(Sourced from Geoffrey Treasure: ‘The Huguenots’ (2013))
It's a common phrase in politics today: 'country X is a country of immigrants'. This type of phrase has been a mainstay in New World politics for a while, but it seems to have blown over to Europe as well. It is sometimes used as a wat of justifying current mass migration to the West, in both legal and illegal forms. It tries to view current events as part of a historical trend, however lopsided it may be. The best lies, however, often contain a kernel of truth.
I've already written this article for a Dutch audience (in Dutch), which takes a look at one of the historical groups that came en masse to the Netherlands late in the 17th century. This group was the Huguenots, basically French Protestants who fled Catholic France due to religious repression. There are some questions I'll try to answer in a not-too-longwinded fashion in this series of articles: how did Protestantism came to be in France? How did they fare in a Catholic kingdom? How did it come to an end, and can their influence still be seen?
To answer these questions, I used two books as a guide: one is by Geoffrey Treasure: 'The Huguenots', the other is 'Reformation: Europe's House Divided' by Diarmaid MacCulloch. To get to the start of the Huguenots as a group, we have to touch on the Reformation, so that is what we will do.
Luther and the start of the Reformation
The 31st of October 1517 was, is and remains a very important day in European history. It is the date on which a young monk, Martin Luther, nails his 95 theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg. A great visual -which probably is untrue- which accentuates Luther's outer frustration with the Catholic Church of the early 16th century. Luther, in first instance, wanted the Reformation to remain in churchly circles: he wrote letters in Latin to other clergy about specific doctrinal practices. The sale of indulgences, an enormously profitable affair for the Church, had no Biblical foundation, and Luther railed against it with all his theological and rhetorical might.
However, his writings to clergy in Latin did not bear any fruit. But his preaching to congregations -in German- DID succeed in accelerating a big debate. The Protestant Reformation, as it would become known from the early 1520s onwards, would become centered around more theological issues than just the sale of indulgences, however. In the end, it questioned many Catholic practice, including and up to the authority of the Pope himself over worldwide Church affairs. Luther's ideas would revertebrate throughout the Holy Roman Empire, and Lutheranism would become a known phenomenon in these lands until current times.
Calvin
Protestantism in France would not see Martin Luther as the most influential Reformer, however. Protestantism in France would deviate even further than German Lutheranism in creed and practice from the Catholics. The Huguenots would chiefly be influenced and inspired by the works, words and writings of John Calvin (title picture). Calvin, born in Noyon (Picardy, northern France) in 1509, would be just a child when Luther started the Reformation in 1517. He was, literally and figuratively, the next generation of Protestant Reformers.
Not that many details are known about Calvin's early life. Historians also do not know if Calvin had a specific 'Eureka-moment' when it came to turning away from Catholicism, or if it was a steady process. Historians suspect that Calvin's contacts at universities played a role (for example at the Sorbonne in Paris), and also the troubles his family members had with the Catholic Church (his father died excommunicated) must have played a part in putting him on his own path. In the end, he did not became an ordained priest at Noyon, as many there had expected.
He left for Basel (Switzerland) in 1536, which was considered one of the main centers of the Protestant Reformation at the time. A smart choice, considering that openly practicing Protestantism could have you end up burning on the stake in France. French king Francois I (reign 1515-1547) had seen how Protestant ideas had wrecked the internal stability of the Holy Roman Empire (though he supported Protestant rulers there), and wanted to prevent this kind of affairs in his own country. This put him in an uncomfortable position, however: his German Protestant allies were not pleased with his domestic repression of Protestantism, which made him somewhat of a hypocrite.
Francois I had a solution at hand, though: he accused Protestants in France of being Anabaptists. Anabaptists were a specific offshoot of Protestantism which had gotten a bad name in German lands due to revolts in Germany (the German farmer's wars of 1525, a very interesting subject itself). This was not even close to being true, however, and it pushed Calvin to write an early edition of his magnum opus, the 'Institutes'. First published and translated in French in 1541, it made a significant contribution to French as a written language. It also became a staple of inspirations for the Huguenots, along with the French translation of the Bible which had come to France a few years earlier.
Geneva as blueprint
Where Luther dealt with several subjects in his written materials, there was an issue which remained unexplored in his works: what structure should a Protestant Church and a Protestant community have? Calvin was almost obsessed with these issues, which was for a large part due to the fact that he had to deal with these issues on an everyday basis. In 1541 Calvin settled in Geneva, and would remain here for the rest of his life. He had been here before, but had to leave due to animosity from its government. In 1541, this had changed again, and he and his ideas were welcomed back with open arms. In his few years of 'exile', Calvin stayed in Strasbourg, and preached to the French community there.
Geneva, a city-state at the start of the 16th century, was a politically unstable place, both domestically as from the outside. Several powers wanted to pull it into their sphere: there was France, the Duchy of Savoy, and Switzerland. In the end, Geneva ended up as a French-speaking outpost of the Swiss, resisting both French and Savoyard pressures. It also had a decision to make when it came to religion: it chose for the Reformation, same as many Swiss cities.
It became the city where Calvin would write, preach and try to form his way of Christianity in the 23 years up until his death in 1564. In these years, he would refine and add to his Institutes, of which the final version would be published in 1559. He would preach his version of the Reformation, which quickly became known as Calvinism up to this day, and he would found a Church in the way he deemed most effective, and true to Biblical prescriptions. Modern Calvinists in Europe and America might recognize a large part of the structure and terminoligy he used almost 500 years ago:
-Ministers would preach the Word of God, and celebrate the two sacraments: baptism and the Lord's Supper
-Doctors would be in charge of keeping the true doctrine, and to teach in the Biblical languages (Greek, Latin and Hebrew)
-Lay elders would be in charge of running the parishes in its day-to-day affairs
-Deacons would look after the welfare of its parishioners
Except for the role of doctor, to which Calvin himself belonged, these roles all function roughly the same way in 21st century Reformed churches. Geneva also had the Consistory, in which 12 elders and 6 ministers 'ruled' the Church, and appointed new ministers.
This whole structural framework would significantly influence the Huguenots in France, though it was harde there to implement it in a similar fashion. Geneva was a city-state, pretty contained, while France is a sprawling country, with many cities and a big countryside. This church-structure formed an organism that did not need any input from external secular powers like kings or magistrates. This was something that the French king would learn, and fear, in due time. This structure, on the contrary, was able to significantly influence the daily lives and affairs of its parishioners.
Conclusion of part 1
Historians debate up to this day whether Calvin's 16th century Geneva could be considered a theocracy. Calvin's power over the city, both as a Churchman and as a form of mayor, was immense. Many things would prove possible in Geneva, a city-state, that were hard to replicate for the Huguenots in France. On the other hand, Geneva (French-speaking, but not under French rule and jurisdiction) would prove an almost perfect staging point for Calvin to spread his form of the Reformation in France. How the Huguenots came to be and how they fared in the 16th and 17th centuries will be the subject of the next part in this series. Until the next one,
-Pieter