5.3.3. CATHOLIC COMMUNITIES WHERE PEOPLE INTERTWINE

WHY SHOULD CHEERFUL CATHOLICS SUDDENLY ATTACK PEACEFUL PROTESTANT CRAFTSPEOPLE AND SHOPKEEPERS?

Start with Catholic communities. This painting 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.

 

• The many religious processions with their color and music brought townspeople together. 

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

For royal processions, please click

• Professional people living within the city were obliged to belong to guilds, which set standards, prices, the number of apprentices and other rules. One had to obey their rules, but also took part in their rituals and enjoyed their celebrations. 

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

• Notables and the Church were closely linked: The massacres could not have taken place without their accord. 

Zoom  

Leaders of charitable organizations in 19th-century Normandy (they still exist). 

• Saints were part of daily life. Days of the year ("Saint Valentine's Day") and innumerable streets were named after them. As were people, whose day was more important than their birthday. 

Corner of rue Saint-Denis and Boulevards

Protestants were outside of these activities. They stood out by their dark clothes without ornamentation, avoided the theater, taverns and community fetes, refused to participate in Catholic activities, and respected the saints but did not worship them.

Like all minorities they stuck together. 

As God's righteous, separate elect,

 they were literally "holier than thou." 

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Next,

5.3.4. 

The traditional faith defends brakes on gain...