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Huguenot Preaching, 1629-1685 Huguenot Preaching and Huguenot Identity

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Huguenot Preaching, 1629-1685 Huguenot Preaching and Huguenot Identity HUGUENOT PREACHING, 1629-1685 HUGUENOT PREACHING AND HUGUENOT IDENTITY: SHAPING A RELIGIOUS MINORITY THROUGH FAITH, POLITICS, AND GENDER, 1629-1685 By NICHOLAS MUST, MA, BA (Hon.) A Thesis SubmittEd to the School of GraduatE StudiEs in Partial FulfilmEnt of the REquiremEnts for the DEgreE Doctor of Philosophy McMastEr University © Copyright by Nicholas Must, FEbruary 2014 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (2014) McMaster University (History) Hamilton, Ontario TITLE: Huguenot Preaching and Huguenot Identity: Shaping a Religious Minority through Faith, Politics, and Gender, 1629-1685 AUTHOR: Nicholas MUST, MA, BA (Hon.) (Wilfrid Laurier University) SUPERVISOR: Professor M. Armstrong NUMBER OF PAGES: vi, 381 ii ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the development of Huguenot confessional identity and political strategy under the Edict of Nantes through sermons. Here, sermons serve as a vital medium of ideological exchange, shaping and reflecting the mental world of France's Protestant population, while acting as a source of dialogue between Huguenot ministers, their parishioners and readers, and the crown. As a result, this study demonstrates the cultural tools that influenced how the Huguenot population made sense of their position in France in the seventeenth century, and it shows that, while Huguenots lost much of their effective political power after 1629, their ministers were active in the decades after through informal but telling channels, instructing their parishioners about proper civic and political belief, and positing for their various audiences a view of the French polity – and of its absolutist monarchy – that included a legitimate place for the Huguenot population. The introduction and the first chapter provide the historical and historiographical background, while also offering a detailed explanation of the training and vocation of Huguenot ministers, shedding light on their sermons and their social and professional networks. Chapters two and three provide the heart of the argument, exploring the elements of the sermons that emphasized, first, the necessity of religious particularism for Huguenots within France and, second, their abiding devotion to the crown. Together, these dual elements of Huguenot identity meant that they were negotiating their own vision for the kingdom and their place within it. The final three chapters examine the prevalence and significance of the Huguenot dual identity in diverse sermon themes, while also showing its legacy beyond the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. This dissertation provides an important contribution to Reformation and French historiography, while also complicating notions about religious identity and the development of absolutist thought by demonstrating a confessionally-distinct political activism that is not often recognized. It also reveals the interwoven nature of religion and politics in the Reformation era, here as it is manifested in sermons. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The completion of this dissertation has been possible because of the help, support, and resources of a number of people and organizations. I owe a tremendous debt to my supervisor, Megan Armstrong, who has helped me through every component of being a student and whose guidance and encouragement have made this a far better thesis than I ever thought possible; the same is true of my committee members, Bernice Kaczynski and Virginia Aksan, whose valuable insights have made possible a much richer study. Similarly, my external examiner, Peter Goddard, provided very helpful input to make my final product both stronger and clearer. Thanks are also due to the faculty and staff in the History Department at McMaster University who have helped me through the many intellectual and administrative events over the past few years. I must also mention Chris Nighman, who has helped and shaped me as a scholar since I was an undergraduate. A tremendous thanks is also necessary for the financial assistance that I have received from McMaster University and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, as well as the technological help from Sea Otter Systems. Naturally, this project would have been impossible without the resources of many libraries: the Mills Memorial Library at McMaster (Hamilton); the Tri University Group of Libraries (Waterloo and Guelph, Ontario); the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Paris); the Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire (Strasbourg); the Bibliothèque St- Geneviève (Paris); the Bibliothèque de Genève and the Bibliothèque de l'Institut d'Histoire de la Réformation (Geneva); the Bibliothèque Cantonale et Universitaire (Lausanne); and, in a sign of the times, Google Books. Most importantly, though, is the thanks owed to the Bibliothèque de la Société de l'Histoire du Protestantisme Français in Paris, and its librarians Mmes Poinsot and Vié, whose help and kindness made my research more enjoyable and more profitable. Finally, I owe a great gratitude to my friends and family, especially my parents, who have encouraged my studies since I was a small child, and my wife Erin, whose love and whose own studies are a constant source of support and inspiration. Thank you all! iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT – iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS – iv TABLE OF CONTENTS – v INTRODUCTION – 1 Historical Context – 5 Huguenot Historiography – 18 Sermons Literature – 28 Sermons as Text and Event – 37 Division of the Text – 50 CHAPTER ONE – THE MEDIUM AND THE MESSENGERS – 55 Basic Structures of the Huguenot Sermon – 56 Preparation and Expectations – 69 Practical Aids and Reflexive Sermons: Preaching about Pastors – 87 Dignity and Duty as Sermon Themes – 92 Conclusion – 104 CHAPTER TWO – AN EXCLUSIVE COMMUNITY: DEFINING THE HUGUENOT PETIT TROUPEAU – 106 Theology, Controversy, and the Catholic Church: Ceci est mon corps – 109 A Voluntary Minority: Là où il y a deux ou trois – 126 Defining Identity Through Psalms... – 132 ...And Prophets – 143 Conclusion – 160 CHAPTER THREE – CIVICS AND RELIGION, OR WHY HUGUENOTS MAKE THE BEST SUBJECTS – 163 The Evolving Political Situation of Huguenots – 165 The Politics of Publishing – 172 Craignez Dieu, Honorez le Roy: Biblical Imperatives and the Divine Order – 179 Civics and Huguenot Political History – 189 Uniquely Huguenot Approaches to Being a French Subject – 203 Conclusion – 220 v CHAPTER FOUR – MARRIAGE AND CONFESSIONALIZATION, PART 1: SHAPING HUGUENOT IDENTITY THROUGH SERMONS ON THE CONJUGAL UNIT – 222 Influences on Huguenot Marriage – 224 The Purpose and Utility of Marriage – 237 Gender and the Ordering of Marriage – 243 Clerical Marriage, Sacramental Status, and Other Differences – 256 The Danger of Mixed Marriages – 270 Conclusion – 275 CHAPTER FIVE – MARRIAGE AND CONFESSIONALIZATION, PART 2: SHAPING HUGUENOT IDENTITY BEYOND THE COUPLE – 277 Husbands, Love Your Wives, Just as Christ Loved the Church – 282 Le Petit Troupeau vs La Grande Paillarde – 290 Obeying Husbands and Kings – 297 Conclusion – 306 CHAPTER SIX – AN EPILOGUE, or: HUGUENOT IDENTITY BEYOND THE REVOCATION, FAMILIAR IMAGERY AND HUGUENOT HISTORY IN REFUGEE SERMONS – 308 Towards the Revocation and Beyond – 309 The Netherlands – 317 Brandenburg and Britain – 330 Conclusion – 339 CONCLUSION – 341 APPENDIX: BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION FOR PASTORS CITED – 353 BIBLIOGRAPHY – 361 vi Ph.D. Thesis – Nicholas Must; McMaster University – History INTRODUCTION On 21 August 1636, the Huguenot temple at Charenton was host to an extraordinary display of preaching. It was a day dedicated to fasting and worship, and this included three separate sermons by three of Paris' leading pastors. The occasion was organized as a way for the Huguenot community to show their support for the king's armies as they undertook to oust the Spanish from the town of Corbie, and it reveals a great deal about how sermons served to define two key components of Huguenot identity under the Edict of Nantes – religious particularism and political loyalism – and how sermons constituted a means of participating in a discussion about the nature of absolutism and the place of Huguenots within the French polity. The event itself helped reinforce Huguenot particularism since both the journey upriver from Paris to Charenton and the gathering as a community of believers at the temple worked to physically and ritually distinguish the Huguenots from among the larger population of Paris. At the same time, though, the reason behind the event also helped to engender a sense of inclusion and loyalty within the kingdom. The sermons themselves – which were preached by Jean Mestrezat, Charles Drelincourt, and Jean Daillé – were central to this process of defining the position of the Huguenots in France.1 When Charles Drelincourt took the pulpit, he preached a sermon about sinfulness and contrition, telling his audience that they needed to lead better lives and to sincerely repent for their moral failings. But in addition to religious pedagogy, and in many 1 Jean Mestrezat et al., Sermons faits au jour du jusne celebré à Charenton pour la prosperité des armés du Roy (Geneva, 1637). 1 Ph.D. Thesis – Nicholas Must; McMaster University – History ways as an extension of it, Drelincourt's sermon also served to articulate a particular sense of Huguenot identity – they were at once uniquely God's chosen people and also the devoted subjects of the French crown, and he used the imagery of sinfulness and piety to emphasize both. All together, this event and its sermons represent an important and under- documented political strategy on the part of Huguenot ministers as they sought to define their community and
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