Prelims 24/3/04 1:32 pm Page i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i Fathers, pastors and kings Prelims 24/3/04 1:32 pm Page ii STUDIES IN EARLY MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY This series aims to publish challenging and innovative research in all areas of early modern continental history. The editors are committed to encouraging work that engages with current historiographical debates, adopts an interdisciplinary approach, or makes an original contribution to our understanding of the period. SERIES EDITORS Joseph Bergin, William G. Naphy, Penny Roberts and Paolo Rossi Already published in the series The rise of Richelieu Joseph Bergin Sodomy in early modern Europe ed. Tom Betteridge The Malleus Maleficarum and the construction of witchcraft Hans Peter Broedel Fear in early modern society eds William Naphy and Penny Roberts Religion and superstitition in Reformation Europe eds Helen Parish and William G. Naphy Religious choice in the Dutch Republic: the reformation of Arnoldus Buchelus (1565–1641) Judith Pollman Witchcraft narratives in Germany: Rothenburg, 1561–1652 Alison Rowlands Prelims 24/3/04 1:32 pm Page iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii Fathers, pastors and kings Visions of episcopacy in seventeenth-century France ALISON FORRESTAL Manchester University Press Manchester and New York distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave Prelims 24/3/04 1:32 pm Page iv Copyright © Alison Forrestal 2004 The right of Alison Forrestal to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY10010, USA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY10010, USA Distributed exclusively in Canada by UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 0 7190 6976 9 hardback First published 2004 1110090807060504 10987654321 Typeset in Monotype Perpetua with Albertus by Northern Phototypesetting Co Ltd, Bolton Printed in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn Prelims 24/3/04 1:32 pm Page v For Richie Prelims 24/3/04 1:32 pm Page vi Prelims 24/3/04 1:32 pm Page vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii Contents Acknowledgements page viii List of abbreviations ix Map of French dioceses x Introduction 1 1 Catholic renewal and episcopal traditions in the sixteenth century 19 2 The most perfect state: French clerical reformers and episcopal status 50 3 Lower clergy versus bishops 74 4 Ecclesiastical monarchy or monarchies? 109 5 An uneasy alliance 144 6 Manuals and hagiography: mirrors of French ideals? 171 Conclusion 214 Appendix: chronology of principal events 229 Bibliography 232 Index 254 Prelims 24/3/04 1:32 pm Page viii Acknowledgements In recognition of their advice and support as this project progressed, I thank Joseph Bergin, Robin Briggs, Raymond Gillespie, Sheridan Gilley, Colin Jones, Peter Marshall, Rana Mitter, Henry Phillips, the staff and referees of Manchester University Press and the members of the Forrestal ‘clan’. I am also grateful for the financial support that I received from the University of Manchester and the University of Durham. Finally, I thank the editors of the Journal of Ecclesiastical History for permission to reproduce material from volume 54 (2003), 254–77, and the editor of The Seventeenth Century for permission to reproduce material from volume 17 (2002), 24–47. Prelims 24/3/04 1:32 pm Page ix List of abbreviations AAE Archives des Affaires Etrangères, Paris AN Archives Nationales, Paris BN Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History Ms. Fr. Manuscrit français Procès-verbaux Collection des procès-verbaux des assemblées générales du clergé de France, ed. A. Duranthon, 9 vols (Paris 1767–78) Recueil des actes Recueil des actes, titres et mémoires concernant les affaires du clergé de France, augmenté d’un grand nombre de pièces et d’observations sur la discipline présente de l’église, divisé en douze tomes et mis en nouvel ordre suivant la délibération de l’assemblée générale du clergé du 29 août 1705, 12 vols (Paris 1768–71) Prelims 24/3/04 1:32 pm Page x Introduction 22/3/04 12:11 pm Page 1 Introduction An overview of the Catholic episcopate in early modern Europe comments that ‘one of the most far-reaching if usually under-remarked changes of the Refor- mation period as a whole concerns the function and necessity of bishops in the church’.1 Although immediately applicable to those regions of the Reformation where bishops disappeared altogether from the ecclesiastical and political land- scapes, this observation might appear to have no relation to Catholic Europe.2 Here, bishops not only survived but also thrived, and it might seem, at first glance, that neither their function nor necessity actually changed at all through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Catholic church had consecrated bishops from its earliest times; these were the supervisors of dioceses and the leaders of the faithful, and the Council of Trent simply reinforced that role by re-issuing customary rules that ordered bishops to reside in their dioceses, hold synods and visitations, and discipline their clergy. Yet this fundamental conti- nuity belies the immense shifts in the understanding of episcopacy that occurred through the Tridentine period, for it hides the debates and the devel- opments in episcopal theology and practice that preoccupied bishops and other reformers. That flux was nowhere more evident than in the French church, one of the major bastions of catholicism, with an overwhelmingly Catholic population and monarchs who prided themselves on the impeccable Catholic credentials of ‘most Christian king’ and ‘eldest son of the Church’. Amid the vigorous reform currents of this seventeenth-century realm, there arose an unprecedented debate on the nature and practice of episcopacy. It had a pro- found impact on the episcopate and its relationship with the Tridentine papacy and the French crown, and ultimately shaped the French church for the remainder of the ancien régime. At its heart stood its keenest participants, the body of prelates that formed the French episcopate. Historians have long understood that to grasp the nature of early modern catholicism, one must attend to its bishops. In the traditional ‘confessional’ accounts of the Counter-Reformation, they assumed pivotal positions in the Introduction 22/3/04 12:11 pm Page 2 2 FATHERS, PASTORS AND KINGS church’s battle to defeat the spectre of Protestant heresy. Virtuous and diligent bishops glorified the legitimacy, morality and superiority of the Catholic cause at the expense of protestantism. Their activities were subjected to generations of scholarship that judged the success or failure of Catholic reform according to the apparent ability of successive popes and bishops to legislate, discipline and convert as the decrees of Trent required.3 Of course, their role in devising those reforms was also well documented. When Hubert Jedin produced his monumental study of the Council of Trent, he placed bishops firmly at the core of its negotiations and outcome: their role as the negotiators and formulators of the decrees ensured that the Council would become one of the pillars that would secure the triumphant success of the Counter-Reformation.4 This was also Jedin’s vantage point in his famous short summary of the bishops who epit- omised the Tridentine style of episcopacy that emerged in the Council’s wake. Singling out just a handful of remarkable prelates like Gabriele Paleotti, Barthélemy des Martyrs and the acclaimed archbishop of Milan, Charles Bor- romeo, as examples of the excellent Tridentine bishop, Jedin straightforwardly characterised this model as a pastorate imbued with sane doctrine, preaching and administrative zeal and personal virtue.5 This was the episcopal spirit of the Counter-Reformation, a powerful contributor to the fervour of action and engagement with the world that Outram Evennett identified as the fundamen- tal characteristic of Catholic reform during the early modern era.6 With some significant exceptions, however, bishops currently, though undeservedly, remain unfashionable in the historiography of early modern catholicism. Since the 1950s, the customary concentration on the institutional aspects of Catholic reform has been counterbalanced by a new emphasis on the ‘religion of the people’. With the welcome broadening of horizons brought by the histoire des mentalités and socio-historical methods of research, increasing attention has been paid to the religious culture of the ‘ordinary’ Christians whose lives were affected, to a greater or lesser extent, by the profound shifts in belief and ritual brought about by the Protestant and Catholic Reforma- tions.7 French historiography has been at the forefront of these developments, and scholars like Le Bras and Delumeau, as well as their many disciples, have contributed to our realisation that the religion of the masses was not absolutely superstitious, colourless or homogenous.8 Unfortunately, however, bishops tend to be marginalised in this type of scholarship. When they do enter the pages of books that investigate popular religious beliefs and practices, they are often as stereotyped as the hagiographic bishops who graced the older confes- sional texts: distant figures who impinge on the routine affairs of most of the faithful only when they attempt to enforce the unyielding decrees of the Coun- cil of Trent. In reality, however, bishops were not two-dimensional silhouettes. They came in all shapes and sizes and cannot be simplistically labelled good or Introduction 22/3/04 12:11 pm Page 3 INTRODUCTION 3 bad prelates, as tended to be done in older texts, on the basis of a few stock cri- teria such as residence, preaching ability or alms-giving.