Huguenot Prophetism, Clerical Authority, and the Disenchantment of the World, 1685-1710 by Jason Charbonneau A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario ©2012 Jason Charbonneau Library and Archives Bibliotheque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du 1+1Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-93582-8 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-93582-8 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distrbute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. Canada Abstract The sudden emergence of prophetism in the Huguenot community following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 spurred a reassessment of the role of inspired prophecy in the administration of the French Reformed Church. Insofar as they claimed direct inspiration from God, the Huguenot prophets - many of whom were as young as 8 years old - superseded the authority of the regular clergy and threatened to break the Church's monopoly on the interpretation of divine will. This prompted a reaction from Calvinist clerics who sought to delegitimize the act of prophetism in the modem era by opposing it to the principles of rationalist thought and mechanistic philosophy. This thesis argues that the polemical exchanges between inspired prophets and regular churchmen acted as catalysts for the adoption of Enlightenment thought in the Calvinist community, contributing to the disenchantment of Huguenot religious culture in the eighteenth century. Acknowledgements My work in writing and researching this MA Thesis owes a great deal to the generosity of a number of individuals. First, I would like to thank my professor and supervisor, Paul Nelles, for all his work in seeing this Thesis come to fruition. His intellectual and editorial guidance, as well as his personal friendship, were indispensable in all stages of writing and research. I would also like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Their generous financial support allowed me to spend the summer of 2011 conducting research amongst a community of reformation scholars at the Institut d'histoire de la Reformation (IHR) in Geneva. My time here, and particularly my participation in the IHR's cours d'6t6, was vital to the outcome of my research. My stay at the IHR would also not have been possible without the generous support of Professor Philip Benedict, who graciously agreed to supervise my research on incredibly short notice. Special thanks go also to Professors Irena Backus and Maria-Cristina Pitassi, whose ardent investment in the cours d'6t6 invigorated my research interests. Special thanks must also go to the students who shared with me the formative experience of participating in the cours d'6t6 .1 am particularly indebted to the help of Dr. Lionel Laborie, whose unparalleled knowledge of the Huguenot prophets and the Camisard rebels proved an invaluable resource. I would also like to thank my good friend Casey Carmichael, with whom I shared many stimulating discussions after long days of research at the Bibliotheque de Geneve. I am indebted to everyone in the Department of History at Carleton University for offering a stimulating atmosphere in which to study. Special thanks go to Joan White, graduate secretary, and to Professors David Dean, Rod Phillips, Jen Evans, Roy Laird, and Dominique Marshall, whose work in organizing the graduate seminars provided me with the proper historical skillset with which to complete this Thesis. I am also greatly indebted to the support and supervision of Professor Johannes Wolfart of the Department of Classics and Religion. Our research interests have greatly departed since I first took his class some five years ago, but his influence, particularly in questions of theory and method, is detectable at every turn in my writing and research. Finally, I would like to thank all my friends and family members who have supported me in my studies. All were very understanding when scholarly duties compelled me to make sacrifices in my social life, or when I derailed otherwise light-hearted discussions by broaching the subjects of Huguenot prophetism and peasant revolt. Thanks go especially to my colleagues in the Masters program, and to Nikolina Vujosevic, who has offered a tremendous amount of emotional support in the most stressful periods of the writing process. I am greatly indebted to you all. Table o f Contents Abstract............................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgements .........................................................................................................iii Table of Contents............................................................................................................. v Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One, "The Harmony of Prophecies": Jacques Massard and Millenarian Prophecy in the Huguenot Community, 1685-1693 ................................................... 21 Chapter Two, Reason, Religion, and Revelation: Pierre Jurieu and the petits prophetes .........................................................................................................................59 Chapter Three, "The Way of Trying Prophets": Prophecy and Cessationism in Eighteenth-Century London ..........................................................................................93 Conclusion .....................................................................................................................131 Bibliography.................................................................................................................. 143 1 Introduction When a 15-year-old Huguenot shepherdess from the rural fringes of the province of Dauphine claimed possession by the Holy Spirit in February 1688, she triggered a crisis within the French Reformed Church. Isabeau Vincent painted the persecution of her coreligionists at the hands of the Catholic clergy in an apocalyptic light, and spoke of the True Church's imminent deliverance.1 Citing Joel's prophecy, she promised that many more inspired prophets ( inspires) would come in her wake. Hundreds of men, women and children, some as young as eight years old, would receive the gift of prophecy in the following months and would seek to prepare their coreligionists for an apocalyptic battle with the Catholic Church.2 While this presented a delicate liability for the international Calvinist community, exercising control over the peasant prophets was not an option. Louis XIV's decision to revoke the Edict of Nantes in 1685 had dismantled all institutional structures in the Huguenot Church and sent the clergy into exile.3 No one could prevent the ministry of the inspires from turning violent at the beginning of the eighteenth century when a second wave of prophets, assured of divine approval, commanded the murder of a Catholic abbe. The act sparked the bloody Camisard Rebellion (1702-1710) that ravaged the Protestant communities of the Cevennes mountains.4 Reports of deluded "fanatics" inciting disorder in the French countryside circulated 1 Henri Plard, "L'apocalypse des camisards," in Problemes de I'Histoire du Christianisme 8 (1979): esp. 57-9. 2 A Relation o f Several Hundreds of Children and Others that Prophesie and Preach in their Sleep (London: Printed for Richard Baldwin, next Door to the Black Bull in the Old Bayly, 1689), esp. 2; Garrett, Spirit Possession and Popular Religion: From the Camisards to the Shakers (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), 19-28. 3 Elisabeth Labrousse, "Calvinism in France, 1598-1685," in International Calvinism, 1541-1715, ed. Menna Prestwich (Oxford: Oxford University