Journal of Interdisciplinary History, xxxi1:1 (Summer, 2000), 1–20.

Raymond A. Mentzer MORAL REGULATION INRAYMOND PROTESTANT A. MENTZER Morals and Moral Regulation in Protestant France In mid-July 1595, an anonymous informant left a note on a table in the temple of , a strongly Protestant southern French town situated on the . The terse, unsigned missive, discovered during the Sunday morning worship, reported that a woman known simply as la Gasconne, or the Gascon woman, had gone into labor and given birth at the home of a poor couple in the nearby village of . The note also indicated that the Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/31/1/1/1703331/002219500551460.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 woman had previously been a servant in the employ of Jean Cotines, a Montalbanais innkeeper. It identiªed Pierre Delhoste, the innkeeper’s father-in-law, a sixty-year-old commercial boat- man, who frequently lodged at his son-in-law’s inn, as the new- born’s father. The church’s consistory—comprised of the pastors, the lay elders, and the lay deacons—looked into the matter im- mediately; moral issues were among its chief concerns. The en- suing investigation gradually exposed a ªne mesh of moral and social relationships that went well beyond an “illicit” sexual affair.1 A week later, when a couple from Reyniès, a town across the river from Orgueil, presented an infant for baptism at Mon- tauban, the pastor asked about the absence of the child’s father. Why in particular was he missing from the ceremony? A father’s failure to attend his daughter or son’s baptismal ceremony in this strongly patriarchal society would hardly have gone unnoticed. Immediately after the baptism, the consistory subjected the pair to close interrogation. It discovered that the child belonged to Jeanne Gauside, who turned out to be the Gascon woman of the anonymous letter and that two weeks earlier, she had given birth in another couple’s home, where she had been living for the

Raymond A. Mentzer is Professor of History, Montana State University. He is the author of Blood and Belief: Family Survival and Confessional Identity among the Provincial Huguenot Elite (West Lafayette, 1994); editor of Sin and the Calvinists: Morals Control and the Consistory in the Reformed Tradition (Kirksville, 1994). The author thanks the National Endowment for the Humanities, Montana State University, and the St. Andrews Reformation Studies Institute for support of this research. © 2000 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the editors of The Journal of Interdisciplinary History.

1 Philip Benedict, The Huguenot Population of France, 1600–1685: The Demographic Fate and Customs of a Religious Minority (Philadelphia, 1991), 51, 55. 2 | RAYMOND A. MENTZER past month. The couple who presented the infant for baptism knew nothing of the father. Gauside told the couple from Reyniès that her husband had died at Buzet—a town to the west in Gascony proper, and perhaps the woman’s original home. She explained to them that she was a “papist” but wanted her child baptized in the “religion,” presumably the faith of the father. The couple had never heard of Delhoste. The consistory directed two elders to speak with the municipal ofªcers about the extramarital pregnancy; it also summoned the innkeeper and boatman for

questioning. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/31/1/1/1703331/002219500551460.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 The afternoon of the same day, the innkeeper Cotines ap- peared before the consistory to answer for the scandal. The ques- tions put to him and the other witnesses who followed suggest that, by this time, the consistory was well informed about the matter. The elders, after all, had made their own inquiries. Various rumors, some better-founded than others, must also have reached their ears. Determined to sort out the details, the ecclesiastical authorities asked Cotines how he could have let this sordid busi- ness occur under his very nose. Why had he not reported the transgressors to the civil magistrate for proper punishment, even compounding the wrong by covering for them? Why had he let his father-in-law spirit Gauside away to Orgueil? Finally, they asked him to conªrm that three months earlier, he had advised her to take medicine that would “abort the fruit that she carried in her womb.” In an obvious attempt to shift the focus of consistorial atten- tion, the innkeeper testiªed that Gauside had prevailed on him to consult Pierre Goby, a surgeon and herbalist, about obtaining medicine. His memory, however, was vague on the exact nature and purpose of the medicine. Gauside, for her part, told him that during the treatment, she would stay with Astrugue Cappellane, a female friend who lived in one of Montauban’s poorer riverside neighborhoods. Later that afternoon, Cappellane testiªed before the consis- tory that Gauside had indeed sought her help. At ªrst, Gauside would only tell her that she was taking medicine to “purge herself” because of an inºamed liver—purging, in this instance, likely referring to menstruation. Eventually, however, she admitted to her friend that she was seven-months pregnant by Delhoste. She also confessed to having contemplated suicide. Cappellane dis- MORAL REGULATION IN PROTESTANT FRANCE | 3 suaded her from doing so by pointing out that she would not only kill herself but the being in her womb. Shortly afterward, Gauside left Montauban.2 The week following the testimony of Cotines and Cappel- lane, Goby, the surgeon and herbalist, appeared before the pastors and elders of Montauban to explain his role in the matter. He claimed that the innkeeper’s servant woman, accompanied by a young man lodged at Cotines’ inn (apparently not Delhoste), asked him for medicine because she had been unable to have her

“ºowers.” He refused, explaining to her that the time was not Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/31/1/1/1703331/002219500551460.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 right. The surgeon added that Cotines and Cappellane also con- sulted him about the medicine. Goby informed Cotines “to his face” of his certainty that Gauside was pregnant, but he did not provide the medicine. For the next three weeks, the consistory summoned Delhoste ªve times. He steadfastly refused to respond. The pastors and elders, who had already barred him from participation in the Lord’s Supper, pending resolution of the accusations, now threat- ened full public excommunication. Delhoste ªnally agreed to appear. Although he made no apology for his repeated disregard of the consistory’s summons, he “freely confess[ed] that he had sinned” with Gauside. He ºatly denied, however, “wishing to extinguish the life that was in her womb.” The consistory seemed to accept Delhoste’s version of his involvement. It ordered that inasmuch as he had brought about public scandal, he had to undergo public reparation. When he balked at such punishment, the pastors and elders extended his excommunication indeªnitely. Delhoste did not appear to be deeply troubled by either his “illicit” sexual affair or the sub- sequent birth of the child; as a sixty-year-old man, he may even have taken pride in his virility. Yet, he wanted no part of an embarrassing admission of “sin” to his fellow townspeople.3 Unfortunately, the consistory record ends at this point, pro- viding no more direct information about Gauside’s story. The reappearance of two of this tale’s principals in other contexts,

2 Patricia Crawford, “Attitudes to Menstruation in Seventeenth-Century England,” Past & Present, 91 (May 1981), 49–51. 3 Tarn-et-, I 1, Registre des délibérations du consistoire de l’Église Réformée de Montauban, fols. 21–21v, 22, 22v–23v, 27v, 34, 34v, 37, Archives Départementales (herein- after ad). 4 | RAYMOND A. MENTZER however, lends greater texture to the episode. The consistory of Montauban summoned Cappellane on at least two separate occa- sions during the next few years—once for consulting fortune- tellers and another time for having a heated verbal spat with a neighbor. These transgressions were by no means unusual; they were exactly the sorts of indiscretions that the French Reformed consistories commonly attributed to women.4 Delhoste’s next encounter with the Montauban consistory came under an entirely more telling, though familiar, set of cir-

cumstances. Roughly three months after the scandal involving Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/31/1/1/1703331/002219500551460.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 Gauside, word reached one of Montauban’s pastors that Margue- rite Reyne of had arrived in town looking for Delhoste because he had made her pregnant. Although the consistory never summoned either party, it assigned several elders to denounce them to the municipal consuls and urge the civil authorities to imprison them.5 Within a few days, the consuls arrested Reyne and sentenced her to perform public penance for fornication and pregnancy out of wedlock. They also banished her from Montauban for three years, effectively expelling her from the town. Although she named Delhoste as her sexual partner, the consuls took no action against him. Such gender bias was strong in municipal justice; ofªcials often prosecuted women for fornication, while ignoring males. This particular incident helps to create a portrait of Del- hoste as an aging philanderer who energetically sought sexual liaisons, preying on women who were in all likelihood far younger, yet acknowledging little responsibility for the conse- quences of his conduct.6 church and society during the reformation The events surrounding Gauside’s predicament exemplify the robust regula- tory role that the Reformed church pursued within the commu-

4 Tarn-et-Garonne, I 1, fols. 256v, 257v, 274v, 276, ad. For the shortcomings commonly attributed to women, see Mentzer, “Disciplina nervus ecclesiae: The Calvinist Reform of Morals at Nîmes,” Sixteenth Century Journal, XVIII (1987), 89–115. 5 Gaillac is c. ªfty kilometers east of Montauban and more than sixty-ªve kilometers along the meandering Tarn river. Tarn-et-Garonne, I 1, fols. 80v, 81v, ad. 6 Montauban, 5 FF 2, Registre des sentences prononcées en matière criminelle par les consuls de Montauban (1534–1606), fol. 34v, Archives Municipales (hereinafter am). I am grateful to Philip Conner of the University of St. Andrews for bringing this document to my attention. MORAL REGULATION IN PROTESTANT FRANCE | 5 nity. John Calvin and his “Puritan” followers had formulated an energetic ecclesiastical polity centering on the local church and the consistory, which met regularly, usually once a week, to plan and direct the religious and moral life of the entire congregation, as well as conduct ecclesiastical administration and poor relief. The elementary role of the consistory makes it an object of consider- able scholarly interest, as much for what it communicates about the creation and elaboration of a French Protestant culture as for what it discloses about early modern society in general. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/31/1/1/1703331/002219500551460.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 studying the reformation Historians have increasingly em- phasized the broad social character of the sixteenth-century Ref- ormation. They point out that not only did religious leaders undertake an unprecedented review of Christian beliefs and im- plement new liturgical practices and standardized prayer in the vernacular; they also aspired to an elementary reordering of the community and careful moral supervision of the faithful. The critical changes entailed a comprehensive assessment and regula- tion of people’s everyday habits and conduct. Church ofªcials— particularly those who sought to emulate the powerful example of Calvin’s Genevan reform—were determined to enforce eccle- siastical authority and consolidate confessional identity. To borrow phraseology made popular by Schilling and others, a reformation of lifestyle complemented the reformation of doctrine. This insis- tence upon the disciplinary aspects of the Reformation is among the most conspicuous interpretations to emerge in recent years. Discipline, according to this school of thought, was the regular accompaniment of the Reformation.7 The goal of the Reformed church was an orderly and “godly” society that closely observed scriptural directives, particularly the ethical code of the Decalogue. The result was more complex. Historians seeking to explicate the nature, signiªcance, and extent of the developments have situated their discussions within a va-

7 Heinz Schilling (trans. Stephen G. Burnett), “Confessionalization in the Empire: Religious and Societal Change in Germany between 1555 and 1620,” in idem, Religion, Political Culture and the Emergence of Early Modern Society (Leiden, 1992), 236; idem (ed.), Die reformierte Konfessionalisierung in Deutschland. Das Problem der “Zweiten Reformation” (Gütersloh, 1986); Paul Münch, “Reformation of Life: Calvinism and Popular Culture in Germany around 1600: The Paradigm of Nassau-Dillenberg,” in Leonardus Laeyendecker, Lammert G. Jansma, and Cornelius H. A. Verhaar (eds.), Experiences and Explanations: Historical and Sociological Expla- nations on Religion in Everyday Life (Ljouwert, 1990), 37–57. 6 | RAYMOND A. MENTZER riety of conceptual frameworks. Oestreich, for example, intro- duced the concept of “social disciplining,” in which the early modern state occupied a crucial role in fostering church discipline and confessional identity. Parker later emphasized the “taming” of a combative and contentious medieval culture.8 Schilling, whose research focuses on the Dutch and German Reformation, advanced the argument. He described the elemen- tary shifts as a “fundamental societal process” of confessionaliza- tion. In this model, disciplining involved a sweeping social

metamorphosis that included the spread of bourgeois values, the Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/31/1/1/1703331/002219500551460.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 reinforcement of family structures, and the rigid redeªnition of sexual boundaries. It led, moreover, to the internalization of discipline and the suppression, or at least the redirection, of violence and anger.9 Because church and state were structurally linked in prein- dustrial Europe, the processes of change reached beyond the conªnes of an ecclesiastical sphere. The transformations touched all facets of public and private life. Confessionalization, according to Schilling and like-minded scholars, contributed signiªcantly to state formation. It allowed governing elites to utilize ecclesiastical discipline as an effective instrument for general social control. As such, it promoted the interests of both ecclesiastical and magisterial governors, producing a vigorous, mutually reinforcing association of confessional consolidation, social discipline, and state building. The confessionalization thesis, however, remains controver- sial. Does it apply equally well to all three major magisterial churches within the German empire—Lutheran, Calvinist, and Catholic? Furthermore, was it as closely associated with state building as some maintain? Schmidt, in his study of religious conduct at several rural villages within the Reformed state of Bern, found communities regulating themselves, according to their un- 8 Gerhard Oestreich (trans. David McLintock), Neostoicism and the Early Modern State (New York, 1982); Geoffrey Parker, “The ‘Kirk By Law Established’ and the Origins of ‘The Taming of Scotland’: St. Andrews, 1559–1600,” in Mentzer (ed.), Sin and the Calvinists: Morals Control and the Consistory in the Reformed Tradition (Kirksville, 1994), 159–197. 9 Schilling, “Confessionalization in the Empire,” 205–246, esp. 207–210. See the critical discussions in Joel F. Harrington and Helmut Walser Smith, “Confessionalization, Community and State Building in Germany, 1555–1870,” Journal of Modern History, LXIX (1997), 77–101; R. Po-Chia Hsia, Social Discipline in the Reformation: Central Europe, 1550–1750 (New York, 1989); Heinrich Richard Schmidt, “Sozialdisziplinierung? Ein Plädoyer für das Ende des Etatismus in der Konfessionalisierungforschung,” Historische Zeitschrift, CCLXV (1997), 639– 682. MORAL REGULATION IN PROTESTANT FRANCE | 7 derstanding of Christian belief and obligation, rather than higher political authorities instituting changes from above. Forster, in his analysis of Catholic confessional culture in the countryside sur- rounding the German Bishopric of Speyer, also insists upon the importance of local church and communal control.10 Questions also arise concerning the usefulness of the confes- sionalization model to explain developments outside Germany. The dynamics of state formation are less evident in the French Reformation, especially within the Protestant setting. The Re-

formed churches of France never constituted an ofªcial state Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/31/1/1/1703331/002219500551460.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 church—a role reserved for Catholicism. French Protestants were a distinct minority that existed in considerable tension with the centralizing monarchy. Although the advent of in the Gallic world did not contribute directly to an increase in the power of the state, as it did elsewhere (the , in fact, disrupted and threatened royal governance), nonetheless, the Ref- ormation involved an intricate and multilayered re-evaluation and re-deªnition of social structures and relationships. studying the consistory Specialists interested in these, and related, queries have concentrated on published and unpublished records—especially the registers of consistory deliberations from Calvinist communities of all sizes—mainly to study the nature of religious belief and devotion at the level of the local community. What was the impact of the Reformation on the daily lives of members of the congregation? How, in particular, did the Re- formed consistory work to shape people’s behavior? Almost no one—rich or poor, female or male, literate or illiterate—escaped the watchful gaze of the pastors and elders. The elders had the task of exposing and reporting every transgression within the community. Not surprisingly, historians traditionally have regarded the consistory as a sort of tribunal, devoted primar- ily to the adjudication of problems relating to morals. Recent scholarship, however, suggests that its members sought to fashion comportment in other ways as well. Kingdon’s examination of the Reformation at Geneva and Schilling’s work on the Reformed church of Emden indicate that the consistory acted less as a court

10 Schmidt, Dorf und Religion: reformierte Sittenzucht in Berner Landgemeinden der Frühen Neuzeit (New York, 1995), 351–376; Marc Forster, The Counter-Reformation in the Villages: Religion and Reform in the Bishopric of Speyer, 1560–1720 (Ithaca, 1992). 8 | RAYMOND A. MENTZER than as a social agency for the resolution of, say, marital problems and conºicts among church members. The consistory minutes are also an exceptional source for exploring the broad contours of sociability and the mental outlook of ordinary, mostly unlettered, people whose voices are heard only infrequently and, even then, in muted tones.11 Naturally enough, methodological approaches to the subject of consistorial discipline have varied. Throughout the past several decades, the use of serial data has dominated the literature. Parker

and Graham built their studies of ecclesiastical discipline during Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/31/1/1/1703331/002219500551460.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 the Scottish Reformation on rich statistical bases. Graham col- lected 5,785 disciplinary cases in an analysis of kirk sessions and presbyteries between 1560 and 1610. Roodenburg and Schilling also employed quantitative approaches in investigating Reformed church discipline in the Netherlands. Schmidt’s massive inquiry into moral discipline among the rural population in the Bernese state from the later sixteenth through the end of the eighteenth century rests on the quantiªcation of 19,358 offenses.12 French historians have been no less resourceful and energetic in compiling and analyzing serial data. Garrisson’s pioneering study of Protestant culture and Reformed institutions in southern France adopted a quantitative method. Since the appearance of her work, Chareyre and Poton have prepared lengthy dissertations that rely upon extensive serial analysis for their investigations of the Re- formed churches at Nîmes and Saint-Jean-du- during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These works have contrib- uted enormously to our understanding of moral and social disci- pline, underscoring, among other things, the major areas of consistorial concern and predilection, the response of the faithful,

11 Robert M. Kingdon, Adultery and Divorce in Calvin’s Geneva (Cambridge, Mass., 1995), 4, 99. Schilling, “Reformierte Kirchenzucht als Sozialdisziplinierung? Die Tätigkeit des Emder Presbyteriums in den Jahren 1557–1562,” in Wolfgang Ehbrecht and idem (eds.), Niederlande und Nordwestdeutschland. Studien zur Regional- und Stadtgeschichte Nordwestkontinentaleuropas im Mittelalter und in der Neuzeit (Cologne, 1983), 261–327. 12 Parker, “The ‘Kirk By Law Established,’” 159–197; Michael F. Graham, The Uses of Reform: “Godly Discipline” and Popular Behavior in Scotland and Beyond, 1560–1610 (Leiden, 1996); Herman Roodenburg, Onder Censuur. De kerkelijke tucht in de gereformeerde gemeente van Amsterdam, 1578–1700 (Hilversum, 1990); Schmidt, Dorf und Religion, 61–67. Several of Schilling’s many statistical studies are available in English. See Schilling, “Calvinism and the Making of the Modern Mind,” 41–68; idem, “Reform and Supervision of Family Life in Germany and the Netherlands,” in Mentzer, Sin and the Calvinists, 15–61. MORAL REGULATION IN PROTESTANT FRANCE | 9 changes in the nature of discipline over time, and the long-term impact of the effort. Such studies represent an important avenue for investigating the consistory and its social environment. How- ever, what might be loosely termed microhistorical analyses, fo- cusing upon individual incidents—like the scandal involving Gauside’s pregnancy—can illuminate the subject further.13 the significance of the incident at montauban Gauside’s pregnancy and its intense investigation also reveal a great deal about sixteenth-century attitudes toward sexuality, communal re- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/31/1/1/1703331/002219500551460.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 sponses to reproductive roles and activities, and moral concerns for embryonic life. From the consistory’s point of view, there were four interrelated transgressions: (1) the fornication, which was exacerbated by pregnancy out of wedlock; (2) the cover-up of fornication and pregnancy; (3) the attempted abortion; and (4) the aiding and abetting of the attempted abortion. Much of the consistory’s historical reputation rests on its tireless efforts toward the identiªcation and correction of fornica- tion and adultery. Pregnancy was a powerful public symbol of sexual intimacy; among the surest and plainest evidence of sexual misconduct was an unwed woman who was pregnant or who had recently given birth. In the present example, the consistory could only conclude that Gauside and Delhoste both deserved punish- ment for their sin. The consistory hounded Delhoste until he ªnally heeded its summons. Gauside escaped consistorial wrath only because she was Catholic. By the time the pastors and elders alerted local judicial ofªcers to her offense, she had already de- parted from Montauban.14 The consistory’s plan was to subject the transgressors to public shame. The religious authorities ordered Delhoste to submit to

13 Janine Garrisson-Estèbe, Protestants du Midi, 1559–1598 (, 1980); Janine Estèbe and Bernard Vogler, “La genèse d’une société protestante: étude comparée de quelques registres consistoriaux languedociens et palatins vers 1600,” Annales, XXXI (1976), 362–388; Philippe Chareyre, Le consistoire de Nîmes, 1561–1685 (, 1987), 4 v. Didier Poton, De l’Édit à sa Révocation: Saint Jean de Gardonnenque 1598–1686 (Montpellier, 1988), 2 v. 14 The situation involving Gauside and Delhoste does not exhibit the same degree of gender inequality concerning punishment for fornication that marked eighteenth-century New England as described by Cornelia Hughes Dayton, “Taking the Trade: Abortion and Gender Relations in an Eighteenth-Century New England Village,” William and Mary Quarterly, XLVIII (1991), 19–49. 10 | RAYMOND A. MENTZER communal reparation for causing a “public scandal.” Men and women regularly performed humiliating public penance for ex- tramarital pregnancy. Jeanne Buzevagne, for instance, another unmarried and pregnant servant woman, appeared before the entire congregation of Montauban in 1597 to beg forgiveness for her misdeeds. The experience cannot have been pleasant.15 The demand for public atonement put an immense strain on an individual’s reputation and stature. Delhoste willingly con- fessed his wrong to the consistory but refused to acknowledge it

openly before the assembled community. A woman’s sense of Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/31/1/1/1703331/002219500551460.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 dignity, reputation, and integrity was no less important. Perhaps the sharpest injury to a woman in this sixteenth-century Medi- terranean world was an assault on her sexual virtue. Such unºat- tering verbal insults as putain, pute rebalade, and innumerable variations thereof—all signifying a sexually promiscuous woman—inevitably led to protracted feuds and mortifying appear- ances before the consistory. Disparaging remarks about a woman with “a child but no husband” were equally biting and disagree- able. Under the circumstances, Gauside attempted, insofar as pos- sible, to keep her pregnancy secret. The disgrace and potential disaster ultimately pushed her to contemplate abortion and sui- cide.16 Consistorial investigations of unmarried pregnant women were hardly infrequent or isolated occurrences—nor were men and women’s attempts to conceal “illicit” sexual activity. What sets the Gascon servant woman and her pregnancy apart is the suggestion of an attempted abortion. Other women in other places, however, also considered, and occasionally resorted to, similar desperate measures. Elisabeth Rigailhe, an unmarried woman from Ganges in the mountainous rural heartland of south- ern French Protestantism, abandoned her child in a stable soon after giving birth, most likely out of humiliation and hopelessness. The infant subsequently died, possibly from exposure, and the local consistory censured Rigailhe severely, denouncing her as a murderer. Yet, in the absence of any evidence that civil authorities

15 Tarn-et-Garonne, I 1, fols. 221v, 227v, 231, 232, 236v–237, ad. For a similar case at Ganges in 1598, see François Martin, “Ganges, action de son consistoire et vie de son église aux 16e et 17e siècle,” Revue de théologie et d’action évangéliques, II (1942), 138. 16 Estèbe and Vogler, “La genèse d’une société,” 378; Mentzer, “Calvinist Reform of Morals,” 100–102. MORAL REGULATION IN PROTESTANT FRANCE | 11 charged her with a crime, it is difªcult to interpret the precise nature of her conduct.17 Although women of the early modern era occasionally re- sorted to abortion—dangerous and unsuccessful as it could be— the action rarely disclosed itself explicitly in the historical record. Gauside’s situation as a single, lower-class domestic ªts the well- recognized image of the early modern woman who might have sought an abortion. Apart from her basic economic and social vulnerability, she was also an outsider who did not speak the local

language well, possessed no protective kinship network within the Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/31/1/1/1703331/002219500551460.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 community, and did not even participate in its collective religious rituals.18 Ascertaining who knew what in the arrangements for the abortion depends upon whose testimony we believe. All of the participants surely understood that abortion was a grave criminal offense. Beginning in 1556, royal legislation prescribed the death penalty for women who deliberately aborted their fetuses or committed infanticide. Although abortion was more a matter for the civil authorities than the consistory, Protestant church ofªcials took it very seriously. The pastor and elders of Camerès, east of Montauban, reported a soldier to a nearby judge for brutally beating another man’s pregnant wife and causing her to abort. The consistory would certainly have rebuked the soldier for beating the woman even without the subsequent miscarriage, but church ofªcials stressed the aborted fetus in their report to the civil authorities. Similar cases occurred in other parts of Europe during the same period.19

17 Hérault, E Dépôt, Ganges GG 24, Registre du consistoire de l’Église Réformée de Ganges, fol. 98v, ad; Maurice Oudot de Dainville, “Le consistoire de Ganges à la ªn du XVIe siècle,” Revue d’histoire de l’Eglise de France, XVIII (1932), 477. For similar cases of child abandonment and infanticide in England and elsewhere, see Robert W. Malcolmson, “In- fanticide in the Eighteenth Century,” in James S. Cockburn (ed.), Crime in England, 1550–1800 (Princeton, 1977), 187–209; Keith Wrightson, “Infanticide in European History,” Criminal Justice History, III (1982), 1–20. 18 Angus McLaren, Reproductive Rituals: The Perception of Fertility in England from the Sixteenth Century to the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1984), 89–111; idem, “‘Barrenness Against Nature’: Recourse to Abortion in Pre-Industrial England,” Journal of Sex Research, XVII (1981), 227; Linda A. Pollock, “Embarking on a Rough Passage: The Experience of Pregnancy in Early-Modern Society,” in Valerie Fildes (ed.), Women as Mothers in Pre-Industrial England (New York, 1990), 54–58; John M. Riddle, Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance (Cambridge, Mass., 1992), 7–10. 19 Yves-B. Brissaud, “L’infanticide à la ªn du Moyen Age, ses motivations psychologiques et sa répression,” Revue historique de droit français et étranger, L (1972), 229–256; Merry E. 12 | RAYMOND A. MENTZER Nearly every person connected to Gauside’s pregnancy ap- pears to have spoken with the surgeon and herbalist about an abortifacient, but the consistory chastised none of them for it. Did the consistory’s relative disinterest reºect the fact that the abortion never occurred? Did the church ofªcers view abortion as an essentially female transgression, thereby treating male involvement in it more benignly? We can only speculate on what might have transpired if Gauside’s pregnancy had not led to a live birth or if she had been Protestant and thereby subject to consistorial cor- 20 rection. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/31/1/1/1703331/002219500551460.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 Other elements in this case have a familiar ring, too. Knowl- edge of abortifacients, chieºy herbal powders and potions, appears to have been no less available in southern France than in the rest of Europe. In the late fourteenth century, for example, a no- tary near recorded a recipe for an abortifacient in a collection of family remedies, and the scientiªc literature—based on ancient Greek and Roman texts—examined the pharmacology in detail. The recommended medications, in both the popular and scholarly traditions, were frequently the same as those for “restoring the menses.” The ability to stimulate menstrual ºow was important during this era; amenorrhea, often the result of poor diet or inadequate medical care, was thought to be sympto- matic of any number of physiological conditions. Thus, Gauside’s request for an emmenagogue (a menstrual regulator or menstrual stimulator) from an herbalist would not have been odd.21

Wiesner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1993), 51–52; Ms 6563, Registre du consistoire de l’Église Réformée de Pont-de-Camarès, fols. 58–58v, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal. 20 Medieval moralists invariably held women responsible for “offenses aimed at limiting births, including contraception, abortion and infanticide” (Silvana Vecchio, “The Good Wife,” in Christine Klapisch-Zuber [ed.], A History of Women. II. Silence of the Middle Ages [Cam- bridge, Mass., 1992], 122). To guard against too hasty a conclusion about what punishment Gauside might have faced, note the eighteenth-century example of two French women who “were acquitted of attempted abortion because they had used emmenagogues in good faith” (Etienne van de Walle, “Flowers and Fruits: Two Thousand Years of Menstrual Regulation,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XXVIII [1997], 197). 21 Jean-Noël Pelen, La Vallée Longue en Cévenne: vie, traditions et proverbes du temps passé (Florac, 1975), 147; Riddle, Contraception and Abortion, 16–24, 45, 51, 123; Sylvie Laurent, Naître au Moyen Age. De la conception à la naissance: la grossesse et l’accouchement (XIIe–XVe siècle) (, 1989), 147–150; van de Walle, “Flowers and Fruits,” 183–203; Joan Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science, and Culture (Cambridge, 1993), 173–174, 250. MORAL REGULATION IN PROTESTANT FRANCE | 13 crimes and punishments The Gasconne incident also high- lights the kind of support available to women during crises. By the time the consistory entered the story, Delhoste and Gauside had long since ended their association. Indeed, the likelihood of their asymmetrical relationship enduring was doubtful, especially from his perspective. The crowning achievement of his involve- ment was placing her with a couple in a nearby village for care. Gauside, however, was not without recourse. Cappellane con- sulted the herbalist for her and lent considerable help when she

became suicidal. Later, after the birth of the child, a second couple Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/31/1/1/1703331/002219500551460.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 assumed the important religious obligation of taking the newborn to Montauban for baptism. Nonetheless, the pregnant woman suffered enormously. The baby’s father left her without honor and in economic distress. He and his son-in-law, her employer, seem to have pressured her into arrangements for an abortion, probably conspiring to disavow all knowledge of it. At the very least, their actions compounded Gauside’s physical and moral distress. Revealing too was the servant woman’s own ambiguity. Did she fully intend an abortion when she asked for “some medicine because she had been unable to have her ºowers”? We must remember that sixteenth-century women did not regard cessation of menstruation as a sure sign of pregnancy. Other physiological problems that called for a medically induced resumption of men- struation may well have been present. In addition, according to learned, as well as unlearned opinion, aborting a fetus during the initial three or four months—the time prior to the “quickening”— was neither sinful nor criminal. Later, in her seventh month of pregnancy, Gauside considered taking her own life but, at her friend’s prompting, hesitated lest she destroy the “creature” that she bore.22 The substantial public interest in Gauside’s pregnancy un- doubtedly added to her personal anguish. The modern right to

22 Pollock, “Rough Passage,” 43–45; Riddle, “Contraception and Early Abortion in the Middle Ages,” in Vern L. Bullough and James A. Brundage (eds.), Handbook of Medieval Sexuality (New York, 1996), 261–277; van de Walle, “Flowers and Fruits,” 189. Wiesner, Women and Gender, 64. Other commentators argued that abortion (and even contraception) was murder. See, for example, McLaren, Reproductive Rituals, 110; John T. Noonan, “An Almost Absolute Value in History,” in idem (ed.), The Morality of Abortion: Legal and Historical Perspectives (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), 1–59; Riddle, Contraception and Abortion, 110–114. 14 | RAYMOND A. MENTZER privacy was nowhere in evidence during the sixteenth century. As further indication, the records note a man from Saint-Amans (southeast of Montauban) who summoned a half-dozen male friends to help him spy on a local woman suspected of adultery. The men observed her tryst with a farmer through a hole in the wall of a secluded barn. The voyeurs’ apparent moral obligation to monitor the misbehavior concluded only when the adulterers discovered them and ºed. The illicit amorous activity was then reported to the consistory.23

Although sexual activities, such as adultery and fornication, Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/31/1/1/1703331/002219500551460.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 frequently came to the consistory’s attention, behavior that church ofªcials would have considered outrageous or even criminal— homosexuality, incest, infanticide, and abortion—is virtually ab- sent from their discussions. Did these matters, when discovered or suspected, go directly to the criminal courts? In one unusual case, the pastor and elders of Castelmoron, a small town northwest of Montauban, suspected Pierre Pampouille of having incestuous sexual relations with his stepdaughter. Unimpressed with Pam- pouille’s denial of the charge, the consistory ofªcers directed him to the “witness of his own conscience and the judgment of God.” Although his stepdaughter had borne a child out of wedlock, Pampouille does not appear to have been the infant’s father. Nevertheless, the consistory ordered him to be censured publicly from the pulpit for his actions and excommunicated him for two years, an exceedingly long time for this sort of punishment. The consistory also seems to have alerted the civil authorities. Unfor- tunately, the outcome again eludes us.24

23 Tarn, I 8, Registre du consistoire de Saint-Amans, le 15 novembre 1599, ad. 24 Estèbe and Vogler, “La genèse d’une société protestante,” 363, 381–382; Garrisson-Estèbe, Protestants du Midi, 296–300; Mentzer, “Calvinist Reform of Morals,” 103–104. By way of comparison, Schilling’s massive statistical sampling of Calvinist ecclesiastical discipline at Emden from the mid-sixteenth through the late eighteenth century turned up only three cases of homosexuality and one case of abortion (Schilling, “Calvinism and the Making of the Modern Mind: Ecclesiastical Discipline of Public and Private Sin from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries,” in idem, Civic Calvinism in Northwestern Germany and The Nether- lands, Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries [Kirksville, 1991], 41–68). For examples of infanticide prosecution in late medieval France, see Laurent, Naître au Moyen Age, 155–164. In a study of the Essex Sessions and Assize records for the Elizabethan period, Frederick G. Emmison, Elizabethan Life: Disorder (Chelmsford, 1970), 156–157, concludes that infanticide was “woe- fully common” and that the great majority of the accused were unmarried women. For English cases of men accused of intercourse with their own daughters—as well as instances of mother–son, brother–sister, and uncle–niece liaisons (in addition to a variety of other sexual relationships forbidden by ties of consanguinity and afªnity)—see Emmison, Elizabethan Life: MORAL REGULATION IN PROTESTANT FRANCE | 15 The consistory’s attitude toward women was distinctly patri- archal. When, for example, the pastors and elders of Montauban reconciled a married couple who had separated, they instructed the woman to listen to the “voice of her husband.” Invoking timeworn scriptural imagery, the consistory members admonished the man to love and support his wife, since she was an “exceed- ingly weak vessel.”25 Yet, the consistory appears to have been less inclined to follow a double standard in punishing sexual misbehavior than

other public institutions. During the decade between 1590 and Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/31/1/1/1703331/002219500551460.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 1599, the municipal consuls of Montauban, who had jurisdiction over certain criminal offenses, condemned twenty-one women for sexual crimes—sixteen for fornication and ªve for adultery. The sixteen women convicted of fornication were generally sen- tenced to a ceremony of atonement, sometimes followed by banishment from the city for three to ªve years.26 In none of the sixteen cases did the consuls convict male partners of criminal activity. Several men simply disappeared. Jehan Abriart, for one, ºed Montauban when accused of fornica- tion with Naude Lissandre; she was prosecuted. Other men denied involvement altogether, the consuls generally taking them at their word. Daniel Fos challenged his servant woman’s testimony of sexual relations between them. In the absence of witnesses, his word prevailed over hers. The woman’s pregnancy, however, ruled against any faultlessness on her part. Delhoste likely offered a similar argument against Reyne’s allegation that he was the father of her child. She was punished for illicit sexual activity; he was not. Even the presence of corroborating testimony might have little effect in proving a man’s guilt. Two men attested to a sexual

Morals and the Church Courts (Chelmsford, 1973), 36–44. Ms 222/1, Registre des délibérations du consistoire de l’Église Réformée de Castelmoron, fols. 54v, 55v–56, 60, 62, 63v–64, 65, Bibliothèque de la Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme Français. 25 Tarn-et-Garonne, I 1, fols. 113v–114, ad. Cf. the New Testament, 1 Pet. 3: 7, “giving honor unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel.” 26 That the activities of the consistory at Montauban seem to demonstrate less patriarchy than other institutions of that era does not mean that the pastors and elders who oversaw the efforts to reform the community were free of gender bias. However, considering how consular justice and the Montauban consistory handled the same sexual offenders during the 1590s, the consistory’s treatment of men and women seems to have been more balanced. Schmidt, Dorf und Religion, even suggests an alliance between women and the Chorgericht, an institution equivalent to the consistory in the Bernese countryside. The Chorgericht often took the side of women in the attempt, for example, to end marital strife. 16 | RAYMOND A. MENTZER relationship between Gabriel Olivier and Catherine Rosselle. He denied the affair and was released, whereas she had to beg for- giveness for her sin in a formal ceremony.27 The Montauban consuls appear to have treated adultery more seriously than fornication. Adultery was more of a threat to the family. It could contaminate the bloodline and disrupt the proper transmission of scarce economic resources. Of the ªve adultery cases that came before the consuls in the 1590s, both parties received punishment on two occasions. The wife of a weaver was

publicly whipped and banished from Montauban for three years, Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/31/1/1/1703331/002219500551460.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 and her sexual partner was sent to the galleys for six years. Another pair was sentenced to ritual penitence, and the man was banished for three years.28 In other instances, the consuls were less severe on male adulterers. Lizette Borrelle, whose husband had deserted her ªve years earlier, committed adultery with a weaver. Given the un- usual circumstances, the consuls appear to have treated the offense more as fornication than adultery, sentencing her to ceremonial penance and, as in fornication cases, ignoring the weaver alto- gether. Another woman was publicly whipped for adultery and her partner seems to have avoided penalty as well. A third woman had to make amends before the consuls and suffer a year’s exile; the record makes no mention of her male partner.29 The consistory was more exacting with men accused of fornication and adultery than consular justice was. Declining, for instance, to accept Fos’ version of the relationship with his servant, the consistory excommunicated him until he fully clariªed the situation. Although the consuls condemned Jeanne Capelle for fornication (she had become pregnant) and ignored her sexual partner, the consistory summoned both of them. Despite his repeated denials, the man was suspended from participation in the Lord’s Supper until he established his innocence. Olivier, Rosselle’s sexual partner, was similarly excommunicated until he either “recognized his fault or proved his innocence.”30

27 Tarn-et-Garonne, I 1, fols. 137v, 141, 141v, 142v–143, 163, 178, 178v, 188, 312, 314, 328, 329–329v, 332v, ad. Montauban, 5 FF 2, fols. 30v–39v, am. 28 The Genevan laws of 1566 established, for instance, a graduated system of punishment: for simple fornication (several days imprisonment), adultery between a married and unmarried person (banishment generally, but for married women death), and adultery between two married people (death) (Kingdon, Adultery and Divorce, 116–117). 29 Montauban, 5 FF 2, fols. 31, 34, 36v, 39, 39v, am. 30 Tarn-et-Garonne, I 1, fols. 137v, 141, 141v, 142v–143, 163, 178, 178v, 188, ad. MORAL REGULATION IN PROTESTANT FRANCE | 17 The relationship between the consistory and municipal coun- cil suggests that Reformed pastors and elders may have been less aggressive in searching out miscreants than is often supposed. The two institutions cooperated in important but limited ways. Of the ªve cases in which women accused of fornication at Montauban appeared before both consular justice and the consistory, four initially appeared before the consuls. The cases seem to have come to the consistory’s attention by way of municipal justice. Only in Reyne’s case did the consistory ªrst discover the fault and sub-

sequently refer the “sinner” to the consuls. On at least two Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/31/1/1/1703331/002219500551460.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 occasions, the consistory explicitly instructed several of its elders to review the consular trial transcript and report on their ªndings before it summoned defendants and relevant witnesses to deter- mine the appropriate ecclesiastical punishment.31 Women often found the means to challenge suppositions about masculine domination and to mock inºated male notions of sexual prowess. A widow named de Tiers infuriated the Mon- tauban consistory with the remark that men who “are unable to have children and who do not embrace their wives six or seven times each night deserve to be impaled in the public square.” A rumor also started that she had inherited a book from her husband that “contained instruction on how to embrace women.” The accusations about her conformed to a general presumption that widows were lustful and sexually rapacious. The widow denied the sexual context of the utterance attributed to her. She had merely suggested that a young Protestant man who had married in a Catholic ceremony ought to be impaled in the public square for doing so. Nor had she heard of the book in question. The consistory, nonetheless, advised her to cease her lewd talk, to behave “as a widow should,” and to burn the book.32 The elementary and spare reconstructions of what was often well-fashioned testimony before the consistory attest to the strength and coercive power of the preindustrial community. It embarrassed, shamed, and ridiculed those who trespassed on an- nounced standards of public behavior. Although late sixteenth- century Reformed society was probably no more meddling than

31 Tarn-et-Garonne, I 1, fols. 163, 328, ad. 32 Sandra Cavallo and Simona Cerutti, “Female Honor and the Social Control of Repro- duction in Piedmont between 1600 and 1800,” in Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero (eds.), Sex and Gender in Historical Perspective (Baltimore, 1990), 79–80; Tarn-et-Garonne, I 1, fols. 230–230v, ad. 18 | RAYMOND A. MENTZER its medieval predecessor, the emerging Reformation culture— conspicuously patriarchal, increasingly literate (recall that a written note sparked the Gauside investigation), and highly laic—was able to deªne and enunciate behavioral expectations more forcefully. It also proved better organized in the pursuit of delinquents through such institutions as the consistory, creating powerful disincentives for, among other things, maternity out of wedlock and abortion.33

the scope and limitation of consistorial power The de- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/31/1/1/1703331/002219500551460.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 velopments concerning Gauside suggest that we should not over- estimate consistorial inºuence. Despite the remarkably intrusive and determined manner by which it operated, the consistory had limits on its powers. Members of the community, both collectively and individually, could hinder, and even resist, its recommenda- tions, with varying degrees of success. Even though Delhoste suffered excommunication—the most severe penalty that French pastors and elders could mete out—as well as exclusion from certain normal social and economic dealings, he did not hesitate to defy the consistory’s attempt to censure him publicly. Other principals emerged from the scandal largely unscathed. Cotines and Goby, despite minor scoldings, and Cappellane seem to have resumed their lives without much disturbance. Gauside, once the object of such intense scrutiny, eluded censure entirely as a Catholic. Moreover, although the consistory reported her and Delhoste to civil justice, this course of action apparently bore no results. Cases dealing with common sexual offenders bespeak the symbiotic relationship between the ecclesiastical and political authorities. The consistory and municipal magistrates of Mon- tauban unquestionably joined in the disciplining of sexual misbe- havior. Ecclesiastical ofªcials were granted access to criminal court records and, when appropriate, they informed city ofªcials about what seemed to them criminal offenses. Similar collaborative ef- forts appear to have existed in other Protestant towns of the region. To the east, in the southern Rhône valley, the consistory

33 Natalie Z. Davis, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and Their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France (Stanford, 1987), provides a helpful discussion of how people molded and shaped their testimony. The Reformation’s reinforcement of patriarchy is the subject of Lyndal Roper, The Holy Household: Women and Morals in Reformation Augsburg (Oxford, 1989). MORAL REGULATION IN PROTESTANT FRANCE | 19 and municipal ofªcers of Nîmes also worked together for the creation and enforcement of moral order.34 Although the Reformed churches of France failed to forge a shared political program with the central monarchy, they managed to cement harmonious alliances at the regional and local levels. Reformed ecclesiastical polity granted individual churches a sub- stantial measure of authority and autonomy, while maintaining an elaborate presbyterian-synodal organization. Pastors and elders assembled periodically in regional colloquies, as well as in provin-

cial and national synods, to institute policy, develop comprehen- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/31/1/1/1703331/002219500551460.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 sive ecclesiastical regulations, clarify dogma, and resolve disagreements. The mainstay of this arrangement, however, re- mained the local church and its locally controlled consistory. The system proved well suited to the liberties and privileges that were long associated with consular government, particularly in the Protestant strongholds of southern France. The establish- ment of Reformed churches and Huguenot political regimes re- inforced traditional mechanisms of municipal self-governance and strengthened the local elite’s control over its own affairs. The precise manner by which the two powers routinely assisted one an- other at Montauban, Nîmes, and elsewhere in the formation and furtherance of a disciplined Protestant community will undoubt- edly continue to be the subject of considerable historical research.35

This close reading of the scandal at Montauban, supplemented with other relevant material, conveys information that might elude a simple statistical study. It illuminates details about how cases came before the consistory, how church ofªcials pursued their inquiries, how authorities molded the language of consisto- rial admonition, and how individual men and women reacted when faced with consistorial investigation. Above all, the events associated with this instructive case provide a glimpse into the attitudes about sexuality, and related matters, that characterized the early modern community. This story of one woman’s plight also reveals the scope and limit of consistorial inºuence, as well as the ability of the Re- formed movement to effect change. It intimates that the institu-

34 Chareyre, “‘The Great Difªculties One Must Bear to Follow Jesus Christ’: Morality at Sixteenth-Century Nîmes,” in Mentzer (ed.), Sin and the Calvinists, 66, 76. 35 Garrisson-Estèbe, Protestants du Midi, 201–224. 20 | RAYMOND A. MENTZER tional forms and bureaucratic mechanisms for social control and paciªcation, especially in the ecclesiastical sphere, were less elabo- rate, certainly more embryonic, than sometimes supposed. Al- though the community and its local male elite—such as the lay elders of the consistory—could exert pressure on men and women to meet their moral standards, they were not always successful. They were frequently blunted; now and again, they were com- pletely ignored. The consistory’s scrutiny of Gauside’s actions and others’,

ultimately relates to the question of how much of an impact the Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jinh/article-pdf/31/1/1/1703331/002219500551460.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 Reformation had. What were the movement’s wider ramiªca- tions, and how are they to be investigated? Two issues have dominated the discussion: (1) the Reformation’s relationship to political changes occurring in early modern Europe and (2) the signiªcance of this religious change within the larger social and cultural domain. The theories purporting to explain the connections between the political and religious spheres have concentrated on the Ref- ormation’s contribution to the development of the modern state. Exploration of the French case, however, suggests another impor- tant possibility. At Montauban and Nîmes, for example, the Re- formed church and its institutions reinforced older communal forms of governance rather than the emerging centralized mon- archy. Focusing on these and similar localities reveals the manner in which municipal elites harmonized secular and religious insti- tutions, as well as enunciated and enforced public standards of behavior. The question of how, and how much, members of the community “internalized” the values associated with the reform of lifestyle points to the other major area of concern. The social and cultural shifts associated with the sixteenth- century reconceptualization of Western Christianity were exten- sive and profound. Inquiry along anthropological and sociological axes has expanded the analysis well beyond traditional historical concerns. Careful attention to the defendants and witnesses who appeared before the consistory, as well as their testimony, uncov- ered kinship allegiances; obligations of friendship; multivalent relationships between master and servant, old and young, male and female; and the prescriptive role of the Protestant church in reordering established views and routine conduct. These matters are crucial to understanding human sociability in early modern Europe and the effect of the Reformation on society as a whole.