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Emerging Publics of Religious Reform in the 1530S the Affair of the Placards and the Publication of Antoine De Marcourt’S Livre Des Marchans Torrance Kirby

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Emerging Publics of Religious Reform in the 1530S the Affair of the Placards and the Publication of Antoine De Marcourt’S Livre Des Marchans Torrance Kirby 2 Emerging Publics of Religious Reform in the 1530s The Affair of the Placards and the Publication of Antoine de Marcourt’s Livre des marchans Torrance Kirby AFFAIR OF THE PLACARDS One of the most dramatic and influential events of the early stages of Ref ormation in France—the notorious “Affair of the Placards”—occurred during the night of October 17, 1534. In the city of Paris as well as in other principal centers—including Orleans, Blois, Tours, and Rouen— placards proclaiming “Articles veritables sur les horribles, grandz et importables abuz de Ia Messe papalle” were posted in highly visible public venues, including the door of the king’s own bedchamber at the Château d’Amboise.’ The putative author of the placard, Antoine de Mar- court, was a member of the French evangelical-humanist avant-garde in the circle of Guillaume Briconnet, otherwise known as the “cercle” or “groupe de Meaux.”2 Members of the circle had lately come to view Martin Luther’s proposals for reform of the church and its teachings with considerable favor. Marcourt’s placard served to focus the reform ers’ mounting criticism of traditional religion on the ritual central to the church’s own practice and self-understanding in the form of a direct appeal to popular judgment. In a classic early instance of challenge to the reigning paradigm of “representative publicity,” Marcourt’s appeal to public opinion in his attack on the doctrine of the Mass was interpreted by both the religious and civil establishment not only as a challenge to received church dogma, but also, owing to the provocative manner of its publication, as a direct assault on the authority of the monarchy itself.3 King Francis, the Archbishop of Paris, the doctors of the Sorbonne, and other leading clergy of the realm closed ranks and together mounted a swift and ferocious response aimed at quelling this upstart attempt to sway public opinion over the heads of the establishment. Many of the religious reformers associated with criticism of the church and the tra ditional teachings were either executed for sedition or driven into exile. Marcourt himself fled France along with other leading members of the circle of reformers, including Jean Calvin. In a dramatic and equally public response to the placards, Francis and his court processed solemnly Emerging Publics of Religious Reform in the 1530s 39 3S 1brrance Kirby of which was to MEANWHILE, ACROSS THE ENGLISH CHANNEL... through the streets of the capital, the ritual purpose “pollution” of the placards. Francis himself purify the capital from the English Humanists and Reforma realm in the place Forty years ago in his magisterial study processed beneath a canopy carried by peers of the Host in a Corpus tion Politics, James McConica observed that the English reform movement where onlookers would normally expect to view the intimate under Henry VIII and Edward VI is closely bound to the complexities of procession; thereby the establishment underscored the Christi in pan-European currents of religious reform: “The closer the examination,” monarchical and sacramental “presence” and linked association of claims McConica, “the more apparent is the difficulty of separating Eng the definition of representative publicity with funda dramatic fashion lish developments from those on the Continent.”’ Particular support for claims.4 mental ontological this claim can be discerned in the history of the publication in English Marcourt’s placard and the official response to it both The posting of translation of tracts by Marcourt. The first wave of French radical evangeli manifestations of prominent sixteenth-century impulses provide theatrical cal propaganda swept across La Manche and up the Thames estuary in the identity through direct popular appeal. Marcourt evi to define religious summer of 1534—in the same year as the Affair of the Placards. On August publicizing his evangelical objections to the doctrine dently hoped that by Marcourt’s rollicking Rabelaisian over his fellow subjects to the cause 24 an anonymous English translation of and practice of the Mass he would win God- a popular reform spoof on ecclesiastical abuses was published in London by Thomas of religious reform. Through this attempt to bring about and interpretation fray under the title The Boke of Marchaunres.8 This was almost twelve of French religious identity on the basis of argumentation crown, church, months to the day from the publication of the original French text of Le in public space unconstrained by the official imprimatur of an early expression liure des marchans by Pierre de Vingle in Neuchâtel.9 In her landmark and university, the posting of the placards exemplifies persuasion”—namely, study Antoine Marcourt: reformateur et pamphlétaire, Gabrielle Berthoud of what has been called the early modern “culture of to “public rea observes that Le livre des marchans is Marcourt’s most popular and best- the endeavor to address the “public” through an appeal Indeed, in the context known work.° In his assumed Rabelaisian identity—namely, “the lorde son” in aid of achieving a manifestly “public good.”1 with the Pantapole, right expert in suche busynesse, nere neyghbour vnto the lorde of the explosive political dimension of the ensuing confrontation Placards” Pantagrule”—Marcourt sets himself up as the one who sells all—celui qui and religious establishment of France, the “Affair of the political “vend de tout”—the wholesaler, as it were, who seeks to undercut the early instance of direct challenge to what Habermas neatly illustrates an allusion Marcourt’s satirical form and publicity” (here embodied in the author ecclesiastical “middleman.” In this has identified as “representative thrust of “public sphere” grounded in a the evangelical intent are fused together. According to the central of crown and church) by an emerging ity the satire, the entrepreneurial role of the priestly “merchant” was that of popular persuasion developed by a particular group of religious rhetoric of a retailer, whose task is to distribute the spiritual “goods” of divine grace activists. - considerable incrementally. Prior to the posting of the placards, Francis 1 had shown of the graupe In the early 1530s England was in the throes of radical constitutional favor toward les evangeliques and the reforming humanists shown marked transformation. Henry’s chief minister, Chancellor Thomas Cromwell, de Meaux; both he and his sister Marguerite of Navarre had and their fol simultaneously managed both the intricacies of the legislative program and support for Erasmus, Lefèvre d’Etaples, and Gerard Roussel Béda to Mont a highly sophisticated propaganda campaign through the press in support lowers, while Francis had even exiled the conservative Noel a veritable sea of the reformist constitutional agenda then before Parliament.’ Cromwell’s . the infamous placards, St-Michel in May of 1533 After to be discerned. Sharper lines use of the printing press obviously targets growth of a public favorable change in the climate of religious reform can Erasmian reform through maximum possible exposure of an argument. Such a reli of distinction emerge between the moderate humanism of the By calling for gious public may have as its goal the creation of a new, reformed religious reorrners and more radical “sacramentarlan” Protestants. judgment, Mar establishment—which was in fact attained in England under Edward VI radical religious reform through an open appeal to popular that was to alter deci (1547—1553), but not so in France under Edward’s contemporary, Henri court played a key role in precipitating a controversy in France. 11(1547—1559). In the case of England the emergent public sympathetic to sively (and perhaps irrevocably) the course of the Reformation a key dramatic religious reform comes to be situated, at least temporarily, within the field The posting of Marcourt’s placard in 1534 is without doubt serves to high of royal power, in large part owing to the political success of the reform; episode in the unfolding of the Reformation in France, and popular sense it is an arrangement that suggests well the social mobility and organiza light the emergence in the early modern period of a new and in the tional flexibility of public making. On the other hand, lack of political suc “public” over against a much older and hieratic sense embodied of cess may arguably have had the effect of the institutionalizing a dissenting institutions of monarch and church. Emerging Publics of Religious Reform in the 1530s 41 40 Torrance Kirby ambivalence of the king’s religious orientation—he was against the papacy public of like-minded people in France—that is, the Huguenots—whose yet, at the same time, in favor of Catholic teaching—had the noteworthy self-organizing field of discourse might aspire to grow but would remain of yet unintended effect of defining Cromwell’s stable of propagandists as forever under the threat of the dominant political power. Comparison can simultaneously both inside and outside the establishment. This is clearly a the radically differing receptions of Marcourt in France and England case of a public emerging as a “dynamic system of discourse” on the fringes therefore offer instruction on the question of the effects of growth and of the circles of power—in a manner analogous to Francois Rouget’s salons respectability on an emerging public. Over time, a public formed out of “au marge de Ia Cour.”17 religious dissent may (or may not, as the case may be> find itself absorbed The publisher Thomas Godfray contributed to
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