Religious wars in the countries of the 16th century Ariège
Michel Begon October 1993
A beautiful exhibition of the museum of the history of France in Paris has just presented the Rare documents on the 16th century Ariege, which was, as its title suggests, "Blood and Gold", but she has not tried to explain socio-historical. It may be a cause of frustration, but we have to consider, his excuse, that the passions fueled by the wars of religion are not extinct, and it is sometimes unwise to revive them. It still has that contemporary historians are able to give a satisfactory theory for the scientific mind.
The commentators once naively believed he could be sufficient for some sing the Mass in Latin, and others read the Bible in French or the first celebrate the Eucharist, but the latter communion under both species, s'étriper among Christians. In his Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift Bishop it not evoked the terrible internecine war between those who ate the eggs in the shell from the smaller end and those who were beginning the butt? We are no longer taxed and the religious wars of nonsense, even reveling in the carnage with great fanfare descriptions bloodthirsty as anarchic. Today historians want to explain their logic and to those who did.
At the forefront, Emmanuel Leroy-Ladurie (Catholic) and Michel Chaunu (Protestant) have proposed an explanation of economic and sociological, political and sometimes psychotherapy. Certainly they did not treat our small country of Foix, Mirepoix or Couserans but their conclusions are readily transferable and, better yet, can be refined in the light of knowledge that we have experienced the history and local geography.
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the 16th century, Western Christianity suffered the same break that Islam in the Middle East 20th, between the traditional rural structures and new urban industrial structure, with its accompanying persecution required in attitudes and faith.
Throughout our rustic medieval Catholicism was deeply imbued with rural customs, beliefs, peasant and agrarian rites, sometimes inherited from paganism (Latin for "paganus, peasant). The inhabitants of the village communities liked to recognize in myth, representations or ceremonies related to life and campaigns post-Constantinian Christianity, which was the religion of the great ancient cities as opposed to the pagan cults. All their themes, images and objects of piety indication of that ancestral attachment to the land, to community ownership of land and life of the field, crucifixes intersections, the Madonnas on the roads, the holy land of the parish cemetery, the myth of the Good Shepherd recovering the lost sheep, the nativity and adoration of the shepherds, the themes of the Lamb of God and the Pressoir mystical veneration of springs and caves, the mystery of holy water the exorcism of evil, the blessing of crops, procession through the fields and listening to the ringing of the bell tower that emerges, writes Charles Peguy, "the deep ocean swell and the corn." Any consistent system of symbols bound to the Christian church and its patron saint, protector of the village community. Without doubt can we talk of acculturation.
course, the Catholic faith has gradually adapted to the different sensitivity of the townspeople, by successive relays of Jansenism and of social Christianity. But the Church of the 16th century is not there and remains under cutting the high clergy of the tithe collector.
Now here in 1530 that the Reformation arose in towns and rustic rejects these devotions, to find in St. Paul and St. Augustine tradition of a faith forgotten more intellectual and in any case, better suited to the sensitivity of urban living in cohousing. The printing, which involves primarily the market for literate cities, will become in the collective imagination, the very symbol of the religious Reformation of Luther and Calvin. Both the altar he is not in the Protestant churches topped the crucifix and the tabernacle, but he supports the Bible, translated into vernacular.
To get to the bottom of things, we must also speak of a change in ownership. The hierarchy of the Catholic clergy and Christian families where he was recruited drew their resources from ownership of land, the tithes and perquisites. A third or a quarter of French soil was not it good of the Church? Therefore Chaunu Michel joins the Tridentine Catholicism and medieval to rent. Conversely, the Reformation abolished the clerical hierarchy and Calvin authorizes trade money with interest, previously forbidden by the Church.
Even in town, the Reformation did not recruit in all walks of life, but especially for those who are less tied to land or land rent, which are mainly on their own strength work and their technical expertise, who are paid in cash and not, as rural in nature. These are the learned professions and crafts in the first, with frequent extension to the rural artisans. Leroy - Ladurie camped roughly the opposition of two sociological groups who do not understand or more "carders Huguenots and Papists laborers "(In Peasants of Languedoc).
the 16th century, the disparities between cities and industrious dispersed rural settlements, and consequent differences between their respective worldviews, contrast too sharply to avoid creating friction violent, a like a shock wave is formed connecting two heterogeneous environments. However, this shock wave is even more devastating than both rural and urban areas are adjacent to more closely on the ground.
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This is because of geography and for their misfortune, for countries of Ariège in the Renaissance.
"Historians, geographers are," exclaims the founder of the Annales School (Lucien Febvre in Fighting for the story). Thus see that these countries are encumbered by the extreme disparities of relief, ecosystems, so economic territory.
Roughly four areas, only two of which are entirely to agriculture. Peneplains piedmont around Mirepoix, Saint Girons Pamiers or are welcoming to grain. The high pastures encourage ranching. These regions are still predominantly agrarian in the 16th century and deeply Catholic. Chief among the Couserans once colonized by the Roman villas and so rich in ancient ruins, remains true to its Roman. But in the country of Foix, the masses of granite and limestone peaks bristled with stony, inhospitable to humans and much to the forest. Here the settlement is often delayed and follows the growth of population after 1450; clearings are therefore not prior to the 16th century, the population quickly too large for the small size of the field, not converting to survive in the domestic crafts. Luckily, this barren land is rich mines, streams and forests, conducive to industrialization. As for the hills Terrefort between Mazeres and Carla, they are engaged in the cultivation of many pastels, it must be crushed and processed in mills with a lot of hand of processability, and the making of cloth coarse, the Cadi, the semi-finished products going to export to Toulouse Montauban. Such an economy that is detached from the soil changes to the Reformation. Other sites, other customs ...
Historian François Baby ariégeois shows the coincidence of areas near industrial and country earned Calvinism. We can push this superposition into detail.
No trace of Protestantism in the high mountains, with the exception of the villages of mines or Catalan forges such Urs or Les Cabannes, which are contrary to the haunts of the Huguenots. The Sire de-Castelau Durban, Couserans, and to transition to the sword. The peneplain Mirepoix remains fertile agricultural and Catholic, while in the south, where the contours start, the mountains of Olmes go to mining, textiles and Calvinism. Thus the lordship of Léran (near La Bastide de l'Hers) will give its most fearsome warlord in Huguenot, Claude de Lévis, lord and sire of Léran Audou. In the middle valley of the Ariege, mining iron or jet, forges, textile crafts are of Foix, Tarascon Montgaillard or places of safety reformed, that the Edict of Nantes confirm. Glens Plantaurel are so populated by carpenters, coopers, weavers or the township of Mas d'Azil still offers the highest density of Protestant churches in the Ariege, comparable only to the Cevennes. In 1633, only account at the Mas d'Azil one inhabitant Catholic! The gentlemen glassmakers Protestants, enjoying the monopoly of the manufacture of glass, set up their ovens in the forest Plantaurel, Serre Cor to Gabre and Fabas to Pointis. A Pamiers, many weavers and dyers form a core of politically dominant Protestants. For the entire country of Foix, the proportion is reduced to two Protestant to a Catholic. Further north, between Saverdun and Mazeres, teachers and workers in mills pastels are Protestant. But it seems that the people of rural smallholders, sharecroppers or even brassiers (farm workers) remain there to Catholicism: they going to help not the army of Conde Pamiers to take by storm in 1628? Finally, in the Couserans, only a few links Plantaurel welcome glass Huguenot. Three centuries before Aristide Berges inventing the "white coal", Saint Girons is the only big market for cereals and livestock in an agricultural area and devoutly Catholic. The dominant city is the bishop of St. Lizier in the Roman fortifications.
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Already in the 13th century, population growth had previous show the same contrast between economic and confessional, first, the hills of Lauragais Olmes Mountains and the valley of the Ariege, where weavers and significant urban mass adhered to the Cathars, on the other hand, the Languedoc flat country, remained rural, poor and Catholic. Cities rallied to Perfect, unlike the scattered hamlets which remained in the Church. And if our country was limited to the Cathar Foix, the Sault plateau and Montsegur is that at the time of Plantaurel chains were not cleared.
Catharism disappeared in the 14th century, its ultimate events dating from 1320, while the reflux population already resulted in the end of overpopulation and the decline of industrial activities.
So there is not, despite what they say, between the spiritual progeny of the Perfect faith, inspired by the ancient Gnostic dualistic urban by the relay cities Byzantine and Calvinism, came from Flanders sheets where Calvin was born at Noyon. If the anti-clerical protests and demands are similar, however, including assaults against property of the clergy and the refusal of tithing, it says Leroy-Ladurie, that the same causes in the same conditions produce the same effects.
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course mentalities collide. Much emphasis was placed on the advance of Protestant cultural cities, knowing already read and write in langue d'oil, compared to the Catholic peasants, remained illiterate patois. But is it essential?
For production methods so strongly opposed that they can not fail to model the behavior. Farming within the village community of old is territorial in nature: it keeps the farmers on the same parish, continuing the family legacy and under the paternalistic authority of the Father, the local patron saint, the rector, or, more distantly, the Pope. Conversely, industry and commerce emerging already assume the labor market and goods, where everyone is forced to flow freely to offer that his arms and his productions to the highest bidder. However, free movement and competition require at least break ties with the land and acculturation to the language of contracts, accounts, haggling, cash, profit rates compared, etc.. Such a break propels these classes of craftsmen, industrialists, merchants and financial turmoil in the endless negotiations, changes in pattern and sometimes the strike.
Leroy-Ladurie does not hesitate to look for the little people of workers and fellow reformers to sans-culottes of Year II. Long before, the Vicomte de Joyeuse wrote to Catherine de Medici that "the county of Foix is a district filled with mutineers, rebels and people who ask that garbouge. .
More importantly, yields of agriculture at the time much more dependent on rain and sun it does, or does not, weather or epidemics that we suffer, or that you save, so apparently the goodness or of divine wrath, as the amount of work you put into. Belief in the propitiatory rites, sacrifices, prayers for rain, intercessions against the disease, is almost forced to the peasant. Instead, the architect working on the shelter, and his salary is a direct function of time spent on task. Here's why, can you believe, the Catholic worship of saints so diametrically opposed intercessors the ideology of Protestant values - work.
Visiting the Mas d'Azil in 1635, the bishop of Rieux, Bishop Bertier, it notes the astonishing recovery of manual labor, but regretted that the Huguenots' work every day of the festivities chômables year and often on Sundays, "on which he writes," we have very bitter remonstrances deed of consuls and inhabitants. "
The economic theory of value - work, that the price of a commodity or service is a function of time social work they way demand, was born in another country Protestant England, and the philosopher John Locke Orange reveals it, long before Smith and Ricardo, the initiator.
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Perhaps to avoid this geographical determinism, many historians cite the responsibility of ruling dynasties in the spread of heresy, according to the rule of time that subjects embrace the religion of the prince.
They thus lend a major role in Albret. Certainly, before 1540, Marguerite de Navarre, Countess of Foix, grants a safe - for all its land to evangelical preachers and preaching to the fact Pamiers when she holds court. Thus John Calvin went to the court of Nerac in 1534 and only believe the legend, still alive, he preached on his return to the Mas d'Azil. In 1556, fifty people ask Calvin Foix, then in Geneva, they summon a "minister" of the Gospel, it will be Anthony Caffe. In 1559, the reformers are already the majority in Pamiers. In 1560, Jeanne d'Albret, daughter of Margaret and mother of the future Henry IV, made profession of faith reformed in Pau. Soon Protestant churches are in clusters. After 1590, the Mass is celebrated even more for the country of Foix, as Varilhes and Ax-les-Thermes.
What opposes the country Couserans, attached to the royal estate since 1498 and will be one of the last to recognize the kingship of Henry of Navarre, even after his recantation.
We made the same distinction for the dynasty of Levis, a descendant of one of the barons of the North, which won the Albigensian Crusade stronghold of Mirepoix. The elder branch of Levis - Mirepoix remains faithful Rome, as his city. But the younger branch after Claude Levis, Baron Léran, is Huguenot, as the mountains of Olmes. Strange hunted - Crusader: in 1584, Henry of Navarre appointed Governor-General Claude Lévis County of Foix and head of the reformed party, but after the abjuration he replaces his cousin Levis Mirepoix, head of the Catholic party. The Lord of Léran have to die disappointed in his castle Belesta ...
This role is great no doubt. But in what sense to interpret it? One can believe that the Lord his mark to his subjects, or reverse that subjects impose their beliefs to their lord, if he wants to retain their loyalty. Huguenot in the Pyrenees, Henry of Navarre is twice Catholic, touching Paris (1572, 1593). Because Paris is worth a mass ...
I add a family heirloom. The gentlemen glassmakers of Foix remained Protestants, even though most noble families followed the good King Henri IV and his successors in Rome and returned. This, they claimed, not separate from their workers and clerks, stayed at the Reformation. We thus saw in the 18th century, the assemblies desert meet in warehouses glass all staff glassware Scots, under the care of gentlemen wearing the cocked hat and sword.
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As for military operations, they are very costly in human lives and damages of any kind. Father Duclos, in his history of Ariège (1883), estimates the number of deaths in 5500 for the country of Foix, 6000 for the country of Rieux and 6000 again for the Couserans, which would more than 20% population for the 16th century.
But do not see these religious wars as a war of position on the model 1914 - 1918, or even as a revolutionary guerrilla type of warfare Camisards, 120 years later. These are shipments form of raids for plunder and ransom, which only launched in the summer, when it feels good to sleep outside and you can loot granaries full of harvest, orchards responsible fruit or fat herds of fresh grass. Pamiers and will be taken and taken 5 or 6 times by both parties. In 1568, lord of Levis Audou takes Tarascon, but Catholics taking it over are slaughter of Huguenots, they rush 66 of rock into the abyss. In 1575, the same is registered under Levis St - Girons, commissioned by St. Paul Jarrat, the city surrendered without resistance, but when the Protestant troops withdraw to their bases, the Catholic party takes place without firing a shot.
However, it seems that the attacks of the Huguenots are specifically directed against ecclesiastical property, collection of tithes, rents and all the monks, for which elsewhere is called the "secularization of Church property. " In 1566, Protestants du Mas d'Azil oppose the collection of profits, by both the clergy and the royal power. They carry the sheaves of the soil of the tithe, saying they were "bishops, canons and presidents." In 1568, bands Huguenot assail Lézat abbeys, Combelongue, Mas d'Azil, stalling and Salenques they hunt clerics and nuns. In 1569, an expedition is being conducted against the city by Vindrac Episcopal Rieux, defrocked monk of the Abbey of Lézat (or Mas d'Azil). The Huguenots Mazères and destroy Calmont Boulbonne Abbey (now in Haute Garonne). In the summer of 1669, the army of the Viscounts, under the command of Montgomery and Bernard-Roger of Comminges, devastates Montbrun and Holy Cross by burning churches, killing the clerics and serving as state lands of the clergy, to burn down the farms, it grab the corn or, failing that, ignite Gerbier.
In fact, abbeys referred disappeared with all hands: it remains one stone upon another, often not even remember. A consular certificate of 1599 notes that the abbey buildings Mas d'Azil were razed to the ground and what have been sold the time of the Benedictine monastery, dating from Charlemagne. It must be said that Protestant churches of the 17th century, not counting dozens in the Ariege alone, nor any remains after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1985) and after their destruction at the expense of the parishioners.
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From the abjuration of Henry IV, the expansion of Protestantism is capped at 15% of the French population. Since then the kingdom has 85% of farmers or rural, this threshold is impassable, but in terms of urban and educated people, their influence exceeds their proportion in population.
In Europe the Calvinist Reformation not prevail in the 16th century in areas unsuitable for agriculture and who develop early in export industries, and the Geneva and the Jura mountains, the valleys of Alsace, Holland polder or Scotland the southern foothills of the Massif Central, the country of Foix, etc..
But soon will start a slow decline, which might relate to the demographic decline in Western Europe from 1650, which particularly affects cities and industry. Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 will only precipitate things, causing an exodus of about one tenth of the Huguenots. The shock wave of religious strife moves in the opposite direction, but still strong, with a pressure-cons whose dragonnades, the forced renunciations, the disqualifications, fines collective executions and galleys will be painful symptoms.
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