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The Idea of Medieval Heresy in Early Modern France

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The Idea of Medieval Heresy in Early Modern France The Idea of Medieval Heresy in Early Modern France Bethany Hume PhD University of York History September 2019 2 Abstract This thesis responds to the historiographical focus on the trope of the Albigensians and Waldensians within sixteenth-century confessional polemic. It supports a shift away from the consideration of medieval heresy in early modern historical writing merely as literary topoi of the French Wars of Religion. Instead, it argues for a more detailed examination of the medieval heretical and inquisitorial sources used within seventeenth-century French intellectual culture and religious polemic. It does this by examining the context of the Doat Commission (1663-1670), which transcribed a collection of inquisition registers from Languedoc, 1235-44. Jean de Doat (c.1600-1683), President of the Chambre des Comptes of the parlement of Pau from 1646, was charged by royal commission to the south of France to copy documents of interest to the Crown. This thesis aims to explore the Doat Commission within the wider context of ideas on medieval heresy in seventeenth-century France. The periodization “medieval” is extremely broad and incorporates many forms of heresy throughout Europe. As such, the scope of this thesis surveys how thirteenth-century heretics, namely the Albigensians and Waldensians, were portrayed in historical narrative in the 1600s. The field of study that this thesis hopes to contribute to includes the growth of historical interest in medieval heresy and its repression, and the search for original sources by seventeenth-century savants. By exploring the ideas of medieval heresy espoused by different intellectual networks it becomes clear that early modern European thought on medieval heresy informed antiquarianism, historical writing, and ideas of justice and persecution, as well as shaping confessional identity. 3 Contents Abstract 2 Contents 3 Illustrations 4 Acknowledgements 5 Declaration 6 Introduction 7 Chapter 1 - Regional Historians 41 Chapter 2 - Mendicant Authors 81 Chapter 3 - The Doat Commission 119 Chapter 4 - Orthodox Catholic Bishops 150 Chapter 5 - Huguenot Ministers and Exiles 171 Conclusion 208 Abbreviations 215 Bibliography 216 Primary Sources 216 Manuscripts 216 Print 220 Secondary Literature 228 4 Illustrations 89 Illustration 1: Michel Snyders, Généalogie des descendants de saint Louis, 1619, Source: gallica.fr/Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. 97 Illustration 2: Pedro Berruguete, St Dominic de Guzman and the Albigensians, c.1493, Museo de Prado. 97 Illustration 3: Pedro Berruguete, St Dominic de Guzman presiding over an Auto-da-fé, c.1493, Museo de Prado. 98 Illustration 4: St Dominic converting a heretic woman, seventeenth-century ceiling painting, Maison Seilhan, Toulouse. 115 Illustration 5: Frontispiece of A. Roydault, L'hérésie expirante sous le règne de Louis le grand (1685), Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Français 2355. 5 Acknowledgements First, I am grateful to WRoCAH and the AHRC for funding my studentship, without which this research would not have been possible. I would like to thank my supervisors Professor Stuart Carroll and Professor Peter Biller who have provided inspiration and support and I am grateful for all the direction they have given me. I would also like to thank the Royal Historical Society for the travel grant which facilitated a period of research to various archives in Paris and Toulouse. Thank you to the helpful librarians at the Bibliothèque de Patrimoine in Toulouse, the Archives Municipales de l’Aude in Carcassonne and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. The wider project of the ‘The Genesis of Inquisition Procedures and the Truth-Claims of Inquisition Records’ has provided me with colleagues who have been generous in offering advice and material to aid my research. I am grateful to Dr Lucy Sackville for her guidance, Shelagh Sneddon for sharing with me her translation of Doat and Rachael Hardstaff for her friendship and for discussing ideas. I am also grateful to other staff from the History Department at the University of York, in particular Professor Laura Stewart for her feedback and Dr Stefan Bauer for his enthusiasm. I am indebted to Rachel Cutler, Amy Packer and Elizabeth Kelsall for their friendship and advice. To my parents, Carol and Shaun, I owe so much to your steadfast support and encouragement. Finally, to Brogan, thank you for the countless ways you have enabled this thesis to happen, from research “holidays” to France, discussing ideas on long walks, and constantly believing in me. Thank you for being my best friend, always. This work was supported by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (grant number AH/1648470) and the White Rose College of Arts and Humanities. 6 Declaration I declare that this thesis is a presentation of original work and I am the sole author. This work has not previously been presented for an award at this, or any other, University. All sources are acknowledged as References. 7 Introduction The focus of this thesis concerns the ideas early modern writers formed of the Albigensian and Waldensian heresies in France 1550-1750, which have been substantially under examined in the secondary literature, in order to argue for a reappraisal of confessional historiography in this period.1 This involved the careful consideration not only of the intellectual networks of early modern historians but also of the changing nature of historical writing in seventeenth-century France.2 Through a critical analysis of the medieval sources chosen by early modern scholars, this thesis reveals that ideas on medieval heresy were more erudite and nuanced than previously thought and extended beyond the realm of polemical Reformation print to become a pervasive narrative in historical writing of the seventeenth century. This systematic reconsideration of the ideas of medieval heresy in early modern France is significant as it reveals how indivisible the concept of medieval heresy was from confessional identity. The Albigensians and Waldensians were characterised as forerunners of Protestantism, as part of a continuum from the “true” early church to early moderns’ contemporary understanding of Christianity.3 The geographical correlation between thirteenth-century Albigensians and the strongholds of seventeenth-century Calvinists across the south of France was often given as proof of an inherited tradition of unorthodoxy.4 This overarching narrative of continuity was reinforced between the French Wars of Religion (1562-1598) and the early eighteenth century, and helped early modern scholars make sense of religious upheaval and explained the schism of the Reformation.5 This thesis will uncover the enormous influence these ideas gained after the Revocation of Edict of Nantes (1685) 1 Y. Krumenacker, “The use of history by French Protestants and its impact on Protestant historiography.”, in History and Religion: Narrating a Religious Past, ed. B-C. Otto, S. Rau, and J. Rüpk, 189-204 (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2015). 2 For a general overview of the historiographical changes see A. Grafton, The Footnote: A curious history (Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1999); D. Kelley, Versions of History from Antiquity to the Enlightenment (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991); G. Huppert, The idea of perfect history: historical erudition and historical philosophy in Renaissance France (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1970). For the importance of intellectual networks in this period - A. Goldgar, Impolite Learning Conduct and Community in the RepuBlic of Letters, 1680-1750 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995). 3 S. Barnet, “Where Was Your Church before Luther? Claims for the Antiquity of Protestantism Examined.” Church History 68, no.1 (March 1999):17-18. 4 L. Racaut, Hatred in Print: Catholic Propaganda and Protestant Identity During the French Wars of Religion (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 100; Y. Krumenacker and W. Wang, “Cathares, vaudois, hussites, ancêtres de la reforme?”, Chrétiens et Sociétés XVIe - XXIe siècles 23, (2017): 27, accessed Sept 9, 2018, https://journals.openedition.org/chretienssocietes/4108. 5 Barnet, “Where Was Your Church before Luther?”, 14. 8 when the mass migration of Huguenot refugees added pressure to the development of a Calvinist confessional identity in exile.6 One vital aspect of the idea of a continual inheritance from medieval heresy was the system of meaning it provided for an oppressed minority unable to practice or worship openly without facing opposition, and the Huguenot extirpation in the 1680s brought these ideas to the fore across Europe.7 Ideas of medieval heresy in early modern France are important because they highlight the tension between origin myths and the advance of scientific historical writing. This thesis will re-evaluate the polemical trope of Protestant ancestry in the Albigensians and Waldensians by re-examining the intellectual context of the dramatic changes in the nature of historical writing and circulation of medieval sources in seventeenth-century France. Epistemological change in early modern France is evident in historians’ analytical approaches to under-used medieval sources, philological techniques and transcription of inquisitorial sources as part of large state-led projects.8 Medieval heresy became a scholarly subject with knowledgeable researchers rewriting history based on their interpretations of inquisitorial registers.9 Yet, the persevering story of a link between the Albigensians, Waldensians and Calvinists remained
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