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III. The Cardinal of Lorraine and the Colloquy of Poissy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 December 2011
Extract
Of the many sixteenth-century conferences which sought to bridge the gulf between Catholicism and those who had broken away from the Church, the Colloquy of Poissy was perhaps the most spectacularly staged. It was, however, remarkable more as a spectacle than as a serious theological discussion, and its true importance lies rather in the movement which brought it into being, and the particular aspirations, both political and religious, which were bound up in it, than in the actual tenor of the debates. Its real significance lay in this, that it represented a local attempt made by those Catholics who were opposed to the continuation of the suspended Council of Trent, to deal on their own initiative with the religious situation and to put into action their own eirenic ideas of church reform. They counselled concessions in ceremonial and discipline and the largest possible doctrinal lenience, in the hope, if not actually of effecting reunion with the Protestants, at least of removing some of the most powerful incentives to schism. The realization that the Council of Trent, if resumed, would neither favour this policy nor commend itself to Protestant support impelled them to resist the papal wishes and to call for a new council of Catholics and Protestants at which reunion should be the principal objective. These views spread wherever the growth of large bodies of heretics, organized and defying persecution, had caused serious embarrassment to the state by weakening the country's unity, imperilling the general administration, and presenting altogether a political problem that demanded urgent solution. But although to a large extent inspired by the exigencies of government the programme of the moderates was not based entirely on considerations of political expediency. The party did not lack theologians: Zasius, Gienger, Staphylus, in the Emperor's entourage, and liberal Catholics like George Cassander, were all men on whom some shreds of the mantle of Contarini and his followers may not unjustly be said to have fallen.
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References
page 133 note 1 The fullest and most up-to-date bibliography of the Council and Colloquy of Poissy is to be found in the Mélanges d' Archéologie et d'Histoire of the École française de Rome for 1921, given by J. Roserot de Melin in his article “Rome et Poissy.” There are really only three original narrative sources: that given by La Place, “Commentaires de l'estat de la religion …” (1565)—ed. Buchon, Mémoires sur l'histoire de France, vol. 1. 1836—compiled from strictly contemporary accounts; secondly the Journals of Despence, published by Ruble, de in the Mémoires de la Société de l'histoire de Paris et de l'Isle de France, vol. XVI (1889)Google Scholar; and thirdly an anonymous diary, perhaps composed by a secretary of the papal nuncio, published by Melin, J. Roserot de, “Rome et Poissy” (1921)Google Scholar, as above. The account in Beza's Histoire ecclésiastique (1580)—ed. Baum et Cunitz (3 vols. 1882)—is based not so much on the author's personal recollections as on the narrative of La Place, of which the greater part of it is an almost literal copy. For Beza's own impressions the letters in the Corpus Reformatorum: Opera Calvini, vols. xviii and xix, and in the appendices of Baum, Theodor Beza (1843–51), must be used. La Popelinière, Histoire de France (1581), and de Thou, Historia Sui Temporis, part II (1604–8), are both also based on La Place. Further indications of material are in Serbat, Les Assemblées du clergé de France (1906), and Hauser, Les Sources de l'histoire de France, part II, vol. III, pp. 177–9. Klipfel's Le Colloque de Poissy (1867) is now very much out of date. The Colloquy itself formed properly speaking no more than one incident, or series of incidents, in the proceedings of a national council of the Gallican Church, the whole of which is very often referred to somewhat loosely as the “Colloquy of Poissy.” Bad examples of the results of this misnomer are to be seen in Thompson, , The Wars of Religion in France, Chicago (1909), p. 110Google Scholar, and Rocquain, Félix, Rome et France pendant les guerres de Religion (1924), p. 19Google Scholar, neither of whom appears to realize that there was any Council apart from the Conferences with the Reformed ministers.
page 134 note 1 See the very interesting and stimulating second chapter of Constant's, G. Concession à l'Allemagne de la Communion sous les deux espèces, Paris, 2 vols. (1923)Google Scholar, fascicule 128 of the Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d'Athèces et de Rome, especially pp. 77–164, “Les idées ireniques dans l'Église Catholique au XVIe siècle—le parti modéré a ses théologiens.”
page 134 note 2 Francois Hotman, Epistre au Tigre de France, written in 1560, published by M. Charles Read, 1875; Regnier de la Planche, Histoire de France…sous François II (1569). The latter work, long regarded as the chief original contemporary source for the reign of Francis II, appears to have been completely demolished as such by Romier, M. Lucien, Le Conjuration d'Amboise (1923).Google Scholar
page 136 note 1 See Sickel, , Zur Geschichte des Konzils von Trient, Vienna (1870–1872), p. 116Google Scholar; Paris, L., Négotiations, Lettres, etc. relatives de François II, Paris (1861), p. 535Google Scholar; Ehses, , Concilium Tridentinum, Nova Collectio (Gorresgesellschaft), VIII (1919), 65Google Scholar; cp. the Cardinal's justification of his policy to the Sacred College, Bibliothèque Nationale, MSS. Dupuy 309, ff. 37 sqq. (copy). The first writer to realize that the French antipapal conciliar policy of 1560 must be due more to Lorraine than to the Queen-Mother was perhaps Dembinsky, in his memoir O stosunku Francyi do stolicy Apostolskiej za panawania Franciszka II, afterwards incorporated in his Ryzm i Europa przed rospoczeciem trzeciego okresu soboru Trydenckeigo, Cracow, 1890 (French analyses may be seen in the Bulletin International de l'Académie des Sciences de Cracovie, 1890, pp. 46–50 and 235–51). See also, however, Philippson, , La contre-Révolution religieuse (1884), pp. 515–16Google Scholar; and Voss, , Die Verhandlungen Pius IV mit den Katholischen Machten …im Jahre 1560, Leipzig, 1887, pp. 52–3Google Scholar. It is easy to exaggerate the independent influence possessed either by Catherine or by the chancellor l'Hôpital while Francis II lived.
page 136 note 2 St Charles Borromeo to Gualtieri, the papal nuncio in France, January 10, 1561, Cambridge University Library, Add. MSS. 4823 (Acton Transcripts; originals in the Biblioteca Nazionale of Naples); Letters of Gualtieri to St Charles, extracts in Ehses, Concilium Tridentinum, viii. 139, n. 5; Layard, , Venetian Dispatches (1891), p. 14Google Scholar; Venetian Calendar, 1558–80, p. 288. The Pope in his resentment went so far as to declare the Cardinal heretical; see Döllinger, Beiträge zur politischen kirchlichen und Culturgeschichte, III. 349; and many of the strict Catholics accused him of Lutheran views, Hubert Languet, Arcana Saeculi XVI (1699), ii. xliv.
page 136 note 3 Romier, , Catholiques et Huguenots à la Cour de Charles IX (1924), pp. 164Google Scholar sqq.
page 137 note 1 See Kluckhohn, , Briefe Friedrich des Frommen (Brunswick, 1866)Google Scholar; Delaborde, Les Protestants à St Germain (1874); Correspondence of Duke Christopher and others in Stuttgart (Staatsarchiv). Christopher's published correspondence (ed. V. Ernst, 4 vols. Stuttgart, 1899–1907) does not go beyond 1559.
page 137 note 2 Romier, op. cit. p. 205 (notes). Cp. Šusta, , Die Römische Curie und das Condi von Trient unter Pius IV (Vienna, 4 vols. 1904–1914), 1. 242.Google Scholar
page 138 note 1 Foreign Calendar, 1559–1560, No. 777 (8). Chantonnay's correspondence cited by Voss, op. cit. p. 39, n. 76.
page 138 note 2 Alvarotti to the D. of Ferrara, April 8th, Modena, Archivio di Stato, Dispacci della Francia.
page 138 note 3 See e.g. the instructions given to the Abbé Manne, June 1560; in Ehses, op. cit. pp. 35–8.
page 139 note 1 This is shown unmistakably by the whole diplomatic correspondence of 1560 over the General Council. See especially the proposals of the Bishop of Rennes, French ambassador in Vienna, in Steinherz, Nuntiaturberichte aus Deutschland, Abt. II. Bd. I (Vienna 1897), pp. 89, 90–1.
page 139 note 2 Crevier, , Histoire de l'Université de Paris (1761), v. 406–7Google Scholar; vi. 105. Cp. Šusta, op. cit. III. 369.
page 139 note 3 Cp. the remarks of Romier, op. cit. pp. 147–8, 194–5.
page 139 note 4 Foreign Calendar, 1561–2, Nos. 265 (4), 269 (1). Languet, op. cit. II. xliv; Heidenhain, , Unionspolitik Phillipp von Hesse (1890), pp. 319–24Google Scholar, Stuttgart. Staatsarchiv, Frankreich, büschel 17, No. 79 b (Zeitung aus Frankreich). But Dom Marlot, Hist. Metrop. Remensis (1666), ii. 812, says that at Rheims the Cardinal drew up a Confession of Faith in which Lutherans, Calvinists and Zwinglians were all condemned by name: and Throckmorton mentions a Catechism “in which he has maimed, transposed and multiplied the commandments,” but adds that it was made “under another title”—Foreign Calendar, 1561–2, No. 218.
page 140 note 1 Corpus Reformatorum: Opera Calvini, xviii. 643 (Morel to Calvin, August 25, 1561).
page 140 note 2 British Museum, Add. MSS. 35830, f. 140.
page 140 note 3 Foreign Calendar, 1569–71, No. 1813. Correspondence of Archbishop Parker (Parker Society), letter of September 16, 1572. Cp. the late Father Pollen, S.J., in The Month, September 1902.
page 140 note 4 Šusta, op. cit. 1. 140; Layard, op. cit. p. 31. Cp. Davila, Histoire des Guerres Civiles (trans. Baudoin, 1644), 11. 90; and Romier, op. cit. pp. 153–7.
page 140 note 5 Francis of Guise to Frederick Elector Palatine, July 2, 1561, in Kluckhohn, op. cit. p. 187. Same to Christopher Duke of Würtemberg of same date, in the Bulletin de la Société du Protestantisme français, t. xxiv. 71. Cp. Kugler, , Christoph Herzog zu Wirtemberg (Stuttgart, 1868)Google Scholar, II. 295; and Pfister, , Herzog Christoph zu Wirtemberg (Tübingen, 1819), p. 399.Google Scholar
page 141 note 1 I have seen three copies in Stuttgart. Staatsarchiv, Frankreich, büschel 17, Nos. 92 b (in Latin), 105 b (in French) and 105 c (in German). On the front page of the Latin is written: “Rathsclag in Religionssachen vom Cardinal von Lottringen gestellt”; on that of the French, “Verzeichnis aines Rathsclags in französischer sprach so der Cardinal von Lottrigen der vorhabenden National Synodi oder Colloquium halber, welches in frankreich den 20 Julii angesetzt selbst gestelt haben solle”; and on that of the German, “Verzeichnis aines Rathsclags, so der Cardinal von Lottringen der vorhabenden National Sinodi oder Colloquium halber in Frankreich selbst gestelt und in Königl. Rathe offentlich zu verlesen uberantwort haben solle.” In a catalogue of some Stuttgart papers published in the Bulletin de la Socété de l'histoire du Protestantisme français, t. xxii. 312, nos. 92 b and 105 b were cited, but with descriptions which showed that the cataloguer had scarcely made himself acquainted with their contents, not yet realized that 105 c was a German version of 105 b. The translations do not follow word for word at all points, but the sense is always kept.
page 141 note 2 The Latin text has “certum est sententiarum opus esse collatione…,” and, again, “…[quam rationem] disputationis nos collationem vocamus.” In this second place the French version runs “…nous appelons un conférence.”
page 141 note 3 Ecclesiastical History, cap. xxiv (lib. 7)—the conversion of Coracio and his followers.
page 142 note 1 Though in the previous April Lorraine had written to Cardinal Morone expressing his desire to see the Council called by the Pope under weigh, and his intention of being present with his suffragans, at the same time repelling as calumnious the rumours that he had worked against it (see Ehses, op. cit. pp. 186–8), yet it is plain that he still remained opposed in principle to the continuation of the former Council of Trent.
page 142 note 2 The French had not recognized the oecumenicity of the former sessions at Trent.
page 142 note 3 This view can hardly be called either Gallican or Protestant. Most Protestants recognized the oecumenicity of the first four General Councils, and Gallicans were of course accustomed to rely strongly on Constance and Bâle. The Cardinal claims that the first Council of Constantinople can only be called General for the East. On similar reasoning Nicea, where there were not more than five Latins, could also be so described.
page 142 note 4 “tractare de causis religionis”—specifically matters of Doctrine, presumably.
page 142 note 5 The Cardinal cannot have been unaware of the arrangements actually in course of being made by Catherine to bring a selected body of Calvinist divines to the National Council.
page 144 note 1 On Cassander see his Omnia Opera (Paris, 1616); Fritzen, De Cassandri ejusque sociorum studiis eirenicis (1865); Birck, , Georg Cassanders Ideen über die Wiedervereinigung der christlichen Confessionen in Deutschland (Köln, 1876)Google Scholar. On Baudouin see Heveling, De Francisco Balduino (1871); Wicquot, “François Baudouin” in the Mémoires de la Société Royale d'Arras, 2e série, t. xx and xxi.
page 145 note 1 Cassandri Omnia Opera, pp. 1161–2; Baudouin, Responsio altera ad Joannem Calvinum (Cologne, 1562), p. 54; Heveling, pp. 23 sqq.
page 145 note 2 Heveling, loc. cit. Cp. Cassandri Omnia Opera, p. 1163; Burmanni Sylloges, II. pp. 241 and 259; de Thou, Historia Sui Temporis (London, 1733), 11.124Google Scholar; Doumergue, Calvin, II (under “Baudouin”).
page 145 note 3 Kluckholn, op. cit. pp. 187, 188, 190–2. Cp. Kugler, op. cit. 11. 295–6.
page 145 note 4 Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire du Protestantisme français, xxii. 73. Cp. Kugler, op. cit. pp. 294, 296.
page 145 note 5 Christopher to the King of France, Metzingen, August 1; Christopher to the Count Palatine, Pfullingen, August 6 (Stuttgart. Staatsarchiv, Frankreich, büschel 17, Nos. 92 a and 96).
page 146 note 1 Opera Calvini, xviii. 630–1, 643, 646 (Beza, Morel and Merlin to Calvin, August 25); Beza, Hist. eccl. (ed. Baum et Cunitz), 1. 545–52; La Place (ed. Buchon), pp. 155–7; Susta, op. cit. 1. 241–2.
page 146 note 2 Diary (ed, Roserot de Melin, as above), p. 109.
page 146 note 3 Ibid. pp. 120–1.
page 147 note 1 Besides the published text there are accounts in La Place, Beza, and the Anonymous Diary. It is interesting to notice that there is a copy among the Parker MSS. in Corpus Christi College Library, Cambridge (see Nasmith's Catalogue, 1777, p. 397).
page 147 note 2 See Romier, op. cit. p. 219. Four days previously the Cardinal had written to his friend the Bishop of Verdun of his efforts to preserve religion “en son entier” (Petite Bibliothèque Verdunoise, 11. 130).
page 147 note 3 The Cardinal also put forward a rather liberal definition of “The Church.” Cp. Foreign Calendar, 1561–2, nos. 510–11.
page 147 note 4 MSS. references cited by Klipfel, Le Colloque de Poissy, p. 98.
page 147 note 5 Languet, op. cit. II. lvi.
page 147 note 6 Beza to Calvin, September 17 (Opera Calvini, xviii. 722); des Gallars in the Foreign Calendar, 1561–2, no. 507. Cp. Layard, op. cit. pp. 49, 50.
page 147 note 7 Diary (ed. Roserot de Melin, as above), pp. 124–5.
page 148 note 1 Beza, Histoire ecclésiastique (ed. Baum et Cunitz), I. 620 sqq.; La Place, Commentaires… (ed. Buchon), pp. 179 sqq.; Journal of Despence (ed. de Ruble, as above), pp. 36–7; Anonymous Diary (ed. Roserot de Melin, as above), pp. 125 sqq.; Polanco's account in his letter to Salmeron, September 27 (Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu, Lainii Monumenta, VI. 54 sqq.); Peter Martyn to Bullinger, October 2 (Opera Calvini, xix. 6–8); Beza to Calvin, September 27 (ibid. xviii. 740). There is no room here to discuss the identification of all these formulae. Lorraine claimed that they were those lately sent him by Christopher of Würtemburg (see above, p. 144), but Heidenhain (Unionspolitik…, p. 363) appears to have disproved this, and contended that the Cardinal himself must have composed them. From the account in the Anonymous Diary it might be argued that one formula came from a protest against Calvinistic tendencies in Lutheranism drawn up by a meeting of “High-Church” Saxons at Luneburg some weeks previously. See, for this, Calinich, Die Naumberger Fürstentag, pp. 259–63.
page 148 note 2 Diary, p. 133. This diary shows unmistakably, in several places, the rift between Lorraine and the bishops on the question of the Colloquies.
page 148 note 3 It has often been supposed that either the Papal Legate, the Cardinal of Ferrara, or the nuncio Gualtieri, suggested this course in order to break up the Colloquies. It is certain, however, that the smaller reunions were advocated by Lorraine (Charles IX to the Bishop of Limoges, October 25, 1562, Bibliothèque Nationale, Nouvelles acquisitions françaises 20597, f. 120)—and they certainly gave greater scope for real argument. The nuncio, too, testifies that the continuation of the debates was due to Lorraine, when for a moment the Queen-Mother would have dropped the question of the Sacrament (Gualtieri to St Charles Borromeo, September 29, Modena, Archivio di Stato, Roma, 110).
page 149 note 1 Ed. Baum et Cunitz, I. 678. Beza's letters, however, are silent on this point.
page 149 note 2 Baum, Theodor Beza, p. 84 (appendices).
page 149 note 3 Op. cit. II. lvii.
page 149 note 4 Diary, pp. 144 sqq. For the Protestants, Lorraine's sudden volte-face—inevitable under the circumstances—was but one more proof of his duplicity. Cp. Languet, op. cit. II. lvii, who believed him to be in secret accord with the bishops, an opinion which the Diary now renders untenable.
page 149 note 5 His own explanation to the Catholics was that he hoped thereby to persuade the Calvinists of the truth of the Real Presence, and ultimately of Transubstantiation (Anonymous Diary, p. 135).
page 150 note 1 Delaborde, Les Protestants à St Germain (1874). In spite of this book it is still frequently asserted that the Cardinal was responsible for the arrival of these Lutherans —as Beza and La Place thought—and that he tried to make some profit out of their presence. Actually he left the Court the day they arrived. Baudouin returned from Germany with them and brought an eirenic tract of Cassander's with him.
page 150 note 2 The letter to Vielleville given by Beza, Hist. eccl. (ed. Baum et Cunitz), 1. 586–7, is the only evidence for this. Its authenticity, questioned by Soldan, Geschichte des Protestantismus, 1. 531–4, was upheld by Heidenhain, Unionspolitik, pp. 368–9. Delaborde admitted that nothing was known of its results. Cp. the Duke of Würtemburg's offer in his letter to the Duke of Guise (Bull. Soc. Hist. Prot. Franc. xxii. 73).