Joan Davies

Persecution and Protestantism: Toulouse 1562-1575

Who became protestant in sixteenth-century France? This question has long exercised historians. A contemporary, La Popeliniere, himself a huguenot, pointed to the varied attractions of the reformation for the politically ambitious and for the socially and economically underprivileged. Moving on to the beginning of this century, Henri Hauser postulated a protestantism dominated by artisans and the lower urban classes, although he later emphasised the appeal of the new religion to all social groups, a point of view endorsed by Lucien Romier and E. G. Leonard. Despite the political and military significance of the adherence of both some high court nobles and lesser rural hobereaux , it is nevertheless clear that Calvinism was predominantly and intentionally an urban phenomenon; Genevan missionaries were directed primarily to the cities and towns, though there were some notable exceptions such as the Cevennes area in southern France. It is, however, possible to advance from these rather cautious generalizations and to ask whether the social and economic profile of those who converted to Calvinism reflects that of the French people as a whole or whether there is some special relationship between status and religion, and whether there is any regional differentiation. Some of the answers, which in the current state of research must remain tentative, may be drawn from lists of huguenots drawn up by judicial and municipal authorities in the course of the civil wars. These lists provide, as Jean Delumeau has recently pointed out, a marvellous introduction to the sociology of French protestantism and indeed, one of the few ways of approaching the issue. Very few registers of the etat-civil of protestant churches survive from the sixteenth century and those that do often fail to note occupational status. Lists of refugees in Geneva and elsewhere offer some evidence from a protestant point of view, but are distorted by a number of factors and may be unreliable in respect of geographical distribution and occupations.

The Montmorencys and the Abbey of Sainte Trinité, Caen: Politics, Profit and Reform

Female religious, especially holders of benefices, made significant contributions to aristocratic family strategy and fortune in early modern France. This study of members of the wider Montmorency family in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries demonstrates the financial and political benefits derived from female benefice holding. Abbey stewards and surintendants of aristocratic households collaborated in the administration of religious revenues. Montmorency control of Sainte Trinite, the Abbaye aux Dames, Caen, for over a century was associated with attempts to assert political influence in Normandy. Conflict ostensibly over religious reform could have a political dimension. Yet reform could be pursued vigorously by those originally cloistered for mercenary or political reasons.