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The Colloquy of Poissy, François Baudouin and English Protestant Identity, 1561–1563

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2014

ALEXANDER RUSSELL
ALEXANDER RUSSELL*
Affiliation:
Centre for the Study of the Renaissance, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL; e-mail: alexander.russell@warwick.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article examines English attitudes towards a moderate solution to the confessional struggles in France in the 1560s. It uses the activities of the scholar and advocate of concord, François Baudouin, as a point of focus, demonstrates, for the first time, the full extent of his English connection, and shows that he proposed to use English Protestant worship as the basis for negotiations between Catholics and Huguenots in France. The article advances our understanding of England's place within the international Reformed movement, and sheds further light on the difficulties of achieving religious compromise in this period.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 65 , Issue 3 , July 2014 , pp. 551 - 579
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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References

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2 This distrust has been shared by many historians: Wanegffelen, T., Ni Rome ni Genève: des fidèles entre deux chaires en France au XVIe siècle, Paris 1997, 149–52Google Scholar; S. Carroll, ‘The compromise of Charles Cardinal de Lorraine: new evidence’, this Journal liv (2003), 469–83 at pp. 469–70.

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4 Wanegffelen, Ni Rome ni Genève, esp. pp. 99–208; Carroll, ‘Cardinal de Lorraine’, 480–3.

5 The enormous difficulties which confronted the moderates at Poissy have been rightly stressed in Tallon, A., La France et Le Concile de Trente, 1518–1563, Rome 1997, 301–15Google Scholar.

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12 N. M. Sutherland, ‘Catherine de Medici and the ancien régime’, in her Princes, politics, 37.

13 See, for example, CSP foreign, 1560–1561, no. 549.

14 CSP foreign, 1561–1562, nos 113, 182.

15 Ibid. no. 194.

16 Ibid. no. 399.

17 Catherine's distrust of the Guises is revealed in a letter to her daughter, de France, Elisabeth: Négociations, lettres et pièces diverses relatives au règne de François II, ed. Paris, L., Paris 1841, 12–17Google Scholar; Durot, ‘Crépuscule de l'Auld Alliance’, 40.

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26 For Calvin's distrust of moderates such as Baudouin, and his distortion of their role at Poissy see Turchetti, M., ‘Une Question mal posée: la Confessio d'Augsbourg, le cardinal de Lorraine et les moyenneurs au Colloque de Poissy en 1561’, Zwingliana xx (1993), 71–5Google Scholar.

27 SP 70/27, fo. 64r; CSP foreign, 1561–1562, no. 269.

28 Evennett, The Cardinal of Lorraine, appendix vii.

29 CSP foreign, 1560–1561, nos 826, 970, 997.

30 SP 70/26 fo. 61; CSP foreign, 1561–1562, no. 187.

31 CSP foreign, 1560–1561, no. 898.

32 Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente, 288, 293–300.

33 Even after the failure of Poissy, Catherine wished to see Trent transferred to another location, where papal control over the council would be diminished and the Lutherans would be present: ibid. 319–28.

34 Horie, H., ‘The Lutheran influence on the Elizabethan Settlement, 1558–1563’, HJ xxxiv (1991), 524–5Google Scholar.

35 See Adams, S. and Gehring, D. S. (eds), ‘Elizabeth i's former tutor reports on the parliament of 1559: Johannes Spithovius to the the Chancellor of Denmark, 27 February 1559’, EHR cxxviii (2013), 35–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I am grateful to the authors for allowing me to read an unpublished draft of this article.

36 CSP foreign, 1561–1562, no. 182.

37 MacCulloch, D., ‘Putting the English Reformation on the map’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6th ser. xv (2005)Google Scholar, 88.

38 Horie, ‘Lutheran influence’, 534.

39 Zurich letters, ed. H. Robinson, Cambridge 1842–5, ii. 48. For the original Latin see p. 29 in the second half of the book.

40 Pettegree, ‘Marian exiles’, 134.

41 For an exploration of the varieties of moderation in England at this time see Shagan, E., ‘The battle for indifference in Elizabethan England’, in Racaut, L. and Ryrie, A. (eds), Moderate voices in the European Reformation, Aldershot 2005, 122–44Google Scholar.

42 Pettegree, A., Foreign Protestant communities in sixteenth-century London, Oxford 1986Google Scholar, 243.

43 I have slightly adapted the translation given in The remains of Edmund Grindal, ed. W. Nicholson, Cambridge 1843, 250–1.

44 Patrick Collinson describes how Grindal debated such matters amicably with a representative of the duke of Württemberg. Grindal held Luther in high esteem, and felt that the Lutheran leaders had occasionally misinterpreted their master's writings: Archbishop Grindal, 1519–1583: the struggle for a Reformed Church, London 1979, 70.

45 Indeed, Diarmaid MacCulloch has argued that the history of the Elizabethan Church can be told in terms of the divided loyalties to Zürich, on one hand, and Geneva on the other: ‘The latitude of the Church of England’, in K. Fincham and P. Lake (eds), Religious politics in post-Reformation England: essays in honour of Nicholas Tyacke, Woodbridge 2006, 41–59.

46 Zurich letters, ii. 38–47.

47 See, for example, Peter Martyr's view that the display of the crucifix on the communion table was absolutely forbidden: ibid. ii. 48.

48 On Cassander's attempts to reconstruct the usage of the early Church see Backus, I., ‘The early Church as a model of religious unity in the sixteenth century: Georg Cassander and Georg Witzel’, in Louthan, H. P. and Zachman, R. C. (eds), Conciliation and confession: the struggle for unity in the age of reform, 1415–1648, Notre Dame 2004, 106–33Google Scholar.

49 Evennett, Cardinal of Lorraine, 215–26; Nugent, Ecumenism, 38–67.

50 See, for example, Zurich letters, ii. 83.

51 Thierry Wanegfellen describes how Baudouin has been demonised in Protestant historiography: Ni Rome ni Genève, 103–5.

52 Turchetti, M., Concordia o tolleranza? François Bauduin (1520–1573) e i ‘moyenneurs’, Geneva 1984, 332–90Google Scholar.

53 As well as Turchetti's account see Erbe, M., François Bauduin (1520–1573): Biographie eines Humanisten, Gütersloh 1978Google Scholar.

54 Kelley, D., Foundations of modern historical scholarship: language, law and history in the French Renaissance, New York 1970, 116–48Google Scholar; Grafton, A., What was history? The art of history in early modern Europe, Cambridge 2007, 62–122Google Scholar.

55 A detailed assessment of the work, including its reception, may be found in Turchetti, Concordia o tolleranza?, 103–22.

56 Kelley, Foundations, 87–115; I. Maclean, Interpretation and meaning in the Renaissance: the case of law, Cambridge 1992, 15–16.

57 François Baudouin, Constantinus magnus, sive De constantini imp. legibus ecclesiasticis atque civilibus commentariorum libri duo, Basle 1556, 7.

58 Ibid. 84.

59 For the place of the Church Fathers in English Protestant exegesis see Quantin, J.-L., The Church of England and Christian antiquity: the construction of a confessional identity in the 17th century, Oxford 2009, 22–87Google Scholar.

60 Baudouin, Constantinus magnus, 80.

61 Ibid. 88.

62 Cod. 1.3.14; Baudouin, Constantinus magnus, 64.

63 Turchetti, Concordia o tolleranza?, 147–232.

64 This was reiterated in Baudouin's Commentarii in libros quatuor Institutionum juris civilis, Paris 1554, 779–80 at Inst. 4.8 ad v. Iulia de residuis.

65 Turchetti, Concordia o tolleranza?, 177–85.

66 J. Lecler, Toleration and the Reformation, London 1960, i. 270–4.

67 Erbe, M., ‘François Bauduin und Georg Cassander: Dokumente einer Humanisten-Freundschaft’, Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance xl (1979), 537–60Google Scholar.

68 Ibid. 542. Turchetti, Concordia o tolleranza?, 201–13.

69 Turchetti, Concordia o tolleranza?, 216–27.

70 Erbe, François Bauduin, 134–5.

71 As recognised by Erbe: ‘Schwerer wog jedoch der Umstand, daß er sich durch seine Bestrebungen bei beiden Religionsparteien gleichermaßen verdächtig machte’: ibid. 131. Turchetti has shown how in 1561 the Calvinists engaged in a campaign to blacken Baudouin's character in the eyes of both Protestant and Lutheran leaders: ‘Une Question mal posée’, 62–5.

72 Even in his correspondence with Cassander, Baudouin had to remain guarded, presumably because he feared that his letters might be intercepted: ‘Obtestor te mi Cassander ut existimes nihil me malle quam colloqui tecum. Sed per literas non possum, ut vellem’: Erbe, ‘Bauduin und Cassander’, 556.

73 Nugent, Ecumenism, 116–17; Kelley, Foundations, 127.

74 Turchetti, ‘Une Question mal posée’, 56.

75 Ibid. 68–71, 75–87.

76 Ibid. 74–5.

77 Cassander, for example, spoke about the need for just, moderate and prudent persons (‘aequis, moderatis et Christiana prudentia praeditis viris’) to provide advice about the reform of religion. Likewise, Baudouin attributed the mounting religious polarisation and conflict in France to the abandonment of sound and moderate counsels (‘sanis et moderatis consiliis’). On another occasion, Baudouin wrote to Cassander about new hopes for moderation: ‘Nunc iterum aliqua in spe sumus informandae alicius [sic] moderationis’: Erbe, ‘Bauduin und Cassander’, 546, 554, 556.

78 ‘illis accidere, quod iis qui cum putres et corruptas corporis partes praecidere volunt, etiam sanam partem et quae sine corporis gravi offensione et laesione tolli non potuit, invadunt: non paucos etiam scabie, ulceribus et vitiis corporis offensos, ipsius corporis odium concepisse, et pro curatoribus, hostis et insectatoris personam induisse’: Georg Cassander, De officio pii ac publicae tranquillitatis vere amantis viri, n.p. 1562, 4.

79 ‘Cum igitur utrique a regia via, hi quidem in dextram, illi vero in sinistram nonnihil deflexisse viderentur, ad ipsam directam regiamque viam inquirendam mandato divino me cogi et impelli putabam’: ibid. 5.

80 For a fuller investigation of Georg Cassander's thought see Backus, ‘The early Church’, 106–33, and Rummel, E., The confessionalization of humanism in Reformation Germany, Oxford 2000, 144–9Google Scholar.

81 Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente, 312.

82 ‘Primores, qui regnum administrant (ait) esse inclinatos, ut confessionem Augustanam suscipiant, odio autem prosequi eos, qui in eam non consentiunt, ob multas causas': Briefwechsel zwischen Christoph, Herzog von Württemberg, und Petrus Paulus Vergerius, ed. E. H. von Kausler and T. F. Schott, Tübingen 1875, 278.

83 Baudouin was doing no more than repeating Catherine and Navarre's own claims. Peter Martyr was told by the regent that the Augsburg Confession appeared more tolerable to her and Navarre than the Reformed proposals: ‘Proposuit ad haec ipsa et Navarrenus confessionem Augustanam tolerabiliorem videri’: Calvin, Opera quae supersunt omnia, ed. G. Baum and E. Cunitz, Brunswick–Berlin 1863–97, xviii. 707.

84 Miller, A. C., Sir Henry Killigrew: Elizabethan soldier and diplomat, Leicester 1963, 32–3Google Scholar.

85 Erbe, François Bauduin, 80–94.

86 For Killigrew's connection with Cooke see Miller, Sir Henry Killigrew, 13.

87 SP 12/19, fo. 38r; CSP foreign, 1561–1562, no. 113.

88 Collinson, Archbishop Grindal, 72.

89 SP 70/25, fo. 53v; CSP foreign, 1561–1562, no. 113.

90 SP 70/31, fo. 39r; CSP foreign, 1561–1562, no. 611.

91 ‘si d'un costé les prelats se monstrerent ennemis ouverts de ceux de la religion, il y en eut bien d'autres qui tascherent de fair encores pis, cherchans un milieu où il n'y en a point … Un des premiers de ce nombre fut un jurisconsulte nommé Baudouin, François’: Histoire ecclésiastique des eglises réformées au royaume de France, ed. Baum, G. and Paris, Cunitz1883–9Google Scholar, i. 715–16. Des Gallars was one of the editors of this history. See also Turchetti, Concordia o tolleranza?, 332.

92 SP 12/20, fo. 93r; CSP foreign, 1561–1562, no. 741.

93 SP 70/26, fo. 135r; CSP foreign, 1561–1562, no. 218.

94 SP 12/19, fo. 26r.

95 Smith, M. C., ‘Early French advocates of religious freedom’, Sixteenth Century Journal xxv (1994), 43–6Google Scholar.

96 SP 70/34, fo. 30v; CSP foreign, 1561–1562, no. 789.

97 Zurich papers, i. 119.

98 SP 70/32, fo. 89r; CSP foreign, 1561–1562, no. 834.

99 SP 70/31, fo. 45r; CSP foreign, 1561–1562, no. 618.

100 SP 70/34, fo. 95v; CSP foreign, 1561–1562, no. 839.

101 SP 70/26, fo. 135r; CSP foreign, 1561–1562, no. 218.

102 For Cecil's instructions to Windebank to supply him with further information about Poissy see SP 12/20, fos 61r, 69r.

103 SP 70/30, fo. 108r; CSP foreign, 1561–1562, no. 540.

104 SP 70/32, fo. 89r; CSP foreign, 1561–1562, no. 834.

105 Cecil believed that the survival of the Elizabethan regime was dependent on the success of the Huguenots. The major English aim was to suppress the house of Guise, which Cecil believed to be bent on the destruction of Protestantism in England: Alford, Elizabethan polity, 94–6; MacCaffrey, W., ‘The Newhaven expedition, 1562–1563’, HJ xl (1997), 10–11Google Scholar.

106 Holt, French wars of religion, 50–75.

107 Elliott, Europe divided, 39.

108 MacCaffrey, ‘Newhaven expedition’, 12–16.

109 Ibid. 20.

110 Turchetti, ‘Une Question mal posée’, 74–5.

111 Kraye, J., ‘Moral philosophy’, in Schmitt, C. B., Skinner, Q. and Kessler, E. (eds), The Cambridge history of Renaissance philosophy, Cambridge 1988, 303–86Google Scholar at pp. 364–74.

112 SP 70/34, fo. 95r; CSP foreign 1561–1562, no. 839.

113 B. Scribner, ‘Preconditions of tolerance and intolerance in sixteenth-century Germany’, in Grell and Scribner, Tolerance and intolerance, 46.

114 J. Craig, ‘Jewel, John’, ODNB.

115 ‘Quod scribis, illos, qui rerum potiuntur, omnino velle mutationem in religione aliquam fieri, non tam studio et amore pietatis, quam quod papistarum ineptias videant nimis esse ridiculas, quodque non putent populum aliter posse in offfico contineri’: Zurich letters, i. 59.

116 ‘Quod autem scribis, interim quoddam a quibusdam et farraginem religionis quaeri, Deus id avertat!’: ibid.

117 ‘Nunc vero, postquam erupit lux omnis evangellii, quantum quidem fieri potest, vestigia ipsa erroris una cum ruderibus, utque aiunt, cum pulvisculo auferenda sunt’: ibid.

118 Ibid. i. 114–16.

119 Remains of Grindal, 253.

120 MacLure, M., Register of sermons preached at Paul's Cross, 1534–1642, ed. Boswell, J. C. and Pauls, P., Ottawa 1989Google Scholar, 47.

121 One of the upshots of the refusal to compromise over confessional forms, intolerance, is discussed in Grell and Scribner, Tolerance and intolerance. For the English context see Walsham, A., Charitable hatred: tolerance and intolerance in England, 1500–1700, Manchester 2006Google Scholar.

122 Lecler, Toleration, ii. 65–6.

123 MacCaffrey, ‘Newhaven expedition’, 14.

124 In addition to the article by MacCulloch, Diarmaid at n. 45 above see his ‘The myth of the English Reformation’, Journal of British Studies xxx (1991), 1–19Google Scholar, and Collinson, P., The birthpangs of Protestant England, London 1988Google Scholar, 16.

125 Zurich letters, i. 100.