The Gordon Collection and the
French Wars of Religion
• Chronological List of Gordon Books pertaining to the Wars of Religion
• The Penitential Psalms
• The “Marmite Cycle”
• The Ronsard Polemic
One of the most unexpected
riches of the Gordon Collection is its stock of beautifully
bound and preserved pamphlets, polemical writings, royal
and parliamentary edicts from the French Wars of Religion
(1562-98) or “nos grans troubles & controversités,”
as contemporaries often referred to them. It is one of the
largest such collections outside of France. By consulting
the almost 100 primary documents directly related to these
conflicts, the bulk of them published in the 1580s and ‘90s
but including a number of important works from the 1560s
and ‘70s, interested readers can appreciate the breadth
and depth of the “troubles” as those who actually
experienced them understood and recorded them.
Brief History
The French Wars of Religion were long in preparation and
far from simply a matter of religion. Decades before confessional
and doctrinal differences between Catholics and Protestants
(or Huguenots, as the militant members of the Reformed or
Calvinist Church came to be known) erupted into war following
the 1562 Massacre of Vassy, learned and popular, clerical
and lay reflection on spiritual matters and the efficacy
of the “one holy catholic and apostolic” church’s
ministrations to the spiritual needs of its flock set France
on the road to conflict. Martin Luther’s famous 95
theses galvanized and polarized the European intelligentsia
as early as the 1520’s, including many influential
people in France, particularly in the circle of King Francis
I’s sister, Marguerite
de Navarre (1492-1549), herself represented in the Gordon
by an important copy of the Heptaméron (Gordon
1560 .M35). Popular critique and vociferous satire
of Roman Catholic practice and doctrine began to appear
in French almost as soon as the ink had dried on the orthodox
Paris Faculty of Theology’s 1521 Determinatio
censuring Martin Luther’s writing. The bulk of it
was initially published in such Francophone Swiss cities
as Neufchâtel and Geneva but French cities outside
the Parisian sphere of influence, Lyon in particular, would
also become publishing centers for anti-Catholic polemic.
A vernacular anti-Protestant response, slow in coming, would
emanate primarily from the overwhelmingly Catholic French
capital, Paris.
Arguably the earliest work in the Gordon to enter the fray,
however, is Poitiers canon Jean Poictevin’s orthodox
co-option and completion of the Huguenot Psalter (Gordon
1554 .P65, first published in 1551), consisting at that
date of 50 psalms translated by poet Clément
Marot. (The Calvinists themselves would not have
their own complete translation until 1562.) Among the latest
works are the Prior (and co-conspirator) Edme Bourgoings’s
tribute to fellow Dominican Jacques Clément and his
“divinely sanctioned” 1589 assassination of
Henry III (GORDON 1589 .P55 and Gordon 1589 .F38 no8), and
Jean de la Taille’s subsequent exposé and indictment
of the Holy League that backed the regicide (GORDON 1595
.L37). In between, almost a half-century of conflict and
the works that sought to provoke, quell or merely document
it are well represented in the Gordon.
The premature death of Henry II in 1559 (eulogized in Latin
by poet Joachim Du Bellay, Gordon 1559
.D83, and in French in the funeral orations by Girolamo
della Rovere, GORDON 1559 .R68) was followed by the ill-fated
reigns of his young sons: first François II (1559-1560)
under the sway of the Catholic House of Guise, a member
of which, Mary, Queen of Scots, was his wife (and very soon
widow); then Charles IX (1560-1574), whose politically savvy
mother and Regent during his minority, the redoubtable Catherine
de’ Medici, was to maintain royal power and autonomy
by playing the rival Catholic and Huguenot factions off
one against the other. This climate of uncertainty –
which would lead in 1562 to the first of eight different
“wars,” almost as many ineffectual peace treaties
and, among the worst atrocities the 1572 St. Bartholomew’s
Day Massacre – prompted a renewed round of polemical
pamphlets and tracts.
Catherine and her sons attempted to put a definitive end
to the religious controversy by calling for what amounted
to what we would now call a “national dialogue”
on confessional difference, in the hope of arriving at an
acceptable compromise. The Colloque de Poissy (Sept.-Oct.
1561) brought together expert theologians on both sides
of the divide, including Charles de Guise, Cardinal de Lorraine,
on the one (Gordon 1561 .G85 contains the printed text of
his oration), and Théodore de Bèze, Calvin’s
right-hand man and eventual successor in Geneva, on the
other. It was a dismal failure. Parisian (and Reformed)
jurisconsult Pierre de la Place provides a detailed, contemporary
account in Gordon 1565 .L35. The ultimate irreconcilable
difference remained the doctrine of the Real Presence of
Christ in the Eurcharist (Transubstantiation), understood
literally in orthodox Catholic doctrine but refused, or
rather, understood metaphorically in the Reformed Church.
Proselytizing, or pitching religious reform, in French
– as opposed to Latin, the traditional language of
the Catholic establishment – and in print, quickly
became the principal tool of the Reformers, who, with the
definitive establishment of Jean Calvin in Geneva in 1541
and the publication of a French translation of his Christianœ
Religionis Institutio that same year, quickly came
to be identified with Calvinism. Clandestine church organization
would follow in France throughout the 1550s, culminating
in the violent clashes of the 1560s and beyond. The continuing
and prolific Latin exchange, indispensable for international
communication and debate, is but marginally represented
in the Gordon Collection. Calvin, and particularly his followers,
quickly recognized the importance of the vernacular –
of French – for reaching the target audience of “les
simples” (“simple folk”), whether in Francophone
Switzerland or in France.
The Gordon Collection includes numerous works representing such appeals, concentrated in the following areas:
The Penitential Psalms – Translated into French, the psalms came to be associated with the
Protestant Reform movement, in part due to Marot's links to the reformers in the eyes of the French Roman Catholic authorities. The edition
of Jean Poitevin's translations (paraphrases) along with Marot's, however, displays a tenuous balance between Protestant and Catholic orientations.
The “Marmite cycle”
– a collection of somewhat extreme attacks and counter-attacks
loosely organized around the motif of the “marmite
papale” or “papal cooking pot.”
The Ronsard
polemic – a rich collection of polemical
and religious poems written by Pierre de Ronsard in defense
of the Roman Catholic church and the Queen Regent, Catherine
de Medici, and calling for a restoration of peace and
unity in France.
Atrocities and devastation –
a number of pamphlets describing and reacting to the violence
of the French wars of religion from both the Catholic
and the Calvinist points of view.
Catherine de Medici– attacks
on and defenses of the Queen Regent and her role in the
wars of religion.
• View the complete CHRONOLOGICAL
LIST of works pertaining to the French wars of religion
in the Gordon Collection.
Materials on this page
were generously contributed by Jeffrey Persels, University
of South Carolina.
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