V.1. ECONOMIC GROWTH AND THE "WARS OF RELIGION"

5.1. Growth & the "Wars of Religion"

WHEN ALL ASPECTS OF DAILY LIFE ARE SACRED,

CONFLICT IS TOO

France's 16th-century civil wars (in 1562-98) are said due to "fanaticism," a truism that skips their tangible cause.

Sixteenth-century engraving, private collection

Basic source: Jules Michelet's Renaissance an Reformation (1860's)

Topics

• Growth breaks loose

• Violence that has nothing to do with religion

• Massacres of Protestants are urban

• The traditional faith defends brakes on gain...

• The new faith shatters them

• In Spain, no civil war, no Protestants, no capitalists

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Growth breaks loose 

GROWTH BREAKS LOOSE

AFTER ABOUT 1480 EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES BRING EXPONENTIAL GROWTH

Capitalism destabilizes the backwater that borders the Atlantic, with a speed that its relatively primitive states cannot contain.

# # #

Behind each vessel is a whole chain of production,

like that the trans-Saharan exchanges bring the African savannah 

Storm at Sea by Pieter Breughel the Elder, toward 1610 / zoom

Ship-building requires planks, sails, nails, ropes, tar, supplies, barrels like the one that has fallen into the sea. They in turn need warehouses, wagons, tools, donkeys, horses... .

Those chains of production have been developing since about the year 1000, especially around the Mediterranean. Growth in the rest of Europe has been gradual.

Now proximity to the Atlantic means that trade and production there expand with unprecedented speed.  

# # #

The new revenues first strengthen, the destabilize the social system as in Djimini, but the European caste of nobles absorbs the newcomers for a time: 

• The owner of the medieval castle in the background may be a former merchant, who has bought land to join a caste he reveres. 

Springtime by Pieter Breugel the Younger, about 1600 / zoom (with a traditional analysis in French)

 /

• That purchase may mean acquiring a title. At least it helps marry a daughter to an impoverished noble, making his grandchildren nobles (with somewhat tarnished escutcheons). 

The choice is not mercantile. Continuing business activities means losing noble status, and the income from the land diminishes with inflation.

The prestige of the nobility 

leads to the newly-rich spending gains 

instead of investing them. 

The practice slows growth

but does not stop it. 

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Violence that has nothing to do with religion

VIOLENCE THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH RELIGION

GLORIFYING BRUTALITY PRECEDES THOSE WARS

Duels, the ideology of valor and sadistic art appear decades before the wars of religion. 

• Medieval painting can be violent...

     Martyrdom of Saint Denis (detail) by Henri Bellechose, toward 1400 /  zoom

• But it does not linger over details like this: 

Claude Abron

• At the Louvre a three-panel painting glorifies killers in Roman dress...

 

The Massacres of the Triumvirs by Antoine Caron, 1566 / zoom 

 

• And at the Renaissance Museum combat that has nothing to do with the theme is frequently inserted:

-- Though it is not present in the choice of works presented on the web.

Claude Abron

# # #

Violence honors the king:

• The six-day tournament to celebrate the birth of a Dauphin (Crown Prince) in 1518 leads to a chronicler's casual remark of "many killed and wounded..."

-- François Ier by Emmanuel Bourassin, 1997, p.75.

• And in the annual human sacrifice of mid-19th-century Dahomey the king dances, then throws cowries...

All removed their ornaments and girt their loins; it is a point of  honor to fight for the royal bakhshish, and nob and snob join in the melee. No notice is taken if a man be killed or maimed in the affair; he has fallen honorably for his sovereign. Some lose eyes or noses [...] I have seen a hand through which teeth met.

   -- Burton, 224

 The Wars of Religion

justify and worsen violence,

but are not the reason for it.

It comes from the changed economy

and admiration for the king

controls it. 

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Next: 

Massacres of Protestants are urban

MASSACRES OF PROTESTANTS ARE URBAN

THE SAINT BARTHOLEMEW'S DAY MASSACRE SETS OFF A "SEASON" THAT SPREADS TO MOST FRENCH TOWNS

-- Jules Michelet

It starts in Paris on the night of August 23, 1572 and lasts three months. 

• Queen Catherine de Medici triggers it by trying to play off noble clans:

 The Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre by François Dubois, 1572, Lausanne Museum

Catherine de Medici is the figure in black on the upper left.

Sixteenth-century engraving

She the Protestant leader shot so as to blame the noble Catholic clan and trigger Protestant revenge, but he is only wounded.

Fearing that revenge, the Catholic nobles attack the house where the wounded man is recovering, kill him and throw his body out of the window.

Town authorities are supposed have local militia keep order. When tolling church bells tell them that their role has begun, those militia join the underclass in killing the Protestant population.

-- Le massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy by Philippe Erlanger, 1960

.

• Both sides commit atrocities historians say when committed by soldiers, because the armies attract the same kind of men

    

"Soldiers' Feast" (detail), tapestry, Renaissance museum, museum publication

Soldiers are mercenaries or pillagers, men cut off from the land and its rules. 

• Nobles are so used to violence that they wear coats of mail under their doublets, even at the Louvre. 

-- Letter of Henri IV, 1572

• But urban victims are mainly Protestant. Blood lust, theft and score-settling strike Catholics too, but less often and later.

Why? 

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Catholic townspeople intertwine

CATHOLIC TOWNSPEOPLE INTERTWINE

 

WHY SHOULD "FANATICS" SUDDENLY ATTACK PEACEFUL CRAFTSPEOPLE AND SHOPKEEPERS?

Imagining the interwoven population. The paintings' vibrancy is Flemish, but the activities could have been anywhere:

• The narrow streets must have been as crowded and convivial as this open space, with shops selling wares through stands that gave directly onto them, processions, games, labor of all kinds and the Church part of daily life.

The Fight between Carnaval and Lent by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1559 / zoom; enlarge the figures with your mouse.

 

• Processions: color, music and onlookers bring the town together:

Window at Saint-Etienne du Mont, 19th century / zoom (please click and scroll down).

For more processions, please click

• Guilds: professional organizations that set standards, prices, number of apprentices and other rules and have their rituals and celebrations. Craftspeople working within the city were obliged to belong to them.

Banquet of the Crossbowmen's Guild in Celebration of the Treaty of Munster by Bartholomeus van der Helst, 1648 / zoom

• Saints: Interwoven into daily life. Days of the year ("Saint Valentine's Day") and streets are named after them. 

• PHOTO AND SCAN
• 
  
• They often live outside the city walls, stick together, standing out by their sober dress, refusal to participate in Catholic -- that is, local -- events.  

• They respect the saints, but do not worship them. Yet for Catholics saints are so much part of daily life that their

BETTER PHOTO

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Catholics buttress barriers to gain

THE TRADITIONAL FAITH DEFENDS BRAKES ON GAIN...

"MONEY, THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL..." 

Alms, an essential part of Catholicism: The poor are like Jesus and the wealthy earn their way to Heaven when they help them.

Stained glass window in Champagne, gone from the web

The Fight between Carnaval and Lent (detail) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1559 / zoom;

Other ways in which it limits gain:

• Belief in Purgatory leads to financing masses for the dead and leaving one's resources to the Church.

Virgin of Carmel Saving Souls in Purgatory, Circle of Diego Quispe Tito, 17th century / zoom

•  Forbidding lending at interest reinforces royal economic control. Bypassing the rule is possible but difficult. For major projects, one must turn to kings, as Columbus and Magellan turn to Spain's Ferdinand and Isabella. 

Columbus at the court of Barcelona, 1893 / zoom

Building and decorating sanctuaries disperses huge sums. 

Take the superb 16th-century churches of the trade-route junction at Troyes:

Adapted from a Pinterest map / zoom

Medieval churches:

All photos except the last from TripAdvisor: please click here and here for photos from 10 Troyes churches.

Renovation in the first part of the 16th century, before the civil wars break out. 

For the change in style, please click back.

Claude Abron

Contesting the Church 
means contesting deeply rooted barriers to gain.

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Next

The new faith shatters them

THE NEW FAITH SHATTERS THEM

ARTISANS, SHOPKEEPERS, ENTREPRENEURS — EMERGING CAPITALISTS —  MAKE PROTESTANTISM A MASS MOVEMENT IN FRANCE

Nobles obtain most of the attention. But their belief is linked to clan rivalries and the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre decapitates their movement.

*It began by striking Protestant nobles who had come from all France for a royal wedding. 

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The philosophy is middle-class: A list of commoner victims of the massacre shows that they were "shoemakers, bookbinders, hatmakers, weavers, pin-makers, armor-makers, barrel makers, watchmakers, goldsmiths, furniture makers, gilders, button-makers, hardware makers etc."

-- The 16th Century by Jules Michelet, 1833, remark that most historians skip. 

• Moral and intellectual rigor, the Church's corruption, political factors, regional traditions of heresy, local issues and pastors' personal impact let Protestantism cross class lines, but businesspeople are at its core.Training, habit and self-interest predispose them to accept the new faith, in a way that is "sincere and based on calculation."

-- Citation: Balzac, The Calvinist Martyr

 

• When Louis XIV demands conversion 50,000 families emigrate. Voltaire's description of their impact abroad shows their economic clout:

Près de cinquante mille familles, en trois ans de temps, sortirent du royaume, et furent après suivies par d'autres. Elles allèrent porter vers l'étranger les arts, les manufactures, la richesse. Presque tout le nord de l'Allemagne, pays encore agreste et dénué d'industrie, reçut une nouvelle face de ces multitudes transplantées. Elles peuplèrent des villes entières. Les étoffes, les galons, le chapeaux, les bas, qu'on achetaient auparavant en France, furent fabriques par eux. Un faubourg entier de Londres fut peuplé d'ouvriers français en soie ; d'autres y portèrent l'art de donner la perfection aux cristaux, qui fut alors perdu en France. On trouve encore très communément dans Allemagne l'or que les réfugiés y répandirent. Ainsi la France perdit environ cinq cent mille habitants, un quantité prodigieuse d'espèces, et surtout des arts dont ses ennemis s'enrichirent. La Hollande y gagna d'excellents officiers et des soldats. Le prince d'Orange et le duc de Savoie eurent des régiments entiers de réfugiés. Il y en eut qui s'établirent jusque vers le cap de Bonne Espérance  [... ]  Les Français ont été dispersés plus loin que les Juifs.

-- Le siècle de Louis XIV de Voltaire, ed. 2015, pp. 612-613

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At the heart of Protestant doctrine: Salvation is one's personal responsibility.

• That belief leads to a serious view of life and to the "Protestant ethic" of honesty, work and austerity. Sixteenth-century French Protestants would have appreciated this couple, whose  appearance and behavior is exactly the opposite of the superhuman figures of antiquity associated with nobles.

American Gothic by Grant Wood, 1930, Art Institute of Chicago / zoom

• Protestants wish to cut themselves off entirely from the idolatrous Catholics to create a righteous society.

Wearing dark clothes without ornamentation; avoiding the theater, taverns and community fetes; forbidding even attending the funerals of Catholic family members, states that one belongs to God's righteous, separate elect, literally "holier than thou." 

• Those values help launch businesses. 

Material success becomes a sign of salvation and leads to the belief that poverty is due to laziness and hedonism, signs of damnation: 

These famous studies explore the connection. Calvin himself disavowed that use of his doctrine: "The rich," he said, "are servants of the poor." 

• Suppressing the Church means suppressing alms, hospitals and schools.

In areas in France that Protestants control charity is competently managed to poor deemed to be deserving, but inquiries let people with means condemn those who do not. In England, destroying the monasteries and convents sends monks, nuns and lepers into the streets to beg. 

• Austerity encourages plowing gains back into business...

And favors arts of costless grandeur: In England the language of the King James Bible and the epic poetry of John Milton; in France, psalms by which ordinary people praise God directly so powerfully that Catherine de Medici and Charles IX attend services to listen; in New England, the stark effectiveness of wooden churches:

Zoom

• Protestant craftsmen often work outside the guilds, charging lower prices

--  Michelet.

Historians have not noticed that statement, to my knowledge.

• Abolishing religious holidays adds 50 more workdays each year: Imagine apprentices' and employees' reactions when "heretic" patrons impose that change.

-- Protestant stores and workshops stay open even on Christmas:
Histoire des protestants en France de la Réforme à la Révolution

dir. Philippe Wolff, 2001

In short,
Protestants humiliate the vulnerable
 by claiming themselves superior 
and defy practices that protect them.

Sixteenth-century engraving (detail), private collection

End of this section.

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Next section,

V.2. 

Absolute monarchy exerts control