one which sharply distinguished them from Catholics. Like the rituals of repentance and the Lord's Supper, the sermon service was a key communal practice of French Protestants, through which each week they became deeply versed in scripture, listened to learned expositions of God's word, and heard anew God's promises of salvation.Footnote 77 Hence, absence from the sermons and attendant prayers was a serious offense deserving of censure.
The final case to be considered, that of Yzabeau Correge, illustrates not only the delaying tactics used by many church members, both men and women, when summoned by the consistory but also the more unusual step of open and sustained defiance of that body. What is even more striking is the insight that her defiance offers into her religious thinking, a rare window into the mental world of an early modern French Reformed woman.
Consistory records give little indication about who Yzabeau Correge was, but the marriage, baptismal, and burial records from Courthézon and other genealogical sources provide some clues. Her father was capitaine Loys Correge, known as La Grange, originally from Sérignan but an inhabitant of Orange at the time of his marriage in Courthézon on September 3, 1578.Footnote 78 Since capitaines at this time were always noble, Yzabeau was well-connected on her father's side. Her mother was Claudette Serre, known as de Moutet, the daughter of Pierre Serre, who had been a consul in Orange in 1547–1548 and 1549–1550.Footnote 79 Hence Yzabeau was well-born on her mother's side as well. Yzabeau was baptized in Courthézon on September 13, 1587, nine years after her parents’ marriage, and seems to have been their first and only child since her mother died, perhaps as a consequence of her birth, two months later. She was buried at Courthézon on November 14, 1587.Footnote 80 Although her father's remarriage to Marie Laurenne does not seem to be recorded in Courthézon's registers, the births of their four children and the deaths of two of them in early childhood are recorded. Her eldest half-sibling, Pierre, was baptized on Sunday, September 13, 1589, so her father must have remarried relatively quickly.Footnote 81 Yzabeau seems to have remained single, as there is no record of her marriage in the Courthézon registers, nor do the consistory records make any reference to a husband. Perhaps her family situation, that of a motherless child and the eldest sibling in her father and stepmother's household, together with her noble background and single status, help explain the independence she displayed as a mature adult when summoned by the consistory.
Yzabeau Correge made her first appearance in the existing consistory records on Sunday, September 10, 1617, when she was thirty years old. The consistory decided that maître Thomas Bernard would warn her “to attend the sermons;” otherwise it would proceed against her according to the Discipline. Two weeks later, on Sunday, September 24, 1617 the consistory concluded that Correge would be summoned for the coming Wednesday and if she did not appear then, she would be recalled for next Sunday. If she still had not put in an appearance, she would be recalled for a third time on the following Wednesday. If she remained “entirely rebellious and self-willed” and would not appear, public prayer would be made for her and they would then proceed “according to the rigor of the Discipline.”Footnote 82
On Sunday, October 1, 1617 it was noted in the consistory record that since Thomas Bernard had summoned her, Correge had not “deigned” to present herself and would be called a second time. There is no indication that Correge presented herself within the time frame called for; like other Courthézonnais that we have seen, she seems to have ignored the summons. But she does seem to have made her peace with the consistory eventually because on Sunday, April 22, 1618 a short note in the record said that she had appeared before the consistory and made some kind of satisfaction.Footnote 83
Correge seems to have remained out of trouble until December 1620 when she found herself summoned again. By the end of January 1621, after a flurry of intense exchanges, things had come to a dramatic head. On Sunday, December 20, the consistory notes reported that since Yzabeau Correge “has desisted for several months from attending sermons and prayers,” she would be admonished to attend them, and to dispose her to do this, the consistory sent one of the elders, maître de Georges, to make remonstrances to her. De Georges reported at the meeting that he had talked to Correge about her offense of “wishing to separate from the church of God, scorning the sermons and prayers . . . [and how] the judgment of God will unfold against her, persevering in such scorn.” Nonetheless he said that Correge “did not wish to give him any hope of atonement.” The consistory directed de Georges to speak with Correge again and to report back on Wednesday.Footnote 84
When the consistory met again on Wednesday, December 23, 1620, de Georges reported that he had told Correge of “the displeasure that the present company and even the whole church receives from her separating from the company of the faithful and otherwise not being able to avoid . . . some great scandal if she persists in her depraved intentions.” However, he said that Correge told him that he spoke with her “in vain.” The consistory met again the next day on Thursday, December 24, and after de Georges repeated Correge's latest response, the company concluded that de Georges should speak to her a third time and report on her response; after that they would resolve things by following the Discipline.Footnote 85
The climax to this drama came a month later, on Sunday, January 24, 1621, when the elder de Georges reported back to the company after having spoken to Correge for a third time. After trying to persuade her to attend the sermons and prayers, presenting “all that he found fitting,” he found that Correge “persisted in her first impulse.” For the first time, however, Correge rather poignantly explained her thinking. Correge told de Georges that “she wishes to live in the manner that she lives, And that if she attends neither sermons nor prayers, yet that does not keep her from praying to God in her own home, doing harm to no one and so they ought not to make her suffer.”Footnote 86 Rather than display the rancor or pique that often accompanied church members’ refusal to attend services, Correge revealed herself as a free spirit, someone who, surprisingly for the early seventeenth century, was content to worship God privately, outside the community of faith. For French Reformed Protestants, for whom it has been argued persuasively that corporate rituals and sacraments like penitential practices, sermon services, and the Lord's Supper shaped their identity and defined their community, such a rejection of the communal body of Christ must have seemed especially shocking.Footnote 87
After hearing de Georges's report and “seeing the stubbornness of the said Correge which made her incorrigible,” the consistory decided that it would be proclaimed that Correge would be forbidden to participate in the holy sacraments “for not having wished to profit from the admonitions and remonstrances made to her on behalf of this company and often times repeated” and instead having “stubbornly persisted in her first will which is to attend neither sermons nor prayers.”Footnote 88 Three weeks later, on Sunday, February 14, 1621, with obviously no movement on Correge's part to make amends, the decision to exclude her from the sacraments was publicly proclaimed from the pulpit.Footnote 89
Yzabeau Correge appeared twice more in the consistory records before apparently disappearing from sight.Footnote 90 As was common in French Reformed congregations, renewed efforts to bring errant members back into the fold were usually made in the weeks before the four celebrations of communion each year.Footnote 91 This seems to have happened in Correge's case. On Friday, May 28, 1621, the consistory record noted that de Georges had warned Correge “to continue to attend the sermons” and asked if she wanted to participate in communion (obviously needing to appear before the consistory and make amends before being allowed to). However, since Correge told de Georges that she “did not wish to present herself to the consistory and to leave her alone,” the company concluded that her suspension from the sacraments would remain in force until she did appear. Finally, on Saturday, September 4, 1621, charge was given to sieur Roche to speak to Correge to see if “she desires to be received to the peace of the church and to make the necessary reparations” and to summon her to appear.Footnote 92 This time, though, the record remains silent about any further response from Correge. Yzabeau Correge seems to have gotten her wish to be left alone to pray in private.
In the Correge case, the process of consistorial discipline was fully evident. The consistory's efforts to persuade Correge to participate in one of the most important aspects of Protestant spiritual life were persistent and vigilant stretching over a considerable amount of time, and it sought Correge's response at every turn. In the flurry of proceedings that occurred between December 1620 and September 1621, however, there was a difference in how the two parties interacted. The consistory never formally summoned Correge to appear in person until the very end; instead it always sent the elder de Georges to express its remonstrances to her about her lack of attendance, warn her of the consequences, and then report back on her response. Perhaps that helps explain her exceptionally frank and forceful replies to his overtures. Correge's gender did not prevent her from participating in the process on her own terms. This case shows the reciprocal nature of the disciplinary process and reveals the space afforded women in the process of discipline to express their will and exercise some agency.
In Correge's case, however, there was also little that the consistory could do when pitted against the unconventional convictions of an unusual woman. Even when faced with the consistory's obvious shock at her desire to “separate from the church of God” or “from the company of the faithful,” in another iteration,Footnote 93 Correge persisted in her refusal to comply. Not even her indefinite public suspension from the Lord's Supper, the heart of Reformed identity and community, could sway her. In her rejection of the Reformed communal body itself, Correge showed the outer limits of consistorial discipline.
VIII. Conclusions
As these cases suggest, the consistory generally held both men and women accountable for proper moral behavior. Both men and women of all ranks were chastised for quarreling with others and were expected to effect reconciliation before they would be admitted to communion. Their gestures of reconciliation were similar (typically a handshake was more common among men and a kiss of friendship among women). Similarly, both sexes of all social groups were expected to attend services and were censured for failing to do so. In the separation of marriage cases, the consistory's responses could reflect a patriarchal attitude toward marriage in presupposing a wife's obligation of obedience, as it did in the case of Catherine Merles. Yet equally significant, it could also be somewhat gender neutral by recognizing that each partner was responsible for the success of a marriage, as reflected in the Myroir-Aultranne case. Similarly, both sexes were punished for cohabitation before marriage, at least if both parties were Protestant. In addition, though traditional Christian beliefs about women's proclivity toward sexual sin echo in the consistory's language in the Colombete case, and Colombete's punishment was more severe than Bernard's, both men and women, even from the social elite, were punished for paillardise. In the cases of dancing, however, there did appear to be a clear gender discrepancy, though not one of social rank, since only women were actually forced to make amends before the consistory.Footnote 94
The offending parties’ social status, however, does seem to have played an important role in influencing and sometimes moderating the consistory's reaction. For example, in the cases of paillardise, the consistory treated sieur Pierre Bernard much more circumspectly in its censure than it did the servant girl, Catherine Colombete, and required a less punitive reparation. Similarly, though the consistory did succeed in getting Mademoiselle de Beauchastel and Mademoiselle Françon, who were both noblewomen, to ask its pardon for dancing, the women were successful in avoiding having to make public reparation before the entire church body, even though they had promised to do so on earlier occasions. Moreover, the fact that so few people were censured for dancing in spite of the campaign against it, coupled with the fact that so many of the named offenders were from the local elite, strongly suggests that their elevated social standing was a major reason for the failure to enforce the ban on dancing.Footnote 95
Social status also helped dictate women's behavior toward the consistory, as illustrated especially in the cases of Aultranne, de Beauchastel, Françon, and Yzabeau Correge. Virtually all of the women discussed above felt free to ignore the consistory's summons—at least for a time—which was hardly a mark of deference to its authority. But some of the women went beyond that. Aultranne, married to a noble and therefore undoubtedly from an elite family herself, agreed to reconcile with her husband, but she was confident enough to assert that she would do so only if he treated her well. She was not afraid to speak her mind. De Beauchastel and Françon's ability to talk their way out of greater punishment (as well as their evident longstanding disregard for the strictures against dancing) demonstrates their noble status and obvious sense of entitlement. Correge's defiance of the consistory, firm, determined, and reasoned, seems inconceivable except for a member of the elite. These women were no shrinking violets, and their elevated social standing undoubtedly helps explain their behavior.
Equally significant, however, is that the process of consistorial discipline itself played an important role in women's interactions with the consistory. Throughout the disciplinary process, the consistory consistently invited women's responses. As we have seen, even women of more modest rank felt able to speak up or on their own behalf before the consistory and qualify the admonitions they received. Though Catherine Merles's social status was clearly less exalted than that of Catherine Aultranne, even she felt able to express her feelings honestly to the consistory when she answered that she would “try” to reconcile with her husband; it was definitely not a promise. Also, at the same time that Catherine Colombete accepted serious censure for her paillardise, in her desperate situation she asked for financial aid and received it. While consistory members certainly revealed patriarchal attitudes in their actions, they also showed some effort to level standards of behavior among men and women and provided women with opportunities to represent and act for themselves, opportunities not readily available to women elsewhere in early modern society.Footnote 96 It is important to emphasize that in Courthézon, male patriarchy, some gender leveling, and female agency were all at work—largely because of the process of consistorial discipline. While the Reformation's impact on women was clearly mixed, the consistory in its exercise of discipline provided a new arena where women could participate actively and on their own behalf.
Clear patterns also emerge from these cases about what guided the consistory in its disciplinary actions. First, it is obvious that the Discipline provided the blueprint for the consistory's quest to assure that its members led godly lives; the consistory in Courthézon regularly appealed to it in its dealings with its members. In all of the cases considered here, the consistory used the Discipline to summon, threaten, justify its actions, and cajole its erring flock.
At the same time, the ways in which the consistory's application of discipline was modulated in different cases stemmed above all from its overriding concern to keep Reformed ideals alive and the Reformed community intact. The consistory needed to be somewhat flexible in imposing discipline. In Courthézon, as elsewhere, strict adherence to Reformed beliefs and practices could be compromised by the demands of its members’ competing loyalties, or by local circumstances.Footnote 97
The Courthézon consistory recognized the need to maintain the integrity of the church community in numerous cases. The cases involving dancing are particularly telling in this respect. The Discipline’s (and hence the consistory's) strictures against dancing competed with the local culture with which Protestants identified as well as Catholics. In addition, temporary suspension from the Lord's Supper was the most serious punishment inflicted by the consistory during these years, even though total excommunication was called for by the Discipline in certain cases.Footnote 98 The consistory's reluctance to impose the more severe penalty of total excommunication arose not only from considerations of social status but from a desire to keep the community intact. Local circumstances also dictated that the consistory be mindful about alienating too many of its flock since Protestants were the minority religious community in town.
Despite every obstacle the consistory faced and every centrifugal force that pulled church members away, what these cases also reveal is a remarkable acceptance of Reformed ideals and discipline. Both the consistory and the church members in Courthézon shared the same commitment to the communal practices, rituals, and sacraments that defined their community, which rose above considerations of both gender and social standing. In virtually all the cases of paillardise and cohabitation before marriage, and even in the dancing case involving de Beauchastel and Françon, the consistory insisted on repentance, which even when expressed only before the consistory was still semi-public, and the offenders complied.Footnote 99 More than just the individual's morality was involved here; given the communal nature of Reformed Protestantism, failure to show repentance undermined the social fabric of the community. Moreover, the fear of losing their right to participate in the Lord's Supper, their badge of belonging to the Protestant community, was presumably what eventually drew most of the offenders, male and female, into compliance with the church, even if it took a long time for them to acquiesce. The consistory's commitment to these same communal bonds is most obvious from the manner in which it exercised its disciplinary task toward both men and women: it showed exceptional patience, persistence, and forbearance in its efforts to bring members to heel and back into the fold. Throughout these early decades of the seventeenth century, most Courthézon Protestants chose to stay within the inclusive embrace of their disciplined community of faith. Despite their many individual moral “failings,” their ties of shared communal and spiritual existence bound them to each other and impelled them to accept the consistory's authority.
