The Pleasure of Discernment: Marguerite de Navarre as Theologian [1 ed.] 0195138457, 9780195138450

Citation preview

The

Pleasure of Discernment

OXFORD STUDIES IN HISTORICAL THEOLOGY Series Editor David C. Steinmetz, Duke University Editorial Board Irena Backus, Universite de Geneve Robert C. Gregg, Stanford University George M. Marsden, University of Notre Dame Wayne A. Meeks, Yale University Heiko A. Oberman, University of Arizona Gerhard Sauter, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat Bonn Susan E. Schreiner, University of Chicago John Van Engen, University of Notre Dame Geoffrey Wainwright, Duke University Robert L. Wilken, University of Virginia IMAGES AND RELICS Theological Perceptions and Visual Images in Sixteenth-Century Europe John Dillenberger THE BODY BROKEN The Calvinist Doctrine of the Eucharist and the Symbolization of Power in Sixteenth-Century France Christopher Elwood CASSIAN THE MONK Columba Stewart HUMAN FREEDOM, CHRISTIAN RIGHTEOUSNESS Philip Melanchthon's Exegetical Dispute with Erasmus of Rotterdam Timothy J. Wengert PRIMITIVISM, RADICALISM, AND THE LAMB'S WAR The Baptist-Quaker Conflict in Seventeenth-Century England T. L. Underwood THE GOSPEL OF JOHN IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY The Johannine Exegesis of Wolfgang Musculus Craig S. Farmer THE CONFESSIONALIZATION OF HUMANISM IN REFORMATION GERMANY Erika Rummel

T

he pleasure of discernment

MARGUERITE DE NAVARRE AS THEOLOGIAN

CAROL THYSELL

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2OOO

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Bombay Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan

Copyright © 2000 by Carol Thysell Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Thysell, Carol, 1950The pleasure of discernment: Marguerite de Navarre as Theologian / Carol Thysell. p. cm — (Oxford studies in historical theology) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-513845-7 1. Marguerite, Queen, consort of Henry II, King of Navarre, 1491-1549. Heptamaron. 2. Women and literature—France—History—i6th century. 3. Gender identity in literature. 4. Theology in literature. 5. Literary form. 6. Allegory. I. Title. II. Series. PQ1631.H4 T49 2000 843'.3—dc21 99-052650

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

FOR MARK

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The conversations that frame the Heptameron are an apt model for an interdisciplinary study such as this. The devisants who shared lively exchanges in the meadow at Sarrance included women and men, the young and those with "long experience," friends of many years and new acquaintances. Likewise, my own conversation partners for this book—those to whom I am indebted for their expertise, insight, support, and pleasurable company—have been many and varied indeed. My greatest debt is to Michael Murrin, my adviser and mentor at the University of Chicago, whose encyclopedic knowledge of Renaissance history and letters was invaluable in shaping the dissertation that began this book. I was fortunate to have as readers Anthony Yu, Susan Schreiner, and Philippe Desan, whose advice and guidance in the areas of literary theory, historical theology, and French language and literature are evident throughout the work. My thanks go also to Frank Reynolds and to members of the Divinity School's Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion, who offered suggestions on an early portion of the manuscript. For their encouragement to revise the manuscript for publication as well as for their questions and suggestions which I believe strengthened the argument, I am grateful to David Steinmetz, editor of Oxford's Studies in Historical Theology series, as well as to an anonymous reviewer at Oxford University Press. It has been both a privilege and a pleasure to have learned from each of these scholars (though any errors remain completely my responsibility). I would also like to thank Cynthia Read, Theodore Calderara, and Jennifer Rozgonyi of Oxford University Press, as well as my copy editor, Jerilyn Famighetti, for guiding the manuscript through the review and production process. At my home institution, the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, I owe special thanks to Walter H. Conser, Jr., and to other colleagues in the philosophy and religion department, as well as to faculty in the women's studies program and the feminist colloquium for their encouragement and advice during the publication process. Amiee A. Barnette was a great help with indexing. For her friendship and help with manuscript preparation, I also wish to thank Jan Witman. Finally, I cannot imagine that this book could have been started, let

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

alone nurtured to completion, without the loving support and professional encouragement of my husband, Mark Opgrand, with whom I share a most fortunate friendship as well as an enthusiasm for Marguerite de Navarre and the French countryside, January 2000 Wilmington, North Carolina

C.T.

CONTENTS

1 gender and genre 3 MARGUERITE DE NAVARRE AND THE TRADITION OF ALLEGORICAL RHETORIC

2

The

Context of Liberty 19

MARGUERITE DE NAVARRE, CALVIN, AND THE SPIRITUAL LIBERTINES

3

Certainty, Ambiguity, and Evil 39 THE THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF MARGUERITE DE NAVARRE

4

Of Brigands and Bridles 63 PROVIDENCE IN THE WORK OF CALVIN AND MARGUERITE DE NAVARRE

5 e Pleasure of'Discernment 79 MORAL DELIBERATION IN THE HEPTAMERON

6 Discerning the Marguerite 97 ALLEGORICAL RHETORIC IN THE HEPTAMERON NOTES

127

BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

177

155

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rffte Pleasure of Discernment

M A R G U E R I T E DE NAVARRE

(New York Public Library Picture Collection)

1 \5ender and genre MARGUERITE DE NAVARRE AND THE TRADITION OF A L L E G O R I C A L RHETORIC

WHY DID WOMEN OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY not write systematic theology? "I am puzzled to account for this phenomenon," wrote Roland Bainton in 1973. "Have women refrained from theology because they were not supposed to exceed their sphere or because they were not interested?"1 One of the women about whom Bainton was particularly puzzled was Marguerite de Navarre (1492—1549), the highly educated and internationally respected sister of King Fran£ois I. As patron and advocate of many of France's evangelistes (those who sought to reform the Church from within), Marguerite de Navarre provided refuge for many reformers, including John Calvin, at her court at Nerac during times of persecution. She was herself the author of numerous volumes of religious poetry; one of her first published works, The Mirror of the Sinful Soul (1531),2 came under censure by the Faculty of Theology at the Sorbonne in Paris for its evangeliste (or "Lutheran") ideas.3 While Franfois I intervened to prevent both the book and his sister from being burned, Marguerite de Navarre's poetry was clearly suspect as promoting heretical theology; yet none of her works is what Bainton would characterize as "systematic theology." As the past several decades of scholarship on early modern women have shown, the absence of theological treatises by women such as Marguerite de Navarre cannot be attributed to their lack of interest in religion or theology. In her study of city women and religious change in early sixteenth-century France, Natalie Zemon Davis noted that, even before the Reformation, those women who could read or

3

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THE PLEASURE OF DISCERNMENT

were part of reading circles "were being prompted by vernacular devotional literature and the Bible to speculate on theology."4 Concerned Franciscan preachers contemptuously described them as "half theologians" who got carried away on such topics as transubstantiation and used "silly reasoning" to discuss other doctrinal and moral questions.5 Davis suggested that, just as the tension between the priests and these women was growing, the Protestant movement began inviting men and women alike to read and to discuss the Bible in the vernacular. For many city women, at least, the movement provided a new outlet for intellectual activity and self-direction. "Women already independent in the street and market now ventured into the male preserve of theology."6 Although much of this theological activity remained in the realm of oral discussion, a number of women began to put their ideas to paper. Bainton himself noted the vast body of devotional literature written by women during this period.7 More recently, anthologies such as Katharina M. Wilson's Women Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation have provided ample evidence that women were actively engaged in writing on religious topics in such genres as sonnets, chansons, elegies, epigrams, letters, memoirs, polemic histories and poems, novellas, translations, spiritual dialogues, mystical writings, hagiographic vitae, and homilies.8 Notably absent from this list, however, are biblical commentaries and theological treatises. Why this particular absence? To be sure, social position or class played a great part in determining the acceptable expressions of women's religious activities, particularly during the first half of the sixteenth century.9 The vast majority of religious (and secular) writings that have been retrieved and anthologized today are those of the nobility, as few other early modern women had the education, leisure, or financial resources required either to write or to publish their work. As Merry Wiesner has observed, [t]o assess the impact of gender adequately as a significant variable in the Reformation period, women's actions and opinions must be analyzed along with those of men. [And yet it] can be very difficult to find sources on women during the Reformation. . . . The few [women] who did write rarely published their works, as publishing required money, connections, and a sense that what one was writing merited publication. Women's unpublished works, such as letters and diaries, were rarely saved, for they were not regarded as valuable.10 To account for the absence of theological treatises and biblical commentaries among those women whose works were published, however, we must turn to early modern understandings of gender and of genre.

GENDER AND GENRE IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE By the end of the sixteenth century, women's roles were increasingly defined more by sex than by class.11 The genres of even those aristocratic women whose religious writings found their way into print were determined by the prevalent gen-

MARGUERITE DE NAVARRE AND ALLEGORICAL RHETORIC

J

der ideologies reinforced by both church and state. While private devotional writings by women were quite acceptable for circulation among other women, more public vehicles for the open dissemination of their religious ideas were increasingly suppressed.12 As the Reformation became more established throughout Europe, women writers moved beyond the familiar modesty topos to provide outright defenses of their public activities, such as preaching, prophesying, and publishing on religious topics.13 Such defenses became necessary as Europe's growing nationalism combined with Protestant and Catholic reformation theologies of the family to render the public roles of women even more constricted than in previous centuries. Carla Freccero has argued that early modern women in Italy and France whose writings were published challenged the new political hierarchies simply by entering the public world. In so doing, they reversed the model that provided the foundation for a well-ordered monarchical state: king is to subject as husband is to wife.14 The ideal of the "chaste, silent, and obedient" wife subordinated to her husband and content to remain within her domestic sphere was the model for the good citizen in increasingly autocratic societies.15 Family patriarchy provided the metaphor for political hierarchy, and any woman who "spoke out" through publication was considered "unruly" because she broke the social and religious admonition (based on i Timothy 2:12) to be silent.16 Despite these generalizations, determining the concrete effect of gendered roles on women during the Renaissance and the Reformation has proved a far more complex problem than it may have appeared when Bainton first asked about women and systematic theology. Individual exceptions to prevailing ideologies as well as varying social and political conditions from country to country and from the first to the second half of the sixteenth century have made it difficult at best to draw broad conclusions about early modern women or their public roles. As Diane Willen has suggested, it is futile to debate whether the legacy of the Reformation [and, one might add, of the Renaissance] was a negative or positive influence in the lives of . . . [women]. The religious changes of the sixteenth century were linked to a variety of intellectual, social, political, and economic forces, each complex, ambiguous, even contradictory. They affected individual lives in a variety of ways that transcend any single, simple set of criteria.17 Those "complex, ambiguous, even contradictory" forces may be better viewed through the lens of an individual life, that of a woman writer whose public role during the French Renaissance and the early reform movements has long been recognized as influential. Marguerite de Navarre was well educated, biblically literate, and respected for her theological erudition by Pope Paul III as well as by other church leaders.18 Although she was the author of numerous religious poems and theater pieces as well as of a collection of secular tales entitled the Heptameron, church historians have typically referred to this erudite woman in terms of her political influence rather than her theological insights, and historical theologians

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have virtually ignored her.19 Examination of the religious dimensions of her poetry and prose has been left largely to literary historians and critics.20 To suggest, as does this study, that Marguerite de Navarre envisioned her poetry and particularly her secular novella collection, the Heptameron, as alternative vehicles for a constructive theological program is to raise questions of both gender and genre during the early years of renaissance and reform in France. What was recognized as theology during this period? Why might the genre choice of this particular woman have been different from that of a male compatriot such as John Calvin? How might this difference contribute to contemporary understandings of gender and theological genre?

Marguerite de Navarre: Humanist, Politician, Poet, Theologian Although she was the first-born of Charles d'Angouleme (1460—1496) and Louise de Savoie (1476—1531), Marguerite de Navarre grew up in a household thoroughly dedicated to the formation of her younger brother, Fra^ois (1494-1547), as the future king of France.21 Louise de Savoie's ambitions for her son began before his birth, when she sought the counsel and intervention of one Fran£ois de Paola. The hermit and presumed miracle-worker assured Louise not only that she would produce a male heir but that her son would become king of France. As unlikely as that outcome may have seemed to others at the time, since both Charles VIII and Louis, due d'Orleans, preceeded Francois in the line of succession, Louise believed the prediction with all her heart and named her son after the hermit.22 After her husband died prematurely in 1496, Louise had to strike a compromise with Louis d'Orleans to retain custody of her two children, since, at age nineteen, she was under the minimum legal age for guardianship. He agreed to become honorary guardian of Marguerite and Francois, allowing Louise to remain with her children at Amboise.23 Since Charles VIII had died childless in 1498 and his successor, Louis d'Orleans (now King Louis XII), had still produced no heirs, the education of young Francois took on added importance for those charged with his care. But Louise de Savoie saw to it that her daughter was educated alongside Francois in French, Spanish, English, Hebrew, Latin, and some Italian and German, as well as in philosophy, theology, literature, and history.24 This broad and egalitarian education surely contributed to the role that Marguerite would come to play in her brother's court after he ascended to the throne as Francois I in January 1515. Fra^ois had become enamored of the "new learn ing" and with the lively renewal of art and architecture that he encountered during several visits to Italy. He invited to France such renowned painters as Leonardo da Vinci (who died shortly after arriving) and Andrea Del Sarto and began the redecoration of numerous beautiful chateaux in the Loire Valley as well as of his crowning achievement, Fontainebleau.25 As a result of the contacts with Italy, the French court became more sophisticated than its predecessors in terms of dress, learning, entertainments, and architecture.26 In response to the growing influence of Renaissance humanism, Francois

MARGUERITE DE NAVARRE AND ALLEGORICAL RHETORIC

/

founded a college for the study of classical languages and in 1531 appointed four lecteurs royaux to teach Greek and Hebrew.27 The influence of humanism could also be seen at Francois's new chateaux in their use of classical figures alongside or in place of the traditional medieval symbols. Before long, the King came to be known as a true patron of the arts and even as the "father of letters." Francois may have been the one to receive the titles, but he would not have earned them without the help and influence of his mother and his sister.28 Francois and Marguerite adored each other, and both had enjoyed the lively entertainments and stimulation their mother had provided for them at Amboise. In 1509 Marguerite was married to Charles, due d'Alen9on, and therefore had to leave the lively circle of conversation and festivities she had enjoyed so much. Once Francois was crowned king, however, it became clear that his wife, Claude, was not only too frail but also not inclined to serve as host to the many visiting dignitaries from all over Europe. Marguerite's own marriage was not a happy one, and perhaps that is one reason that she so readily responded to her brother's request that she return from Normandy for several months each year to serve in Claude's place. Whether in Paris or following the King's peripatetic court, Marguerite acted, in effect, as queen during the early years of Francois's reign.29 Marguerite herself began to attract to the court numerous poets, philosophers, theologians, and writers who recognized in the Duchess a kindred spirit and a patron. One of her favorites was the poet Marot, who became part of her entourage. As noted earlier, Marguerite's own theological erudition was noticed by papal ambassadors, and political diplomats were quick to realize that the Duchess had great influence with her brother, the King.30 Marguerite's influence and that of her mother extended beyond the festivities of court, however, to include active roles in politics. In 1525 Francois and his troops were defeated by Charles V of Spain at Pavia, and Francois was taken prisoner. Between 1525 and 1526, Louise de Savoie served as regent of France during her son's absence, despite some challenges to her authority by those convinced that the regent should be the king's closest male kinsman. Marguerite, whose husband was killed during the same campaign, made a courageous and successful trip to Spain to care for her imprisoned brother and to negotiate his release.31 Francois, Louise, and Marguerite were clearly linked in the minds of the public during this time, as references to "The Trinity" indicate.32 Marguerite's second marriage was to Henri d'Albret, King of Navarre, in 1525. The marriage meant the establishment of her own courts at Pau and at Nerac, where she created something of a forerunner to the salons of seventeenth-century France. Nevertheless, her growing interest in religion and her support for a number of reform-minded theologians ultimately led to a decline in her influence with her brother. During the initial years of Franfois I's reign, Marguerite had become interested in the evangelisme movement for reform within the French church. Strongly influenced by the Christian humanism of Erasmus, the circle of evangelistes centered at Meaux included the biblical scholar Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples, who translated the Bible into the French vernacular under Marguerite de Navarre's patronage.33 The

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church at Meaux was led by Bishop Guillaume Briconnet, with whom Marguerite carried on an intense correspondence from 1521-1524.34 She also corresponded with the Strasbourg reformer Wolfgang Capito, one of Luther's followers, who may have provided the French queen with copies of the German reformer's works.35 Though she remained a lifelong member of the Catholic Church, Marguerite began to include references in her own literary works to reformist ideas such as justification by faith through grace, the priesthood of all believers, and the freedom of the Christian conscience in matters of external rituals, works, and institutional structures. As I have noted, The Mirror of the SinfulSoulcame under censure by the Faculty of Theology at the Sorbonne in Paris for its foangeliste ideas. While Francois I forced the theologians to retract their censure in this instance, the king's tolerance for reformers and reformist ideas very soon began to decline. In 1533 Marguerite de Navarre requested that the new rector of the Sorbonne, Nicolas Cop, deliver the much publicized All Saints' Day Sermon. The evangelical content of the sermon forced Cop to flee Paris for Marguerite's court at Nerac, where he found refuge. Fleeing with him was a young sympathizer, John Calvin, whose reformist ideas had likely influenced Cop's sermon.36 At Nerac, Calvin met Lefevre, who also had fled the Sorbonne's condemnations. After the October 1534 affaire desplacards, in which posters satirizing the Mass appeared in Paris and other cities (one was even affixed to the King's bedroom door), Francois I himself ordered the condemnations and executions of alleged heretics. The persecution of reform sympathizers had shifted from the Sorbonne to the court, and the movements for both reform and humanism in France were dealt a severe blow.37 Although Lefevre stayed in Marguerite de Navarre's court at Nerac until his death, the newly converted young Calvin no longer considered France a safe option. Intending to lead a life of study and writing, he fled to Basle, one of Europe's great intellectual centers. There he stayed until he finished the first edition of The Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536).3S After a journey back into France, he was persuaded by the Strasbourg reformer Farel to go to Geneva, but he continued to hope that his native land would adopt the Reformation as he had.39 From Geneva, Calvin corresponded with a number of French noblewomen, including Marguerite de Navarre and her cousin Renee de France, duchess of Ferrara. After Marguerite's death, Calvin continued to correspond with her daughter, Jeanne d'Albret, who became one of the leaders of the French Huguenot movement. Calvin continually urged the women to "remain firm in their newly acquired faith no matter what adverse circumstances they might face," but his letters were arguably more political than spiritual in focus.40 He knew that these French noblewomen had great influence with their families and that the religion of the state rested almost entirely in the hands of its rulers. Calvin became alarmed when he realized that Marguerite de Navarre might have come under the influence of a group of "spiritual libertines" that he believed was a sect "the most pernicious and horrible which ever existed in all the world. This sect is a fire set for destroying all; it is like a contagious disease which will infect the whole earth if it is not remedied."41 Early in 1545, Calvin wrote a treatise entitled "Against the Spiritual Libertines," in which he criticized the French court

MARGUERITE DE NAVARRE AND ALLEGORICAL RHETORIC

f>

for tolerating the presence of Quintin of Hainaut, Anthony Pocquet, and Claude Perceval.42 The three leaders of the "spiritual libertines" were among those who had found refuge at Nerac, where Quintin served as an usher, Pocquet as a chaplain, and Perceval as a valet.43 Apparently Marguerite de Navarre was greatly offended by Calvin's treatise, because in April 1545 he wrote her saying that he intended no personal offense but that the gravity of the situation required his speaking out. He was concerned about those in her court who would turn her against him and thus against the Church of God, and he defended his personal attack against Quintin and Pocquet because he believed the evil they were perpetrating was so great. Comparing himself to a dog who bites when it sees its master being attacked, Calvin asked Marguerite "not to be offended, if being constrained by the duty of my office, under pain of incurring the offense of God, I have spared your servants nothing, without at the same time addressing myself to you." He believed that he, as a defender of the gospel, was required to speak publicly about the situation, despite the fact that his critique of the Queen's servants might put her own reputation in some jeopardy.44 While no documents exist to suggest that Marguerite de Navarre replied directly either to Calvin's treatise or to his letter, her apparent textual silence may not tell the whole story. In 1930 W. G. Moore argued that Marguerite de Navarre's Dialogue in the Form of a Night Vision (1524) was a reaction against Luther's and Erasmus's debate over the freedom or bondage of the will.45 In this dialogue, Marguerite carries on a conversation with her niece, Charlotte, whom she loved dearly and who had died prematurely. Charlotte's now-wise soul in heaven speaks to her aunt in what Moore reads as the theological perspective of Marguerite de Navarre herself: I pray you that these ostentatious debates on free will and liberty be left to the great doctors of theology who [nonetheless] are not their rightful owners: Such are their hearts that they are pressed by inventions, so that Truth cannot find its place. Cease from partaking in these arguments, but for your part, in whatever you say or confront, be certain that you have liberty if you have the love of God and grace.46 Similarly, V. L. Saulnier claimed in 1946 that the secular play entitled "Comedy of the Mount of Marsan" (1548) was a direct response to, and a critique of, Calvin's attack against the spiritual libertines.47 There is ample evidence to suggest that Marguerite de Navarre's other writings during the last years of her life were responses to theological issues, as well.

THE HEPTAMERON'S MULTIPLE REFORMATIONS This study examines the literary work for which Marguerite de Navarre is most often remembered, the Heptameron (first published posthumously in 1558), as yet another response to the issues raised in Calvin's treatise "Against the Spiritual Libertines"; as such, the Heptameron is Understood as a profoundly theologicalwork,

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dedicated to reformist ideas coming both from within and from outside France, yet providing its own constructive theological vision. A novella collection ostensibly modeled after Boccaccio's Decameron, the Heptameron is a collection of seventy-two tales (the author died before completing the work) framed by the story of a group of travelers who are surprised by a flood in the Cauteret Mountains.48 Stranded in a monastery until a bridge can be repaired, they decide to relieve their boredom by listening each morning to meditations on Scripture by the eldest woman among them, Oisille, and by sharing stories with each other in the afternoons. While the tales themselves may have been composed or even collected from others over a number of years, the frame story is thought to date from Marguerite de Navarre's own visit to the Cauterets in I54