Huguenots remain toleranted in France/No Wars of Religion?
- Thread starter Zioneer
- Start date
The "tolerance" was a concept that does not exist really, at that time, for any system of government. And many people do not like to remember that the noble father of the Anglo-Saxon liberalism, the philosopher John Locke, author of «A Letter Concerning Toleration», fully approve of discrimination against Catholics, indeed, their active persecution.
The Calvinist "ordinary" were elects bound to be marked by a virtuous life, a sign of God's predilection, while for extreme Calvinists (Puritans, Huguenots, etc.), who had completely severed the link between the "good life" and the "eternal salvation", the man had no capability, but was exclusively of God distinguish good from bad, and therefore a life "virtuous" simply did not exist, either as cause or effect of salvation: how to say that God decided independently of human actions.
«First of all, it is necessary must strive to "handle" the story carefully, taking into account the difficulty of contextualization, which is a key task if you want to do history seriously» (C. Gnerre).
The problem of the Huguenots for the government, and the consequent stability of the kingdom, was really great. For their contemporaries, the Huguenots, but the Calvinists in general, were besides that heretics, dangerous subversives: the theory at that time was that in ONE state there should be ONE religion (Church), or it would be chaos; the organization of the Calvinist communities was a source of destabilization and weakness for the state: they were self-contained communities, independent of each other (and thus tended to disengage from central state power), with a pastor and a council of elders as their guide, but above all they were ready to raise themselves in arms against the central government if it did not do what they wanted: scilicet mini-states within the state, that is chaos! In this was the serious political danger of the Huguenots, and for this reason, besides their violence, they had to be fought without respite by the state.
The French monarchy of the Valois has implemented what could be closest to tolerance: on 17 January 1562, Caterina de' Medici, regent on behalf of her underage son Charles IX, in the great project of civic pacification of the Kingdom of France and in the name not so much of the spirit of "tolerance" (conception at that time unknown and impractical) but of a mediation between the two sides (practiced at that time only by Catholics, such as at the Council of Trent, where they were also invited Luther&Co. to find common points of communication, and therefore of pacification: but they answered spades!), promulgated the Edict of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which allowed, within certain limits, the freedom of conscience and cult to the Huguenots (private liberty of faith, public worship in the suburbs and in the peripheries of cities or in countryside, with limits on the number of participants) provided that they returned the places of worship, already Catholics, which had previously been occuped by them.
On the contrary, at the same time, the time of the “tolerant” Queen Elizabeth, the British, people of merchants, who have perfectly mastered the art to sell well of the products, including that particular commodity that is their public image, while were busy celebrating themselves as heralds of freedom of thought, by means of the Anglican Church (built not so much on the basis of faith, but according to the political needs of the moment, never really taking over the people), have launched anti-Catholic laws that for centuries have reduced the Catholics, inevitably less and less numerous, to the rank of subjects of series B. Priests and monks were banned from the British Isles: if one of them was discovered in England, was sentenced to death by quartering. Nevertheless, many Jesuits landed clandestinely in England to keep alive the Catholic faith. They had to live in hiding, but at the same time had to visit the various communities around the country. So they organized a secret network between English Catholics to hide the Jesuits and other priests. At the head of this organization were the women: because of their social dependence from the husbands, wives and mothers Catholic enjoyed a certain immunity, because they were not able to pay the fines and hardly were imprisoned because of their role in wives had to be of help to their husbands: in religious matters, the priests were spiritual leaders, but for their physical safety, often depended entirely by the women. Meantime the Protestants true, those hards and pures (Puritans), refused to bow your head and contaminate themselves, setting foot in the churches of the state, in which they see the kingdom of an antichrist, almost equivalent to the Pope. They rejected both the Anglican supremacy direction as the few exterior elements similar to Catholicism. Were persecuted, but less harshly of Catholics, because, increasingly divided, did not seem to pose a serious threat to the government and the monarchy.
For not attending Anglican church, the Catholics were fined, and the fine was applied as well to dissenting Puritans: in 1559, a 12 pence fine for refusing to go to church was created, and the loss of office for Catholic clergy refusing to take the oath of supremacy. Attendance at Mass was to be punished by a fine of 100 marks, but the saying of Mass, or arranging for it to be said, carried the death penalty (the Act of Uniformity of 1559, that forced the people to assist at the Sunday's celebrations in an Anglican church, using the Book of Common Prayer, was not voted that with three votes of difference: no bishop had voted in favor, two were forced not to vote, and two other clergymen were absent. The majority was secular).
In France, the fragile agreement reached in January was broken already in March.
Even if it possible to read in Wikipedia, for example, that "the Catholic faction led by the Guisa reacted with the Wassy Massacre in the same year", definite "the first episode of Catholic violence on the Huguenots, a dramatic advance of that of the Night of St. Bartholomew"
The story went a bit differently: the Protestants (as always) have breaking the rules and triggered the Catholic reaction (and therefore the war as a consequence). On 1 March 1562, Third Sunday of Lent, at Wassy-sur-Blaise in Champagne, a crowd of about six hundred Huguenots (one thousand for the Protestant Museum of the Grange de Wassy) gathered near a barn INTO (inside) the village to celebrate the "cult". The Duke François of Guisa, charismatic leader of Catholics and also commander of government troops (then in charge of controlling the royal/state laws) was going through with his escort from Wassy returning from Paris to Joinville where he had gone to Make a visit to his mother. His wife Anna, his son Henri, and his brother the Cardinal of Lorraine, accompanied him. Upon learning that INTO the village it was a such large gathering of Huguenots, and since such a gathering inside the village, violated what had been established by the Edict of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the duke believed in his powers and his duty to watch this crowd for security reasons. He sent some of his men to observe the situation and report to him, but they were not received by Huguenots who refused to provide explanations. After a lively exchange of words, the altercation degenerated into brawl, throwing stones and finally firing against Guisa's emissaries. Meanwhile, the duke had come to the scene, getting insulted and struck in turn. The inevitable assault on the barn by his troops degenerated, finally, into slaughter. But remember that the Huguenots have been to disobey and violate state laws.
The Calvinist "ordinary" were elects bound to be marked by a virtuous life, a sign of God's predilection, while for extreme Calvinists (Puritans, Huguenots, etc.), who had completely severed the link between the "good life" and the "eternal salvation", the man had no capability, but was exclusively of God distinguish good from bad, and therefore a life "virtuous" simply did not exist, either as cause or effect of salvation: how to say that God decided independently of human actions.
«First of all, it is necessary must strive to "handle" the story carefully, taking into account the difficulty of contextualization, which is a key task if you want to do history seriously» (C. Gnerre).
The problem of the Huguenots for the government, and the consequent stability of the kingdom, was really great. For their contemporaries, the Huguenots, but the Calvinists in general, were besides that heretics, dangerous subversives: the theory at that time was that in ONE state there should be ONE religion (Church), or it would be chaos; the organization of the Calvinist communities was a source of destabilization and weakness for the state: they were self-contained communities, independent of each other (and thus tended to disengage from central state power), with a pastor and a council of elders as their guide, but above all they were ready to raise themselves in arms against the central government if it did not do what they wanted: scilicet mini-states within the state, that is chaos! In this was the serious political danger of the Huguenots, and for this reason, besides their violence, they had to be fought without respite by the state.
The French monarchy of the Valois has implemented what could be closest to tolerance: on 17 January 1562, Caterina de' Medici, regent on behalf of her underage son Charles IX, in the great project of civic pacification of the Kingdom of France and in the name not so much of the spirit of "tolerance" (conception at that time unknown and impractical) but of a mediation between the two sides (practiced at that time only by Catholics, such as at the Council of Trent, where they were also invited Luther&Co. to find common points of communication, and therefore of pacification: but they answered spades!), promulgated the Edict of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which allowed, within certain limits, the freedom of conscience and cult to the Huguenots (private liberty of faith, public worship in the suburbs and in the peripheries of cities or in countryside, with limits on the number of participants) provided that they returned the places of worship, already Catholics, which had previously been occuped by them.
On the contrary, at the same time, the time of the “tolerant” Queen Elizabeth, the British, people of merchants, who have perfectly mastered the art to sell well of the products, including that particular commodity that is their public image, while were busy celebrating themselves as heralds of freedom of thought, by means of the Anglican Church (built not so much on the basis of faith, but according to the political needs of the moment, never really taking over the people), have launched anti-Catholic laws that for centuries have reduced the Catholics, inevitably less and less numerous, to the rank of subjects of series B. Priests and monks were banned from the British Isles: if one of them was discovered in England, was sentenced to death by quartering. Nevertheless, many Jesuits landed clandestinely in England to keep alive the Catholic faith. They had to live in hiding, but at the same time had to visit the various communities around the country. So they organized a secret network between English Catholics to hide the Jesuits and other priests. At the head of this organization were the women: because of their social dependence from the husbands, wives and mothers Catholic enjoyed a certain immunity, because they were not able to pay the fines and hardly were imprisoned because of their role in wives had to be of help to their husbands: in religious matters, the priests were spiritual leaders, but for their physical safety, often depended entirely by the women. Meantime the Protestants true, those hards and pures (Puritans), refused to bow your head and contaminate themselves, setting foot in the churches of the state, in which they see the kingdom of an antichrist, almost equivalent to the Pope. They rejected both the Anglican supremacy direction as the few exterior elements similar to Catholicism. Were persecuted, but less harshly of Catholics, because, increasingly divided, did not seem to pose a serious threat to the government and the monarchy.
For not attending Anglican church, the Catholics were fined, and the fine was applied as well to dissenting Puritans: in 1559, a 12 pence fine for refusing to go to church was created, and the loss of office for Catholic clergy refusing to take the oath of supremacy. Attendance at Mass was to be punished by a fine of 100 marks, but the saying of Mass, or arranging for it to be said, carried the death penalty (the Act of Uniformity of 1559, that forced the people to assist at the Sunday's celebrations in an Anglican church, using the Book of Common Prayer, was not voted that with three votes of difference: no bishop had voted in favor, two were forced not to vote, and two other clergymen were absent. The majority was secular).
In France, the fragile agreement reached in January was broken already in March.
Even if it possible to read in Wikipedia, for example, that "the Catholic faction led by the Guisa reacted with the Wassy Massacre in the same year", definite "the first episode of Catholic violence on the Huguenots, a dramatic advance of that of the Night of St. Bartholomew"
The story went a bit differently: the Protestants (as always) have breaking the rules and triggered the Catholic reaction (and therefore the war as a consequence). On 1 March 1562, Third Sunday of Lent, at Wassy-sur-Blaise in Champagne, a crowd of about six hundred Huguenots (one thousand for the Protestant Museum of the Grange de Wassy) gathered near a barn INTO (inside) the village to celebrate the "cult". The Duke François of Guisa, charismatic leader of Catholics and also commander of government troops (then in charge of controlling the royal/state laws) was going through with his escort from Wassy returning from Paris to Joinville where he had gone to Make a visit to his mother. His wife Anna, his son Henri, and his brother the Cardinal of Lorraine, accompanied him. Upon learning that INTO the village it was a such large gathering of Huguenots, and since such a gathering inside the village, violated what had been established by the Edict of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the duke believed in his powers and his duty to watch this crowd for security reasons. He sent some of his men to observe the situation and report to him, but they were not received by Huguenots who refused to provide explanations. After a lively exchange of words, the altercation degenerated into brawl, throwing stones and finally firing against Guisa's emissaries. Meanwhile, the duke had come to the scene, getting insulted and struck in turn. The inevitable assault on the barn by his troops degenerated, finally, into slaughter. But remember that the Huguenots have been to disobey and violate state laws.
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