THE FRENCH REFORMATION
France In Feudal Times
I know no words that can depict the wretched state of the French people at this time” wrote an eminent literary authority of the period when the doctrines of the Reformation began to permeate France.The morals of the people were perverted, they were impoverished, embittered and being very litigious being devoured by lawyers before corrupt judges. The Church was a machine for burning “heretics” and raising tithes. “Pastors” laboured only at shearing their flocks; idle bishops, in their luxurious abodes received large portions of the wool. In feudal times the people were never anything but miserable. Their existence was that of sheep born to be shorn or slaughtered. The peasant had to pay a tax for the use of the rainwater in the ditches, for the dust their cattle made on the highway, the honey their bees gathered from the lord’s flowers. There were dues for baptisms, communion, confession, penance, masses, betrothal, marriage, extreme unction, burial. There were blessings to be paid for on the fields, gardens, ponds, wells, fountains, newly built houses, grapes, beans, lambs, cheese, milk, honey, cattle, swords, flags. There were offerings to the firstborn of domestic animals, to the mass, to the first-fruits etc., etc. In addition to all of this ecclesiastical fleecing the royal taxes under Francis I became a truly frightful burden. The people during the 15th Century were in such abject poverty that a famine produced results like those which have occurred in India and parts of Africa. In 1488 there were 80,000 victims in Paris alone. In 1419 there was no harvest. Heaps of starving boys and girls lay dying of cold and hunger. All of this went on in the presence of a Church universal and supreme which was responsible largely for the people’s plight.
The deep discontent everywhere in France ensured a welcome for the Reformers. Their Gospel promised more than a better order of society, more liberty, equality, fraternity. It spoke of a person being made, by the grace of God, to feel that God knew and called them personally, granting him pardon and justification through the one atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and adopting them into His redeemed family.
Day-Break
Born in Picardy, in the middle of the 15th Century, of very humble parentage a man named Lefevre was preaching the doctrine of justification by faith which was just dawning upon Martin Luther. Lefevre caught only a glimpse of the Promised Land but Farel was raised up as a great man of war and won many a battle while setting up the flag of the Reformation both in France and Switzerland.
“If we look to dates we must admit that the glory of beginning the Reformation belongs neither to Switzerland nor to Germany but to France.” (D’ Aubigne)
Farel was supported by other missionaries and together they preached among a people who were slaves, bound in the fetters of gross superstition while Bishops could be seen pressing people to drink with them, rattling the dice-box and much, much worse.
The preaching of the Gospel was much blessed, but then came persecution. Between 13th November 1534 and 13th March 1535 twenty so-called Lutherans were put to death in Paris.
The Execution of “Heretics”
The first of these was Barthelmy Milon on 13th November. Small, spiteful, paralysed and malicious Barthelmy sat at his father’s door mocking passers-by. A servant of God, thus reproached, tumed back, spoke gently to the poor boy and gave him a copy of the Gospels. Barthelmy read the volume, was converted and became an exemplary youth labouring for his living as a teacher of writing and armorial engraving. Being found in possession of a placard against the mass he was burnt alive in the cemetery of St.Jean.
A movement commenced in Paris in 1555 which led to the setting up of a protestant church organisation and the issuing of a confession of faith in 1559.
The Edict of Nantes
Many battles were fought down through the years and many of the true saints and servants of God suffered. In 1597 the Reformed Churches complained that throughout entire provinces such as Burgundy and Picardy there was no free exercise of religion; that in Brittany they had but one place of worship, in Provence only two; that their members were maltreated, stoned, thrown into the river; that assemblies were fired up with cannon; that Bibles were burnt; that children were carried off or baptised forcibly by priests accompanied by the police; that their poor were neglected even when Protestants gave most to the common purse; etc., etc., etc.
Finally in April 1598 they obtained the Edict of Nantes. Full liberty of the individual conscience was guaranteed, public worship was permitted in all places, all the public offices were opened to Protestants, the schools to their children, the hospitals to their sick, the right to print books was accorded.
Thus after three-quarters of a century, during which they had maintained a series of great wars in which they had lost five hundred thousand of their co-religionists, the Protestants only obtained permission to exist and share the privileges of their countryfolk.
After the Edict of Nantes their legal position was well assured and in such circumstances it was natural that they should prosper. Their industry, thrift and intelligence, energised by religious faith and sharpened by a long-continued struggle for existence, led to the acquisition of wealth. However thereafter the Huguenots were prosperous but their political power and influence was declining.
The Counter Reformation In France
Henry IV had permitted the Society of Jesuits to re-enter France. Roman Catholic doctrine was asserted in the typical Jesuitical smarmy way, then the grip slowly tightened. Many among the younger aristocratic Huguenots thought it easier to swim with the tide than to fly against the wind. The people at large, ignorant and superstitious and suffering terrible privations, were very unfavourably disposed to the Huguenots because of the civil wars which had impoverished them and for which they blamed the Huguenots.
The Huguenots, however, were still a great political power. About the year 1600 there were 760 parishes in their possession, 4,000 of the nobility were Calvinists,
they held 200 fortified places and it was believed that they could put 25,000 men in the field for battle.
Persecution Recommences
After the assassination of Henry IV in 1610 a persecution began often very small but perpetual. In 1626 a law forbidding Huguenots to sing Psalms in the street or in their shops was passed.
Revocation Of The Edict Of Nantes
As the years went by awful persecutions and dreadful massacres took place. Then at last on 17th October 1685 Louis XIV signed the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Under the dreadful sanguinary persecutions, during which Huguenot temples were demolished at great speed (29 in the first two weeks of September 1685), the Protestants were flying in all directions seeking seaports like Nantes or if towards the east they strove to get into Switzerland.
The revocatory edict suppressed the legal exercise of the Reformed worship in France. All pastors were to quit the Kingdom within two weeks under penalty of being sent to the galleys. If they abjured they were to have a salary one-third larger than they already enjoyed, with a half invertible to their widows; the expense of academic studies was to be defrayed if they wished to enter at the bar. Parents were forbidden to instruct their children in the reformed religion and were enjoined to have them baptised and send them to Roman Catholic churches, under a penalty of 500 francs. All refugees were to return to France within four months under penalty of the confiscation of their property. No religionists were to attempt to emigrate under penalty of being sent to the galleys if men, and seclusion for life if women.
Courtesy: The Reformer & Look Up
