War and Peace in the Religious Conflicts of the Long Sixteenth Century [1 ed.] 9783666573255, 9783525573259

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Gianmarco Braghi / Davide Dainese (eds.)

War and Peace in the Religious Conflicts of the Long Sixteenth Century

Academic Studies

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Refo500 Academic Studies Edited by Herman J. Selderhuis In co-operation with Christopher B. Brown (Boston), Günter Frank (Bretten), Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer (Bern), Tarald Rasmussen (Oslo), Violet Soen (Leuven), Zsombor Tóth (Budapest), Günther Wassilowsky (Frankfurt), Siegrid Westphal (Osnabrück)

Volume 89

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Gianmarco Braghi / Davide Dainese (eds.)

War and Peace in the Religious Conflicts of the Long Sixteenth Century

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

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Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek: The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: https://dnb.de. © 2023 by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Theaterstraße 13, 37073 Göttingen, Germany, an imprint of the Brill-Group (Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands; Brill USA Inc., Boston MA, USA; Brill Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore; Brill Deutschland GmbH, Paderborn, Germany; Brill Österreich GmbH, Vienna, Austria) Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau, V&R unipress and Wageningen Academic. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. Cover design: SchwabScantechnik, Göttingen Typesetting: le-tex publishing services, Leipzig

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage | www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com ISSN 2197-0165 ISBN 978-3-666-57325-5

Table of Contents

Davide Dainese Foreword ..............................................................................................

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Mark Greengrass Wars of Religion in the Sixteenth Century and the Problem of Trust............. 19 Angela De Benedictis Theories of War, Rebellion and Resistance in Early Modern Italy ................. 41 Ian Campbell Just War and Scholastic Intellectual Culture in Early Modern Europe ........... 71 Jakub Koryl Intolerable Tolerance. Conceptual Framework of the Early Modern Inter-Confessional Relations ................................................................... 93 Thomas T. Müller The German Peasants’ War (1524–5). Facts, Reception History and New Approaches.................................................................................... 117 Rebecca Giselbrecht Women and War. The Swiss Connection ................................................... 141 Fabrizio D’Avenia When the Past Makes Saints. The Knights of Malta from Sinners to Martyrs in Il glorioso trionfo della sacrosanta religion militare di S. Giovanni Gierosolimitano (1619) .............................................................. 167 Graeme Murdock Religion and Violence. Geneva’s Just War .................................................. 189 Johannes C. Wolfart Time Under Siege. The Chronicle Sources of the Swedish Siege of Lindau (1647) ....................................................................................... 215

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Table of Contents

Volker Arnke Preservation of Religious Peace through Law. The Peace of Westphalia (1648), the Capitulatio Perpetua (1650) and the Jesuit Conflict in the Bi-Confessional Prince-Bishopric of Osnabrück ................... 239 Gianmarco Braghi Afterword ............................................................................................. 261 Name Index .......................................................................................... 271

Davide Dainese

Foreword

The relationship between violence and religion is ingrained in the history of humanity. To some degree the relationship can be found in every corner of the earth at any moment in time. Moreover, it presents itself in a multitude of forms – from sacrificial practice to the many faces of strict ascetic discipline and the ways in which it has been imposed or self-imposed. The shelves of historical-anthropologicalreligious libraries are loaded with studies on sacrifice, self-sacrifice, the concept of discipline, the act of disciplining, and the Dionysian and destructive vocation of the sacred. However, it is evident that this violent core of the religious, or, if you will, the sacred heart of violence, is manifest in the history of the three “great” Abrahamic monotheisms under the guise of war. This is clear to anyone seeking knowledge and understanding of the specificities of that exclusivist character inherent in any monotheism. Still, it is equally evident to those living within the “profane” sphere in our present-day marked by so-called religious global warming, or, more generally, to those raised in the school of post-World War II anti-militarism. From a scholarly point of view – for centuries – the primary debates on the relationship between war and religion have essentially concerned two issues. These are the nature of war and its justification. Oceans of ink have been spilled exploring the two topics on their own, and recent scholarship has examined these issues and their corollaries at great length. Indeed, contemporary historiography is the product of its time. It is marked by two epochal events: the fall of the Berlin Wall and the territorial conflicts in Ex-Yugoslavia. In particular, the Balkan War was reflected in a historiographic sublimation of the return to war tout court in Europe – the continent still recovering from the injuries of the numerous “Gothic Lines” of World War II – and the correlated pain inflicted on age-old political, ethnic, and religious factors. Beginning from the 1990s, it is no coincidence that Western scholars – working off developments in intuitions first had by Natalie Zemon Davis1 in her reflection on the French wars of religion2 – gradually and subtly problematised religion’s role in defining the nature of European conflicts. Today, we tend to distinguish

1 See N. Zemon Davis, “The Rites of Violence: Religious Riot in Sixteenth-Century France”, Past & Present 59 (1973) 51–91. 2 See M.P. Holt, The French Wars of Religion, 1562–1629 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2 2005), 2 and D. Crouzet, Les guerriers de Dieu: La violence au temps des troubles de religion (vers 1525–vers 1610) (Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 1990), 507–25.

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between holy wars and wars of/for faith. The former are generally understood as the crusades, and among these, we typically seek to separate those pitting Christians against non-Christians and those waged within Christianity itself. That being said, when we examine holy wars in broader terms, not necessarily Christian, the second term is preferred: wars of/for faith. These are considered different from civil wars based on a confessional nature and, more specifically, from the wars linked to the Reformation. More generally, confessional wars are examined with specific analytical instruments according to whether they are intraor inter-confessional conflicts. Recently, regarding the technical formulas of the German Geschichtsschreibung, some have proposed that Konfessionsbildungskriege (Christian confessions that were formed historically through the process of conflict) be distinguished from Konfessionalisierungskriege (i. e. conflicts between historically pre-established confessions).3 In short, without delving into detail, it is clear how thick the lens of wartime violence through which we read the history of Christianity has become.4 Although the decision to make war is not contemplated in the New Testament,5 if we examine its historical vicissitudes – especially from the Milvian Bridge onward – Christianity must consider the so-called Islamic lesser jihād, the jihād al sayf , that is, of the sword, with contrition. Concerning the relationship between war and justice, however, the main distinction must hold between the motivation for war as an event and the way in which war is conducted or concluded. The first issue is called ius ad bellum, while the second is ius in bello. Ius ad bellum, the right to go to war, is a legacy of Roman law. Like all of the ancient world, this is linked with the religious sphere – in Ancient Rome, there was a priestly collegium, the fetials, who were entrusted with this duty. Only during Augustus’s time would it be possible to question the conditions of a just war based on its righteousness, thus employing the issue of ius in bello. The Thomistic paradigm (auctoritas superioris – iusta causa – recta intentio), its crisis – from Bartolus of Saxoferrato to Balthazar Ayala – and its complicated rebirth with Hugo Grotius (a swan song at the end of the long iron century) complete a survey of which the Latin crusades are but one example among many.

3 For all these definitions, see the work of C. Mühling, Die europäische Debatte über den Religionskrieg (1679–1714): Konfessionelle Memoria und internationale Politik im Zeitalter Ludwigs XIV. (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2018), 23–5. 4 Previously, see at least A. von Harnack, Militia Christi: Die christliche Religion und der Soldatenstand in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten (Tübingen: Mohr, 1905), R.H. Bainton, Christian Attitudes toward War and Peace: A Historical Survey and Critical Re-Evaluation (New York: Abington, 1960), A. Morisi Guerra, La guerra nel pensiero cristiano dalle origini alle crociate (Florence: Sansoni, 1963). 5 In addition, the words of Jesus in Matt 11:12 on the relationship between Christianity and violence are valid admonitions.

Foreword

The current generation of scholars, who to various degrees have experienced the re-emergence of latent European belligerence, are fully aware of its legacy. It involves not only the violence of the regime of Christendom but, above all, its violent fragmentation, to borrow from the lexicon of the Italian translation of Mark Greengrass’s volume Christendom Destroyed.6 This is clear in particular when examining how the last twenty years of historiography on the Thirty Years’ War – a conflict of an obviously religious nature – starts. The twenty-sixth Council of Europe Art Exhibition set up in Münster and Osnabrück in 1998 on the theme “1648: Krieg und Frieden in Europa”, with the three volume catalogue published alongside under the direction of Heinz Schilling and Klaus Bußmann,7 inaugurated a twenty-year study that has produced further evidence. I am referring to the inheritance of a common legacy and shared responsibility concerning the past – a past which forged modern political configurations from the flames of Lepanto on the one hand and in the mold of Lützen on the other. After all, recent historiography that focuses both on the wars of the so-called Euro-Western area (the wars of Italy, the French wars of religion, the Eighty Years’ War, the Thirty Years’ War, the Franco-Spanish conflict) and the hypothesis – more fluid in terms of space and time – of Europe as a melting pot of magmatic belligerent areas has significantly shifted the impression (which was dominant in the nineteenth century and for a large part of the twentieth century) that the Thirty Years’ War was solely a religious or civil war in German territories. The historical face of the war today is not exclusively German, French, Swedish, Polish, Bohemian, Spanish, Dutch or even Christian. Instead, it is composed of all men and women in what Alois Dempf called Reichsbewusstsein, the conscience of belonging to a sacrum imperium.8 Over and above any sense of citizenship, in the consciousness of the European historian who examines the seventeenth century there is a budding sensation of shared guilt and an imperative for critical thought. Therefore, it is necessary to reflect on the religious; not only because the events of the last thirty years have unmasked the naïveté of each optimistic prophecy of secularisation, but also, more simply, to better understand the events of the age that this volume examines. Returning to the historiography of the Thirty Years’ War, the focus on the genesis of the modern state, which puts religious phenomena in dialogue with issues concerning the nature or justification of conflict and then relegates it to the Machiavellianism/anti-Machiavellianism binary, has undoubtedly led to objective results. Specifically, I believe it has been decisive in understanding the multiple phases of the conflict, leading us to quite a clear periodisation. That 6 See M. Greengrass, La cristianità in frantumi: Europa 1517–1648 (Rome/Bari: Laterza, 2017). 7 H. Schilling/K. Bußmann (ed.), 1648: Krieg und Frieden in Europa. Münster/Osnabrück 24.10.1998–17.1.1999 (3 vol.; Munich: Bruckmann, 1998). 8 A. Dempf, Sacrum imperium: Geschichts- und Staatsphilosophie des Mittelalters und der politischen Renaissance (Munich/Wien: Oldenbourg, 4 1973).

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being said, one wonders if this suffices to explain its outbreak and conclusion in the face of wide-ranging and discordant alternative proposals found in the critical literature.9 Historical-political scholars have skilfully employed improvements in the religious sciences to reach their goals. Still, they must not stop at an interpretive paradigm that dates back to the 1920s,10 even if its source is the authoritative Friedrich Meinecke. And so, we arrive at the main goal of this volume: to shuffle the cards, problematise, provoke, and arouse novel reflection. This is the general framework in which to understand the selection of papers collected within. Of course, the various contributions published in this volume contain a multitude of elements that cannot be simplified according to the classification proposed here in the introduction. Nevertheless, they will be grouped according to a scheme that focuses on common intent and similarity for purely illustrative purposes.

1.

Issues of Lexicon and Method

The essays by Mark Greengrass, Graeme Murdock, and Jakub Koryl draw the reader’s attention to issues of varying degrees of specificity – aimed at underlying questions and problems – that, in many respects, help familiarise the reader with at least some of the issues focused on in other contributions. Greengrass and Murdock can be incorporated into the debate on the role of religious fact in the conflicts throughout the overlong iron century. While it is true that every early modern historian has engaged with the actual relationship between religion and violence, it is equally true that, as a consequence of what Murdock states, the choice of wording in the historiographic discourse often ignores their contribution by precluding an understanding of the enduring roots of civil wars and international conflicts. After all, early modern historians have been cautious to engage with the theoretical aspects of such a debate. Religious history in particular – with its categories and instruments – has remained on the margins. Although the essays in this volume were presented at a conference in 2019 and could not foresee the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine, these observations could easily be extended to the dramatic events of recent months. In any case, Murdock’s contribution represents a case study with a specific focus on the Geneva-Savoy conflict at the end of the sixteenth century. Furthermore, it draws attention to the complexity with which religious and political dimensions intertwine with a parallel historical issue (and

9 See D. Dainese, “Note sulla produzione storiografica recente intorno alla Guerra dei Trent’anni. Parte II: La trattatistica militare e le tendenze recenti”, CNS 43 (2022) forthcoming. 10 See F. Meinecke, Die Idee der Staatsräson in der neueren Geschichte (Munich: Oldenbirug, 2 1960).

Foreword

historiographic, given the ample literature on the topic): the determination of borders.11 The work of Greengrass, on the other hand, is broader in scope. It concerns an analysis of the relationship between war and religion within a problem of greater importance: the periodisation of the concept of trust. By concentrating on the context – and historiographic dilemma – of the so-called French wars of religion, and through examination of the works of Montaigne and Brantôme, as well as popular perceptions (through judicial acts, testimonies, and propaganda), Greengrass invites the reader to focus – like Murdock – on the degrees of experience that are “imbricated with religion but not” naïvely “bounded by it” to discern what truly happened, the actual “broader historical changes” that occurred. Jakub Koryl’s essay has a different purpose. His attention focuses on complications of a methodological nature: the various lexical issues on tolerance. Following the scholarly activity catalysed in tandem with the seventeenth centenary celebration of the so-called Edict of Milan,12 this topic has become of significant interest to historians of Christianity. Koryl convincingly shows that, before the era of John Locke – where Socinian christology played an important role – and later with Voltaire, the lexicon of tolerance did not significantly impact reflections on religious liberty. This was because “tolerance” had to do with a semantic horizon circumscribed by contexts of deviation and forbearance.

11 For the specific case of the Savoys, see B.A. Raviola, “Disciplinare la frontiera: L’acquisizione delle province di nuovo acquisto e la ridefinizione del confine orientale”, in I. Massabò Ricci/G. Gentile/ B.A. Raviola (ed.), Il teatro delle terre: Cartografia sabauda tra Alpi e pianura (Savigliano: L’artistica, 2006) 161–82; B.A. Raviola, Lo spazio sabaudo: Intersezioni, frontiere e confini in età moderna (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2007); B.A. Raviola, “De l’osmose à la séparation: La construction de la frontière entre la France et le Piémont-Savoie (XVIe–XVIIIe siècles)”, Cahiers de la Méditerranée 81 (2010) 271–89; the bibliography essay B.A. Raviola, “Frontiere regionali, nazionali e storiografiche: Il caso italiano fra risultati acquisiti e nuove prospettive”, in M.Á. Melon Jiménez et al. (ed.), Fronteras e historia: Balance y perspectivas de futuro (Gehsomp: Badajoz, 2014) 259–77; B.A. Raviola, “Storia di un dialogo in fieri?: Territori, frontiere, spazio regionale nella storiografia sui domini sabaudi”, in B.A. Raviola/C. Rosso/F. Varallo (ed.), Gli spazi sabaudi: Percorsi e prospettive della storiografia (Rome: Carocci, 2018) 99–111. See also M. Scattola, “Guerra, confini, territorio tra Cinquecento e Seicento: Lo spazio logico dello stato moderno”, in A. De Benedictis (ed.), Teatri di guerra: Rappresentazioni e discorsi tra età moderna ed età contemporanea (Bologna: Bup, 2010) 77–97. 12 See T. Canella, Il peso della tolleranza: Cristianesimo antico e alterità (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2017); P. Van Nuffelen, Penser la tolérance durant l’Antiquité tardive (Paris: Cerf, 2018); D. Dainese/V. Gheller, Beyond Intolerance: The Milan Meeting in AD 313 and the Evolution of Imperial Religious Policy from the Age of the Tetrarchs to Julian the Apostate (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018).

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2.

The Elaboration of Wartime Memory

The essays by Rebecca Giselbrecht, Thomas Müller and Johannes C. Wolfart shed light on the difficulty of metabolising wartime memory. They do so in different ways and for dissimilar contexts. Giselbrecht and Müller’s chronologies are, at the most, relatively close. The issue of the elaboration of the memory of war underlines a type of source long considered unconventional for the reconstruction of historical events, namely, to adapt a term from the study of council history, “reception”.13 The reception of war, in turn, impacts other issues and sources on which recent historiography – at least that related to the Thirty Years’ War – has found particularly fertile ground. I refer to the so-called “Ego-dokumente/scritture personali/egodocuments/écriture du for privé”. Over several decades, this concept has sought to understand and classify the typology of sources that deal with the voluntary or involuntary self-affirmation of the “ego”. But these problems also concern the creation of collective memory and, more generally, due to their involving the execution of violence, require specific procedures – the same that, among others, the late Hayden White cleverly studied and perfected.14 Rebecca Giselbrecht’s essay fits into a polyphonic attempt – particularly in vogue in the last twenty years – to reinterpret or scale back the myth of Swiss neutrality within its historical context.15 In particular, Giselbrecht’s chapter seeks to fill the 13 See A. Grillmeier, “Konzil und Rezeption: Methodische Bemerkungen zu einem Thema der ökumenischen Diskussion der Gegenwart”, Theologie und Philosophie 45 (1970) 321–52 and above all Y. Congar, “La ‘réception’ comme réalité ecclésiologique”, Revue de Sciences Philosophique et Théoogiques 56/3 (1972) 369–403 and Y. Congar, “Reception as an Ecclesiological Reality”, in G. Alberigo/A.G. Weiler (ed.), Election and Consensus in the Church (New York: Herder & Herder, 1972) 43–68; see also: C. Theobald, La réception du Concile Vatican II (2 vol.; Paris: Cerf, 2009); G. Routhier, La réception d’un concile (Paris: Cerf, 1993) and G. Routhier, Vatican II: Herméneutique et réception (Montreal: Fides, 2006). 14 See H. White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973) and the essays in the volumes H. White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987) and H. White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), as well as the Italian series edited by E. Tortarolo, Forme di storia: Dalla realtà alla narrazione (Rome: Carocci, 2006). 15 See A. Holenstein, “L’enjeu de la neutralité: Les cantons suisses et la guerre de Trente Ans”, in J.F. Chanet/C. Windler (ed.), Les resources des faibles: Neutralités, sauvegardes, accomodements en temps de guerre (XVI e -XVIII e siècle) (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2010) 47–61 and A. Holenstein/G. von Erlach/S. Rindlisbacher (ed.), Im Auge des Hurrikans: Eidgenössische Machteliten und der Dreissigjährige Krieg (Baden: Hier und Jetzt, 2015). See also: V. Villiger/J. Steinauer/D. Bitterli, Les chevauchées du colonel Koenig: Un aventurier dans l’Europe en guerre 1594–1647 (Fribourg: Faim de siècle, 2006); R.C. Head, Jenatsch’s Axe: Social Boundaries, Identity, and Myth in the Era of the Thirty Years’ War (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2008); D. Tosato-Rigo (ed.), La chronique de Jodocus Jost: Miroir du monde d’un paysan bernois au XVIIe siècle (Lausanne: SHSR, 2009) –

Foreword

gap concerning the role of women. She argues they were not only passive participants but actively engaged, even in wartime events, during the early modern age, thus contributing to the broader framework of the social history of the Reformation. Ultimately – and this is the most relevant aspect to such an account – Giselbrecht’s essay reviews some of the legends and hagiographies of specific key female figures in the history of the Reformation in Switzerland to show how the multi-dimensional mythopoeia of the woman as a “beautiful soul” rests on complex and profoundly contrasting data. This reveals behaviour of an entirely different nature and appearance than previously considered. As declared in its title, The German Peasants’ War (1524–5): Facts, Reception History and New Approaches, Thomas Müller’s essay focuses on this specific war, its context, its immediate, brief reception as well as its historiographic interpretation (concerning the so-called Bundschuh conspiracy and the uprising of the Armer Konrad) and later occurrences in the German attempts to construct identity between 1945 and Germany’s reunification. The Peasants’ War, whose fifth centenary is nearing, held great promise from the outset for prolific re-use and multi-form historicisation. This was due to the contemporary development of print media at the time; indeed, it would be the first European uprising to pour fuel on the fire of the media revolution. Müller’s essay is a necessary stepping stone within the framework of this volume, which is published almost on the eve of 2025. Johannes Wolfart’s work moves us into the final stages of the Thirty Years’ War. Wolfart focuses on the siege of Lindau in 1647, which he examines in the specific light of siege literature. This genre, which has been poorly understood by religious studies and other perspectives that often classify it among eyewitness testimony, actually has much to tell us as a heuristic frame. Wolfart’s decisive contribution lies in grasping the transformation of the perception of time – more than space – during sieges, of which the chronicle is a testimony. The usual scansion of time is suspended from the moment a siege begins until its end. The chronicles of the besieged, articulated in several different ways, then act as a surrogate.

3.

Law History and Political History

With Ian Campbell’s essay, we return to the philosophical and theological problem of justifying war, but from a novel perspective. It starts from two sets of sources that historiography has yet to dedicate sufficient attention to: the legacy of Duns Scotus works that, if compared solely with A. Zurfluh, Sebastian Peregrin Zwyer von Evebach: Eine soziokulturelle Biographie einer innerschweizerischen Kriegsmann im Dienste der Habsburger während des Dreißigjährigen Krieges (Zürich: Thesis Verlag, 1993), from the previous decade, reveal the extent to which the historiographic landscape has changed.

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and the doctrines imparted in the Protestant (Lutheran or Reformed) universities. The aim of Campbell’s research, of which the essay published here is but a fragment, is to fill a gap found mainly in English-language scholarship on the early modern age, especially in Britain. This gap concerns political science, which, absorbed primarily by the study of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, has long neglected the issue of just war. Despite a few crucial exceptions that have capitalised on the legacy of Frederick Russell16 or on the history of international relations that has profited from the legacy of Roman Law,17 the topic of just war has remained in many details neglected. Perhaps the most significant element of Campbell’s research, besides the results in the specific field of intellectual history, lies in keeping alive observation on the effective social impact of academic thought on the early modern age. In this way, Campbell succeeds in advancing our understanding of a precise phenomenon: the cautious Christian enthusiasm about warfare, beyond the boundaries of the set of questions and answers provided by the Thomistic paradigm. Many efforts have been made in the last few decades to slow down the process of the secularization of the medieval system of law. Scholars tend to look at the sources of the historiographically mainstream early modern theorists. Campbell, on the contrary, widens the milieu to be considered in order to show that “nature and supernature were not so neatly divided as many historians of political thought have suggested”. The contribution from Volker Arnke continues in the area of law history, in this case with the examination of significant cases in the history of international relations. Although he investigates conflicts that lie slightly at the margins of this volume’s chronology (1720), Arnke examines lengthy and entrenched dynamics in the history of the spread of the Reformation within the territories of the empire. His essay aims to show the effectiveness of the juridical, political, and institutional 16 See F. Russell, The Just War in the Middle Ages (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1975). I refer in particular to J.T. Johnson, Ideology, Reason and the Limitation of War: Religious and Secular Concepts, 1200–1740 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975); J.T. Johnson, Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War: A Moral and Historical Inquiry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981); J.T. Johnson, The Quest for Peace: Three Moral Traditions in Western Cultural History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987); J. Kelsay/J.T. Johnson (ed.), Just War and Jihad: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives on War and Peace in Western and Islamic Traditions (New York: GP, 1991). It is also true that especially after the war in the Balkans during the 90s more thought was dedicated to this theme. I wish to recall the tuning by N. Reinhardt, who edited in 2014 a monographic issue of the Journal of Early Modern History on just war: see N. Reinhardt, “Introduction: War, Conscience, and Counsel in Early Modern Catholic Europe”, Journal of Early Modern History 18/5 (2014) 435–46. I have listed a more recent bibliography in my D. Dainese, “Note sulla produzione storiografica recente intorno alla Guerra dei trent’anni. Parte I. Il 1998 come ‘turning point’”, CNS 43 (2022) 133–87 and Dainese, “Guerra dei trent’anni. Parte II”. 17 To give one name among many, B. Straumann, Roman Law in the State of Nature: The Classical Foundations of Hugo Grotius’ Natural Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). Straumann tackles this issue through the lens of Grotius.

Foreword

instruments implemented in the treaties of Münster and Osnabrück for defusing potential conflicts. Arnke’s essay fits within the context of historiographic discussions that, especially in the last two decades, have scaled back the idea of an immediate Westphalian settlement or Westphalian system in which the political and the religious sphere would be separated at some point.18 On the contrary, the balance of powers after Westphalia still required an empire that was supposed to remain holy – and in a threefold sense: Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinist. This is not to say that the Peace of Westphalia does not mark an important milestone of periodisation. Indeed, Arnke’s contribution clearly makes this point: previously, situations of conflict led to warlike outcomes; later they led to political solutions.

4.

Historical-Religious Themes

An essay concerning aspects of Bolognese history is a necessary complement to a volume publishing the acts of an international conference held in Bologna. Angela De Benedictis’s essay examines four case studies in a time frame opening with uprisings in Bologna (1510–52) and closing at the end of the 1600s (Castiglione delle Stiviere). De Benedictis’s research, of which the right to self-defence has been a focal point for decades, has already devoted significant consideration to the political and juridical thought underlying citizen uprisings and revolts, paying particular attention to the Italian context.19 In this essay, her analysis shows the role that churches (or convents, in the case of Mondovì) played as hubs for insurgents. The essay points to historical-political/historical-juridical issues and examines the impact on areas which are significant in particular for historical/anthropological-religious

18 This orientation continued to be seen as late as 1998. In German-language contexts, Johannes Burkhardt was particularly vocal about proposing a rereading of the peace in a “conservative” sense; that is, its purpose was to provide the empire with a kind of constitution, hence the idea of the electors as substantial remnants of a die-hard Christendom. This idea reappeared in two volumes by A. Gotthard, Säulen des Reiches: Die Kurfürsten im frühneuzeitlichen Reichsverband (Husum: Matthiesen, 1999) and was then developed in later studies. English-language historiography aligns with this view, mainly from Derek Croxton onward, see. D. Croxton, Peacemaking in Early Modern Europe: Cardinal Mazarin and the Congress of Westphalia, 1643–1648 (Selingsgrove: Susquehanna University Press, 1999) and especially with D. Croxton, Westphalia: The Last Christian Peace (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). For a more updated view on the topic of the Peace of Westphalia, see C. Kampmann/M. Lanzinner/M. Rohrschneider, “Von der Kunst des Friedenschließens”, in C. Kampmann et al. (ed.), L’art de la paix: Kongresswesen und Friedensstiftung im Zeitalter des Westfälischen Friedens (Münster: Achendorff, 2011) 9–28, on p. 16–19 and, more generally, Dainese, “Guerra dei trent’anni. Parte II”. 19 See in particular A. De Benedictis, Neither Disobedients nor Rebels: Lawful Resistance in Early Modern Italy (Rome: Viella, 2018)

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scholarship. Indeed, in recent years we have witnessed countless revisitations of the works of the great masters of religious history and sociology in terms of the relationship between space and the sacred, from a multitude of perspectives, and with contrasting results. This is evidenced in reinterpretations of Émile Durkheim,20 Mark Bloch,21 Mircea Eliade,22 and Jonathan Smith.23 It is also seen in more elusive intellectual figures such as Max Weber24 and Henri Lefebvre.25 By and large, there seems to have been a shift in the concept of sacred space. The approach to the concept of space has re-articulated historical-architectural sensitivities, beginning from the valorisation of space both as a fluid, multidimensional, social construct – reflecting and conditioning its occupants – and as a source for understanding liturgical and ritual dimensions.26 The value of the church as space, in De Benedictis’s essay, if not liturgical, is at least highly symbolic as a space to legitimise claims that, despite being theorised in Giovanni da Legnano’s De Bello, were anything but taken for granted in the seventeenth century. The concluding essay in this historical-religious thematic framework is Fabrizio D’Avenia’s chapter on the hagiographic text of the Dominican theologian Domenico

20 É. Durkheim, Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse: Le système totémique en Australie (Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan, 1912). This is also the case, if you consider in particular the reception of Durkheim in M. Halbwachs, Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1925) and in M. Halbwachs, La mémoire collective (Paris: Les presses universitaires de France, 1950); for an introduction, see M. Jaisson, “Temps et espace chez Maurice Halbwachs (1925–1945)”, RHSH 1 (1999) 163–78 and in the German-speaking world in L. Bauer/K. Hamberger, Gesellschaft Denken: Eine erkenntnistheoretische Standortbestimmung der Stozialwissenschften (Wien/New York: Springer, 2002). 21 Consider the legacy of Marc Bloch in G. Le Bras L’église et le village (Paris: Flammarion, 1976) – a work that includes and elaborates on Bloch’s seminal notions of religious and rural history. 22 M. Eliade, Das Heilige und das Profane (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1957). Despite the specificity of Eliade’s categories, I believe it is especially relevant to consider the clear-cut distinction between profane space and sacred space as a qualitative difference between Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries respectively. 23 J.Z. Smith, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1987). 24 I refer to the volume dedicated to the city, here reported in the edition from Max-WeberGesamtausgabe: M. Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft: Die Stadt (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999). 25 H. Lefebvre, Production de l’espace (Paris: Anthropos, 1974). On Lefebvre specifically, see Ł. Stanek, Henri Lefebvre on Space: Architecture, Urban Research, and the Production of Theory (London/ Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011). 26 My perspective owes much to the research of Jörg Rüpke. For a general overview, see J. Rüpke, “Religiöses Handeln: Kommunikation mit göttlichen Mächten”, in C. Hattler (ed.), Imperium der Götter: Isis, Mithras, Christus. Religionen im römischen Reich (Karlsruhe/Darmstadt: Badisches Landemuseum/Wissenschftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2014) 32–9. For an overall theoretical overview, see J. Rüpke, Pantheon: A New History of Roman Religion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), 1–23.

Foreword

Maria Curione d’Asso entitled Il glorioso trionfo della sacrosanta religion militare di S. Giovanni Gierosolimitano (1619). D’Avenia’s contribution fits within a historiographic setting that has garnered much attention in Italy in the last few years thanks to the Research Project of Relevant National Interest coordinated by Vincenzo Lavenia at the University of Bologna which focuses on the issue of sacrifice in the Europe of the religious conflicts and in the early modern world. In Curione’s treaty studied by D’Avenia, the Knights of the Order of St John (later of Malta) were portrayed in terms of their religious fidelity and military value, which went as far as to include martyrdom. However, this sacrifice silenced the actual behaviour of men whose religious practice was often inadequate. The narrative strategies of this work are set within the context of the coeval literature on the crusades and the “Christian soldier”. They include the hagiographic reconstruction of the origins and development of the Order, the providential interpretation of military victory/defeat, the stereotyped portrayal of the “barbarous” infidel, complaints about internal divisions of Christianity against the Turks, and the urgent call to reconquer the Holy Land.

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Wars of Religion in the Sixteenth Century and the Problem of Trust

Trust was a problem central to the Reformation. The history of trust, however, is in the process of being written, and some would argue that it is such an omnipresent social reality, an ahistorical plurivalence of human existence, that it is a “concept too many”.1 That has not prevented it from attracting sustained and sophisticated theoretical attention from sociologists and political scientists.2 It is seen as the distinguishing mark of modernity and its social complexity. Without it, says Niklas Luhmann, we would not be able to get up in the morning.3 Money, credit, information and the media, legitimate political authority, our prosperity and sense of wellbeing all depend on “trust systems”4 embedded in markets and regulatory frameworks, underpinned by a rational belief that others have a stake in our own welfare, and “trust networks”5 such as family ties, religious groups, trade diasporas, patron-client relationships, and local communities.6 These reflections remind us that there were merchants in Augsburg, Lisbon, Genoa and elsewhere in the sixteenth century who were busy conducting trade at a distance, sometimes globally, on the basis of mechanisms of trust so far-flung that they must have seemed strange and suspicious to most of their contemporaries.7 Ordinary people were more exposed to instruments of credit closer to hand, where bankruptcy and usury

1 T.W. Guinnane, “Trust: A Concept Too Many”, Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeshichte/Economic History Yearbook 46/1 (2005) 77–92. 2 L. Kontler/M. Somos (ed.), Trust and Happiness in the History of European Political Thought (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 1–12, esp. 3; H. Ziegler, Trauen und Glauben: Vertrauen in der politischen Kultur des Alten Reiches im Konfessionellen Zeitalter (Stuttgart: Didymos-Verlag, 2017), 7–32. 3 N. Luhmann, Trust and Power (Chichester: Wiley & Sons, 1979), 4. 4 Luhmann, Trust and Power. 5 C. Tilly, Trust and Rule (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 6 Luhmann, Trust and Power; Tilly, Trust and Rule; see also F. Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1995); B. Misztal, Trust in Modern Societies (Cambridge, MA: Polity Press, 1996); R. Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness (New York: Sage, 2002); U. Frevert, Vertrauensfragen: Eine Obsession der Moderne (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2013). 7 F. Trivellato, The Familiarity of Strangers: The Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2009), but the evidence is from the eighteenth century, G. Calafat, “Familles, réseaux et confiance dans l’économie de l’époque modern: Diasporas marchandes et commerce intercultural”, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 66/1 (2011) 513–31.

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posed trust as moral and legal issues. There is some evidence that such ordinary fiduciary trust was becoming more problematic in the sixteenth century, and that magistrates were aware of it.8 The French judge Gabriel Bounyn from Châteauroux, for example, was particularly concerned about the erosion of charity, piety and good neighbourliness through declarations of bankruptcy.9 He sought to uphold punishments of public shame (such as the wearing of a green cap or being pilloried with one’s trousers pulled down) for those found unable to meet their debts.10 We should certainly bear in mind the emergence of new media – the commercialisation of printing, the marketing of news and information, and the cacophony of conflicting voices from pulpits, pedlars, songsters and street-corners – that sixteenth-century religious divisions energised. That cacophony generated issues of trust since it was not evident how much one could believe of all one heard, saw, and (if literate) read. Ideology fostered the forces of persuasion, propaganda, and misinformation, but it also nurtured the wellsprings of distrust and dissent.11 Even in the world of learning and scholarship, the humanist emphasis on particularity was not only creating “too much to know” but also weakening the mechanisms for verifying it.12 Humanist philology undermined the trust one could place in an inherited textual tradition. Reading to oneself rather than aloud weakened the cardinal relationship of trust between what someone said and what they held to be true. And the religious changes of the sixteenth century sit astride Daniel Jütte’s “age of secrecy”,13 in which arcane knowledge was believed to be capable of unlocking the hidden powers of God’s universe. But could one trust the “professors of secrets”, the guardians of alchemical wisdom, of medical arcana, of cryptography, of technological and military inventions, especially when they seemed so often to occupy that perilous space in

8 M. Häberlein, “Merchants’ Bankruptcies, Economic Development and Social Relations in German Cities During the Long Sixteenth Century”, in T.M. Safley (ed.), The History of Bankruptcy: Economic, Social and Cultural Implications in Early Modern Europe (London/New York: Routledge, 2013) 19–33; C. Muldrew, “Zur Anthropologie des Kapitalismus: Kredit, Vertrauen, Tausch und die Geschichte des Marktes in England, 1500–1750”, Historische Anthropologie 6/2 (1998) 167–99. 9 G. Bounyn, Traité sur les cessions et banqueroutes (Paris: Chevillot, 1586). 10 J.-L. Thireau, “Le premier ouvrage français sur le droit des affaires: le Traité sur les cessions et banqueroutes de Gabriel Bonyn (1586)”, Mémoires de la société pour l’histoire du roit et des institutions des anciens pays bourguignons, comtois et romands 65 (2008) 195–210. 11 A. Pettegree, Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); U. Rublack (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Protestant Reformation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), part III. 12 A. M. Blair, Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age (New Haven/ London: Yale University Press, 2010); A. Johns, “Identity, Practice, and Trust in Early Modern Natural Philosophy”, The Historical Journal 42/4 (1999) 1125–45. 13 See D. Jütte, The Age of Secrecy: Jews, Christians, and the Economy of Secrets, 1400–1800 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015).

Wars of Religion in the Sixteenth Century and the Problem of Trust

Christendom between Christians and Jews? Old-established practices protecting artisanal secrets may well have been breaking down as a result of a closer proximity between theoretical and practical cultures of knowledge; but secrecy was becoming hard-wired into the information-gathering activities and governing practices of Renaissance states.14 Humanist pedagogy had begun to suggest that, although honesty and truthfulness were essential moral virtues, there were occasions in the modern world when selfcontrol and circumspection were the order of the day. Erasmus frequently quoted from Plutarch’s treatise De garrulitate to support his view that the tongue had recently become infected with a disease: “This deadly sickness of a malicious tongue has infected the whole world with its awful venom, pervading the courts of princes, the homes of commoners, theological schools, monastic brotherhoods, colleges of priests, regiments of soldiers, and the cottages of peasants” he told the chancellor of Poland in one of his less successful books, that on the uses and abuses of the tongue (De Lingua) in 1525.15 In Claude Paradin’s emblem book, the tongue is presented with the tail of a viper and the wings of a dragon: “Where are you going?” (quo tendis?) is the rhetorical question above the image.16 Sixteenth-century moralists said that one had to learn not to take at face value what babblers and flatterers said, and to understand that there were occasions when one should keep silent.17 The “lying tongue”18 or “the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison”19 became commonplaces of ecclesiastical rhetoric in both Protestant and Catholic Europe, to the extent that we might imagine that the Reformation, with its emphasis on credal statements to which one bound oneself by oral testimony reinforced the mistrust of the tongue, a linguaphobia. In due course, Domingo de Soto and Martín de Azpilcuelta (Dr Navarrus), faced with the knotty issue of whether a confessor was bound to secrecy in what was revealed to him in the confessional, and whether or not he was required to reveal it to the Inquisition, would lay out the case for “mental reservation” and what Azpilcuelta claimed was a “new method” of casuistry. That offered distinctions 14 P.O. Long, Openness, Secrecy, Authorship: Technical Arts and the Culture of Knowledge from Antiquity to the Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001); I. Iordanou, Venice’s Secret Service: Organizing Intelligence in the Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), ch. 1. 15 Cited in E. Butterworth, The Unbridled Tongue: Babble and Gossip in Renaissance France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 15. 16 C. Paradin, Devises heroïques (Lyon: Jean de Tournes/Guillaume Gazeau, 1557), 109. 17 T. van Houdt, “Word Histories, and Beyond: Towards a Conceptualization of Fraud and Deceit in Early Modern Times”, in T. van Houdt et al. (ed.), On the Edge of Truth and Honesty: Principles and Strategies of Fraud and Deceit in the Early Modern Period (Leiden: Brill, 2002) 1–31; see in the same collection, J. Trapman, “Erasmus on Lying and Simulation”, 33-46. 18 Proverbs 6:28. 19 St Paul, Epistle to James 3:8.

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between verbal and non-verbal strategies of not speaking the truth, the fine line between being a liar (mendax) and a deceiver (fallax), and the various ways of being economical with the truth (simulatio).20 Such distinctions took on a new relevance and urgency in a polemical, and politically explosive, fashion in the wake of the arrival of the Jesuits Robert Southwell and Henry Garnett in England in 1586, and their advocacy of “mental reservation”, a justification for English Catholics not to tell the truth when interrogated about the whereabouts and activities of missionary priests. In the visual register, explored by Stuart Clark, what we could see with our own eyes was becoming something that was not what it seemed. It belonged to the “vanities of the eye”. Our eyes deceived us as much as our tongues. In some Protestant eyes, they were the engines of idolatry.21 Trust was, therefore, an ambient problem in the sixteenth century. But to view it as a badge of modernity is unhelpful if we want to understand its sixteenthcentury Reformation context. We must let go of the notion of a firm dividing line between modern and pre-modern notions of trust that have been reinforced by the modernist agenda implicit in the history of emotions.22 Trust was not “an invariant entity”.23 How it was conceived and problematised, and the institutional, social and cultural guarantees that were put in place to reinforce it (these two elements – perception and social reality – have to be considered conjointly) varied in time and space. Each age has its own trust lexicon, and its particular attempts to resolve the problems of trust through institutional, social and cultural initiatives. There are grounds for seeing the Reformation as raising a distinctive problem of trust even before the religious tensions which it provoked – the wars of religion – fomented it into an existential dilemma.

20 P. Zagorin, Ways of Lying: Dissimulation, Persecution and Conformity in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), ch. 8; S. Tutino, Shadows of Doubt: Languages and Truth in Post-Reformation Catholic Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), ch. 1. 21 S. Clark, Vanities of the Eye: Vision in Early Modern European Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); C.M.N. Eire, War against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); O. Christin, Une révolution symbolique: L’iconoclasme huguenot et la reconstruction catholique (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1991). 22 G. Hosking, “Trust and Distrust: A Suitable Theme for Historians?”, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 16 (2006) 95–115; G. Hosking, Trust: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 23. 23 G. Hosking, “The Reformation as a Crisis of Trust”, in I. Marková/A. Gillespie (ed.), Trust and Distrust: Sociocultural Perspectives (Charlotte, NC: IAP, 2008) 29–47.

Wars of Religion in the Sixteenth Century and the Problem of Trust

1.

The Protestant Reformation and Trust

What was distinctive in the problem of trust posed by the Protestant Reformation? The following remarks are no more than a summary of what most of its historians would sign up to. The medieval church claimed to offer a universal truth, and ways of accessing it that were adapted to local communities and orders of society. Its claims were sustained by appeals to verification by tradition, firm roots in rituals linked to the most important points in people’s lives, and a reliance on lay “trustworthy men” (viri fidedigni) to be its wardens, pledges, and jurors.24 The church was the treasury for God’s grace, the priesthood the mediators of that treasure. And although that treasure was far off, the intermediacy of saints, the pursuits of monastic contemplation, and the attestation of miracles brought it closer. There were critics of abuses, and the church was always being invited to reform, both from within and without, but it was an essential trust-mechanism in salvation. The Protestant Reformers did more than turn up the volume of those criticisms. They recalibrated who and how we should trust. Luther’s radical Augustinianism inspired a visceral detestation of human beings who could neither trust nor be trusted.25 We say what we do not mean to; we do what we promise we will not do. In his notorious 1 May 1515 Gotha sermon on slander, he pours bucket-loads of excrement upon the person who disparages and belittles someone else behind their back. The sermon is notorious for Luther’s scatalogy, descending from Latin into German at various points, interwoven with biblical allusions to drive home the point that human beings were fundamentally untrustworthy, “poisonous serpents, traitors, vagabonds, murderers, tyrants, devils, and all that is evil”.26 Against this fundamental human faithlessness, institutions are a fragile rampart. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, and in response to the trust issues raised in the postReformation religious tensions, Catholic scholastic theologians would distinguish between “faith” in a religious sense and “faith” in a social (trust between human beings), a moral (good and bad faith) and a contractual (fidelity in keeping promises and agreements) sense. The distinction is explicit in the Jesuit Martin Becanus’s treatise on whether one was bound to keep faith with heretics.27 But Luther –

24 I. Forrest, Trustworthy Men: How Inequality and Faith Made the Medieval Church (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018). 25 St Augustine’s view of trust is a potentially rich subject, waiting to be explored. J.E. Dittes, “Augustine: Search for a Fail-Safe God to Trust”, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 25/1 (1986) 57–63 provides some instances, and Augustine’s treatises De mendacio and Contra mendacium were fundamental texts on the subject in the sixteenth century. 26 D. Martin Luthers Werke (120 vol.; Weimar: Böhlaus), vol. 55/1, 44–51. 27 M. Becanus, Disputatio theologica an haereticis servanda sit fides?, in Opuscula theologica, vol. 2 (Mainz, 1614).

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and the magisterial Protestant Reformers followed him here – did not make those distinctions. Human faithlessness is so overwhelming that, when he comes later on to explain justification by faith, he does so by saying that our trust (fiducia) in God is not of our own making but God’s divine work in us, a blind trust – like that of a baby in its mother – and (unlike our fellow human beings) we could absolutely trust in God and his promises, contained in the Bible and guaranteed by Christ. This notion of fiducia is absolutely central to Luther’s thought. One of the classic expositions of it was in his 1531 Commentary on Galatians in which he explained that our trust in God is a “kind of cognition or darkness that sees nothing … our formal righteousness is … faith and the cloud of heart, that is, trust in what we do not see – in Christ, who certainly is not seen, but still is present”.28 It is helpful to remind ourselves that this notion of “blind trust” was very difficult for contemporaries to come to terms with, just as was the accompanying rejection of the extra-biblical foundations for what we could take on trust. Those reactions came to be centrally about (in the Catholic context) reinforcing the trust that one could legitimately place in the inherited traditions and institutions and authority of the church. Calvin, accepting human faithlessness as a given, offered a model of the church as a human institution where mutual surveillance was hard-wired into it so that the community was a place where trust (confiance – Calvin’s use of the word invests it with heightened religious connotations) could be nurtured, morally reinforced (édifié) against our inevitable backsliding and untrustworthiness. The failure of attempts to reunify Christendom, most notably at the Council of Trent, were themselves exemplifications of the existence of antagonistic theologies and ecclesiologies of trust and mutually opposing institutions for validating it. The often-polemical debates over the status of miracles, the mediation of saints and divine protectors, confession, the monastic life, the efficacy of various devotional rituals and the role of images – debates which form an alla prima background to the wars of religion – had trust as the central point at issue.29 The problem of trust thus became an existential dilemma in the post-Reformation. Could a ruler conclude a treaty with a heretic or an infidel? Exodus and Deuteronomy contained unambiguous statements that he could not, and the history of the Israelites in the Old Testament was strewn with disasters that befell kings that made military alliances with infidel rulers. Deuteronomy 7:4 warned that you should “make no covenant” with your neighbours lest they “turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods”. In 2 Chronicles 16 and 1 Kings 15, King Asa allied with the king of Syria and God turned against him, whilst in 2 Kings 16 and 28 O.-P., Vainio, Justification and Participation in Christ: The Development of the Lutheran Doctrine of Justification from Luther to the Formula of Concord (1580) (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 29–30. 29 M. Sluhovsky, Believe not Every Spirit: Possession, Mysticism and Discernment in Early Modern Catholicism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).

Wars of Religion in the Sixteenth Century and the Problem of Trust

2 Chronicles 28 Ahaz “provoked to anger the Lord” by allying with another Syrian king. “What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?” St Paul asked the Corinthians, condemning alliances with heretics: “What communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial?”.30 John Calvin was not alone in taking these strictures seriously. In his Commentary on Ezekiel 16:26 he confronted the issue head on. We should not trust ourselves to enter into close relationships with the impious, because it was a slippery slope (a favourite Calvin argument) to becoming ensnared in a labyrinth of infidelity.31 But the real world made different, and contradictory, demands upon princes – to engage, for political reasons, in cross-confessional alliances and marriages, or to conclude treaties with the infidel Ottomans – that also dislocated the contiguity between faith and trust.32 These alliances in turn became the focal points for polemical debates about trust. Should one conduct commerce with those of another faith? If one did, were the contracts valid and enforceable? These were pertinent questions, on which there were provisions in the Justinian legal code, legal commentaries in the ius commune tradition, and an inherited series of arguments from scholastic theologians to draw on. Wim Decock and Vincenzo Lavenia, specialists in unravelling for us how those traditions were drawn on in the post-Reformation context, have shown us how, gradually, the reality of religious pluralism seeped in.33 Merchants had to be able to trust (in contractual terms) those of another faith, just as rulers had to be free to make alliances across the faith divide, as best suited their political objectives. Could someone who dissimulated their beliefs be trusted? That question had a long Christian history behind it, and Calvin’s two famous treatises on the subject34 in the early 1540s served to crystallise the unambiguous response to it, and to give those who fail to be true to their faith a name: “nicodemites” (or rather “pseudo-nicodemites”, as Calvin preferred to call them because, unlike their biblical namesake, they did not get to see Christ, even by night). They were “dissemblers”

30 2 Corinthians 6. 31 J. Calvin, Commentary on the first twenty chapters of the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, trans. T. Meyer (2 vol.; Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1849), vol. 2, 128–9. 32 R. Tuck, “Alliances with Infidels in European Imperial Expansion”, in S. Muthu (ed.), Empire and Modern Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) 61–83. 33 W. Decock, “Trust Beyond Faith: Re-Thinking Contracts with Heretics and Excommunicates in Times of Religious War”, Rivista Internazionale di Diritto Comune 27 (2016) 301–28; V. Lavenia, “La fides e l’eretico: Una discussione cinquecentesca”, in P. Prodi (ed.), La fiducia secondo i linguaggi del potere (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2008) 201–18; V. Lavenia, “‘Mendacium officiosum’: Alberico Gentili’s Ways of Lying”, in M. Eliav-Feldon/T. Herzig (ed.), Dissimulation and Deceit in Early Modern Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2015) 27–44. 34 Petit traicté monstrant que c’est que doit faie un homme fidele cognoissant la verité de l’evangile quand il est entre les papistes (written 1540; published 1543); and the Excuse à messieurs les Nicodémites sur la complainte qu’ilz font de sa trop grand rigueur (1544).

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and “self-servers” who do not deserve our trust and have already forfeited Christ’s. Calvin’s treatises addressed the issue in the context of how those of faith should behave when being faced with persecution, in France, the Low Countries and Italy. He sought narrowly to define the faithful, those whom one could trust, from the rest. But the question remained posed more generally. In France, during the civil wars, under the pressure of populist violence and in response to royal injunctions to do so, Protestants reconverted. Could those converts be trusted, or how many of them had done so for appearance’s sake? When those who had reconverted then decided to take up exile to Geneva, the consistory court took a dim view of such recidivism. It confirmed their view that religious faith and social trust went hand in hand, and that both required institution, consolidation, in order to limit the possible slippery slope of contamination of the whole community from those who had compromised themselves. Similar fears were entertained and volubly expressed by Catholic clerical commentators in France, notably in the wake of the mass reconversions after the massacre of St Bartholomew. Should there be public ceremonies of abjuration? What value could one put on the signature of those who came forward to attest to their change of heart?35 The reality of religious division led to confessional divisions within families and communities, and the breakdown of trust at domestic and local levels.36 What made civil wars worse than other wars, said Montaigne, was that they “turn us all into watch-towers in our own homes”.37 These domestic breakdowns of trust were insidious and nameless, he went on. At the same time, however, there were families that negotiated their differences on the basis of their shared ancestry and common interests, just as there were communities whose notables (the medieval “trustworthy men” had not disappeared) managed, especially in the first decade of the civil wars, to put their confessional differences behind them and swear in one another’s presence (there is no mutual shaking of hands, however, or exchanges of the kiss of peace: this is “politic trust”) to behave towards one another in mutual trust, as “brothers, friends and fellow-citizens”.38 Such “friendship pacts”,

35 T. Wanegffelen, Ni Rome ni Genève: Des fidèles entre deux chaires en France au XVIe siècle (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1997), 312–29 and Appendix IV. 36 See B. Diefendorf, “Les divisions religieuses dans les familles parisiennes avant la Saint-Barthélemy”, Histoire, économie, et société 7/1 (1988) 55–77 for relevant examples. 37 M. de Montaigne, Les Essais, ed. P. Villey (Paris: Quadrige/Presses universitaires de France, 2004 [re-edition in one volume of the original three-volumes edition in 1924]), 971 (English translation is the author’s). 38 O. Christin, La paix de religion: L’autonomisation de la raison politique au XVIe siècle (Paris: Seuil, 1997), 122–32; O. Christin, “Pactes d’amitié et républicanisme urbain: Quelques villes françaises devant la biconfessionalité”, in H. Duchhardt/P. Veit (ed.), Krieg und Frieden im Ubergang vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit: Theorie, Praxis, Bilder (Mainz: Zabern, 2000) 157–66; O. Christin, “‘Peace Must Come from Us’: Friendship Pacts between the Confessions during the Wars of Religion”, in R.

Wars of Religion in the Sixteenth Century and the Problem of Trust

occurred, especially where the two religious communities were well-balanced and where trust could be fostered on the basis of a mutual distrust of an enemy without, typically marauding troops of soldiers who would invade and lay waste to the community unless they all grouped together to guard the walls, pool their intelligence, and protect their community. The conventional moral teaching was that one should be wary of those of another faith. Should one shun them in public? Could one shake them by the hand? Could one invite them into one’s home? These were trust-issues that were played out in the French wars of religion. There was no textbook on how to behave towards one’s neighbour. English Puritan preachers gave advice to their congregations on the matter but, in the places of extreme conflict like France, it was a delicate matter. Edicts of pacification provided no guidance. How should a Protestant treat fellow citizens, members of the local watch perhaps or city councillors, whom he suspected of regarding him and his family as polluted heretics, to be eliminated? The numbers of Protestants arrested, incarcerated, or summarily massacred, in the first decade of the civil wars can surely only be explained by a premeditated, coordinated even, effort of local notables to carry out such acts. And yet, when peace came, Protestants were expected to live as neighbours with those whom they must have known, or suspected, were guilty of such acts. How should a Catholic behave towards a neighbour or fellow citizen suspected of removing or defacing religious images, ostentatiously refusing to close their shops or decorate their houses on feast-days, or rumoured to have speculated in church property or invested in the rents of ecclesiastical wealth? Each period of civil wars was succeeded by negotiated settlements that were enacted as royal edicts in the name of the king, whose authority both sides were invited to trust as one would the law. In those circumstances of extreme mistrust, royal authority became even more important as a repository of trust. But when it came to the enforcement of those edicts by royal officials, far from peace being an avenue to the rebuilding of trust, it was more often the road to manipulating royal authority and law in favour of one side or another. Peace was not the herald of trust but its epitaph.39 The ultimate, but always relative, success of

Whelan/C. Baxter (ed.), The Edict of Nantes and its Implications in France, Britain and Ireland (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2003) 92–103; J. Foa, “Gebrauchsformen der Freundschaft: Freundshaftsverträge und Gehorsamseide zu Beginn der Religionskriege”, in K. Oschema (ed.), Freundschaft oder “amitié”?: Ein politisch-soziales Konzept der Vormoderne im zwischensprachlichen Vergleich (15.-17. Jahrhundert) (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2007) 109–36; P. Roberts, “One Town, Two Faiths: Unity and Exclusion during the French Religious Wars”, in T.M. Safley (ed.), A Companion to Multiconfessionalism in the Early Modern World (Boston/Leiden: Brill, 2011) 265–85. 39 J. Foa, Le tombeau de la paix: Une histoire des édits de pacification (1560–1572) (Limoges: Pulim, 2015); J. Foa, “Pacifying the Kingdom of France at the Beginning of the Wars of Religion: Historiography, Sources, and Examples”, in R. Mentzer/B. Van Ruymbeke (ed.), A Companion to the Huguenots

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the Edict of Nantes (1598) was the result of a painful learning of the lessons of the past, and even more of exceptional political circumstances in its favour. The reality of religious pluralism, sanctioned or not by royal edict, magnified the issues of trust, ones that the confessionalisation narrative of the processes of the Reformation occludes. That reality led to chameleon-like strategies of accommodation within the local religious landscape, of not asking too many questions or being too voluble, of not committing too much to paper, and prudently altering the record when one did.40 Those “between two pulpits” who explicitly sought to defend and practise a religion that held out against confessionally rigid frontiers (and who ended up being vilified by the clerically orthodox on either side as, by definition, not to be trusted) hide from us the wider constituency, voiceless and furtive, whose decisions were determined by a prudent adjustment to the realities of the moment.

2.

Trust in the French Wars of Religion

As we have already begun to see, the problem of trust in the Reformation was focused and magnified in the politico-religious confrontations that it engendered. The following remarks continue the focus on the French wars of religion, which is where my own research interest is concentrated. Contemporaries were all too aware that civil wars drastically and distinctively hollowed out civic and political trust. “In truth, a forraine warre is nothing so dangerous a disease as a civill” wrote Montaigne, drawing on the Roman tradition in which it was conceived as a fracture of a fraternal trust within a political community, where the roots of civilisation were cast in doubt.41 One way of reading Agrippa d’Aubigné’s famous verse epic about the French wars, Les Tragiques is as an extended essay about what happens when trust is lost: “Je veux peindre la France une mère affligée, / qui est entre ses bras deux enfants chargés/ Le plus fort, orgueilleux, empoigne les deux bouts / Des tétins nourriciers; puis, à force de coups / D’ongles, de poings, de pieds, il brise le partage (Leiden: Brill, 2016) 90–117; P. Roberts, Peace and Authority During the French Religious Wars, c.1560–1600 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). 40 See W. Kaiser, “Les hommes de la frontière: Quelques remarques sur l’approche relationnelle de la dissimulation religieuse”, in F. Lecercle (ed.), La Liberté de pensée: Hommage à Maurice Laugaa (Poitiers: La Licorne, 2002) 87–100; M. Martinat, “The Identity Game: Ambiguous Religious Attachments in Seventeenth-Century Lyon”, in M. Eliav-Feldon/T. Herzig (ed.), Dissimulation and Deceit in Early Modern Europe (Houndmills: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2015) 67–78; G. Hanlon, Confession and Community in Seventeenth-Century France: Catholic and Protestant Coexistence in Aquitaine (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993). 41 D. Armitage, Civil Wars: A History in Ideas (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017), ch. 1, on p. 9 (Montaigne cited from the John Florio translation of 1603). Montaigne, Les Essais, 683.

Wars of Religion in the Sixteenth Century and the Problem of Trust

/ Dont nature donnait à son besson l’usage”, it begins. Its third book opens in the highest court of the land, the Parliament of Paris.42 There, in the Golden Chamber (Chambre Dorée), so named for its decorated ceiling, the magistrates assemble. One by one, they are depicted in d’Aubigné’s remorseless verse as injustice, avarice, and ambition, whilst fear, crouching in a corner, looks on pale and speechless. Monstrous in their red robes, the colour of pride, ambition and insatiable power, d’Aubigné’s hermeneutic was devoted to unmasking the pretensions of justice in order to demonstrate that, far from enacting justice, the instrument for anchoring God’s trust in human societies, the magistrates themselves had become an object of mistrust. Fear, imagined and real, specific and generalised, fear of the imminence of conflict, fear that peace was neither genuine nor lasting, fear that God was angered and would shortly visit his wrath upon the land, fear of all sorts in the context of the French wars of religion, sapped trust.43 And both war and peace involved dilemmas of trust. Michel de Montaigne knew those civil wars at close hand, and his Essais are an ambivalent reflection upon what it was like to live “at the very hub of the disturbances in our French civil wars”.44 He was a practising magistrate at the Parliament of Bordeaux in the 1560s, where the early civil wars were at their most intense. Although he made a good deal of retiring from judicial affairs, he was part of the “royal interest” in the province in the 1580s, as mayor of Bordeaux and mediator for it with the court of the Protestant Henry of Navarre. And he experienced civil war at close hand because his chateau was situated amid the contested corridor running from the Protestant stronghold of La Rochelle down to the principality of Béarn, his domain overrun by military forces during the early years of the Catholic League towards the end of his life. The Essais are not a commentary on the French civil wars, or even an unambiguous account of what Montaigne thought of them, or of his experiences in them.45 He did not regard them in a straightforward way as “wars of religion”, “religion” being a portmanteau word in his lexicon. He preferred the term “troubles” (in which religion played a part) and often emphasised that they were not ordinary times: “In

42 A. d’Aubigné, Les Tragiques, ed. F. Lestringant (Paris: Gallimard, 1995). 43 D. Crouzet, Les guerriers de Dieu: La violence au temps des troubles de religion vers 1525 – vers 1610 (2 vol.; Paris: Champvallon, 1990); M. Bernard, Écrire la peur à l’époque des guerres de Religion: Une étude des historiens et mémorialistes contemporains des guerres civiles en France (1562–1598) (Paris: Hermann, 2010). 44 Cited in M. Greengrass, “Montaigne and the Wars of Religion”, in P. Desan (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Montaigne (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016) 138–57, on p. 141. Montaigne Les Essais, 373. 45 Greengrass, “Montaigne and the Wars of Religion”.

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an ordinary, tranquil time” he wrote, “a man prepares for moderate and common accidents, but in this confusion that we have been in for thirty years every Frenchmen, whether as an individual or as a member of the community, sees himself at every moment on the verge of the total overthrow of his fortune”.46 His friendship with Etienne de La Boëtie harked back to an “ordinary” time, friendship being equated in his mind with someone whom you trusted. What defined the extraordinariness of the civil wars for Montaigne was the breakdown of trust and the shared moral order on which it relied. The only essay he devoted to an event in the civil wars, the first major battle of Dreux (19 December 1562),47 has next to nothing to say about the battle itself, but offered reflections on the fact that François duke of Guise chose not to come to the rescue of constable Anne de Montmorency at a vital moment in it, but awaited the occasion when he could catch the enemy unawares and force a victory. The essay is not about the battle at all but about how the fortuitousness of events forces us to make choices (in which trust may not come up trumps), choices that have consequences that will be variously judged (as invalorous conduct or victory in battle). François of Guise is the focus of another story that Montaigne says he heard from Jacques Amyot, about what happened in the battlements above Rouen in 1562 during the siege.48 Informed of an attempt on his life by a Protestant gentleman from Anjou or Maine, the duke confronted his would-be assassin and looked at him intently. The gentleman in question turned pale involuntarily, and began to tremble, thereby betraying the truth of the treachery of which he was suspected. Cutting short the gentleman’s pleas for clemency, Guise interrogated him on his motives: “To that the gentleman replied in a trembling voice that it was no personal cause that he had for it, but the interest of the general cause of his party; and that some persons had persuaded him that it would be an act of piety to extirpate by any means whatever so powerful an enemy of their religion”.49 He had entrusted himself, in other words, to a party, which had indoctrinated him to undertake a political assassination. Guise granted the noble his clemency, his trust, saying that his own (Catholic) religion was “much more gentle … than the one that you profess. Yours has advised you to kill me without a hearing, having received no harm from me; and mine commands me to pardon you, convicted though you are of having wanted to murder me without reason”.50 This was Montaigne’s way of alluding to themes that recur in the Essais – psychosomasis, Stoic conceptions of clemency, complex motives in human affairs and their unpredictable outcome,

46 47 48 49 50

Montaigne, Les Essais, 1046 (English translation is the author’s). Montaigne, Les Essais, 274–5. Montaigne, Les Essais, 125. Montaigne, Les Essais, 125 (English translation is the author’s). Montaigne, Les Essais, 1061.

Wars of Religion in the Sixteenth Century and the Problem of Trust

and trust. For Guise’s trust was misplaced, the gentleman in question being probably Jean Poltrot de Méré, a former spy, and Guise’s assassin three months later in February 1563. That assassination lit the touchpaper to an aristocratic feud between the Guise and the Châtillon families that eroded political trust through the next decade. Montaigne describes an incident that delineated, for him, why the extraordinary time of the civil wars revolved around trust. It occurs in the essay “De la physionomie”.51 Renaissance physiognomy was a science that claimed to be able to discover a person’s character from their physical appearance. Montaigne was sceptical about its scientific claims. We cannot judge people from their faces, any more than we can from the books that they write. Yet we can do so in the light of our experience, and that is how we decide who to trust. The incident in question probably occurred in 1586. A contingent of armed men threatened him on his doorstep, invading his house, and threatening to turn it upside down. Montaigne, however, befriended them, treated them as his guests, and they eventually left without ransacking the place. The leader of the troop “remounted his horse, his men continually looking at him to see what sign he would give them and much astonished to see him leave and abandon the advantage”.52 The man in question later assured Montaigne that this had happened because “my face and my easy way made an impact on him”.53 Montaigne, in other words, had (without realising it, and without being able to predict that he would) won his trust and rescued himself from a difficult situation. That anecdote allows us to exploit trust in the civil wars at an interpersonal level. Montaigne’s Gascon contemporary, Pierre de Bourdeille, sieur de Brantôme, takes us into the world of trust as seen through the eyes of a local nobleman, a courtier and a soldier. Brantôme was brought up in the service of Marguerite of Navarre and may well, like many of his generation, have flirted with the new faith under the influence of the evangelicals at her court. As a soldier, he served in the king’s army at the battle of Dreux and in major military engagements in the French civil wars before he was made a gentleman of the king’s chamber in 1574. A courtier for the decade thereafter, his service did not bring him the rewards he thought he was due and, badly wounded in a fall from his horse in 1584, he retired to the Périgord to write up the anecdotes that came his way in his varied life.54 His prosopographies of great captains and gallant ladies, and his treatise on duels, take us to a world where trust was interpreted within a code of noble conduct, a belief in something (noble valour) 51 52 53 54

Montaigne, Les Essais, 1037–2013. Montaigne, Les Essais, 1061 (English translation is the author’s). Montaigne, Les Essais, 1061 (English translation is the author’s). A. Duprat, “Résistances de l’anecdote: Brantôme et la dissidence narrative”, Les Dossiers du GRIHL 1 (2013), available at (accessed 19 July 2021).

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and someone (service to a lord). The former implied an inner virtue, a conviction in one’s strength (fortitudo), magnanimity (magnanimitas) or (in the case of women) chastity and patience. The latter implied a confidence in the future, a belief that one’s loyal service or dutiful conduct towards one’s husband, would be recognised and rewarded. These were the trust-values that made the world go around for the aristocrats who dominated the regional high offices, their dynastic clans and the affinities of those who served them. Their correspondence collections are a testimony to how the provincial governors, lieutenants and captains of strongholds – the politico-military proto-institutions of the French monarchy – functioned on implicit mutual trust. Because it was implicit, it was capable of being manipulated by both sides and could break down under stress, so we cannot take the expressions of devotion and trust in these letters at face-value. Brantôme was particularly interested in the betrayal of trust. His anecdotes in Les Dames Galantes are stories about the misplaced trust by men in women. His treatise on duels could not avoid the défi, the verbal or written challenge at the heart of the duel, a declaration of the breakdown of trust. The majority of the miscellaneous (144 in total) anecdotes in the latter text took place in France during the wars of religion. Brantôme wanted to demonstrate that the pedant preachers and moralists who said that duelling was immoral and should be illegal simply had misunderstood the honour codes that underpinned it.55 At the same time, Brantôme documents his concern that feuds were becoming private wars, and that combatants were pursuing vengeance beyond what that code demanded. Stuart Carroll is probably right to emphasise that religious convictions sharpened noble feuds and contributed to a breakdown of trust – and some of Brantôme’s anecdotes suggest that he was aware of it.56 Charles de Louviers, seigneur de Maurevert, the presumed author of the attempted assassination of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny on 22 August 1572, was a case in point. In October 1569, Maurevert murdered Artus de Vaudrey, seigneur de Mouy, outside the town of Niort. Mouy was a Huguenot captain. In the midst of the third civil war, Maurevert perhaps thought his act was de bonne guerre, but Brantôme regarded it as a despicable breach of trust. Not only had Maurevert killed the master who had brought him up as a page, but he had done so when the valiant captain was disarmed. He had then gone to the camp of the duke of Anjou, head of the king’s army at the time, and bragged about his exploit.57 Brantôme noted the approval of Anjou, the royal heir apparent (later

55 F. Billacois, The Duel: Its Rise and Fall in Early-Modern France (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 113–18. 56 S. Carroll, Blood and Violence in Early Modern France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 270–2. 57 P. de Bourdeille, Œuvres completes, ed. L. Lalanne (11 vol.; Paris: Société de l’Histoire de France, 1864–82), vol. 7 (1873), 253, see vol. 4 (1868), 300 and vol. 5 (1869), 216–47.

Wars of Religion in the Sixteenth Century and the Problem of Trust

Henry III), as well as the revulsion amongst the troops – of whom he, Brantôme, was one. The act seemed to many to be of a piece with the killing of Louis de Condé in cold blood in the aftermath of the battle of Jarnac (13 March 1569) by the captain of the duke of Anjou’s guards. His body was then humiliated by being carried away on the back of an ass, “betrayed” along with other Protestant prisoners from the battle who were, according to Protestant pamphlets, put to death in clear breach of the rules of war or their bodies treated dishonourably. Protestant pamphleteers depicted the prince’s death as a sinister betrayal of trust on the orders of the heir apparent. Brantôme distinguished, however, between legitimate and illegitimate treason. Noble trust had its limits, and treason was permissible in order to preserve one’s honour, one’s family’s reputation, and one’s sense of dignity when service was inadequately rewarded.58 So Brantôme (who had himself contemplated treason with the king of Spain in response to his failure to be rewarded with the senechalcy of Périgord for his services to the monarchy) acquiesced in the decision of Henri de Montmorency-Damville, governor of the important southern province of Languedoc, to revolt against the monarchy in 1574 at a moment when a string of nobles found themselves imprisoned and/or charged with treason. He had been forced into it (thought Brantôme) by the French monarchy’s own failure to keep trust with its nobility. That failure that implied that the monarchy itself, with Henry III at the helm, following those earlier disquieting signs of his direction of travel, was evolving towards a conception of its authority that downgraded mutual trust in favour of an absolute obedience to the sovereign will. Marc Bloch, the French medieval historian, used a German proverb (“When war occurs, lies abound”) to illustrate his own experiences of rumour and mistrust in World War I.59 Proverbs about trust abounded in the sixteenth century, too. No doubt the flood of rumours, misinformation, gossip, and fake news contributed to the contemporary sense that the civil wars were about a trust-deficit. It was certainly placed at the forefront of the polemics around the major events of the wars of religion, from the Tumult of Amboise through to Henry IV’s announcement of his intention to convert back to Catholicism in July 1593.60 Did issues of trust also affect the relationships between ordinary people? Judicial records would be the place to start to answer that question, but we are only just beginning to exploit the vast repositories of interrogations and pleas that are to be found in France for

58 A. Jouanna, Le devoir de révolte: La noblesse française et la gestation de l’état moderne, 1559–1661 (Paris: Fayard, 1989). 59 J. Foa/P.-A. Mellet (ed.), Le bruit des armes: Mises en formes et désinformations en Europe pendant les guerres de Religion (1560–1610) (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2010), 26. 60 T. Debbagi Baranova, À coups de libelles: Une cultture politique au temps des guerres de religion (1562–1598) (Geneva: Droz, 2012).

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this period. Here is one case that suggests how they might have done. It concerns Jacques Brissard, a court bailiff at Ingré, now a dormitory town for Orléans.61 In around 1569 he was instructed to recover a debt of 70 livres that someone in the town owed to a Protestant merchant of Orléans, Liger Legendre. Two years later, Brissard told Legendre that he had not managed to recover the debt and gave him back the paperwork. Legendre reckoned, however, that he was being swindled by the bailiff, whom he suspected of having recovered some of the loan without giving it back to him. They had a legal confrontation in Orléans about it on the eve of St Bartholomew’s Day in 1572, hours before the massacre began in Paris. Days later, Legendre died in the copycat killings in Orléans. Brissard clearly hoped that this cancelled whatever debt remained between him and Legendre. But Legendre’s widow thought otherwise, and successfully brought a suit against him that condemned him to pay 37 livres to her and, worse, convicted him of suborning witnesses, for which he was sentenced to lose his office, to be beaten through the streets, and to be banished for five years. He managed to appeal the case to the Parliament of Paris, however, and it was while awaiting the outcome of that appeal that his luck turned. Henry, duke of Anjou, the future Henry III, was elected king of Poland in 1573 and, to celebrate the event, his almoner was granted a privilege to visit the prisons in Paris and grant letters of remission to those prisoners deemed worthy of grace. Brissard was one of the fortunate ones, although it took him another nine years to negotiate his release. Political trust took central stage in the years after the massacre of St Bartholomew. Protestant monarchomach writers – they were not the only, or even perhaps the most important Protestant voices to be heard in those years – claimed that the monarchy had lost its moral authority to rule and argued for a new “contract of power”62 based on the covenant between God and his people, to govern the relationship between ruler and ruled. And, meanwhile, Montmorency-Damville sustained his revolt with a fragile cross-confessional political and military alliance, in which trust proved to be in short supply. One of his young captains, the 20-year old Henri Louis de La Tour d’Auvergne, remembered what it was like to be a Catholic in the Protestant redoubt of Montauban in the name of that alliance.63 He recalled in his Memoirs the strange sense of entering the city as a liberator but knowing that he did not have the trust of its inhabitants, attending Protestant worship occasionally, partly out of curiosity but also to win their confidence. Not surprisingly, that alliance of

61 Archives Nationales, X2B 117, dossier from the Parlement of Paris of 16 December 1582. 62 The phrase nods in the direction of Paolo Prodi’s monumental classic about the role of religion in political oath-taking in Christendom; see P. Prodi, Il sacramento del potere: Il giuramento politico nella storia costituzionale dell’Occidente (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1992). 63 G. Baguenault de Puchesse (ed.), Memoires du vicomte de Turenne, depuis duc de Bouillon, 1565–1586 (Paris: Renouard, 1901), 80.

Wars of Religion in the Sixteenth Century and the Problem of Trust

convenience ended in acrimony, as so many cross-political confessional political alignments did in the later sixteenth century, two years later in 1576. Henry III’s reign witnessed the politicisation of mistrust. In the succession crisis that began in 1584 with the death of his brother and heir, the Catholic League focused on a monarchical trust-deficit, which became defined as their refusal to accept, or ever to trust, a heretic king. Its propagandists, the majority Parisian-based, focused on the enemy within, the royalist Catholics whom its publicists termed, with many local variants, “politiques”. A twelve-page verse depiction from 1588 of the “politique” presents an old skeleton of a man who had once been an honourable person, worthy of respect and trust, but whose duplicity now destroyed the political fabric by his failure to keep faith with the Catholic religion.64 Treasonable duplicity was the hallmark of his message, his manners, and his political behaviour.65 Pierre de L’Estoile’s album of broadsheets from the League includes the only surviving example of a 1589 placard entitled Le pourtraict et description du Politique de ce temps.66 It depicts a monster, part siren, part dragon, part medusa. The accompanying verse explains that this monster of duplicity is a mixture of myths, of genders, and of opinions, who “sounds falsely this way and that”.67 L’Estoile stuck the broadsheet into his album alongside a placard from Troyes, to be “proclaimed at crossroads” and a broadsheet entitled the Chant Rial (Risible Song), a dialogue in dialect between two men, discussing whether to believe the rumours that they had heard circulating from the Palais de Justice.68 The effect of the page presents us with the cacophony of voices that underlay the problem of trust in the wars of religion.

64 Description de l’homme politique de ce temps avec sa foy et religion qui est un Catalogue de plusieurs heresies et athéismes, où tombent ceux qui préfèrent l’estat humain à la Religion Catholique (Paris: G. Bichon, 1588). 65 P. Papin, “Duplicité et traîtrise: L’image des ‘politiques’ durant la Ligue”, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 38 (1991) 3–21 66 G. Brunet/A. Champollion/E. Halphen (ed.), Pierre de l’Estoile: Mémoires-journaux (12 vol.; Paris: Librairie des Bibliophiles, 1875–96), vol. 4, 3–7.; Le pourtraict et description du Politique de ce temps (Paris, 1589), woodcut on paper, in P. de L’Estoile, Les belles figures et drolleries de la Ligue (c. 1589–98), BnF MS Fr 12148, available at (accessed 20 July 2021). 67 Brunet/Champollion/Halphen (ed.), Pierre de l’Estoile, 4. 68 Brunet/Champollion/Halphen (ed.), Pierre de l’Estoile, 8–12; T. Hamilton, “Recording the Wars of Religion: The ‘Drolleries of the League’ from Ephemeral Print to Scrapbook History”, Past & Present 230 (2016) 288–310.

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3.

Conclusion

Trust was at the core of the Reformation’s debates. It was a key dilemma in the tensions that the religious changes of the sixteenth century provoked. Those tensions are most obviously reflected in the writings of those directly implicated in those changes and debates – the ecclesiastics on both sides. If we listen to those voices alone, our picture is of religion as an essentialising force, and “wars of religion” as the Reformation’s tragic consequence, where the central question of the historiography inevitably turns around the issue: “What role did religion play in the coming of war and the making of peace?” By focusing on trust, this paper has tried to take us to a level of experience that was imbricated with religion but not bounded by it. It suggests that we need to embed religious conflict in the sixteenth century in the broader historical changes that were taking place. Conceptions of trust were historically determined, and the central issues raised by the Protestant Reformers were about who and what we could trust. That was why they went to the heart of what was tearing Christendom apart.

Bibliography Armitage, D., Civil Wars: A History in Ideas (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017). Baguenault de Puchesse, G. (ed.), Memoires du vicomte de Turenne, depuis duc de Bouillon, 1565–1586 (Paris: Renouard, 1901). Becanus, M., Disputatio theologica an haereticis servanda sit fides?, in Opuscula theologica, vol. 2 (Mainz, 1614). Bernard, M., Écrire la peur à l’époque des guerres de Religion: Une étude des historiens et mémorialistes contemporains des guerres civiles en France (1562–1598) (Paris: Hermann, 2010). Billacois, F., The Duel: Its Rise and Fall in Early-Modern France (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990). Blair, A.M., Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2010). Bounyn, G., Traité sur les cessions et banqueroutes (Paris: Chevillot, 1586). Brunet, G./Champollion, A./Halphen, E. (ed.), Pierre de l’Estoile: Mémoires-journaux (12 vol.; Paris: Librairie des Bibliophiles, 1875–96). Butterworth, E., The Unbridled Tongue: Babble and Gossip in Renaissance France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). Calafat, G., “Familles, réseaux et confiance dans l’économie de l’époque modern: Diasporas marchandes et commerce intercultural”, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 66/1 (2011) 513–31.

Wars of Religion in the Sixteenth Century and the Problem of Trust

Calvin, J., Commentary on the first twenty chapters of the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, trans. T. Myers (2 vol.; Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1849). Carroll, S., Blood and Violence in Early Modern France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Christin, O., Une révolution symbolique: L’iconoclasme huguenot et la reconstruction catholique (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1991). Christin, O., La paix de religion: L’autonomisation de la raison politique au XVIe siècle (Paris: Seuil, 1997). Christin, O., “Pactes d’amitié et républicanisme urbain: Quelques villes françaises devant la biconfessionalité”, in H. Duchhardt/P. Veit (ed.), Krieg und Frieden im Ubergang vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit: Theorie, Praxis, Bilder (Mainz: Zabern, 2000) 157–66. Christin, O., “‘Peace Must Come from Us’: Friendship Pacts between the Confessions during the Wars of Religion”, in R. Whelan/C. Baxter (ed.), The Edict of Nantes and its Implications in France, Britain and Ireland (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2003) 92–103. Clark, S., Vanities of the Eye: Vision in Early Modern European Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Crouzet, D., Les guerriers de Dieu: La violence au temps des troubles de religion vers 1525 – vers 1610 (2 vol.; Paris: Champvallon, 1990). D. Martin Luthers Werke (120 vol.; Weimar: Böhlaus). d’Aubigné, A., Les Tragiques, ed. F. Lestringant (Paris: Gallimard, 1995). Debbagi Baranova, T., À coups de libelles: Une cultture politique au temps des guerres de religion (1562–1598) (Geneva: Droz, 2012). de Bourdeille, P., Œuvres completes, ed. L. Lalanne (11 vol.; Paris: Société de l’Histoire de France, 1864–82). de Montaigne, M., Les Essais, ed. P. Villey (Paris: Quadrige/Presses universitaires de France, 2004 [re-edition in one volume of the original three-volume edition in 1924]). Decock, W., “Trust Beyond Faith: Re-Thinking Contracts with Heretics and Excommunicates in Times of Religious War”, Rivista Internazionale di Diritto Comune 27 (2016) 301–28. Description de l’homme politique de ce temps avec sa foy et religion qui est un Catalogue de plusieurs heresies et athéismes, où tombent ceux qui préfèrent l’estat humain à la Religion Catholique (Paris: G. Bichon, 1588). Diefendorf, B., “Les divisions religieuses dans les familles parisiennes avant la SaintBarthélemy”, Histoire, économie, et société 7/1 (1988) 55–77. Dittes, J.E., “Augustine: Search for a Fail-Safe God to Trust”, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 25/1 (1986) 57–63. Duprat, A., “Résistances de l’anecdote: Brantôme et la dissidence narrative”, Les Dossiers du GRIHL 1 (2013). Eire, C.M.N., War against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). Foa, J., “Gebrauchsformen der Freundschaft: Freundshaftsverträge und Gehorsamseide zu Beginn der Religionskriege”, in K. Oschema (ed.), Freundschaft oder “amitié”?: Ein politisch-

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soziales Konzept der Vormoderne im zwischensprachlichen Vergleich (15.-17. Jahrhundert) (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2007) 109–36. Foa, J./Mellet, P.-A. (ed.), Le bruit des armes: Mises en formes et désinformations en Europe pendant les guerres de Religion (1560–1610) (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2010). Foa, J., Le tombeau de la paix: Une histoire des édits de pacification (1560–1572) (Limoges: Pulim, 2015. Foa, J., “Pacifying the Kingdom of France at the Beginning of the Wars of Religion: Historiography, Sources, and Examples”, in R. Mentzer/B. Van Ruymbeke (ed.), A Companion to the Huguenots (Leiden: Brill, 2016) 90–117. Forrest, I., Trustworthy Men: How Inequality and Faith Made the Medieval Church (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018). Frevert, U., Vertrauensfragen: Eine Obsession der Moderne (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2013). Fukuyama, F., Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1995). Greengrass, M., “Montaigne and the Wars of Religion”, in P. Desan (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Montaigne (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016) 138–57 Guinnane, T.W., “Trust: A Concept Too Many”, Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeshichte/Economic History Yearbook 46/1 (2005) 77–92. Häberlein, M., “Merchants’ Bankruptcies, Economic Development and Social Relations in German Cities During the Long Sixteenth Century”, in T.M. Safley (ed.), The History of Bankruptcy: Economic, Social and Cultural Implications in Early Modern Europe (London/ New York: Routledge, 2013) 19–33. Hamilton, T., “Recording the Wars of Religion: The ‘Drolleries of the League’ from Ephemeral Print to Scrapbook History”, Past & Present 230 (2016) 288–310. Hanlon, G., Confession and Community in Seventeenth-Century France: Catholic and Protestant Coexistence in Aquitaine (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993). Hardin, R., Trust and Trustworthiness (New York: Sage, 2002). Hosking, G., “Trust and Distrust: A Suitable Theme for Historians”, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 16 (2006) 95–115. Hosking, G., “The Reformation as a Crisis of Trust”, in I. Marková/A. Gillespie (ed.), Trust and Distrust: Sociocultural Perspectives (Charlotte, NC: IAP, 2008) 29–47. Hosking, G., Trust: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). Iordanou, I., Venice’s Secret Service: Organizing Intelligence in the Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). Johns, A., “Identity, Practice, and Trust in Early Modern Natural Philosophy”, The Historical Journal 42/4 (1999) 1125–45. Jouanna, A., Le devoir de révolte: La noblesse française et la gestation de l’état moderne, 1559–1661 (Paris: Fayard, 1989). Jütte, D., The Age of Secrecy: Jews, Christians, and the Economy of Secrets, 1400–1800 (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2015).

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Kaiser, W., “Les hommes de la frontière: Quelques remarques sur l’approche relationnelle de la dissimulation religieuse”, in F. Lecercle (ed.), La Liberté de pensée: Hommage à Maurice Laugaa (Poitiers: La Licorne, 2002) 87–100. Kontler, L./Somos, M. (ed.), Trust and Happiness in the History of European Political Thought (Leiden: Brill, 2018). Lavenia, V., “La fides e l’eretico: Una discussione cinquecentesca”, in P. Prodi (ed.), La fiducia secondo i linguaggi del potere (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2008) 201–18. Lavenia, V., “‘Mendacium officiosum’: Alberico Gentili’s Ways of Lying”, in M. Eliav-Feldon/T. Herzig (ed.), Dissimulation and Deceit in Early Modern Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2015) 27–44. Lazard, M., Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantôme (Paris: Fayard, 2005). Long, P.O., Openness, Secrecy, Authorship: Technical Arts and the Culture of Knowledge from Antiquity to the Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). Luhmann, N., Trust and Power (Chichester: Wiley & Sons, 1979). Martinat, M., “The Identity Game: Ambiguous Religious Attachments in SeventeenthCentury Lyon”, in M. Eliav-Feldon/T. Herzig (ed.), Dissimulation and Deceit in Early Modern Europe (Houndmills: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2015) 67–78. Mellet, P-A., Les Traités Monarchomaques: Confusion des temps, resistance armee et monarchie parfaite (1560–1600) (Geneva: Droz, 2007). Misztal, B., Trust in Modern Societies (Cambridge, MA: Polity Press, 1996). Muldrew, C., “Zur Anthropologie des Kapitalismus: Kredit, Vertrauen, Tausch und die Geschichte des Marktes in England, 1500–1750”, Historische Anthropologie 6/2 (1998) 167–99. Papin, P., “Duplicité et traîtrise: l’image des ‘politiques’ durant la Ligue”, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 38 (1991) 3–21. Paradin, C., Devises heroïques (Lyon: Jean de Tournes/Guillaume Gazeau, 1557). Pettegree, A., Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Prodi, P., Il sacramento del potere: Il giuramento politico nella storia costituzionale dell’Occidente (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1992). Roberts, P., “One Town, Two Faiths: Unity and Exclusion during the French Religious Wars”, in T.M. Safley (ed.), A Companion to Multiconfessionalism in the Early Modern World (Boston/Leiden: Brill, 2011) 265–85. Roberts, P., Peace and Authority During the French Religious Wars, c.1560–1600 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). Rublack U. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Protestant Reformation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). Sluhovsky, M., Believe not Every Spirit: Possession, Mysticism and Discernment in Early Modern Catholicism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).

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Sommerville, J.P., “The New Art of Lying: Equivocation, Mental Reservation, and Casuistry”, in E. Leites (ed.), Conscience and Casuistry in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) 159–84. Thireau, J.-L., “Le premier ouvrage français sur le droit des affaires: le Traité sur les cessions et banqueroutes de Gabriel Bonyn (1586)”, Mémoires de la société pour l’histoire du roit et des institutions des anciens pays bourguignons, comtois et romands 65 (2008) 195–210. Tilly, C., Trust and Rule (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Trapman, J., “Erasmus on Lying and Simulation”, in T. Van Houdt et al. (ed.), On the Edge of Truth and Honesty: Principles and Strategies of Fraud and Deceit in the Early Modern Period (Leiden: Brill, 2002) 33–45. Trivellato, F., The Familiarity of Strangers: The Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2009). Tuck, R., “Alliances with Infidels in European Imperial Expansion”, in S. Muthu (ed.), Empire and Modern Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) 61–83. Tutino, S., Shadows of Doubt: Languages and Truth in Post-Reformation Catholic Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). Vainio, O.-P., Justification and Participation in Christ: The Development of the Lutheran Doctrine of Justification from Luther to the Formula of Concord (1580) (Leiden: Brill, 2008). van Houdt, T., “Word Histories, and Beyond: Towards a Conceptualization of Fraud and Deceit in Early Modern Times”, in T. van Houdt/J.L. de Jong/Z. Kwak/M. Spies/M. van Vaeck (ed.), On the Edge of Truth and Honesty: Principles and Strategies of Fraud and Deceit in the Early Modern Period (Leiden: Brill, 2002) 1–31. Wanegffelen, T., Ni Rome ni Genève: Des fidèles entre deux chaires en France au XVIe siècle (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1997). Zagorin, P., Ways of Lying: Dissimulation, Persecution and Conformity in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990). Ziegler, H., Trauen und Glauben: Vertrauen in der politischen Kultur des Alten Reiches im Konfessionellen Zeitalter (Stuttgart: Didymos-Verlag, 2017).

Angela De Benedictis

Theories of War, Rebellion and Resistance in Early Modern Italy

1.

Introduction

One of the volumes published in the REFO500 Academic Series, that edited by Gabriella Erdélyi, Armed Memory: Agency and Peasant Revolts in Central and Southern Europe (1450–1700),1 concerns the methodological issue of re-contextualising revolts in early modern Central and Southern Europe (Hungary, Croatia, Czech Lands, Austria, Germany, Italy). Erdélyi’s introduction underlines that the authors who contributed to the volume “sought to narrate the histories of peasant resistance from the perspective of the actors – the peasants themselves”,2 that is from the anthropological perspective of looking at rebellion outbreaks “at moments when the mutually expected reciprocity of human relations was undermined”,3 and the “language of negotiation … escalated into conflict amid the disappointment resulting from its failure”.4 This language “was very often that of religion in the first half of the sixteenth century, when the majority of the armed conflicts discussed in this book (i. e. Armed resistance) took place”.5 According to Erdélyi’s cultural history, the events of collective violence highlighted in the essays in the volume reveal the relationship with the themes of war and rebellion, whose investigation is possible given the large numbers of primary sources such as chronicles, diaries, and memoirs.6 To some degree, the aim and the issues in Armed Memory regarding Central and Southern Europe can be shared by scholars concerned with the whole of early modern Europe as well as with citizen revolts, especially since some recent essays have already underlined the connection between war and rebellion in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by considering late medieval theories on war in specific case-

1 G. Erdélyi (ed.), Armed Memory: Agency and Peasant Revolts in Central and Southern Europe (1450–1700) (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016). 2 G. Erdélyi, “Introduction”, in Erdélyi (ed.), Armed Memory, 19–34, on p. 21. 3 Erdélyi, “Introduction”, 24. 4 Erdélyi, “Introduction”, 24. 5 Erdélyi, “Introduction”, 24. 6 Erdélyi, “Introduction”, 30.

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studies of revolts and the related juridical-theological language.7 I have done so, too, inquiring into the same period as Armed Memory (1450–1700) and examining better or less known rebellions in Italian cities.8 With regard to the present volume of the REFO500 Academic Series, the following pages aim, on the one hand, to expand the only Italian case study offered by Armed Memory (the Rebellion of Piacenza in 14629 ) and, on the other, to show that events, images and concepts of rebellion are closely connected to the idea of just war, which must not only be waged by the king against the rebels found guilty of lèse-majesté but can also be considered lawful resistance to a tyrannical king, conducted by cities and communities legitimising their uprisings. Moreover, the selected case studies (Bologna 1510–52; Urbino 1572–3, Mondovì 1680–2, Castiglione delle Stiviere 1689–94) will show the fundamental role that rebels attributed to churches as places in which to gather, in order to legitimise lawful resistance.

2.

Bologna 1510–52: A Papal Bull Summarised and Inscribed by Lower Magistrates in San Petronio Basilica

Why do I begin with the case study of Bologna? For two main reasons: 1) events occurred and issues were discussed at a time of European wars, such as the so-called Italian Wars (1494–1559), and which also involved the Lutheran Reformation, that is to say, precisely during the age of Emperor Charles V; 2) events, issues, and actors are strictly connected to the very place of citizens’ religious and political life, the Basilica of San Petronio, which dominates the central political and religious space in Bologna, i. e. Piazza Maggiore. As a preliminary consideration, it must be pointed out that the civic magistrates who, in 1511, already constituted the lower office, compared to the higher one (the Senate), had been simultaneously created in the year 1377 by the Governo del Popolo e delle Arti (Government of the People and the Arts), a neo-communal regime characterised by a large participation of citizens and guilds in the city’s

7 P. Lantschner, “Revolts and the Political Order of Cities in the Late Middle Ages”, Past & Present 225 (2014) 3–46. 8 A. De Benedictis, Neither Disobedients nor Rebels: Lawful Resistance in Early Modern Italy (Rome: Viella, 2018). 9 M. Gentile, “In Search of the Italian ‘Common Man’: Rethinking the 1462 Peasant Uprising in the Territory of Piacenza”, in Erdélyi (ed.), Armed Memory, 83–112.

Theories of War, Rebellion and Resistance in Early Modern Italy

government.10 At the time, they were called “gonfalonieri del popolo” and “massari delle arti”. The gonfalonieri carried the banners of jurisdiction that granted them the authority to defend the city and its citizens from external and internal enemies. In 1496 the gonfalonieri passed a resolution that gave their office a new name – tribuni della plebe – and also adopted a new coat of arms so that their honour and dignity would be recognised and respected. The resolution was based on the authority of the Corpus Iuris Civilis and the Corpus Iuris Canonici. At that time, the gonfalonieri-tribuni were already the popular magistrates, compared to the aristocratic magistrates – the Sedici Riformatori dello Stato di Libertà (Sixteen Reformers of the State of Freedom), forerunners of the later Senate. On the basis of that resolution, adopted with the consent of the Sedici, every attendant and officer of each of the sixteen Tribunes had to carry a hatchet (as in the fasces of the Roman lictors), which was deemed indispensable for the present and future splendour of the magistracy, as well as a worthy ornament of the sacrosanct and wide-reaching jurisdiction of the Tribunes.11 After the so-called re-conquest of Bologna by the warrior pope Julius II (1506) during the Italian Wars (1494–1559),12 an agreement had been reached by the pope, the Senate (aristocratic government), and the collegi (popular government) according to which the Senate, together with the legate (the papal representative), were to govern, protect, and defend the city, its people, and the rights of the Roman Church. By that time, the more direct presence of the papal monarchy and the different quality of its political action, compared to the previous period of the socalled Bentivoglio signoria, led to the hope and belief that the popular government could play a role almost equal to that of the aristocracy. In point of fact, between 1508 and 1510, when Julius II was absent from Bologna, the aristocratic and popular governments shared a common front, for the common good of the people, against the private interests of high-level Roman clergy in the management of the Abbey of Santi Naborre e Felice.13

10 See lately G. Milani, “From one conflict to another (13th–14th Centuries)”, in S.R. Blanshei (ed.), A Companion to Medieval and Renaissance Bologna (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2018) 239–59; A. De Benedictis, “Popular Government, Government of the Ottimati, and the Language of Politics: Concord and Discord (1377–1559)”, in Blanshei (ed.), A Companion, 289–309, on p. 293–4. 11 A. De Benedictis, “Identità politica di un governo popolare: La memoria (culturale) dei Tribuni della Plebe”, in A. De Benedictis (ed.), Diritti in memoria, carità di patria: Tribuni della plebe e governo popolare a Bologna (XIV–XVIII secolo) (Bologna: CLUEB, 1999) 13–83, on p. 32–5. 12 A. De Benedictis, Una guerra d’Italia, una resistenza di popolo: Bologna 1506 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2004); De Benedictis, “Popular Government”, 298–301. 13 M.T. Sneider, “Ai Collegi la ‘causa del popolo et delli poveri pestilenti’: Il governo dell’abbazia dei SS. Naborre e Felice”, in De Benedictis (ed.), Diritti in memoria, 85–102.

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Two prestigious institutions of civic charitas14 paid the costs of bending to these private interests: the San Giovanni Battista pesthouse and the Confraternity of Santa Maria della Morte. When Francesco Soderini, cardinal of Volterra, received the right from the pope to succeed to the possessions of the Abbey of Santi Naborre e Felice in 1510 – a right that the Bolognese Senate had also expected to receive – a long and complex legal case began in the Roman tribunals that rendered impossible any agreement between the Bolognese Senate and the collegi.15 Both the Senate and the collegi petitioned Julius II not to allow the Roman Rota to transfer unto itself, from the Bolognese ordinary courts, the jurisdiction of any first and second-degree lawsuits regarding Bologna. Julius II did not reply to the Senate. Instead he replied to the collegi, which had also sent him other petitions, after the collegi had succeeded in arming the people against the French troops that were threatening Bologna, where Julius II had returned in September 1510. With a bull dated 22 November 1510,16 the pope granted the petitions presented by the collegi on fiscal matters and on the administration of justice; on the observance of the general statutes of the city and of the Foro dei Mercanti; on having the strongholds in the contado reserved for the citizens; on bestowing ecclesiastical benefits from the city and diocese of Bologna on its citizens or the sons of its citizens alone, despite the Senate’s having ruled differently. The pope conceded all these grazie because of the devotion and fidelity of the Bolognese people. The concessions were to be inviolate – as the bull specified – and observed so that there would be a vim contractus between the pope and the community of Bologna. As was the custom at that time, the Bolognese people were notified of the contents of the bull from the rooms of the public palace, in Piazza Maggiore. The event was recorded in contemporary chronicles as well as by some authors in the following generation. All bear witness to the great tension existing between the Senate and the collegi due to the fact that the papal bull was addressed only to the collegi and not to the Senate. For their part, the collegi decided to commemorate the pope’s preferential treatment of them in an everlasting and indelible fashion: a summary of the contents of the papal bull can still be read today,17 inscribed in golden letters in the marble 14 On the issue, see N. Terpstra, “Confraternities and Civil Society”, in Blanshei (ed), A Companion, 386–410. 15 Sneider, “Ai Collegi”. 16 A. De Benedictis, Repubblica per contratto: Bologna, una città europea nello Stato della Chiesa (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1995), 190–2; De Benedictis, “Popular Government”, 302. 17 Text of the inscription (see Documento n. 1, in De Benedictis (ed.), Diritti in memoria, 167): “Hucusque licet, si commoda haec Grandia spectatum venis, quae julius ii. Pontifex maximus tribunis plebis ac mercatoribus, caeterorum nec non opificum collegiis probitate sua indulsit. Frumenti omne genus a xiiii. Calendis januarii m.d.x. usque ad calendas januarias m.d.xi. Immunis molito. Ultra vero illud tempus singulis corbibus librarum cxl. Precium duorum solidum argen-

Theories of War, Rebellion and Resistance in Early Modern Italy

of one of the many inscriptions found in the Basilica of San Petronio, the temple founded at the end of the fourteenth century by the Signoria del Popolo e delle Arti and the site par excellence of “civic religion”.18 Overlooking the memoria (as it was termed by a contemporary chronicler), was the coat of arms of the pope himself. The popular government laid all their cultural memory, and hope for its capacity for political action, in that monument/memorial of 1510, and did so for the following 40 years, even during the long period of the wars in Italy. During those 40 years, more than once the age-old dispute from Rome over the management of the properties of the Abbey of Santi Naborre e Felice led to open conflict between the Senate and the collegi. More than once the collegi accused the Senate of tyranny, on the one side, and the Senate accused the collegi of sedition, on the other.19 In reality, the popes (Adrian VI, Clemens VII) played a neutral role, even though both parties tried to win them over to their own side. In 1552, during the reign of Pope Julius III, matters changed. The collegi sent their own requests on the issue in eleven petitions (capitoli) to be presented to the pope, recalling once again the concession made by Julius II in 1510. The Bolognese Senate considered the petitions an attempt “to stir up the plebs and seize the good will of the people”, acting deliberately “against the authority of our own Magistrate”.20 Julius III was informed by the papal legate, Innocenzo del Monte, of the intentions of the popular magistrates, and immediately made his response clear. The pope dismissed “all the capitoli of the said collegi, and parties, and anything else done by them on these matters, as things that are outside their office and jurisdiction”.21 One of these “things” had been the decision taken by the collegi to gather as a

18 19 20 21

teorum maneto. Portarum vectigalia dimidio minora quam antea sunto. Summa pecuniarum ex agro boum causa quotannis erogari solita, in aliud munus, agricolis non perinde grave commutator. Et, attrito castrensibus stationibus agro, inde nec foenum militibus, nec paleae vehuntor. Causae civiles et capitales ab ordinariis judicibus solum et solenniter audiuntor. Captivi publico tantum carceri addicuntor. Municipaliaque passim omnia tam foro civili et capitali, quam mercatorio et fabrili deservientia, ne omittuntor. Ac nemini, praeterquam publico exactori, mulctantium aes asservandum dator. Prolatae post semestrem a criticis civibus in praetorem semel sententiae firmae et ratae habentor. Oppida arcesque extra pomoerium sitae, biennio tantum, et a bononiense duntaxat cive custodiuntor. Cuncta insuper sacerdotia exteris alienigenisque ne conferuntor. Nemo judici, prolegato, legatove his apostolicis indultis privilegiis adversator. Et, si secus factum fuerit, infectum esto”. On civic religion in Renaissance Bologna, see G. Zarri, “The Church, Civic Religion, and Civic Identity”, in Blanshei (ed), A Companion, 361–85; Terpstra, “Confraternities and Civil Society”. De Benedictis, Repubblica per contratto, 206–23; C. Ciuccarelli, “Giustizia o sedizione?: I Tribuni della Plebe tra Bologna e Roma 1522–1559”, in De Benedictis (ed.), Diritti in memoria, 103–34. Ciuccarelli, “Giustizia o sedizione?”, 116. Ciuccarelli, “Giustizia o sedizione?”, 125.

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popular government together with all the guilds (about 1,500 people) inside the Basilica of San Petronio in order to discuss issues concerning the government and the common good of the city.22 On 26 December 1552, a papal brief revoked and condemned as detrimental to the city “various resolutions in part extravagant, in part scandalous” that had been approved by the collegi without the necessary participation of their superiors (i. e. the Senate). Anybody who dared contradict the papal brief would be declared a “rebel”, and punished with ecclesiastical fines.23 Nonetheless, the inscription summarising the bull of 1510 in the language of the Twelve Tables was not removed from its place in San Petronio, where everybody can still see it today. Some decades later, in 1574, it was reproduced inside the third volume of the Bolognese statutes of 1454, after the text of the bull glossed by jurist and professor at the city’s Studium, Annibale Monterenzi.24

3.

De bello, de represaliis et de duello (ca. 1360)

The above-mentioned Governo del Popolo e delle Arti (1377) was recognised by Pope Gregory XI thanks to the fundamental role played by the famous civil and canon lawyer, Giovanni da Legnano,25 who assumed the title of vicar general of the pope (1377–82). At that time, da Legnano had already written his treatise on warfare, which circulated extensively even before its printed editions appeared.26 In his opinion, rebellion, war and resistance share a close and reciprocal relationship.27 Relying on the authority of the previous jurists who had commented on the

22 Ciuccarelli, “Giustizia o sedizione?”, 121–2. 23 De Benedictis, “Identità politica”, 187–8. 24 A. Monterenzi, Statutorum inclytae civitatis studiorumque matris Bononiae: cum scholiis D. Annibalis Monterentii (3 vol.; Bologna: Ioannem Rossium, 1561–74), vol. 3, Sanctionum ac Provisionum inclytae Civitatis Studiorumque matris Bononiae, Cum doctissimis, accuratissimisque scholiis excellentissimis I.U.D. D. Annibalis Monterentii Tomus Tertius (1574), Bulla Secunda Iulii II, 17. 25 D. Girgensohn, “Giovanni Oldrendi da Legnano”, in E. Cortese et al. (ed.), Dizionario biografico dei giuristi italiani (sec. XII–XX) (2 vol., Bologna: Il Mulino, 2013), vol. 1, 1018–21. 26 G. da Legnano, De bello, De represaliis et De duello, ed. T.E. Holland (New York: Oceana Publications, 1964). 27 The importance of Legnano’s treatise for specific case-studies is stressed by Lantschner, “Revolts and the Political Order”, 101–2, relying also on A. De Benedictis, “Rebellion – Widerstand: Politische Kommunikation als Normenkonflikt in der Frühen Neuzeit”, in De Benedictis et al. (ed.), Die Sprache des Politischen in actu: Zum Verhältnis von politischem Handeln und politischer Sprache von der Antike bis ins 20. Jahrhundert (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009) 113–38, on p. 125.

Theories of War, Rebellion and Resistance in Early Modern Italy

Corpus Iuris Civilis (above all, Bartolus of Saxoferrato28 ), Legnano analysed that relationship. On the one hand, the “prince” could wage a just war against rebels, but, on the other hand, lawful resistance was also a kind of just war. If the prince was the one to neglect the law, then the prince himself could be resisted. Da Legnano classified lawful resistance as a kind of “particular corporeal war” (waged for the protection of one’s own person and property), since it was conducted in self-defence.29 To the questions “against whom may this particular war be declared?” and “is it lawful against a superior?” da Legnano wrote that there were three cases, each to be dealt with in a different way. If it was clear that the superior was acting against the law (contra ius), then it was necessary to resist him, according to the l. prohibitum (Codex, 10, 1, 5) and the l. devotum (Codex, 12, 40, 5). If it was clear that the superior was acting lawfully, then there should be no resistance. If, however, there was doubt about the superior’s actions, then it was only necessary to resist in cases where the iniuria committed by the prince could not be repaired later.30 Giovanni da Legnano’s discourse dealt further with another well-known question: could someone call for assistance from his friends to defend his goods from the violence of a third party? The canonist’s response was as follows: in such a case, friends may help their neighbours, since this was permitted according to charitas, love for them. Any act of violence that had to be undertaken in providing this assistance must be solely defensive, not vindictive, and considered in relation to the condition of the persons involved.31 In conclusion, according to Giovanni da Legnano, one can be punished as a rebel if there are no self-defence claims attached to the legitimate causes of rebellion and disobedience. It is lawful to resist the prince’s officials who abuse their role; if the prince is the one who disregards or neglects justice, then the prince may also be resisted; if it is clear that a superior is acting contra ius, resistance is lawful and necessary.32 All these questions imply another fundamental question: how may force be repelled by force? The general answer is that “it is allowed within the limits of justifiable defence”.33 But the issue of what the limits of a justifiable defence are

28 On Bartolus of Saxoferrato, see above all D. Quaglioni, Politica e diritto nel Trecento italiano: Il “De tyranno” di Bartolo da Sassoferrato (Florence: Olschki, 1983). 29 da Legnano, De bello, 276–306. 30 da Legnano, De bello, 289. 31 da Legnano, De bello, 301. 32 da Legnano, De bello. 33 da Legnano, De bello, 302.

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occupies more than one chapter in da Legnano’s treatise, according to the many different cases of possible limits.34 If we pay attention to the language and reasoning of “rebels” in different cases and times, we can see that they always recall the main arguments pertaining to justifiable defence.

4.

The Urbino Tumult (1572–3): The People of Urbino Gathered in San Domenico’s Church Claim They Are Not Rebels35

Let us recall that on 26 December 1552, Pope Julius III revoked and condemned as detrimental to Bologna “various resolutions in part extravagant, in part scandalous” that had been approved by the collegi without the necessary participation of their superiors (i. e. the Senate). Anybody who contradicted the papal brief would be declared a rebel, and punished with ecclesiastical fines. A little over twenty years later, on 9 February 1573, another pope, Gregory XIII, commanded the city of Urbino – at that time subject to the ‘prince’ Duke Guidobaldo II della Rovere – to lay down the arms the citizens had taken up against armed men who were marching from Ferrara towards them. Some days before, on 28 January, Urbino had sent ambassadors to Pope Gregory XIII to absolve the city from accusations of rebellion levelled at it by some foreigners. For which reason? What had happened in Urbino? On 1 September 1572, the duke of Urbino, Guidobaldo II della Rovere, imposed new duties upon his entire state. On 26 December, the Feast of St Stephen, the general citizen council held a special meeting even though the duke’s luogotenente had discouraged it from doing so. In unison, the citizens declared that they did not want the new taxes and declared their desire to ask the duke to revoke them. In order to accomplish this, the people elected 35 ambassadors from among the citizens who enjoyed the highest standing, threatening death to those who refused the assignment. The duke rejected the group of 35 ambassadors and informed the people of Urbino that he would consent to receiving, at most, only three or four representatives. Once the will of the duke was made known, the people spontaneously gathered in the piazza, and decided all 35 ambassadors should go to the duke right away. So the chosen representatives set off. But the duke sent his captains to interrupt their journey, assuring them, however, that he would do what the people had requested. Yet the ambassadors, mindful of the people’s orders,

34 da Legnano, De bello, 302–6. 35 In this paragraph, I summarise the content of chapter “The Urbino Tumult (1572–1573)”, in De Benedictis, Neither Disobedients nor Rebels, 27–81.

Theories of War, Rebellion and Resistance in Early Modern Italy

continued their journey. On the way to the duke’s court in Pesaro, they were joined by representatives of the castles and villas in the countryside, one for each castle and each villa, until they numbered approximately 200. Since word could spread very quickly, everyone in the duchy’s territory knew what was happening. On 27 December, the duke published a decree suspending the majority of the gabelles. The people, however, were doubtful about what exactly the duke meant by “suspending”. On 1 January 1573, excited rumours began to circulate that men-at-arms were marching towards Urbino. The people ran armed to the gates of the city, but it was a false alarm. On 4 January, the elected ambassadors returned to Urbino, never having been able to understand exactly what the duke intended to do. The people were sceptical and preoccupied about the duke’s intentions. On 10 January, the ambassadors returned to the duke but Guidobaldo was obstinate about not wanting to accord them an audience. He made it clear that it was wrong to have asked him so insistently to abolish the new taxes. Once they were made aware of the duke’s behaviour, the people once again gathered in their council. The meetings were so crowded that their regular meeting hall in the communal palace was not large enough and they had to move to the archbishop’s. On 11 January, the ambassadors returned from Pesaro, bringing with them a letter from the duke addressed to the people of Urbino, demanding that they ask for his pardon. However, the people did not want to do so because asking for it presupposed that they were at fault. The people were convinced, instead, that they had not been wrong: they had simply asked the duke to abolish the new impositions, all the while continuing to respect and honour him. On 27 January, the people met in the Church of San Domenico. They discussed the displeasure that the duke felt towards Urbino and they expressed regret at that displeasure. They felt the duke had believed those who accused Urbino of being at fault, that is to say, those who accused the people of having rebelled against the duke, and they felt that he should not have. While all this was taking place, news arrived that armed men from Ferrara were marching towards Urbino. The city immediately took up arms and put guards at the walls night and day. At the same time, the duke was informed in a letter that the city was taking up arms for love of the duke and for his defence. He did not respond. The very next day, 28 January, Urbino sent ambassadors to Pope Gregory XIII to excuse the city, to justify what had occurred there, explaining that the meetings of the people and their discussions were brought about by accusations of rebellion levelled at the city by foreigners. It had been a spontaneous reaction. The people had done nothing wrong. Urbino was, and would always be, faithful to the duke. They were merely asking for the abolition of the duties. On 9 February, a papal brief from Gregory XIII reached Urbino. The pope commanded that arms be laid down, that the duke’s pardon be requested, and that the city thereby return to the duke’s clemency. Eager to obey the pontiff, arms were

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deposed, and the soldiers called in to defend the city were dismissed as soon as the brief was read. On 10 February, the people elected fourteen ambassadors to go to the duke to ask for pardon for all the errors committed, just as the pope had ordered. This decision was taken to end all discussions and suspend any meetings being held on the issue. On 16 February, Urbino sent another ambassador, Francesco Giordani, to the pontiff. He was to report to Gregory XIII that the ambassadors had gone to Pesaro to ask for the duke’s pardon, that they had stayed a number of days, but the duke had not wanted to accord them an audience. Giordani also had the task of informing the pope that in Fossombrone there were armed men ready to attack Urbino and to beg him to solve such a grave threat. On 19 February, the ambassadors who had gone to Pesaro wrote to the priors of Urbino that the duke had received them and they had been granted a general pardon. He ordered that the artillery present in the city be handed over to someone he appointed. He added that in future he would take other measures to maintain peace in the city. On the same day, the duke sent the podestà of Pesaro to Urbino; the people of Urbino were to hand the artillery over to him or be declared rebels. On the same day, the people responded to the duke that they had put down their arms immediately after the publication of the papal brief. Everyone had done the will of the pope, and no one had prevented the implementation of the brief. On 22 February, a ducal decree was posted ordering weapons of every kind to be handed over, again under penalty of being declared rebellious should they disobey this. On 3 March, some of the ambassadors who had gone to Pesaro returned but seven of them were imprisoned. On 4 March, another four Urbino citizens were sent to prison. Urbino then sent three ambassadors to seek grace for the prisoners, and many prayers were said for it; numerous groups of children and the poor, along with many confraternities, went through the city praying to God for universal quiet. On 9 March, the duke had another decree published: the people of Urbino and the surrounding countryside had 10 days in which to pay all the duties imposed the previous September. On 11 March, Guidobaldo published a list of everyone imprisoned in the fortress of Pesaro and all of those charged in absentia. On 21 March, Holy Saturday, he had four men apprehended in the Church of San Francesco in Urbino, two of whom were taken to Pesaro as prisoners. It was said that he had papal permission to make the arrests in church. The duke had a search conducted in all churches in Urbino to find all the others responsible for the tumult. On 27 March, the duke stripped the priors of Urbino of their authority. He did the same to the capitano generale and even the officials who dealt with property damage (danno dato), although he later restored their authority. On 11 April, the duke prohibited confraternities from holding evening meetings and also ordered that the Compagnia della Grotta could not go to Loreto.

Theories of War, Rebellion and Resistance in Early Modern Italy

On 16 May, a ducal decree was published declaring a general pardon and the order that all those proclaimed rebels had to appear before the judge to defend themselves within five days. Others suspected of being responsible for the uprising were instead given two months in which to appear. On 22 May, the duke of Urbino had Francesco Giordani, the ambassador who had gone to Pope Gregory XIII on 16 February, killed by Lamberto Malatesta, lord of Rimini. On 26 May, the duke ordered those who had not been declared rebels but who, having fled, were afraid to return to appear before the judge. However, they should not worry since the duke had pardoned them. On 3 June, the duke again ordered those declared rebels to appear. At the end of June, in the fortress of Pesaro, the duke had a death sentence by decapitation carried out against nine gentlemen of Urbino who had taken part in the tumult. Prison sentences were handed out to four more citizens of Urbino. These were the facts, according presumably to a contemporary chronicle but first published only in the mid-nineteenth century.36 The judge who had been appointed by the duke to interrogate the imprisoned citizens of Urbino extracted from them his (or the duke’s) truth: i. e., that they were all guilty of lèse-majesté. However, the register of the trial (from the mid-seventeenth century filed in the Vatican Apostolic Archive37 ) tells another story, even though it was suppressed: i. e. the truth of the justifiable defence of the city and citizens of Urbino. From all the interrogations, moreover, it was clear that the most important council meetings were held in the Church of San Domenico, where the people of Urbino made the decision to send one ambassador to duke Guidobaldo in Pesaro and other ambassadors to Pope Gregory XIII in order to excuse the city and the people for rebelling against their lord, Guidobaldo. This was a fact.38 One of the proofs against the imprisoned citizens that the judge tried to extort from them concerned matters of war. For the judge, the fact that the citizens had taken up arms meant that they had waged an unjust war on the duke. This, very briefly, is how the judge questioned one of the citizens who had been an ambassador to the duke, Severo Paltroni.39 Paltroni, a former member of the permanent council of Urbino, had been one of the officials appointed to organise the munitions-related activities to prevent a possible assault on the city by an army led by Brunoro Zampeschi. The judge asked

36 F. Ugolini, “Diario della ribellione d’Urbino nel 1572 d’ignoto autore dato per la prima volta in luce e illustrato”, Archivio Storico Italiano 3/1 (1856) 37–59. 37 AAV (Archivio Apostolico Vaticano), “Super Tumultibus Populi Civitatis Urbini Anno Domini 1573 [ca. 1573]”. Archivum Arcis, Arm. E, 127. 38 De Benedictis, Neither Disobedients nor Rebels, 30, 37, 59, 73. 39 De Benedictis, Neither Disobedients nor Rebels, 71–4.

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him why he had prepared all those weapons. “Because of the uproar [romore]” about Zampeschi’s men coming to harm Urbino, Paltroni answered. And why were arms taken up? asked the judge. “Because of this same uproar”, responded Paltroni. If taking up arms depended on the wish to defend themselves from Zampeschi’s soldiers, this raised another problem for the judge. Who was responsible for guarding the city of Urbino? The citizens or the duke who was lord of the city? Paltroni made the distinction: the custody of the cities rested with the duke, but he entrusted it to the citizens if necessary: “I believe that it is up to the lord Duke and on us when he commands us to do it”. However, recognizing this, Paltroni suggested another general principle: “And I believe it is licit for anyone to defend himself against anyone who wishes to hurt him”. The judge continued: had the Urbino citizens harmed anyone they feared being harmed by? Paltroni: “No, sir, not that I know of ”. The judge: then why did they prepare a defence, if they did not fear harm coming to them? Paltroni: “This was up to who was leading, and governing; it was said that there were horses and infantry coming to damage Urbino”. The judge: did the people, and in particular Paltroni, know that they had offended the duke, or that the duke felt offended by them? And that for this reason they should ask for his pardon? Paltroni: “I do not know that we offended him, but I well know that he felt offended by us when we went with that large of an embassy”. The judge: did they, he and the people, know that the duke was preparing soldiers to send against Urbino? Paltroni: “It was said that he was sending those people to sack Urbino”. The judge: did all those preparations done with the munitions suggest that Urbino was opposing the duke? Paltroni: “Yes, sir, against those men sent by His Excellency”. The judge: did he know that the people could have defended themselves against those soldiers in a way other than with weapons, in other words, by asking for the duke’s pardon and thereby freeing themselves from the fear of being punished by the duke? “Yes, sir, I knew that. And I even exhausted myself trying to get them to ask for his pardon”. The judge: does he know that it is in no way lawful for subjects to oppose a duke who is acting justly? And nor is it lawful to offer help to anyone who opposes the prince? Paltroni: “Yes, sir, I know it is not licit for a subject or for others to aid a subject against his prince if he is acting justly”. Summarizing Paltroni’s answers, he knew it was not licit for a subject to act against his prince if he was acting justly, but he also believed that it was licit for anyone to defend himself against anyone who wished to harm him. It is important to underline that even before questioning Paltroni the judge already knew from former cross-examinations that the same Paltroni had taken part in secret meetings where doctors of law and the people argued they did not believe that they had erred against the duke, and where it had been decided to take up arms to defend the city, and to proffer an excuse for the actions of the people, so

Theories of War, Rebellion and Resistance in Early Modern Italy

that they would not be called rebels.40 Furthermore, the judge knew from another former examination that Paltroni had been not only an “agitator” of the people , but also one of those who had identified the precautions necessary in order to use the people as a shield to excuse his own behaviour.41 By comparing what Paltroni believed and told the judge with the fundamental question discussed by Giovanni da Legnano on particular corporeal war, we can see the same complex casuistry even though it was argued in another language. Be that as it may, Paltroni’s language of self-defence was unsuccessful. It was the judge’s truth that prevailed: for him it was disobedience to the duke’s orders, which deserved the penalty of rebellion, even if – it must be stressed – no acts of violence were committed, against either property or people, during the commotion. Urbino had armed itself in self-defence but it had not used those arms. The sentence passed by the judge on 30 June 1573, included 11 death sentences for the citizens questioned in prison. Among them was Severo Paltroni, who was indeed put to death on 1 July 1573.42

5.

The Salt War in Mondovì (1680–2) Justified as Lawful Resistance by a Priest with Reasons Taken From a Theologian’s Treatise on War43

It is impossible to know exactly what the doctor of laws of Urbino argued to exonerate the people from the charge of rebellion. One of the imprisoned citizens told the judge, during questioning, that those jurists had invoked certain laws to show that the people could legitimately take up arms.44 With regard to the case study of Urbino, we have none of the legal texts upon which the doctor of laws relied. By contrast, we know that the laws, which, for instance, Giovanni da Legnano relied on to argue that a lawful resistance could be conducted in self-defence, had been continually commented on and discussed with the same aim of excusing several rebellious cities until the time of Urbino’s revolt. Those legal arguments were discussed in literary genres such as the commentaries to the Corpus Iuris Civilis and the Corpus Iuris Canonici, and the consilia (legal opinions); from the beginning of the sixteenth century, they were discussed in treatises specifically dedicated to

40 41 42 43

De Benedictis, Neither Disobedients nor Rebels, 49, 53, 59. De Benedictis, Neither Disobedients nor Rebels, 64. De Benedictis, Neither Disobedients nor Rebels, 79. In this paragraph, I summarise the content of chapter “War Against Rebellious Cities: Messina 1674–1678, Mondovì 1680–1682”, in De Benedictis, Neither Disobedients nor Rebels, 156–72. 44 De Benedictis, Neither Disobedients nor Rebels, 65.

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the issues of sedition and rebellion, as well as in practicae criminales.45 In that endless casuistry, the core problem of lawful resistance was that of the universitas delinquens,46 i. e. the discussion concerning the penalties for a city, town, village (but also brotherhood, confraternity, guild), and their limitations. It is no coincidence that one can find the reasons for lawful resistance in the paragraph entitled “Se la Città di Mondovì per avere prese le armi in questi tumulti si possa chiamare ribelle al principe” (If the City of Mondovì may be called rebellious to the prince for having taken up arms in these tumults) in the Relazione de’ successi seguiti nella Città e Mandamento di Mondovì, gli anni 1680–81–82 (Relation of the Events that Occurred in the City and District of Mondovi, 1680–81–82)47 written by a secular Piedmont priest, Giovanni Battista Andrea Cordero. It is noteworthy that after the events, being suspected of heresy, Cordero was banished from Mondovì, and taken before the tribunal of the Inquisition in Rome. Once absolved, he then had a prestigious career as coordinator of the Congregation of Christian Doctrine in Rome, Naples, Salerno, and Aversa.48 Even more noteworthy is the fact that the negative answer provided by Cordero to the question of “rebellion” was grounded on a text concerning just war contained in a commentary to St Thomas’s Secunda secundae, as we shall see below. Before a closer reading of Cordero’s defence of Mondovì, it is necessary to briefly summarise the events that occurred in Mondovì during the years of the first Salt War (1680–2). Fought by some communities that depended on Mondovì against the troops of the sovereign dukes of Savoy, the war was caused by a salt levy. The community, in other words, was forced to purchase a certain quantity of salt,

45 For some of those commentaries, consilia, and treatises, see De Benedictis, Neither Disobedient nor Rebels. According to M. Sbriccoli, “Giustizia criminale”, in M. Fioravanti (ed.), Lo Stato moderno in Europa: Istituzioni e diritto (Rome/Bari: Laterza, 2002) 163–205, the practicae criminales were works destined “for the artifices justitiae, those who concretely practice justice”, and based on “definitions, juridical principles, maxims, and consensus opinions”, having “the principal goal of measuring in any given case the an, the quomodo, and the quantum of the penalty to be applied”. 46 On the issue D. Quaglioni, “‘Universi consentire non possunt’: La punibilità dei corpi nella dottrina del diritto comune”, in C. Nubola/A. Würgler (ed.), Suppliche e “gravamina”: Politica, amministrazione, giustizia in Europa (secoli XIV–XVIII) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2002) 409–25; De Benedictis, Neither Disobedients nor Rebels, 111–23. 47 G.A.B. Cordero, Relazione de’ successi seguiti nella Città e Mandamento di Mondovì gli anni 1680–81–82 cavata la maggior parte da successi veduti da[lo] Scrittore o intesi da persone degne di fede protestando però al lettore, che sebbene l’autore abbi usato ogni diligenza per intendere il vero, nulladimeno nell’Istoria vi potrebbe essere mescolata qualche falsità conforme al detto: Nullum bellum sine orrore, Neque liber sine errore, edizione critica a cura di Rosalba Davico, in G. Lombardi (ed.), La guerra del sale (1680–1699): Rivolte e frontiere del Piemonte barocco (3 vol.; Milan: FrancoAngeli, 1986), vol. 3, R. Davico, Lo Stato, la Faida, la “Viva Maria”, 147–339. 48 R. Davico, “L’Anonimo Mondovita e la sua storia: La Relazione de’ Successi … di Giovan Battista Andrea Cordero (1649–1734)”, in Lombardi (ed.), La guerra del sale, vol. 3, 117–39, on p. 123–8.

Theories of War, Rebellion and Resistance in Early Modern Italy

proportionate to the number of inhabitants and cattle, and at a higher price than that of the free market. According to Cordero’s Relazione de’ successi, the officials appointed to collect the tax by Madama Reale Marie Jeanne Baptiste of SavoyNemours (who had succeeded her dead husband, prince Charles Emmanuel II, duke of Savoy) behaved like tyrants. The wish and need to uncover their “extortion and wrongdoings” both in the city and in the countryside had led to the taking up of “arms, with which the people many times requested justice from the Lord Governor”. The salt gabelle was, for Father Cordero, “the true cause that fomented so many tumults and confusions in the past years”.49 The “origin of the tumults”50 was to be sought, therefore, in the bad governance of the ministers in Mondovì. The city’s claims against those new taxes had not been heard by the Collaterale Tommaso Pallavicini, so that the citizens of Mondovì and their mayor Giovanni Grassi had protested that they had been unjustly oppressed. For several reasons the citizens had taken up arms against that oppression, and consequently the Collaterale criminalised them and their mayor, Grassi. The arguments for criminalisation employed by the ministers and the defensive arguments used by Grassi for the city and for himself can be analysed on the basis of two reports, produced by the two parties respectively during the course of the events, and which constitute the events themselves: “Stato della Città del Mondovì con i suoi riflessi e progetto del rimedio che sia opportuno alle congiunture presenti” (The State of the City of Mondovì with its reflections on, and projected remedy for, the present state of affairs), drafted by the provincial director, Pallavicini; and the formal relation sent by the city of Mondovì to the court in Turin, very probably by mayor Grassi, the “Relazione della Città di Mondovì delle violenze usate da Biaggio Amedeo Faussone Conte di Villanova contro il Sergente Ducale di detta Città” (Relation of the City of Mondovì of the violence used by Biagio Amedeo Faussone Count of Villanova against the Ducal Sergeant of the said City). The two reports are, as the modern editor of the two texts pointed out, two versions of the facts “with completely different semantics and … no mediatorial solution”.51 It is from the report written by Collaterale Pallavicini that we know that some of the city’s people gathered as a congregation in the convent of the Madonna del Vico. The leaders of those who lived in the countryside were called up. There were about 60 people there. They made the decision to “unitedly support each other in the event that punishment would be considered for them”. From mayor Grassi’s Relazione we know that the prince’s ministers “did not know or pretended not to 49 Cordero, Relazione de’ successi, 154. 50 Cordero, Relazione de’ successi, 158. 51 The two texts were edited in Cordero, Relazione de’ successi, at note 7, 168–71, and at note 8, 171–4, respectively. The observations of the editor Rosalba Davico are in Cordero, Relazione de’ successi, at the beginning of note 7, 168.

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know that an unjustly oppressed subject is not obliged to obey orders that would likely be life threatening, all the more ones given by Ministers declared enemies, and without the right and justified agreement of the Sovereign with whom it had never been possible to get an audience”.52 According to Cordero’s Relazione dei successi, in 1681 soldiers arrived in Mondovì. Resistance was discussed and there were discordant opinions: for some, the city could have then been accused of taking up “arms against its Sovereign”. At that point, they were in a state of war. The soldiers were insolent towards Mondovì, calling it “disobedient, ill-disposed, and rebellious to Madama Reale”. The ministers had new mayors elected and proceeded with the dismemberment of the city into its various quarters.53 But were those communities truly rebellious? Father Cordero explicitly posed the question at that point in his Relazione in the paragraph entitled, “If the City of Mondovì for having taken up arms in these tumults may be called rebellious against the prince”. Taking up arms without the permission of the prince/lord against one of the ministers was licit and in no way a crime. According to Cordero, this was also supported by the authority of a theologian, the Carmelite friar, Gabriele da San Vincenzo, in his treatise De bello: “He says that when a City is damaged by another, and the Prince was advised of this but does not act, the injured City can with arms defend its rights without the consensus of the Prince because uti jure suo”.54 The treatise De bello by Gabriele da San Vincenzo to which Cordero referred was in actual fact the Disputatio XXIII in Quaest. XL. D. Thomae De Bello.55 The problem was analysed in dubium III: De prima conditione iusti belli, ut non fiat nisi ab habente auctoritatem. Legitimate war, the Carmelite theologian wrote, could be declared by a princeps or a respublica that did not have any superiors.56 However, based on a well-known tradition, even cities that recognised a superior could also have this authority. This could be seen precisely in the case summarised by Cordero: “The injured City can with arms defend its rights without the consensus of the Prince because uti jure suo”.57

52 53 54 55

Cordero, Relazione de’ successi, 175–6. Cordero, Relazione de’ successi, 184. Cordero, Relazione de’ successi. G. da San Vincenzo, R.p.f. Gabrielis a s. Vincentio carmelitae excalceati In secundam secundae diui Thomae de fide, spe, et charitate. Vbi de haeresi, apostasia, blasphemia, timore, misericordia, eleemosina [|], correctione fraterna, odio, acidia, inuidia, … Opus non tantum sacrae theologiae studiosis, lectoribus, & magistris, verum etiam confessaris, & poenitentibus, per quam utile (Rome: typis Philippi Mariae Mancini, 1666). 56 da San Vincenzo, R.p.f. Gabrielis a s. Vincentio, 615. 57 da San Vincenzo, R.p.f. Gabrielis a s. Vincentio, 615–16.

Theories of War, Rebellion and Resistance in Early Modern Italy

The reason for justifiable defence was not considered by princely government. For them, the city and citizens of Mondovì were guilty of rebellion. The first Salt War ended in Mondovì in April 1682, with an amnesty conceded to those found guilty, since the rebels surrendered their weapons and promised in the future to live virtuously.58 In 1697, Prince Victor Amadeus II reinstated the salt levy in Mondovì and the surrounding land and, to put it into practice, from the outset he used a corps of well-equipped and organised troops. There was a certain amount of resistance (the second Salt War), and in the first few months of 1699 Mondovì, together with the surrounding communities, had to capitulate de facto in the face of the belligerent operations of their prince’s soldiers. His orders to the general in command of the military operations also prescribed that the houses, along with their foundations, of the community of Montaldo be completely razed to the ground, leaving neither vaults nor basements standing. The first inhabitants arrested were to be hanged, half of the families were to be deported to the area around Vercelli, and even the woods were to be cut down.59

6.

A Ruling Prince “Who Is an Enemy of the Public Itself” Can Be Lawfully Resisted: The People of Castiglione Delle Stiviere Protest in Front of the Holy Sacrament in the Parish Church (1692)60

In the same years as those of the second Salt War, another city in northern Italy, Castiglione delle Stiviere, opposed its prince by every means at its disposal owing to the bad government of the prince and the ministers. Castiglione delle Stiviere was an imperial principality in Lombardy and one of the major imperial fiefs. The princes of Castiglione were related to the Gonzaga of Mantua, among the oldest feudal lords of the House of Habsburg. The three communities of the principality, Castiglione, Solferino and Medole, were subject to Ferdinand II as their feudal lord after 1680. The populations of Castiglione, Medole, and Solferino started complaining about Ferdinand’s government early on, not only because of the new fiscal duties and the consequent crisis in which they found themselves, but, more distressingly, due to his manner of ruling. The new burdens were incompatible with the pacts

58 Lombardi (ed), La guerra del sale, vol. 2, A. Lange, La “Seconda guerra del sale” (1698–1704): Esiliati e ribelli, 7–76. 59 G. Amoretti, “La guerriglia e le operazioni militari nel periodo della guerra del sale nella provincia di Mondovì (ultimi decenni del XVII secolo)”, in Lombardi (ed.), La guerra del sale, vol. 1, 401–23. 60 In this paragraph, I summarise the content of chapter “Never Obey out of Fear: Castiglione delle Stiviere, 1689–1694”, in De Benedictis, Neither Disobedients nor Rebels, 173–89.

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signed between the communities and Ferdinand’s predecessors, and the prince’s measures undermined the traditional self-governance of the communities. The general councils of the heads of households, the so-called vicinie, were prohibited since they were considered the cause of the disturbance of peace and order, and they were replaced with a more circumscribed council whose activities were de facto controlled by Ferdinand. Being the subjects of a prince who was himself subject to the emperor, the inhabitants of the three communities decided to present remonstrances to the emperor, as both imperial laws and political practice permitted, informing the Aulic Council in Vienna of this and appealing to the duke of Mantua. Before they could act, Ferdinand became aware of the communities’ intentions and had their representatives jailed. He sequestered the keys of the communal archives to prevent access to the documents that the community might have used to substantiate their protest and deposed some of the members of the councils. He had others put on trial. The impossibility of obtaining “justice and moderation from the prince” drove the vicinia of Medole to gather together in September 1689 and to pass certain extremely significant resolutions: “To make use of the Law of Nations and shake off the unbearable yoke of said Prince”; to withdraw from obedience to Ferdinand and offer themselves to the duke of Mantua, swearing “to employ every means possible to put in effect so just a resolution, without ever lacking the faith owed and reciprocally given themselves, and to keep themselves always united from the beginning of the planning of this affair, even if it would cost each one of them here congregated their lives and their goods”. Those and other decisions made during the course of the meeting were to be binding for all, to such an extent that nonadherence was prevented and those who did not respect them would be excluded from the community: “If there is anyone who has not consented to the public union and wants to see it invalidated, may he be dismissed from the Patria and like an infected limb may he be separated from this public body”.61 After several attempts to obtain justice from Emperor Leopold I’s general commissioner for imperial fiefdoms in Italy, the community of Castiglione took note of the impossibility of asserting their own rights through legal channels. If they wanted justice, it would be necessary to follow a different course. Under the auspices of don Giuseppe Ruggeri, the priest, a plan to free themselves from the prince was devised: to besiege the castle, kill the Gonzaga family and their supporters and free the jailed prisoners. The plan went into effect on the night between 21 and 22

61 All the quotations are taken from the text of the vicinia’s minutes from the meeting of 4 September 1689, published in M. Marocchi, I Gonzaga di Castiglione delle Stiviere: Vicende pubbliche e private del casato di San Luigi (Verona: Artegrafica, 1990), 614.

Theories of War, Rebellion and Resistance in Early Modern Italy

November 1691, but it failed. The next day Ferdinand began an investigation to identify and apprehend the conspirators and had two of them imprisoned. On the night between 22 and 23 December 1691, one thousand men, or perhaps more, from the three communities of Castiglione, Solferino, and Medole attacked Ferdinand’s palace and in particular aimed at the houses of two of his most hated officials, Gabriele Valle, tax collector and tobacco contractor, and Paolo Mercati, secretary to the prince. Called by the ringing of the bells, the population of Castiglione came together in the streets, where the cry “Long live the Emperor and may the bad government die!” was repeated “from mouth to mouth to encourage the most uncertain and assure them of the legitimacy of their actions”.62 On 6 January 1692, in the Church of Castiglione, the vicinia was convened. Opinions about what should be done were not unanimous. After six hours of discussion, the meeting was adjourned until the next day. The 600 household heads (capifamiglia) left the church and went back to their houses shouting, “Long live the Emperor!”.63 Castiglione also acclaimed the emperor when, on 17 January, General Palffy with 50 German knights arrived, charged with restoring order to the community.64 During their stay in the fiefdom of Ferdinand I Gonzaga, the imperial commissioners realised that it would be impossible to impose on the people of Castiglione obedience to their prince. The complaints against Gonzaga presented to the imperial plenipotentiary in Italy were repeated and continual. The subjects of the prince proceeded in their request that a criminal trial be brought against him and also proceeded to collect proof of his bad government.65 They were convinced that only in this way could they assert their claims, which now included complaints about the last commissioner who, according to them, had given precedence to the civil case (regarding the fiscal arrears) over the criminal one (leaning towards taking the fiefdom away from Gonzaga).66 It was therefore decided to convene the vicinia to evaluate the situation and decide what to do. In the community’s parochial church, the capifamiglia met on 19 December 1692. The minutes of the vicinia,67 drafted by the chancellor, underscore the acute awareness of the differences that existed between the various powers to which Castiglione was directly (the prince) and indirectly (the emperor) subject, of

62 63 64 65 66 67

Marocchi, I Gonzaga. Marocchi, I Gonzaga, 587. Marocchi, I Gonzaga. Marocchi, I Gonzaga, 101–3. Marocchi, I Gonzaga, 105. Published by B. Arrighi, Storia di Castiglione delle Stiviere sotto il dominio dei Gonzaga (2 vol.; Mantua: Negretti, 1851–4), vol. 2 (1854), 187–92 (document XI). All of the quotations are from Arrighi’s edition.

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the people’s duties as subjects towards a just prince, of the obedience due solely and exclusively to a just prince. The commissioner had misunderstood if he thought that the “public” authority (the vicinia considered itself public power as such since it took care of protecting the common good), having demonstrated that it was “ready to obey the Caesarean Majesty”, would also be obedient to the prince. On the part of the vicinia there was no “public intention to give obedience to the Prince”, but only to show him “respect and reverence”, just as the decrees of the emperor ordered, and to obey imperial decrees. It would have been “always impossible, being incompatible”, that the public of Castiglione obey “a ruling Prince who was an enemy of the public itself, because it would be like putting the sword of vengeance in his hand”. In order to avoid all possible “misunderstandings”, the vicinia wanted to “explain the public’s intention”, as it was and as it would be: “to give the Prince respect and reverence only and not otherwise, in compliance with the Imperial Decrees”. The minutes also went into the details of the “uprising”. Contrary to what the prince had reported to the Aulic Council, the sole causes of the uprising were the “extortion, injustices, and oppression wrought constantly by the Prince against these miserable subjects”. This, and nothing else, had “induced and obligated the public to make resolutions, and determinations [to rise up against the prince] for the safety of their own lives and things, and in support of public rights – the very “public rights” that the prince had always “injured”, notwithstanding the imperial decrees in favour of the community, which that prince had also “scorned and disdained”. The vicinia then discussed the problem of the presence of the 500 soldiers sent by the commissioner into the community. They feared that their presence signalled the intent to “oblige the subjects with force and violence to obey the prince”. The subjects, in fact, “absolutely ever” wanted to voluntarily pay obedience to the prince. The fear of being forced with violence led the vicinia to formulate a “protest to be done immediately in front of the Most Holy Sacrament”, that would be “read in a public and intelligible voice” by the chancellor. The householders ordered that the complaint be “then read and repeated by the people word by word”, while “with the invitation of the people” “all the bells in Castiglione had to be rung”. The text of the protest would afterwards be inserted, “for eternal memory”, in the public act that constituted the meeting’s minutes. Once it had been declared that the protest was not being made “for any passion, but only for the fervour for quiet and calm of both body and soul”, the protest was then “read word by word” by don Giuseppe Ruggeri and “repeated by the people”, who then received the blessing of the Most Holy Sacrament. Once this had been completed, the people moved from the parish church to the church of the fathers of the Society of Jesus for the regular Friday exposition of the relics of St Ignatius of Loyola, patron saint of the people of Castiglione. When the services were over, the people made their way to the church of the Oratory of the Disciplini della Pace.

Theories of War, Rebellion and Resistance in Early Modern Italy

Here, “in execution of the promise they had made to God, in the aforementioned protest, of public amendment of their sins” they decided that the following day there would be “a public and general Communion of the people, with a mass sung in honour of Saint Carlo Borromeo”. In the event that not all the people could take communion, then at least all the members of the community council would have to do so. One copy of the text of the protest would be presented to Commissioner Carlo Borromeo Arese; another would be sent to Vienna; other copies would be exhibited in the Church of Castiglione “for public and universal notification”. The protest of the people of Castiglione, which all those present had read word for word in front of the Most Holy Sacrament exhibited on the altar of the parish church, reiterated with a solemn vow the concepts of fidelity and obedience to which the people felt obliged. The fidelity and obedience of the Castiglione people could never be extorted by force. If by chance, however, this should occur, the fidelity and obedience promised to a tyrant would be null. The same solemn dedication promised by the people of Castiglione was also promised in the Medole and Solferino vicinie.68 The conviction of being in the right and the continual appeal to imperial justice, which the people of Castiglione demonstrated through their actions and with their declarations, also had a foundation in the communis opinio doctorum, the consensus of the jurists. This is proven by the legal advice (consultatio) drafted for the community by Mantuan jurist, Antonio Gobbi, dated 15 July 1694.69 Beginning with a concise presentation (argumentum), which lays out the general questions or points considered in the legal opinion, Gobbi alternates questions in the traditional quaestio disputata style with explicit legal (in jure) premises. The first premise of the argumentum: the prince, no matter how he comes to be successor to a fief, cannot infringe the pacts and conventions between his predecessors and the communities subject to him. He cannot even revoke the immunities and privileges conceded in return for payment and approved several times and confirmed by the emperors. According to the quaestio, the form used addresses the legitimacy of the imposition of the new duties or the increase of the old ones; duties on basic necessities, on contracts, on the prohibition of hunting; the second premise maintains that citizens may not be impeded from meeting from time to time in ways to which they are accustomed (parliaments and councils) to discuss community issues, nor may they be prohibited from meeting in churches and in oratories for religious services. Following the question of the legitimacy or not of the various

68 Marocchi, I Gonzaga, 590. 69 A. Gobbi, “Consultatio LXXX (N.N.N. Gravaminum)”, in A. Gobbi, Iuris consultationum decisivæ civiles et criminales Tomus secundus (Mantua: ex Typografia S. Benedicti, Sumptibus Alberti Pazzoni Impressoris Archid., 1723), 542–67. Neither the names of the defended communities (Castiglione, Medole and Solferino), nor the name of the prince appear in the consultatio.

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orders and various prohibitions imposed by the prince on the subjects,70 the last premise concerns the central problem of the uprising: in defence of their own rights and for the preservation of their own persons and honour, subjects may resist the prince even with arms, without this being considered the crime of rebellion; in the case that they are burdened by the prince beyond the established pacts and conventions, they can also deny him obedience.71 Finally, the synthesis of the opinion closes with the quaestio whether and when a fief may be taken from the vassal who misbehaves towards his subjects.72 Therefore, in favour of the communities, the jurist recalled a well-known principle: whoever imposes new taxes and increases old ones without having the necessary authority incurs the penalties associated with the crime of lèse-majesté, according to Roman law (the jus civile), and of excommunication, according to canon law.73 In the very likely case that princes had “just, and legitimate cause” to impose and increase duties for public necessity, “a Prince cannot, except moderately and in proportion to the necessary public need, impose duties, or collections”. Public necessity cannot be a “specious pretext” to “overburden the Subjects”. Princes must, in that case “imitate good shepherds, who legitimately shear their sheep”. They must “require duties or collections from them” in such a way “that the increase or payment of these will not be excessive”. Conversely, not only do they “mortally sin” with excessive burdens, but are also “held to the restitution of the sum they inappropriately demanded”. And in the event of an appeal on behalf of the “burdened Subjects”, the “Superior”74 may prohibit the prince from imposing the taxes.75 After enumerating princely decrees pertaining to some duties between 1688 and 1693, in addition to the hunting prohibition,76 the jurist pointed out – among the increases that the community had been subjected to since the beginning of the Gonzaga prince’s rule – one concerning the prohibition of the convocation of the vicinia. In this way, the subjects had been deprived of “the prerogative of the universitas to their great damage”. He had also prohibited confraternities from meeting as was customary “to carry out their Spiritual Practices”, by means of another order of 1 January 1689.77

70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77

Gobbi, “Consultatio LXXX”, 42. Gobbi, “Consultatio LXXX”. Gobbi, “Consultatio LXXX”. Gobbi, “Consultatio LXXX”, ss summarised in the notabilia 32 and 33, and then discussed in Gobbi, “Consultatio LXXX”, 548–9. In the specific case, the emperor since he is superior to the feudal lord. Gobbi, “Consultatio LXXX”, 549. Gobbi, “Consultatio LXXX”, 550. Gobbi, “Consultatio LXXX”.

Theories of War, Rebellion and Resistance in Early Modern Italy

On this point the jurist Antonio Gobbi explicitly argues that a city is oppressed by a tyrannical government if the prince’s subjects cannot defend their common good speaking freely.78 If prohibiting the vicinia from meeting was absurd, “against duty”, and tyrannical, even “more onerous” was the prohibition of the Gonzaga subjects’ “meeting in the Churches, or Oratories to carry out their Spiritual Exercises”. The secular prince, in fact, did not have “any jurisdiction, or authority in Holy Places”, therefore he could not “prohibit Christian people from gathering there”, especially when they intended to carry out pious works.79 These were improper prohibitions. Improper also were the orders of Gonzaga that the communities contested through their legal representative, Antonio Gobbi, such as the one that judged a lack of obedience to the orders of the prince to be a rebellion. This is how, Gobbi wrote, the prince hoped to “take away from the oppressed their defence”. “Common reason”, that is, the law,80 permitted the oppressed to “take offence to and not obey” those orders, yet without ceasing to be faithful subjects.81

78 Gobbi, “Consultatio LXXX”, 553. 79 Gobbi, “Consultatio LXXX” (italics original). 80 A concept revisited in general by D. Quaglioni, La giustizia nel Medioevo e nella prima età moderna (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2004), in particular 52–3. 81 Gobbi, “Consultatio LXXX”, 555.

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7.

Final Remarks

Naples, in the Church of the Carmine, site of the third day of the “revolutions”, 9 July 1647. It happen’d, that the same day and time that his Eminence [Archbishop Ascanio Filomarino] was to reason with the peeple in the Church of Carmine, another general whisper was or’e-heard: For after the Charter of Charles the V was read, that which the Viceroy did subjoyn was also read, which was, That he confirm’d all the said Charter by abolishing all the Gabells and Impositions, and that he pardoned all the peeple for whatsoever they had don, and acted in that Commotion, and he promis’d to obtain such a pardon from his Catholic Majesty for any act of rebellion that might have happen’d: When this was heard, you wold not beleeve how greatly the peeple were mov’d, wherupon they began to cry out with a loud voyce, That they never comitted any act of Rebellion, but to have always bin most faithful Vassals, and wold dye so towards his Majesty, who (and they rais’d their voyces to a great height) they prayed to live a thousand years: The thing they only desired was, that the Priviledges made good unto them by King Ferdinando, and Charles the Emperour, might be made good unto them now: Therupon thinking they were gull’d and betrayed, they wold give ear no longer to any accord, as also because in the said Confirmation his Excellency did not specify, that the whole Kingdom shold be so disburdned, without the necessary Clause of the Apostolical Assent, as they had made instance; and therefore, without being a whit satisfied, they desir’d that the War might be prosecuted, until they might have compleat satisfaction; yet the Bishop labour’d still to divert them from such thoughts, by reading unto them the Note following sent him from the Viceroy.82

In the Church of the Carmine the Neapolitan people claimed that they were not rebels and desired the war with the Spanish monarchy to be prosecuted until they might have complete satisfaction for their complaints. This narrative is part of a well-known Neapolitan chronicle, whose English translation (1650) was published a few years after the Italian edition (1647).83 A notable scholarly discussion was held, about thirty years ago, between Peter Burke and Rosario Villari, concerning the symbolic role of the Virgin of the Carmine

82 J. Howell, An Exact Historie of the late Revolutions in Naples, and of Their Monstrous Success, not to be parallel’d by any Ancient or Modern History / Published by the Lord Alexander Giraffi in Italian (1650); and (for the rareness of the subject) rendered to English, By J.H. Esq. (London: Lowndes, 1650), 71–3 (italics original). 83 A. Giraffi, Le riuolutioni di Napoli descritte dal signor Alessandro Giraffi: Con pienissimo ragguaglio d’ogni successo, e trattati secreti, e palesi (1647).

Theories of War, Rebellion and Resistance in Early Modern Italy

and the church dedicated to her.84 Responding to Burke’s emphasis on the symbols and rituals of the revolt of Masaniello, the Italian historian highlighted the need to analyse closely the social and political history of Naples in order to fully understand the role of the cult of the Virgin “in unifying and legitimising popular sentiment and collective action”.85 To do this, even in the limited space of a reply, Villari signalled the importance of the English translation, mentioned above, of one of the first contemporary chronicles of the revolt of Masaniello, that published by Alessandro Giraffi at the end of 1647. The cavalier James Howell produced the translation very quickly, publishing it in 1650, when the events of the ongoing English Civil War made it of particular interest to English readers.86 Howell’s faithful translation effectively conveyed the importance of the Church of the Carmine for the Neapolitan people, who specifically chose it as the place to present their grievances and demands in a very particular way. The Neapolitan people wanted the abolition of the new gabelles to be recognised and grounded on treaties and privileges already conceded by King Frederick of Aragon and confirmed by Emperor Charles V. This was a fundamental question and it caused the entire second day of the tumult, 8 July, to be occupied with seeking the original document, written in gold letters, which could not be found in the archive in the Church of San Lorenzo, where it should have been. Far from mere technical issues, these things mattered. These documents recognised the possibility that the Neapolitan people could take up arms to defend the privileges they had obtained without the act of taking up arms being considered an act of rebellion. This is a point on which all the contemporary chronicles and even later histories agree. It is also a well-known point in recent historiography.87 The aim of my essay has been to show that some other cases, similar to the Neapolitan one, characterised early modern Italy.

84 P. Burke, “The Virgin of the Carmine and the Revolt of Masaniello”, Past & Present 99 (1983) 3–21; R. Villari, “Masaniello: Contemporary and Recent Interpretations”, Past & Present 108 (1985) 117–32; P. Burke, “Masaniello: A Response”, Past & Present 114 (1987) 197–9. On the discussion, F. Benigno, Mirrors of Revolution: Conflict and Political Identity in Early Modern Europe (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), 274–77. 85 Villari, “Masaniello”, 121. 86 Recently, see D. Boerio, “The ‘Trouble of Naples in the Political Information Arena of the English Revolution”, in J. Raymond/N. Moxham (ed.), News Networks in Early Modern Europe (Leiden/ Boston: Brill, 2016) 779–804. 87 A. Musi, La rivolta di Masaniello nella scena politica barocca (Naples: Guida, 2002), 92–4, 106, 111–13; Benigno, Mirrors of Revolution, 298 and 312; R. Villari, Un sogno di libertà: Napoli nel declino di un impero, 1585–1648 (Milan: Mondadori, 2012), 324–5, 333. Some references also in A. Hugon, Naples insurgé 1647–1648: De l’évenement à la mémoire (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2011).

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In the first half of the sixteenth century, the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna was the holy place where the popular magistrates (collegi) met to draft their petitions to popes, and where they had Julius II’s bull carved for perpetual memory. In January 1573, the people of Urbino gathered in the Church of San Domenico to request ‘just’ taxation. At the same time, the public general council gathered inside the cathedral, where the jurist advocate of the city held a speech assuring the people that they had not been at fault with their request.88 During the Salt War (1680–2) in Mondovì, some of the city’s people gathered as a congregation in the convent of the Madonna del Vico, where they decided to support one another in a united front because the prince’s ministers had unjustly oppressed them. On December 1692, the impossibility of obtaining justice from their prince led the people of Castiglione delle Stiviere to gather in the parochial church. There they justified their determination to rise up against the prince for the safety of their own lives and property, and in support of those public rights that the prince had always damaged. In Mondovì, the taking up of arms against the unjust oppression of the prince’s ministers was justified according to a treatise de bello, which was a comment on Thomas of Aquinas. For Castiglione delle Stiviere, the jurist Antonio Gobbi wrote a consilium not only defending the people from the accusation of rebellion but also recalling that any prince who imposes new taxes and increases old ones without having the necessary authority incurs the penalties associated with the crime of lèse-majesté according to Roman law (the jus civile), and of excommunication according to canon law. Both implicitly and explicitly the four case studies of Bologna, Urbino, Mondovì, and Castiglione delle Stiviere (besides that of Naples) show that the possible solution provided by Giovanni da Legnano in his De bello (1360) had been repeatedly – when necessary – maintained valid: it is lawful to resist the prince’s officials who abuse their role; if the prince is the one to disregard or ignore justice, then the prince may even be resisted; if it is clear that a superior is acting contra ius, resistance is lawful and necessary. I am quite sure, too, that further research will ‘reveal’ other similiar cases (not only in Italy but perhaps throughout Europe); however, such research must take into account the juridical-theological language which was inherent in every ‘revolt’.89

88 De Benedictis, Neither Disobedients nor Rebels, 77–8. 89 For late medieval case-studies, see Lantschner, “Revolts and the Political Order”.

Theories of War, Rebellion and Resistance in Early Modern Italy

Bibliography AAV (Archivio Apostolico Vaticano), “Super Tumultibus Populi Civitatis Urbini Anno Domini 1573 [ca. 1573]”. Archivum Arcis, Arm. E, 127. Amoretti, G., “La guerriglia e le operazioni militari nel periodo della guerra del sale nella provincia di Mondovì (ultimi decenni del XVII secolo)”, in G. Lombardi (ed.), La guerra del sale (1680–1699): Rivolte e frontiere del Piemonte barocco (3 vol.; Milan: FrancoAngeli, 1986) vol. 1, 401–23. Arrighi, B., Storia di Castiglione delle Stiviere sotto il dominio dei Gonzaga (2 vol.; Mantua: Negretti, 1851–4), vol. 2 (1854). Benigno, F., Mirrors of Revolution: Conflict and Political Identity in Early Modern Europe (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010). Boerio, D., “The ‘Trouble of Naples’ in the Political Information Arena of the English Revolution”, in J. Raymond/N. Moxham (ed.), News Networks in Early Modern Europe (Leiden/ Boston: Brill, 2016) 779–804. Burke, P., “The Virgin of the Carmine and the Revolt of Masaniello”, Past & Present 99 (1983) 3–21. Burke, P., “Masaniello: A Response”, Past & Present 114 (1987) 197–9. Ciuccarelli, C., “Giustizia o sedizione?: I Tribuni della Plebe tra Bologna e Roma 1522–1559”, in A. De Benedictis (ed.), Diritti in memoria, carità di patria: Tribuni della plebe e governo popolare a Bologna (XIV–XVIII secolo) (Bologna: CLUEB, 1999) 103–34. Cordero, G.A.B., “Relazione de’ successi seguiti nella Città e Mandamento di Mondovì gli anni 1680–81–82 cavata la maggior parte da successi veduti da[lo] Scrittore o intesi da persone degne di fede protestando però al lettore, che sebbene l’autore abbi usato ogni diligenza per intendere il vero, nulladimeno nell’Istoria vi potrebbe essere mescolata qualche falsità conforme al detto: Nullum bellum sine orrore, Neque liber sine errore, edizione critica a cura di Rosalba Davico”, in G. Lombardi (ed.), La guerra del sale (1680–1699): Rivolte e frontiere del Piemonte barocco (3 vol.; Milan: FrancoAngeli, 1986), vol. 3, R. Davico, Lo Stato, la Faida, la “Viva Maria”, 147–339. da Legnano, G., De bello, De represaliis et De duello, ed. T.E. Holland (New York: Oceana Publications, 1964). da San Vincenzo, G., R.p.f. Gabrielis a s. Vincentio carmelitae excalceati In secundam secundae diui Thomae de fide, spe, et charitate. Vbi de haeresi, apostasia, blasphemia, timore, misericordia, eleemosina [|], correctione fraterna, odio, acidia, inuidia, … Opus non tantum sacrae theologiae studiosis, lectoribus, & magistris, verum etiam confessaris, & poenitentibus, per quam utile (Rome: typis Philippi Mariae Mancini, 1666). Davico, R., “L’Anonimo Mondovita e la sua storia: La Relazione de’ Successi … di Giovan Battista Andrea Cordero (1649–1734)”, in G. Lombardi (ed.), La guerra del sale (1680–1699): Rivolte e frontiere del Piemonte barocco (3 vol.; Milan: FrancoAngeli, 1986), vol. 3, R. Davico, Lo Stato, la Faida, la “Viva Maria”, 117–39.

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De Benedictis, A., Repubblica per contratto: Bologna, una città europea nello Stato della Chiesa (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1995). De Benedictis, A., “Identità politica di un governo popolare: La memoria (culturale) dei Tribuni della Plebe”, in A. De Benedictis (ed.), Diritti in memoria, carità di patria: Tribuni della plebe e governo popolare a Bologna (XIV–XVIII secolo) (Bologna: CLUEB, 1999) 13–83. De Benedictis, A., Una guerra d’Italia, una resistenza di popolo: Bologna 1506 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2004). De Benedictis, A., “Rebellion – Widerstand: Politische Kommunikation als Normenkonflikt in der Frühen Neuzeit”, in De Benedictis et al. (ed.), Die Sprache des Politischen in actu: Zum Verhältnis von politischem Handeln und politischer Sprache von der Antike bis ins 20. Jahrhundert (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009) 113–38 De Benedictis, A., Neither Disobedients nor Rebels: Lawful Resistance in Early Modern Italy (Rome: Viella, 2018). De Benedictis, A., “Popular Government, Government of the Ottimati, and the Language of Politics: Concord and Discord (1377–1559)”, in S.R. Blanshei (ed.), A Companion to Medieval and Renaissance Bologna (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2018) 289–309. Erdélyi, G. (ed.), Armed Memory: Agency and Peasant Revolts in Central and Southern Europe (1450–1700) (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016). G. Erdélyi, “Introduction”, in G. Erdélyi (ed.), Armed Memory: Agency and Peasant Revolts in Central and Southern Europe (1450–1700) (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016) 19–34. Gentile, M., “In Search of the Italian ‘Common Man’: Rethinking the 1462 Peasant Uprising in the Territory of Piacenza”, in G. Erdélyi (ed.), Armed Memory: Agency and Peasant Revolts in Central and Southern Europe (1450–1700) (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016) 83–112. Giraffi, A., Le riuolutioni di Napoli descritte dal signor Alessandro Giraffi: Con pienissimo ragguaglio d’ogni successo, e trattati secreti, e palesi (1647). Girgensohn, D., “Giovanni Oldrendi da Legnano”, in E. Cortese et al. (ed.), Dizionario biografico dei giuristi italiani (sec. XII–XX) (2 vol., Bologna: Il Mulino, 2013) vol. 1, 1018–21. Gobbi, A., “Consultatio LXXX (N.N.N. Gravaminum)”, in A. Gobbi, Iuris consultationum decisivæ civiles et criminales Tomus secundus (Mantua: ex Typografia S. Benedicti, Sumptibus Alberti Pazzoni Impressoris Archid., 1723), 542–67. Howell, J., An Exact Historie of the late Revolutions in Naples, and of Their Monstrous Success, not to be parallel’d by any Ancient or Modern History / Published by the Lord Alexander Giraffi in Italian (1650); and (for the rareness of the subject) rendered to English, By J.H. Esq. (London: Lowndes, 1650). Hugon, A., Naples insurgé 1647–1648: De l’évenement à la mémoire (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2011).

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Lantschner, P., “Revolts and the Political Order of Cities in the Late Middle Ages”, Past & Present 225 (2014) 3–46. Lombardi, G. (ed.), La guerra del sale (1680–1699): Rivolte e frontiere del Piemonte barocco (3 vol.; Milan: FrancoAngeli, 1986) vol. 2, A. Lange, La “Seconda guerra del sale” (1698–1704): Esiliati e ribelli. Marocchi, M., I Gonzaga di Castiglione delle Stiviere: Vicende pubbliche e private del casato di San Luigi (Verona: Artegrafica, 1990). Milani, G., “From one conflict to another (13th–14th Centuries)”, in S.R. Blanshei (ed.), A Companion to Medieval and Renaissance Bologna (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2018) 239–59. Monterenzi, A., Statutorum inclytae civitatis studiorumque matris Bononiae: cum scholiis D. Annibalis Monterentii (3 vol.; Bologna: Ioannem Rossium, 1561–74), vol. 3, Sanctionum ac Provisionum inclytae Civitatis Studiorumque matris Bononiae, Cum doctissimis, accuratissimisque scholiis excellentissimis I.U.D. D. Annibalis Monterentii Tomus Tertius (1574), Bulla Secunda Iulii II, 17. Musi, A., La rivolta di Masaniello nella scena politica barocca (Naples: Guida, 2002). Quaglioni, D., Politica e diritto nel Trecento italiano: Il “De tyranno” di Bartolo da Sassoferrato (Florence: Olschki, 1983). Quaglioni, D., “‘Universi consentire non possunt’: La punibilità dei corpi nella dottrina del diritto comune”, in C. Nubola/A. Würgler (ed.), Suppliche e “gravamina”: Politica, amministrazione, giustizia in Europa (secoli XIV–XVIII) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2002) 409–25. Quaglioni, D., La giustizia nel Medioevo e nella prima età moderna (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2004). Sbriccoli, M., “Giustizia criminale”, in M. Fioravanti (ed.), Lo Stato moderno in Europa: Istituzioni e diritto (Rome/Bari: Laterza, 2002) 163–205. Sneider, M.T., “Ai Collegi la ‘causa del popolo et delli poveri pestilenti’: Il governo dell’abbazia dei SS. Naborre e Felice”, in A. De Benedictis (ed.), Diritti in memoria, carità di patria: Tribuni della plebe e governo popolare a Bologna (XIV–XVIII secolo) (Bologna: CLUEB, 1999) 85–102. Terpstra, N., “Confraternities and Civil Society”, in S.R. Blanshei (ed.), A Companion to Medieval and Renaissance Bologna (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2018), 386–410. Ugolini, F., “Diario della ribellione d’Urbino nel 1572 d’ignoto autore dato per la prima volta in luce e illustrato”, Archivio Storico Italiano 3/1 (1856) 37–59. Villari, R., “Masaniello: Contemporary and Recent Interpretations”, Past & Present 108 (1985) 117–32. Villari, R., Un sogno di libertà: Napoli nel declino di un impero, 1585–1648 (Milan: Mondadori, 2012). Zarri, G., “The Church, Civic Religion, and Civic Identity”, in S.R. Blanshei (ed.), A Companion to Medieval and Renaissance Bologna (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2018) 361–85.

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Just War and Scholastic Intellectual Culture in Early Modern Europe

Warfare was central to Europe’s experience of early modernity: we thus have good reason to wish to understand what Europeans thought and argued about warfare.1 The teachings of the European universities on the theory of the just war formed an important part of that wider discourse, and Anglophone historians have not made it a major subject of study. This essay will first review the historiography of the just war among English-speaking historians. Members of this historical tradition, and especially historians of political thought, have not simply neglected this subject, but rather excluded it from their research on the grounds of its incompatibility with their fundamental preoccupations. It will then be argued that there are two major groups of sources which have, for these reasons, been placed outside consideration by English-speaking scholars. The first of these are those discussions of warfare by Franciscan scholastics who regarded the thirteenth-century theologian John Duns Scotus as the master of their school. The second group of sources comprises analysis of warfare by Protestant scholastics, whether Lutheran or Reformed. Including these sources in our history of European thinking about warfare suggests that while Christian advocates of holy war have been much less common than some scholars have alleged, nevertheless nature and supernature were not so neatly divided as many historians of political thought have suggested, and that the phenomenon of sacralisation demands further attention. In some ways, it should be quite easy to write an accurate history of scholasticism. Older studies in the history of ideas regarded scholasticism, the learning of the universities, as both static in content and socially isolated from wider European life, and therefore irrelevant to the advent of European modernity.2 The new history of universities, pursued by scholars like Mordechai Feingold and Laurence Brockliss, has attacked both this allegation of stasis and of isolation by building a new account of the universities as powerful agents of cultural transmission in Europe, providing

1 The research presented in this essay was completed as part of “War and the Supernatural in Early Modern Europe”, funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement number 677490). 2 M. Forlivesi, La Filosofia Universitaria tra XV e XVII Secolo (Padua: CLEUP, 2013); R. Ariew, Descartes and the Last Scholastics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999).

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valued services to local, national, and international communities.3 Moreover, there was enough similarity across Catholic and Protestant universities and institutions of higher learning in Europe for us to be able to speak about a single phenomenon of early modern scholasticism, rather than breaking it down into a series of confessional and national movements. It is true that Catholic and Protestant university teachers tended to write their theology in somewhat different ways. Catholics wrote commentaries on Peter Lombard’s Sentences, on Thomas Aquinas’s Summa, or on the other great medieval theologians. Protestants did not write Sentences commentaries, often preferring to organise their theological textbooks around central biblical texts or commonplaces (loci communes), and biblical commentary was generally central to their way of teaching theology.4 But all of these textbooks and commentaries, whether Protestant or Catholic, Italian, German, or French, were written in Latin by high-status persons, censored by their peers, institutionalised in scholastic curricula, and so charged with considerable social power. They provided the raw materials for the education of thousands of young men year in, year out, all across Europe. And because this scholastic literature was indeed deeply institutionalised, it is easier to make historical generalisations about it than is the case with more popular discourses and forms of literature. Popular pamphlets from the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries often contain multiple contradictions; authors seem on one page to urge holy war and on another seem to deny that such a war would be licit. This is because these pamphlets were ephemeral, polemical publications, addressed to immediate political problems. There was no need for the author to be consistent, no cost associated with inconsistency, and perhaps some benefit to saying two contradictory things at the same time. Scholastic commentaries and textbooks were generally characterised not by polemical expediency, but by logic, system, and tradition (some of which was the common inheritance of all early modern Christians). The university professor was more tightly bound by rules

3 R. Tuck, “The Institutional Setting”, in D. Garber/M. Ayers (ed.), The Cambridge History of SeventeenthCentury Philosophy (2 vol.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), vol. 1, 7–32; L.W.B. Brockliss, French Higher Education in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: A Cultural History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); L.W.B. Brockliss, “Curricula”, in W. Ruegg (ed.), A History of the University in Europe (4 vol.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992–2011), vol. 2, H. de Ridder-Symoens (ed.), Universities in Early Modern Europe (1500–1800) (1996), 578–89; M. Feingold, “Aristotle and the English Universities in the Seventeenth Century: A Re-Evaluation”, in H. Robinson-Hammerstein (ed.), European Universities in the Age of Reformation and CounterReformation (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998) 136–48; C.B. Schmitt, Aristotle and the Renaissance (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983). 4 A.S. Brett, Changes of State: Nature and the Limits of the City in Early Modern Natural Law (Princeton University Press, 2011); W.J. Van Asselt, “Protestant Scholasticism: Some Methodological Considerations in the Study of its Development”, Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis / Dutch Review of Church History 81 (2001) 265–74.

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and conventions which carried social costs and sometimes legal penalties than the pamphleteer.5 All this renders European scholasticism highly suitable for historical analysis.

1.

Early Modern Christianity and Holy War

English-speaking historians of political thought have not generally subjected just war theory to close analysis, and the subject has instead been treated by scholars trained in philosophy or the social sciences. The history of political thought is a discipline which emerged from the Anglophone liberal tradition in the later nineteenth century.6 Although scholars like Lord Acton, and John Neville Figgis ranged very widely in their research into the components of this tradition, the political theory of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke has become ever more central to it over the course of the twentieth century. Hobbes and Locke were largely silent on war between states, unlike the figure traditionally seen at the origins of the continental, secular natural law tradition, Hugo Grotius.7 Built into this liberal tradition from the mid-nineteenth century has been the proposition that religion can and should be separated from politics, and so liberal historians have tended to regard Europe’s theological heritage as separable from the secular history that they wished to write. Just war theory, which was the creation of Christian theologians from St Augustine forward, was thus left to scholars without historical training. In this way, much of the most prominent recent Anglophone scholarship on the just war tradition has stemmed from Michael Walzer’s commentary on the rights and wrongs of the Vietnam War.8 Similarly, Andrew Fiala and Jeff McMahan have written about the history of just war theory from the perspective of the Iraq War of 2003–11 and the USA’s campaign against Al-Qaeda.9 These scholars are political scientists or philosophers, and their work does not always rest on firm historical foundations. So Andrew Fiala argued that because just war theory had its origins

5 R. Serjeantson, “Preaching Regicide in Jacobean England: John Knight and David Pareus”, The English Historical Review 134 (2019) 553–88; M. Cavarzere, La prassi della censura nell’Italia del Seicento: Tra repressione e mediazione (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2011). 6 N. Dauber, “Political Thought”, in C.S. Dixon/B. Kümin (ed.), Interpreting Early Modern Europe (Oxon: Routledge, 2019) 388–414. 7 D. Armitage, “Hobbes and the Foundations of Modern International Thought”, in A.S. Brett/J. Tully/ H. Hamilton-Bleakley (ed.), Rethinking the Foundations of Modern Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) 219–35. 8 M. Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, 1977). 9 A. Fiala, The Just War Myth: The Moral Illusions of War (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008); J. McMahan, Killing in War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2009).

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in Christianity it was thus tainted by a voluntarist ethics organised around divine commands, which was exemplified by the holy wars of extermination commanded by God against the seven peoples of Canaan (Deut 7:1–5). According to Fiala, it is thus a tradition that today best serves authoritarianism and the sacralisation of military service.10 It will be demonstrated below that this claim is wrong, but it is worth pointing out that Fiala apparently relied on Roland Bainton’s argument that something called “Puritan Crusade” was practised by Protestants in seventeenthcentury England.11 Bainton was an accomplished scholar, the author of a famous biography of Luther, but this argument is absurd. If crusades can include warfare in which no-one takes the cross, no-one swears the vow, and no-one receives a papal indulgence for their sins (many of these Protestants thought the pope was the Antichrist), then the category is meaningless.12 In the face of this work by very widely read philosophers and political scientists, one thing must first be clarified: the most authoritative early modern Christian theologians rejected holy war, in the sense of a war fought by secular princes for evangelisation or other supernatural reasons. It will be useful to review the positions of two important theologians, John Calvin and Francisco Suárez, on the divinely commanded wars that the Israelites fought against idolaters in the Old Testament. Calvin commented on these in a biblical commentary entitled Mosis Libri Quinque Commentariis, also known as the Harmonia, first printed in Geneva in 1563. The book was a “harmony” in that it sorted and ordered all the law contained in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy underneath the heads of the Ten Commandments. So for example, Deuteronomy 12, which appears to command war to destroy idolatry, Calvin treated as a political appendix of the second commandment against images and saw it as establishing an obligation on the magistrate to promote good religion, rather than popular iconoclasm. Calvin did not take the passage as a command to wage war on idolaters outside the magistrate’s jurisdiction, and indeed Calvin never saw any of the divinely commanded wars of the Old Testament as providing a mandate for contemporary warfare. In fact, Calvin used Deuteronomy 20, under the heading of the sixth commandment against

10 Fiala, The Just War Myth, 32–7. 11 R.H. Bainton, Christian Attitudes toward War and Peace (New York: Abingdon, 1960), 144–51. 12 M. Purcell, Papal Crusading Policy: The Chief Instruments of Papal Crusading Policy and Crusade to the Holy Land from the Final Loss of Jerusalem to the fall of Acre 1244–1291 (Leiden: Brill, 1975); N. Housley, Religious Warfare in Europe, 1400–1536 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

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murder, to make a plea for the use of humanity in all warfare.13 Marco Hofheinz’s research is central to the analysis of this subject.14 The great Jesuit theologian Francisco Suárez wrote on this problem in his Opus de Triplici Virtute Theologica printed posthumously in Lyon in 1621. Suárez’s way of framing the problem was to ask whether or not Christian princes might have any just entitlement to make war apart from that dictated by natural reason. Suárez saw the notion that princes should wage war on idolaters as meaning that princes were obliged either to vindicate God from injury, or to defend him against future injury. He did not believe that there was any evidence that God had given all humans the power to vindicate injuries against him, and he thought that God was quite capable of doing this himself if he wanted to. And Suárez thought that if one looked closely at the divinely commanded wars of the Old Testament, most of them had natural origins, such as the denial of rightful passage through territory. Suárez concluded that all entitlements to war proper to Christian princes were founded in the law of nature, because the law of grace does not destroy the law of nature but perfects it.15 So, it does not seem to have occurred to Calvin that a Christian magistrate would take it into his or her head to fight a war against idolatry or for evangelisation, whereas Suárez (operating in a context of Spanish imperialism) considered such a possibility but rejected it: these are positions that one encounters very frequently in the Reformed and Catholic traditions. On these grounds, I think that the arguments of Fiala and Bainton can safely be dismissed. These basic positions of Calvin and Suárez on the irrelevance or injustice of religious war are likely to be ones that liberal moderns find attractive; and indeed there is a learned tradition of painting, especially the Catholic scholastics as proto-secularists.16 In this way they have been praised for being modern by liberal historians of political thought like Quentin Skinner, and blamed for being secular by twentieth-century Catholic theologians like Henri de Lubac.17 Skinner knew that Jesuit theologians like Suárez were widely read in seventeenth-century England, and he thought that their theory of natural law had been taken up and secularised by Grotius, Hobbes, and Locke. De Lubac agreed that early modern 13 J. Calvin, Mosis Libri V cum Iohannis Calvini Commentariis. Genesis Seorsum: Reliqui Quatuor in Formam Harmoniae Digesti (Geneva: Henricus Stephanus, 1573), secundum praeceptum, 303–4, sextum praeceptum, 349–50. 14 M. Hofheinz, Johannes Calvins Theologische Friedensethik (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2012). 15 F. Suárez, Opus de Triplici Virtute Theologica, Fide, Spe, et Charitate (Lyons: Iacobus Cardon and Petrus Cavellat, 1621), De Charitate, Disputatio 13, Sectio 5, 487–8. 16 J.N. Figgis, Studies of Political Thought from Gerson to Grotius, 1414–1625 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1907). 17 Q. Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (2 vol., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), vol. 2, 134–84, 345–8; H. de Lubac, The Mystery of the Supernatural (New York: Crossroads, 1998), 140–66.

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Catholic theologians like Suárez were secularisers, but he thought that this was a disaster for humanity.

2.

Just War, Liberalism, and Secularisation

It is important that the most scholarly treatment of early modern just war theory in English has turned away from this traditional liberal account of secularisation. Richard Tuck’s aim in his Carlyle Lectures delivered at Oxford in 1999 was to bind just war theory into the history of European liberalism. Tuck placed Alberico Gentili, an Italian Protestant appointed professor of Roman Law at Oxford in 1581, at the centre of his account, and identified Gentili as a characteristic humanist. Tuck argued that it was the humanists of the late sixteenth century, mainly lawyers and teachers of the arts degree, who constructed a modern state of nature in which sovereign states strove for pure material advantage, recognising no natural law but self-defence. This was the vital foundation upon which Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke built their modern, materialistic natural law systems. Tuck distinguished the humanists from the great Catholic scholastics and their more Aristotelian natural law doctrines, in which God had created humans who would pursue ends including the preservation of family, the state, and divine worship. Grotius, Hobbes, and Locke borrowed their autonomous agents, living in a state of nature, and governed by a minimal natural law, from the humanists, not from the Catholic scholastics. Tuck thus placed reflection on warfare at the heart of the history of European liberalism.18 Tuck has noted, and it is useful to amplify this, that the interpretation of the great Jesuit scholastics as proto-secularisers is implausible. Tuck took the accomplished contemporary of Suárez, Luis de Molina, as his case study, but indeed the two Jesuits thought alike on many problems.19 Like Suárez, Molina wrote that neither on account of the crime of idolatry nor other sins which are contrary to natural reason, is it just either for the pope or the emperor or any other prince who lacks jurisdiction over them, to punish such infidels or to make war on them for that reason, so long as these crimes are not such as inflict injuries upon innocents.20

18 R. Tuck, The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius to Kant (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). 19 Tuck, The Rights of War and Peace, 51–77. 20 “Neque propter idolatriae scelus, neque propter alia peccata, quae pugnant cum lumine naturae, fas est vel summo Pontifici, vel Imperatori, aut cuivis alteri Principi, qui jurisdictionem in eos non habeat, punire ejusmodi infideles, bellumve ea de causa adversus eos movere: modo eiusmodi criminia talia non sint, quae injuriam inferant innocentibus”; L. de Molina, De Justitia et Jure Opera

Just War and Scholastic Intellectual Culture in Early Modern Europe

By this last reference to innocents, Molina meant that if princes of whatever religion engaged in human sacrifice or cannibalism, then a Christian prince would be obliged by natural law to intervene and defend the innocent. Like Suárez, Molina argued that neither the pope nor the emperor possessed jurisdiction over the whole world, and thus neither pope nor emperor had the authority to compel infidels to convert to Christianity. However, Molina did hold that the pope could authorise warfare against infidels who unjustly occupied lands which had previously been Christian, and Molina believed that the lands of Muslim princes around the Mediterranean fell into this category. Molina thus endorsed the traditional doctrine of crusade.21 The early modern crusade is an area that requires very much more research, and cannot be treated here. Norman Housley has argued that towards the end of the Middle Ages the traditional components of crusades – the cross, the vow, the papal indulgence – started to become separated from one another, and floated free in early modern culture.22 Scholars are well-informed about the controversies over the direct or indirect power of the pope to depose heretical princes – especially from the first two decades of the seventeenth-century, and the polemic between Suarez, Bellarmine, and King James I.23 Scholars are perhaps less well-informed about the granting of papal indulgences to those fighting in wars of which the papacy approved during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries – in the Spanish case, these crusade indulgences became an almost mundane component of royal income.24 Scholastic treatises were published on the problem of the Bull of Crusade during the seventeenth century, but I do not yet understand the range of early modern scholastic views on the subject, and I am not yet sure if we should see this phenomenon merely as an appropriation of sacred power by the early modern state.25 Returning to more solid ground, both Suárez and Molina did insist that Christian preachers had the duty to evangelise everywhere in the world, and that this evangelisation could be enabled even by war.26 There were grave practical implications to these doctrines: Giuseppe Marcocci has described Jesuit missionary practices in the

21 22 23 24 25 26

Omnia, Tractatibus Quinque … Editio Novissima … Tomus Primus (Cologne: Marcus-Michealis Bousquet, 1733), Disputatio 106, 235. Molina, De Justitia et Jure, Disputatio 105, 234. N. Housley, Religious Warfare in Europe, 1400–1536 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). H. Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought: The Society of Jesus and the State, c. 1540–1630 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). P. O’Banion, “The Crusading State: The Expedition for the Cruzada Indulgence from Trent to Lepanto”, Sixteenth Century Journal 44/1 (2013) 97–116. C. Latius, Bullae Cruciatae Absolutissima Dilucidatio (Palermo: Petrus de Isola, 1657); A. Mendo, Bullae Sanctae Cruciatae Elucidatio (Lyon: Horatius Boissat and Georgius Remeus, 1669). Suárez, Opus de Triplici Virtute, De Fide, Disputatio 18, 282–97; Molina, De Justitia et Jure, Disputatio 105, 234.

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Portuguese Empire which included a large measure of force and violence.27 Some Jesuits saw stricter limits on this right to preach than Suárez and Molina. The Jesuit Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza, who taught theology at Salamanca for thirty years from 1611, insisted that the ius praedicandi should not be defended by military force, and that all missionaries should adopt the peaceful methods of evangelisation used by St Francis Xavier in Japan.28 Nevertheless, the right to preach was where natural rights intersected with a divine command which was central to early modern Catholicism, and it is the best demonstration that nature was not a sphere which could easily be emptied of God and his commands. These Catholic theologians defended a natural sphere not to protect the state from the sacred, but to clarify the superior, supernatural purpose of the church.29 At this point, however, it must be emphasised that Tuck’s portrait of European intellectual life in the late sixteenth century and early seventeenth centuries omitted two important groups of sources: both all Catholic scholasticism outside the tradition of Thomas Aquinas and also Protestant scholasticism.

3.

The Scotists on War

Catholic scholasticism will be treated first. When Tuck referred to Catholic natural law, he meant the natural law theory developed solely from the theology of Thomas Aquinas, and he believed that the Jesuit scholastic Luis de Molina epitomised the whole Catholic natural law tradition. Quentin Skinner, too, took the great Jesuits and Dominicans as paradigmatic of early modern, Catholic intellectual life. There are two problems with this approach. First, these scholars focused on that part of Catholic intellectual life (Dominican and Jesuit scholasticism) which was most widely received and discussed in seventeenth-century England.30 This might be sufficient if one’s interests were limited to the Anglophone liberal tradition, but it is not enough if one wants to gain a wider appreciation of the European scene. Second, these Anglophone scholars appear to have drawn on, or been influenced by,

27 G. Marcocci, Pentirsi ai tropici: Casi di coscienza e sacramenti nelle missioni portoghesi del ‘500 (Bologna: Edizioni Dehoniane, 2013); G. Marcocci, L’invenzione di un Impero: Politica e cultura nel mondo portoghese, 1450–1600 (Rome: Carocci, 2011). 28 P. Hurtado De Mendoza, Scholasticae et Morales Disputationes: De Tribus Virtutibus Theologicis: De Fide Volumen Secundum (Salamanca: Jacinthus Taberniel, 1631), Disputatio 75, Subsectio 3, 582. 29 D. Allemann, “Empire and the Right to Preach the Gospel in the School of Salamanca, 1535–1560”, Historical Journal 62/1 (2019) 35–55; S. Tutino, Empire of Souls: Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621) and the Christian Commonwealth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). 30 J.P. Sommerville, Royalists and Patriots: Politics and Ideology in England 1603–1640 (London: Longman, 1999).

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Catholic historians operating in the nineteenth-century neo-Thomist mode who painted anything other than the theology of Aquinas as deviant, unorthodox, and negligible, and wished to portray the Thomist natural category as a closed system in which modern science, and even modern politics, could proceed independently of God.31 However, Catholic intellectual traditions alternative to Thomism did operate in the seventeenth-century universities and more widely in learned baroque culture, and important among these was the theological tradition derived from John Duns Scotus and preserved especially by the Franciscans. Historians of Scotist theology and philosophy have long identified a particular energy to seventeenth-century Scotism, as the various strands of the Franciscan family stirred themselves to defend their way of being religious against Dominican and Jesuit competition.32 Scotist theologians were often less friendly towards Aristotle’s philosophy than the Thomists, and they envisaged politics more as the reconciliation of rights in conflict than as a stage upon which rational creatures flourished, or humans pursued the natural ends impressed in them by God. And while Jesuits like Molina held that just war could not be fought causa religionis, for the sake of religion, by contrast for the Scotists wars of evangelisation were not at all out of the question. This essay will point out three important Franciscan friars from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who were advancing strong, clear doctrines of holy war. Three is not very many, and further research in this field is certainly required. But these friars were not erratic or strange Scotists; rather, when they advocated holy war they were advancing normal Scotist doctrines by just one more logical step. The political arguments advanced by Scotist theologians were often quite different to those defended by their Thomist contemporaries. Scotists thought of their system of natural law as lying between the intellectualism of Aquinas and the voluntarism of William of Ockham, but this meant that their system was indeed more voluntaristic than Thomist natural law. Scotist natural law was weaker than the Thomist variety with respect both to God’s positive law, and to human positive law. So, of the Ten Commandments, Scotists held that God could not revoke the First Table Commandments, but that God could revoke the Second Table Commandments when he wished. And all the Second Table Commandments were thought of as being

31 P. Broggio, La teologia e la politica: Controversie dottrinali, curia romana e monarchia spagnola tra Cinque e Seicento (Florence: Olschki, 2009), 1–11; de Lubac, The Mystery, 140–66; M. Forlivesi, “The Genesis of the Historiographical Notion of Second Scholasticism”, in M. Longo/G. Micheli (ed.), La Filosofia e la sua Storia: Studi in Onore di Gregorio Piaia (2 vols, Padua: CLEUP, 2017), vol. 2, 325–43. 32 M. Forlivesi, Scotistarum princeps: Bartolomeo Mastri (1602–1673) e il suo tempo (Padua: Centro Studi Antoniani, 2002); D. Scaramuzzi, Il pensiero di Giovanni Duns Scoto nel mezzogiorno d’Italia (Rome: Collegio S. Antonio, Desclée e C., 1927).

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a weaker sort of natural law.33 For the Scotists, marriage did belong to the natural law, but only to the weaker, second table kind. And they argued that the marriage bond between two slaves was less strong than the property right of their master, so that the master could, as Scotus wrote, justly sell the husband to Africa and the wife to France.34 By contrast, Thomists saw marriage as more firmly grounded in natural law, and were at the very least more ambivalent about breaking up slave marriages.35 Another place where Scotist natural law seems weaker than the Thomist variety is with regard to the Jewish family. The Scotists argued that the Christian prince’s duty was to resolve conflicting rights in his jurisdiction. Jewish parents did have a right in their child, but God’s right was greater, and so the prince was obliged to confiscate the child for baptism.36 These are all basic Scotist political positions – they derive from the Sentences commentary of John Duns Scotus and they are defended by most seventeenthcentury Scotists. I am currently writing a book about the Scotists who worked in, or passed through, seventeenth-century Rome, and friars like Fillipo Fabri, Bartolomeo Mastri, Anthony Hickey, John Punch, Bonaventure Baron, and Cardinal Lorenzo Brancati all defended similar positions. This way of conceiving of natural law seems to leave the rights of infidels in a much weaker state than in Dominican or Jesuit natural law, and one might speculate that it might allow the development of especially powerful theories of holy war. That was certainly the interpretation of Jesuits like Hurtado of Salamanca and Giles De Coninck of Leuven, who blamed especially the doctrine of forced baptism for the Scotist tendency to favour holy war.37 The first of the three Scotist holy war theorists who will be reviewed here is Alfonso de Castro, who became professor of Theology at the Franciscan convent in Salamanca in 1512. He began moving in the circle of the Emperor Charles V in 1530, and accompanied Philip II to England in 1554 as preacher royal.38

33 J. Duns Scotus, Opera Omnia, ed. L. Wadding et al. (13 vol., Lyon: Laurentius Durand, 1639), vol. 7, part 2, Quaestiones in Libros III Sententiarum, Distinctio 37, 854–914. 34 Duns Scotus, Opera Omnia, vol. 9, Quaestiones in Libros IV Sententiarum, Distinctio 36, q. 1, 759. 35 P. Cornish, “Marriage, Slavery, and Natural Rights in the Political Thought of Aquinas”, Review of Politics 60 (1998) 545–61; J. De Lugo, De Iustitia et Iure (2 vol.; Lyon: Petrus Prostus, 1642), vol. 1, dist. 3, section 2, 44. 36 Duns Scotus, Opera Omnia, vol. 8, Quaestiones in Libros IV Sententiarum, distinctio 4, q. 9, 275–80; E. Marmursztejn/S. Piron, “Duns Scot et la politique: Pouvoir du prince et conversion des juifs”, in O. Boulnois et al. (ed.), Duns Scot à Paris, 1302–2002 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004) 21–62. 37 Hurtado De Mendoza, Scholasticae et Morales Disputationes, disp. 75, pp. 578–81; G. De Coninck, De Moralitate, Natura, et Effectibus Actuum Supernaturalium in Genere … Libri Quattuor (Antwerp: Jacobus Cardon and Petrus Cavellat, 1623), disp. 18, dubium 14, con. 4, 360–3. 38 M. Castro, “Fr. Alfonso de Castro, O.F.M. (1495–1558), Consejero de Carlos V y de Felipe II”, Salmanticensis 5/2 (1958) 281–322.

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Castro published his Concerning the Just Punishment of Heretics in Salamanca in 1547; reprints followed in Venice, Lyon, and Antwerp. Charles V had just defeated the Schmalkaldic League at the battle of Mühlberg, and Castro explained in his book that some of his Spanish contemporaries had alleged that the emperor’s war was unjust, because Christianity should be promoted by reason, not by arms. Castro retorted that the first and best cause for war was to throw down idolatry, as commanded in Deuteronomy 20. For this reason also, he wrote, the Spanish conquest of New Spain was just. The second best cause for war was to punish those who fell away from the true worship of God, for which Castro also relied on Deuteronomy 12. The defence of one’s natural right, property, and person only appeared as the third, fourth, and fifth best causes of war.39 Castro did not cite Scotus directly on these subjects, and the small existing literature about him does not dwell on his Franciscan or Scotist identity, but his arguments seemed very Scotistic to Jesuit enemies like Hurtado and De Coninck. The holy war theory of the Franciscan friar Juan Focher was both more subtle than Castro’s, and also more Scotistic. Focher arrived in New Spain perhaps as early as 1532 and died there in 1572, passing the greater part of his life in Mexico City. With expertise both in Canon law and theology, one of his main duties was to resolve the cases of conscience brought to him by the friars working the missionary circuit around New Spain. This task became especially pressing from about 1550 as local peoples began to attack the connections between Mexico City and the great silver mines to the north – a conflict known as the Chichimeca War.40 Focher’s treatment of the justice of the Chichimeca War, entitled A Catholic Itinerary for those setting out to convert the Infidels, was printed in Seville in 1574, and was possibly intended as a defence of Franciscan practice in New Spain rather than merely a useful manual. Focher’s book contains three arguments which are intended to justify Franciscan support for the viceroyalty’s war against the local pagans. The arguments are cumulative rather than entirely sequential. Focher first pointed to Luke 22:36, where Christ told the apostles “he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one”. Focher understood this to mean that preachers sent to convert infidels should be accompanied by large bands of armed men.41 Second, Focher repeated Scotus’s argument that the Christian prince of unbelievers must remove children from infidel parents and baptise them by force. But

39 A. de Castro, De Iusta Haereticorum Punitione (Lyon: heirs of Jacobus Junta, 1556), book 2, ch. 14, 369–89. 40 J. Focher, Itinerario del Misionero en America: Texto Latino con Version Castellana, ed. A. Eguiluz (Madrid: Liberia General Victoriano Suárez, 1969), x–lxviii. 41 J. Focher, Itinerarium Catholicum Proficiscentium, ad Infideles Convertendos, ed. D. Valadesius (Seville: Alfonsus Scribanus, 1574), fols. 3–4, 5–10v.

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while Scotus had held that only the prince could order this confiscation of children, Focher argued that the friars acted with the pope’s authority, and so did not need authorisation from the prince to pursue this sort of action. Scotus had written that pagan adults could be forced into baptism by “threats and terrors”; Focher expanded this, arguing that pagan adults under the jurisdiction of a Christian prince might be compelled to the faith by “threats and terrors, injuries and slavery”.42 Focher thus developed Scotus’s original positions until he reached the following conclusions: friars working at a local level could decide when to use penalties up to physical harm and slavery within Native American families, within native jurisdictions conquered by the Spanish, and also across jurisdictions not yet conquered by the Spanish.43 In the third and final part of the book, Focher placed the Chichimeca War into the just war framework established by Thomas Aquinas. War could only be waged by a public authority, with just cause, in the right intention. According to Focher, the Spanish crown constituted the public authority, the Chichimeca attacks on the faithful using the public road provided just cause, and right intention was proved by the activities of the friars, described above.44 Focher mixed Scotus’s doctrine on forced baptism with Thomist positions on the ius praedicandi and just war. This was clearly an attempt to reach out to the Dominicans, but nevertheless fundamental differences remained between Focher’s position and the Thomist one. It was not only that Focher could not see any natural rights that might obstruct or complicate evangelisation; it was that decisions on these matters could be taken not only by pope or prince, but by the friars at a local level. The third and final Franciscan holy war theorist to be considered here was at work in Rome in the 1640s, but I have published on him elsewhere, so I offer here only a very brief summary of his significance.45 John Punch had belonged to the small team of Irish friars who, under the direction of Luke Wadding, had published the first complete Opera Omnia of John Duns Scotus in Lyon in 1639.46 Punch composed the commentaries on natural law for this edition; he also published philosophy and theology textbooks ad mentem Scoti, and a separate complete commentary on Scotus in Paris in 1661, the year of his death. Punch wrote on all the topics mentioned so far; he defended the revocability of part of the natural law – his natural law often yielded to other laws; he favoured the forced baptism of infidel

42 “minis et terroribus”; Duns Scotus, Opera Omnia, vol. 8, distinctio 4, q. 9, 276; “minis et terroribus, iniuriis et servitutibus”; Focher, Itinerarium Catholicum, fol. 14. 43 Focher, Itinerarium Catholicum, fols. 10v–16. 44 Focher, Itinerarium Catholicum, fols. 84–91. 45 I. Campbell, “John Punch, Scotist Holy War, and he Irish Catholic Revolutionary Tradition in the Seventeenth Century”, Journal of the History of Ideas 77 (2016) 401–21. 46 L. Wadding, Scriptores Ordinis Minorum (Rome: Franciscus Albertus Tanus, 1650), 221–2.

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children; and he insisted on the justice of wars fought for evangelisation.47 His last treatment of warfare was very thorough, dealing with the range of just causes for war, who it was that might declare war, the quality of knowledge of just cause that was required for war, the massacre of civilians, and the service of chaplains in war.48 The distinctiveness of Scotist ethics and politics, and its separateness from Jesuit and Dominican positions, was evident at every stage in Punch’s argument.

4.

The Reformed on War

Tuck also omitted Protestant scholasticism almost entirely from consideration. Major figures like Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, and Philip Melanchthon all discussed the relationship between Christianity and warfare, establishing the parameters within which Lutheran and Reformed theologians would analyse warfare for more than 100 years. As Michael Becker has argued, it is not merely an historian’s reification to see systematic discussion of the Kriegsrecht or “law of war” among the first generation of reformers; rather, Kriegsrecht was logically a part of their Obrigkeitslehre, or doctrine of authority, and so vital to their understanding of order in this world. Later Reformed theologians who made considerable contributions to the analysis of warfare included Peter Martyr Vermigli, Lambert Daneau, Gulielmus Bucanus, David Pareus, Gisbertus Voetius, Wilhelm Zepper, Dudley Fenner, Bartholomäus Keckermann, Johann Heinrich Alsted, Johannes Hoornbeeck, and Amandus Polanus von Polansdorf. Lutheran theologians like Heinrich Bocer, Elias Reusner, Christoph Besold, and Matthias Bernegger also worked in this field.49 Tuck not only omitted this tradition, but separated from it figures central to his argument, like Alberico Gentili, whom he identified as a largely secular Renaissance humanist. By contrast, Noel Malcolm

47 For natural law, J. Punch, Commentarii Theologici quibus Iohannis Duns Scotis Quaestiones in Libros Sententiarum Elucidantur, et Illustrantur (4 vol.; Paris: Piget, 1661), vol. 4, 527–86; J. Punch, Integer Theologiae Cursus ad Mentem Scoti (Paris: Antonius Bertier, 1652), 290–5. On natural law for slaves, Punch, Integer Theologiae Cursus, 712, 733, 741–3. On forced baptism, see Punch, Integer Theologiae Cursus, 569–71. 48 Punch, Commentarii theologici, vol. 4, 323–38. 49 M. Becker, Kriegsrecht im frühneuzeitlichen Protestantismus: Eine Untersuchung zum Beitrag lutherischer und reformierter Theologen, Juristen un anderer Gelehrter zur Kriegsrechtsliteratur im 16. and 17. Jahrhundert (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 36–58, 116–89, 297–301, 356–8, 364–5, 381–2; G. Voetius, Selectarum Disputationum Pars Secunda (Utrecht: Waesberge, 1655); D. Fenner, Sacra Theologia (Geneva: Eustache Vignon, 1586); B. Keckermann, Systema Disciplinae Politicae (Frankfurt: Stöckle, 1625); J.H. Alsted, Theologia Casuum (Hanau: Eifrid, 1630); J. Hoornbeeck, Theologiae Practicae Tomus Alter (Utrecht: Johan and Willem van de Water, 1689).

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and Michael Becker have argued that Gentili was formed in a Reformed intellectual milieu, and that his work can only be understood against that background.50 The general conclusions of Becker’s learned survey of Protestant writings on war are vital to this subject. Becker is alert to the danger of advancing a sort of confessional determinism, in which (for example) fundamental soteriological doctrines determine peripheral political doctrines; in order to avoid this, he proceeds empirically, noting only the overt arguments on warfare advanced by Protestant scholastics. Protestant scholastics did not, generally speaking, need to address the imperial problems and dilemmas which preoccupied many Catholic theologians, and for this reason forced evangelisation was a phenomenon they rarely addressed. When it did come up, the two kingdoms doctrine provided the grounds upon which they rejected it. Just as this doctrine excluded the rule of the saints over the temporal sphere, it also ruled out the use of force to advance the Gospel, which these theologians often regarded as characteristic of the old Canon law and papal tyranny.51 Nevertheless, Protestant scholastics very often accepted that a war fought in defence of right religion was just, and this was prominent in Protestant writing on politics even among the first generation of reformers. A complete version of the argument can be found in Melanchthon’s Loci Communes of 1559, which described the magistrate’s custodia utriusque tabulae, or obligation to defend both the first (duties towards God) and second (duties towards humanity) tables of the Decalogue, both within his own conventional jurisdiction and in neighbouring jurisdictions.52 Finally, while most theologians understood, on the basis of the doctrine of the two kingdoms, that the conflict with the Antichrist was a spiritual rather than physical struggle, nevertheless it was possible in times of great political pressure even for famous theologians like David Pareus to drift from using the biblical account of the last things to interpret wars then being fought in Europe, towards legitimating those wars. This drift is most evident in the more obscure pamphleteers, sometimes careless of theological orthodoxy and consistency, amongst whom the war waged by Emperor Ferdinand II and Duke Maximillian I of Bavaria against the Protestants might be understood as the eschatological struggle of the true church.53 Members of this Protestant tradition might occasionally resort to the Catholic distinction between nature and supernature (as the Presbyterian Samuel Rutherford did in Scotland in the 1640s), but the distinction was not native to them, and they generally considered the sacred to be more densely interwoven into the secular state

50 N. Malcom, “Alberico Gentili and the Ottomans”, in B. Kingsbury/B. Straumann (ed.), The Roman Foundations of the Law of Nations: Alberico Gentili and the Justice of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) 127–45; Becker, Kriegsrecht, 7–11. 51 Becker, Kriegsrecht, 334–7. 52 Becker, Kriegsrecht, 74–6, 106–7, 373–6. 53 Becker, Kriegsrecht, 356–61.

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than did Catholics.54 My colleague Dr Floris Verhaart and I have just published an edition of Reformed scholastic texts on warfare by Vermigli, Daneau, Bucanus, Pareus, Voetius, Keckermann and others, and our findings largely support Becker’s argument.55 As mentioned above, most Reformed scholastics insisted that the struggle against the Antichrist was a spiritual struggle, not a physical one, and so wars could not be justified by invoking this eschatology. One notable expression of this doctrine was advanced by Lambert Daneau, the Reformed scholar who taught at Geneva, Leiden, Ghent, and Orthez between the 1570s and the 1590s.56 Daneau’s Ethices Christianae Libri Tres of 1577 was a fierce attack on the use of corrupt human reason in ethics, and he insisted that the Holy Spirit was the direct source of all human knowledge of right and wrong; consequently, pagan philosophy was a total waste of time.57 One might have expected this voluntarist outlook to extend to evangelisation, but in fact Daneau’s De Antichristo printed at Geneva in 1576 carefully rejected this. In chapter 29 Daneau asked whether Protestants might lawfully make war on papists in order to extirpate the kingdom of the Antichrist. He thought this was the same as asking whether it was right to make war on papists, idolators, Turks, or heretics in order to remove their error. And he argued that since neither Christ nor his apostles had given any hint that the Gospel should be advanced by force, one could only make war on such people if they, for example, broke public laws and the customs of our ancestors. Never forget, Daneau warned, how detestable those papist wars called crusades are.58 But in other major Reformed authors, the drift between eschatology and holy war doctrine is clearer. David Pareus was professor of Theology at Heidelberg from 1598 to his death in 1622, though of course he had to flee the city as the Spanish advanced in 1621. Pareus was a staple of Reformed libraries across Europe, and his commentary on St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans was burned at Oxford, Cambridge, and London in 1622.59 Pareus was unpopular with the English authorities because his commentary defended the right of lesser magistrates to resist tyrants; but it is important to note that Pareus saw mundane tyranny and the monarchy of the 54 J. Coffey, Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions: The Mind of Samuel Rutherford (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 55 I. Campbell/F. Verhaart (ed.), Protestant Politics beyond Calvin: Reformed Theologians on War in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Oxon: Routledge, 2022). 56 P. de Félice, Lambert Daneau (de Baugency-sur-Loire): Pasteur et professeur en théologie (1530–1595) (Paris: Fischbacher, 1882). 57 L. Daneau, Ethices Christianae Libri Tres (Geneva: Eustathius Vignon, 1577), fol. 1–3v. 58 L. Daneau, Tractatus de Antichristo (Geneva: Eustathius Vignon, 1576), 141–7. 59 T. Himmighöfer, “Pareus, David”, in H.G. Hockerts (ed.), Neue Deutsche Biographie (27 vol.; Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1953–2020), vol. 20 (2001), 65–6; R. Serjeantson, “Preaching Regicide in Jacobean England: John Knight and David Pareus”, The English Historical Review 134 (2019) 553–88.

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Antichrist as closely related. Pareus’s commentary on Romans 13 was followed by a series of essays on the relationship between church and state. One of these essays was entitled “Whether and to what extent it is licit to resist authority and the pope of Rome?”.60 Pareus wrote that on the basis of Romans 13, it might seem that even the Antichrist could not be resisted; to this he opposed Matthew 22 – “Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”, which means that Caesar is capable of doing wrong and must be resisted. Pareus then developed this point into seven conclusions, the first four relating to civil power and the last three to the Roman Antichrist. First, bishops and pastors must resist unjust magistrates, but only by the Word. Second, because inferior magistrates have their own right of the sword, ius gladii, directly from God and independently of the superior magistrate, inferior magistrates were obliged to defend themselves, the state, the church, and true religion. Third and fourth, private subjects were obliged to obey, but retained a personal right of self-defence in extreme circumstances. With his fifth conclusion, Pareus turned to the Antichrist, arguing that private persons, who again did not have the right of the sword, were permitted to oppose papal tyranny by flight, but not by force. Sixth, Pareus insisted that pastors and elders of the church also did not have the right of the sword. In any case, continued Pareus, it was the preaching of the Word (described as the breath of the Lord’s mouth in 2 Thessalonians) that would overthrow the Antichrist. In his seventh conclusion, Pareus argued that kings and princes must resist the tyranny of the Antichrist even by the sword.61 In Revelation 17:16 it was predicted that Christian kings would burn the whore with fire, and, wrote Pareus “the prediction has the force of a precept that they do this”.62 Pareus was still, in the traditionally Protestant manner, envisaging a war fought in defence of religion, but this was a war predicted, and to an extent commanded, by the eschatological books of the Bible. This tendency is also clear in his commentary on Revelation, printed at Heidelberg in 1618. St John’s Apocalypse provided a map of recent Protestant history, which served to legitimise wars fought by Protestant powers in Europe over the previous century, from the Schmalkaldic War to the Dutch Revolt. After so long fornicating with the whore, Pareus wrote, the kings and princes of England, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Bohemia, France, Poland, and Hungary, “have put down their weapons against the lamb, have embraced the heavenly doctrine of salvation restored through the two witnesses in the age of our forefathers, and today they hate the Roman adulteress and they 60 “An et quatenus licitum sit resistere potestatibus et Pontifici Romano?”; D. Pareus, In Divinam ad Romanos S. Pauli Apostoli Epistolam Commentarius (Frankfurt: Iohannis Lancellotus, 1608), col. 1378. 61 Pareus, In Divinam ad Romanos, cols. 1378–87. 62 “At praedictio habet vim praecepti ut hoc faciant”; Pareus, In Divinam ad Romanos, col. 1387.

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desert her”.63 In light of these arguments advanced on a large scale and by the most prestigious theologians, it is not possible to sustain the argument that the struggle against the Antichrist was always solely spiritual. In the context of eschatological reflection, when under great political pressure, it could become a physical struggle, integrated into the traditional Protestant doctrine of a war fought for defence of religion.

5.

Conclusion: Secularisation or Sacralisation?

This essay has argued that the older Anglophone histories of the doctrine of the just war must be read with some scepticism. The most skilled English-speaking historians of political thought neglected this area because it made no obvious contribution to the great English liberal tradition of the seventeenth century. Their interest did not extend further than pointing to the natural law theories of the Dominicans and Jesuits as a background and resource for the natural law of Hobbes and Locke. Richard Tuck, still focused on providing an account of the new secular natural law, recognised the futility of ascribing a proto-secular category to the Jesuits, and attempted to introduce a new category of the humanist just war theorist, in order to account for the emergence of Grotius, Hobbes, and Locke. But in all this, Tuck ignored non-Thomist Catholic scholastics, especially the Franciscan followers of John Duns Scotus, and he also ignored Protestant scholastics. A study of these fields reveals not firm boundaries between nature and supernature in early modern Europe, nor a natural category ripe for secularisation, but the profound anxieties of Europeans as they attempted to distinguish the two, or rejected that distinction altogether. It should soon be possible to write an accurate history of just war theory in early modern Europe which incorporates all these disparate elements, and this history would be worthwhile on its own merits. But such a history might reveal important data about the development of European political thought in general. Tuck argued that broad intellectual fields provided resources for the development of early liberalism. If it is demonstrated that these fields provided nothing of the sort, then that story of liberalism’s development, and the development of other modern political ideologies, becomes more uncertain. This may just be a periodisation problem, a debate about when Europe’s Confessional Age ends –

63 “Rursus vero est, quod miremur, et quidem vehementer, quod post tanti temporis fornicationem, Regum aliqui, Angliae, Scotiae, Daniae, Suetiae: Principes potentissimi Germaniae, Bohemiae, Galliae, Poloniae, Hungariae, positis contra Agnum armis, coelestem salutis doctrinam per duos testes, parentum nostrorum aetate postliminio restitutam amplexi, hodie Romanam adulteram odio habent, solam faciunt”; D. Pareus, In Divinam Apocalypsin S. Apostoli et Evangelistae Johannis Commentarius (Heidelberg: Jona Rosa, 1618), col. 937.

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whether 1648, 1732 or 1829. Or it may raise the possibility that liberalism has been a much weaker and more contested force in European political life than classic Anglophone histories of political thought admit. We might thus have good reason to return to Paolo Prodi’s argument that the phenomenon of greatest importance in early modern Europe was not the secularisation of the state, as religion and politics were slowly separated, but the sacralisation of the state, as states drew sacred power into themselves.64

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64 P. Prodi, Storia moderna o genesi della modernità? (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2012), 115–51.

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Pareus, D., In Divinam ad Romanos S. Pauli Apostoli Epistolam Commentarius (Frankfurt: Iohannis Lancellotus, 1608). Pareus, D., In Divinam Apocalypsin S. Apostoli et Evangelistae Johannis Commentarius (Heidelberg: Jona Rosa, 1618). Punch, J., Integer Theologiae Cursus ad Mentem Scoti (Paris: Antonius Bertier, 1652). Punch, J., Commentarii Theologici quibus Iohannis Duns Scotis Quaestiones in Libros Sententiarum Elucidantur, et Illustrantur (4 vol.; Paris: Piget, 1661). Suárez, F., Opus de Triplici Virtute Theologica, Fide, Spe, et Charitate (Lyon: Iacobus Cardon and Petrus Cavellat, 1621), De Charitate. Voetius, G., Selectarum Disputationum Pars Secunda (Utrecht: Waesberge, 1655). Wadding, L., Scriptores Ordinis Minorum (Rome: Franciscus Albertus Tanus, 1650).

Secondary sources Allemann, D., “Empire and the Right to Preach the Gospel in the School of Salamanca, 1535–1560”, Historical Journal 62/1 (2019) 35–55. Ariew, R., Descartes and the Last Scholastics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999). Armitage, D., “Hobbes and the Foundations of Modern International Thought”, in A.S. Brett/J. Tully/H. Hamilton-Bleakley (ed.), Rethinking the Foundations of Modern Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) 219–35. Bainton, R.H., Christian Attitudes toward War and Peace (New York: Abingdon, 1960). Becker, M., Kriegsrecht im frühneuzeitlichen Protestantismus: Eine Untersuchung zum Beitrag lutherischer und reformierter Theologen, Juristen un anderer Gelehrter zur Kriegsrechtsliteratur im 16. and 17. Jahrhundert (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017). Boulnois, O. et al. (ed.), Duns Scot à Paris, 1302–2002 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004). Brett, A.S., Changes of State: Nature and the Limits of the City in Early Modern Natural Law (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011). Brockliss, L.W.B., French Higher Education in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: A Cultural History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987). Brockliss, L.W.B., “Curricula”, in W. Ruegg (ed.), A History of the University in Europe (4 vol.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992–2011), vol. 2, H. de Ridder-Symoens (ed.), Universities in Early Modern Europe (1500–1800) (1996), 578–89. Broggio, P., La teologia e la politica: Controversie dottrinali, curia romana e monarchia spagnola tra Cinque e Seicento (Florence: Olschki, 2009). Campbell, I., “John Punch, Scotist Holy War, and he Irish Catholic Revolutionary Tradition in the Seventeenth Century”, Journal of the History of Ideas 77 (2016) 401–21. Campbell, I./Verhaart, F. (ed.), Protestant Politics beyond Calvin: Reformed Theologians on War in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Oxon: Routledge, 2022). Castro, M., “Fr. Alfonso de Castro, O.F.M. (1495–1558), Consejero de Carlos V y de Felipe II”, Salmanticensis 5/2 (1958) 281–322.

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Cavarzere, M., La prassi della censura nell’Italia del Seicento: Tra repressione e mediazione (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2011). Coffey, J., Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions: The Mind of Samuel Rutherford (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Cornish, P., “Marriage, Slavery, and Natural Rights in the Political Thought of Aquinas”, Review of Politics 60 (1998) 545–61. Dauber, N., “Political Thought,” in C.S. Dixon/B. Kümin (ed.), Interpreting Early Modern Europe (Oxon: Routledge, 2019) 388–414. de Félice, P., Lambert Daneau (de Baugency-sur-Loire): Pasteur et professeur en théologie (1530–1595) (Paris: Fischbacher, 1882). de Lubac, H., The Mystery of the Supernatural (New York: Crossroads, 1998). Feingold, M., “Aristotle and the English Universities in the Seventeenth Century: A ReEvaluation”, in H. Robinson-Hammerstein (ed.), European Universities in the Age of Reformation and Counter-Reformation (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998) 136–48. Fiala, A., The Just War Myth: The Moral Illusions of War (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008). Figgis, J.N., Studies of Political Thought from Gerson to Grotius, 1414–1625 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1907). Forlivesi, M., “The Genesis of the Historiographical Notion of Second Scholasticism”, in M. Longo/G. Micheli (ed.), La Filosofia e la sua Storia: Studi in Onore di Gregorio Piaia (2 vol., Padua: CLEUP, 2017), vol. 2, 325–43. Forlivesi, M., Scotistarum princeps: Bartolomeo Mastri (1602–1673) e il suo tempo (Padua: Centro Studi Antoniani, 2002). Forlivesi, M., La Filosofia Universitaria tra XV e XVII Secolo (Padua: CLEUP, 2013). Himmighöfer, T., “Pareus, David”, in H.G. Hockerts (ed.), Neue Deutsche Biographie (27 vol.; Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1953–2020), vol. 20 (2001), 65–6. Hofheinz, M., Johannes Calvins Theologische Friedensethik (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2012). Höpfl, H., Jesuit Political Thought: The Society of Jesus and the State, c. 1540–1630 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Housley, N., Religious Warfare in Europe, 1400–1536 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). Malcom, N., “Alberico Gentili and the Ottomans”, in B. Kingsbury/B. Straumann (ed.), The Roman Foundations of the Law of Nations: Alberico Gentili and the Justice of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) 127–45. Marcocci, G., L’invenzione di un Impero: Politica e cultura nel mondo portoghese, 1450–1600 (Rome: Carocci, 2011). Marcocci, G., Pentirsi ai tropici: Casi di coscienza e sacramenti nelle missioni portoghesi del ‘500 (Bologna: Edizioni Dehoniane, 2013). Marmursztejn, E./Piron, S., “Duns Scot et la politique: Pouvoir du prince et conversion des juifs”, in O. Boulnois et al. (ed.), Duns Scot à Paris, 1302–2002 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004) 21–62.

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McMahan, J., Killing in War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2009). O’Banion, P., “The Crusading State: The Expedition for the Cruzada Indulgence from Trent to Lepanto”, Sixteenth Century Journal 44/1 (2013) 97–116. Prodi, P., Storia moderna o genesi della modernità? (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2012). Purcell, M., Papal Crusading Policy: The Chief Instruments of Papal Crusading Policy and Crusade to the Holy Land from the Final Loss of Jerusalem to the fall of Acre 1244–1291 (Leiden: Brill, 1975). Scaramuzzi, D., Il pensiero di Giovanni Duns Scoto nel mezzogiorno d’Italia (Rome: Collegio S. Antonio, Desclée e C., 1927). Schmitt, C.B., Aristotle and the Renaissance (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983). Serjeantson, R., “Preaching Regicide in Jacobean England: John Knight and David Pareus”, The English Historical Review 134 (2019) 553–88. Skinner, Q., The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (2 vol., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978). Sommerville, J.P., Royalists and Patriots: Politics and Ideology in England 1603–1640 (London: Longman, 1999). Tuck, R., “The Institutional Setting”, in D. Garber/M. Ayers (ed.), The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy (2 vol.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), vol. 1, 7–32. Tuck, R., The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius to Kant (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Tutino, S., Empire of Souls: Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621) and the Christian Commonwealth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). Van Asselt, W.J., “Protestant Scholasticism: Some Methodological Considerations in the Study of its Development”, Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis / Dutch Review of Church History 81 (2001) 265–74. Walzer, M., Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, 1977).

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Intolerable Tolerance Conceptual Framework of the Early Modern Inter-Confessional Relations

1.

Introduction: Things and Names

The aim of this paper is modest, or, I should say, preliminary and preparatory, for what I want to carry out is merely a pre-conceptual and conceptual work. I wish to discuss here a good number of historical concepts that constitute the framework of inter-confessional relations, namely tolerantia, pax, concordia, libertas, and – to a lesser degree – irenicum or οἰκουμένη, the notions that were aimed together, yet in a different way, to retain or recreate religious and secular unity against militant particularism. Therefore, this work on concepts may turn out to be useful in order to understand the origin of political, warlike discord as well. For what reason and for what purpose can such work be instructive? Let me answer these questions somewhat perversely. Neither onomasiology, nor semasiology, nor the history of ideas will be taken here as a vehicle of historical and semantic inquiry. I am not interested in examining receptive or productive forces of language which either register or create the extraverbal phenomena. In the long run, such disjunctive alternatives between the receptive and productive aims will turn out to be cognitively pointless, if not to say misleading or erroneous. For it would provide us merely either with the established images of extraverbal reality which are devoid of their history or with an equally fixed and stable set of names devoid of their extraverbal genealogy, instead of the dynamics of historical processes. Therefore, it would hardly be possible to grasp the ever-changing historical horizons of experiencing language and reality within which every concept underwent its profound modifications. It was already Lorenzo Valla who in the mid-fifteenth century deliberately called such receptive-productive analyses into question. By discovering the consuetudo loquendi, or language usage, Valla was able to explain the reason why one and the same notion was being used differently according to time, place and person. If a particular meaning of a word derived from the way it was used there and then by its particular users, there were neither fixed nor universal meanings.1 Thereby Valla was actually the

1 “Ut sunt varii mores variae leges nationum ac populorum, ita variae naturae linguarum, apud suos unaquaeque intemerata et sancta. Itaque consuetudine, tanquam quodam more civili, standum est”;

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first to indicate an appropriate way in which historical concepts, like the aforementioned, should be grasped and examined. Such an analysis must proceed, therefore, through a preparatory recognition of the particular conceptuality that provides us with the extraverbal conditions in which the particular concept first originated. This means that we should take into account the established practice in the community, in which every conceptuality is ultimately grounded, in terms of time and space, nation and confession, state and estate. Valla’s groundbreaking discovery was soon confirmed and reinforced in some respects by Erasmus, Juan Luis Vives and Martin Luther, who preferred idiosyncratic usages to high-principled and standardised forms of allegedly one, universal Latin language. These scholars were keen to admit that linguistic idiosyncrasy consisted in exercising the social or academic habits as the differentiating factor, and therefore tracing and recognising the transvaluations of meaning, both in religious and secular terms, was involved. Erasmus, for instance, insisted that every single word, and ethical terms in particular, assumed its different meanings by changing convention rather than becoming suited to the rules of grammar.2 Consequently, the referential nature of language required its user rather than the object itself, what Vives considered to be the essential rearrangement: “The rules of dialectic, as much as those of grammar and rhetoric, must be adapted to common usage in speaking”.3 Luther not only confirmed that change by saying that “usage often prescribes against the rule”, but most of all stood unwaveringly by his own distinction between the old and new usage of language, namely, a non-Christian or philosophical language, and a genuinely Christian or theological one. Such a distinction determined and expressed some of the basic themes in his theology. It ultimately allowed Luther to discover that different forms of discourse entailed their brand-new set of meanings. For usages might always demand old notions to semantically transform themselves into the words which were actually new in terms of historical semantics and pragmatics. Therefore, seemingly common notions of creatura or humanitas depending exclusively on philosophical or theological usage could stand for the different things. Convention remained here the irreducible principle, as Luther concludes: “This

L. Valla, Dialectical Disputations (2 vol.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), vol. 2, Books II–III, 88–90. 2 See Erasmus, Things and Names / De rebus ac vocabulis 1527, in Collected Works of Erasmus (86 vol.; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974–), vol. 40, C.R. Thompson (trans.), Colloquies (1997), 809–17. 3 J.L. Vives, Against the Pseudodialecticians: A Humanist Attack on Medieval Logic (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979), 57.

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does not mean that it signifies a new or different thing, but it signifies in a new and different way”.4 These early modern tentative approaches were ultimately brought to a head in the twentieth century by Hans-Georg Gadamer and Reinhart Koselleck, who established the basic rules of understanding the different language usages verbalised in one and the same concept. In some way, they give us the definitive answer to the questions above. Instead of accepting the receptive–productive alternative, conceptual reflection took into account both how reality shapes the language and how language affects the understanding of reality. Such an inquiry sought to find the experiences expressed in the concept, and to answer how these experiences were being understood. Instead of searching for timeless meanings, it devoted itself to asking when, where, by whom, for whom, and how certain intentions were being grasped and verbalised. The creation of every concept derives ultimately from the thinking in a particular language and in a specified worldview that the language entails.5 “Conceptual history”, Koselleck insisted, “always asks about the one-time

4 “Universaliter in omni genere rerum et artium usus saepe praescribit contra regulam. Certum est tamen, omnia vocabula in Christo novam significationem accipere in eadem re significata. Nam creatura veteris linguae usu et in aliis rebus significat rem a divinitate separatam infinitis modis. Novae linguae usu significat rem cum divinitate inseparabiliter in eandem personam ineffabilibus modis coniunctam. Ita necesse est, vocabula: homo, humanitas, passus etc. et omnia de Christo dicta nova esse vocabula. Non quod novam seu aliam rem, sed nove et aliter significet, nisi id quoque novam rem dicere velis”; “Die Disputation de divinitate et humanitate Christi”, in D. Martin Luthers Werke (120 vol.; Weimar: Böhlaus), vol. 39/2, 93–121, on p. 94, 1.15–26 (hereafter WA). Pragmatic difference between the veteris and novus linguae usus allowed Luther to advocate the idea of double truth whereby one and the same thing does not have to be true simultaneously in the different fields of knowledge. “Cogimur tamen etiam in aliis artibus negare, quod idem sit verum in omnibus. … Denique aliquid est verum in una parte philosophiae, quod tamen falsum est in alia parte philosophiae”; see for instance “Disputatio reverendi patris D. D. Martini Lutheri. An haec propositio sit vera in philosophia: Et verbum caro factum est”, in WA 39/2, 3–33, on pp. 5, 1.13–14, 27–28. 5 “Sie [die Sprache] ist die allumfassende Vorausgelegtheit der Welt und daher durch nichts zu ersetzen, Vor allem philosophisch einsetzenden kritischen Denken ist schon immer die Welt für uns eine in Sprache ausgelegte. … Denn er [der Prozeß der Begriffsbildung] ist immer ein Weiterdenken in der Sprache, die wir sprechen, und in der in ihr angelegten Auslegung der Welt. Da ist nirgends ein Anfang mit Null. … Begriffsbildung ist – hermeneutisch gesehen – durch schon gesprochene Sprache ständig mitbedingt. Wenn das aber so ist, dann ist es der einzige philosophisch redliche Weg, sich das Verhältnis von Wort und Begriff als ein unser Denken bestimmendes Verhältnis bewußt zu machen”; H.-G. Gadamer, “Begriffsgeschichte als Philosophie (1970)”, in Gesammelte Werke (10 vol.; Tübingen: Mohr, 1960–95), vol. 2, Hermeneutik II: Wahrheit und Methode, Ergänzungen, Register (1986), 77–91, on pp. 79–80. “Die Begriffsgeschichte ist weder ‘materialistisch’ noch ‘idealistisch’; sie fragt sowohl danach, welche Erfahrungen und Sachverhalte auf ihren Begriff gebracht werden, als auch danach, wie diese Erfahrungen oder Sachverhalte begriffen werden. … Daraus folgt, daß Grundbegriffe nicht auf überzeitliche Ideen oder Probleme festgelegt werden dürfen, auch wenn wiederkehrende Bedeutungsstreifen auftauchen können. Primär fragt Begriffsgeschichte danach, wann, wo, von wem

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challenges, while their answers are linguistically condensed in a specific usage of words”.6 Whether we like it or not, the logocentric covenant between language and reality, once advocated by Aristotle and his mediaeval heirs, must have been considerably and deliberately loosened long before the Begriffsgeschichte paradigm, namely at the threshold of the modern era, by scholars such as Valla, Erasmus, Vives or Luther.7 Consequently, the ancient notion of tolerantia acquired over the centuries at least a couple of distinctive or even mutually exclusive meanings which make it necessary now to proceed with extreme caution in every estimation of this concept, so eagerly employed in contemporary historiography ever since it was discussed in detail by Francesco Ruffini, Karl Völker or Joseph Leclerc, to name only a few of these classic authors still in use.8 All these pre-conceptual, seemingly abstract deliberations have actually tremendous importance for tackling the scientific problems of the early modern relations we are facing. Our understanding of abovementioned concepts, the tolerantia and irenicum in particular, is historically conditioned, and usually determined nowadays by the ecumenical change that followed the Vatican II and, above all, by the Enlightenment discovery of a truly modern tolerance. Hence, if we overlook all the semantic changes undergone by the historical meanings and modes of usage, we fall unnoticeably victim to the anachronism of our own accord.

2.

Names and the Sediments of Their Meaning

The tolerantia notion is of prime importance here. It is an overlapping concept where different semantic and pragmatic domains of the pax, concordia, amicitia and irenicum are still merging. It is enough to look at innumerable histories of so-called sixteenth-century tolerance to realise that the historians of tolerantia are heirs to the Enlightenment rather than the impartial scholars of the early modern period. For they are often not only unable to reconstruct historical experiences and

und für wen welche Absichten oder welche Sachlagen wie begriffen werden. Begriffsgeschichte fragt immer nach den einmaligen Herausforderungen, auf die im konkreten Wortgebrauch begriffliche Antworten sprachlich kondensiert werden”; R. Koselleck, Begriffsgeschichte: Studien zur Semantik und Pragmatik der politischen und sozialen Sprache (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 2006), 99–100. 6 Koselleck, Begriffsgeschichte,100. 7 See R. Waswo, Language and Meaning in the Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987); A. Moss, Renaissance Truth and the Latin Language Turn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); G. White, Luther as Nominalist: A Study of the Logical Methods Used in Martin Luther’s Disputations in the Light of Their Medieval Background (Helsinki: Luther-Agricola-Society, 1994). 8 F. Ruffini, La libertà religiosa: Storia dell’idea (Turin: Fratelli Bocca, 1901); K. Völker, Toleranz und Intoleranz im Zeitalter der Reformation (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1912); J. Leclerc, Histoire de la tolérance au siècle de la Réforme (Paris: Aubier, 1955).

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interpretations of early modern reality, but most of all they fail to distinguish which designata of tolerance the historical figures either tried to avoid or longed for. The example of Erasmus, the supposed patron of tolerance, might be very instructive here. The token of so-called “Erasmian tolerance” still remains a recurring theme in contemporary scholarship, but that is not all. In the Netherlands, one can come across today this standing phrase as an element of cultural heritage – a tolerant attitude exercised by Erasmus is associated with the community of his contemporary fellow countrymen.9 By the irony of history, Erasmus himself never used the tolerantia concept in a way that his present enthusiast might expect. The opinion that tolerantia stands for religious or social virtue is completely incorrect with regard to Erasmus and his contemporaries. A closer insight into Erasmus’s writings leaves no doubt that the tolerantia concept, otherwise used quite frequently, meant for him the unpleasant choice for the lesser evil.10 Does it mean that the peaceful attitude, civility or liberty were considered by Erasmus a lesser evil, accepted in the name of common sense only to prevent the worse? Be careful! That is a badly put question, by no means relevant to Erasmus’s experiences and his interpretation of reality. He consistently used the early modern Latin concept tolerantia (together with the derivatives tolerare and the more common ferre) in its classical sense, considerably different from the contemporary, post-Enlightenment meaning. In that old manner young Erasmus observed: “Something that is tolerated can even be pleasing when it is compared with something worse; but it will please a great deal more if it is changed into something better”.11 Being fully aware of the wrongdoings and transgressions of the Roman Church, more than thirty years later, Erasmus rejected Luther’s Reform in exactly the same way: “It is easier to tolerate evils to

9 See E. Rummel, Erasmus (London/New York: Continuum, 2004), 108–9. See also her survey “Erasmian Humanism in the Twentieth Century”, Comparative Criticism 23 (2001) 57–67, on pp. 62–4. 10 Regarding Erasmus’s part in the discussed problem, I follow in this paragraph the source evidences provided by I. Bejczy, “Tolerantia: A Medieval Concept”, Journal of the History of Ideas 58/3 (1997) 365–84, on pp. 376–82. 11 Erasmus, The Antibarbarians / Antibarbarorum liber, trans. and annotated M.M. Phillips, in Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 23/1, C.R. Thompson (ed.), Literary and Educational Writings (1978), 1–122, on p. 79, 1.27–28.

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which you are accustomed. Therefore I will tolerate this church until I see a better one”.12 Consequently, instead of tolerance, Erasmus in his De sarcienda ecclesiae concordia advocated so-called “love of ecclesiastical peace” as the quality taken not only from the Bible but first and foremost as the divinely inspired virtue.13 At the same time, he noticed that human endeavours to understand the Revelation were usually hypothetical and thus subject to the procedures of improvement or toleration.14 For all these reasons Erasmus drew a meaningful comparison between the tolerant attitude and divine gentleness (lenitas). Such an analogy enabled the Dutch scholar to stress that God endures (tolerat) human wrongdoings merely because he wants to encourage man to repent, that is to change for the better, as one may read in several writings of Erasmus published in 1520s, including biblical commentaries and polemics.15 For exactly the same reason, in the mid-sixteenth century this 12 “Levius autem feruntur mala quibus assueveris. Fero igitur hanc Ecclesiam donec videro meliorem”; Erasmus, A Warrior Shielding a Discussion of Free Will against The Enslaved Will by Martin Luther, book one / Hyperaspistes liber unus, trans. C.H. Miller, annotated C.H. Miller/C. Trinkaus, in Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 76, C. Trinkaus (ed.), Controversies (1999), 91–298, on p. 117. Translation slightly altered. “Levius autem feruntur mala quibus assueveris. Fero igitur hanc Ecclesiam donec videro meliorem”; J. Le Clerc (ed.), Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami Opera omnia emendatiora et auctiora (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1962), vol. 10, Qui apologiarum erasmi partem secundam complectitur, 1258A. Similar statements can be found in Erasmus, De sarcienda ecclesiae concordia, ed. R. Stupperich, in Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami: Recognita et adnotatione critica instructa notisque illustrata (Amsterdam: Elsevier), vol. 5/3, A.G. Weiler/R. Stupperich/C.S.M. Rademaker (ed.), Ordinis quinti tomus tertius (1986), 257–313, on p. 371, 1.141. 13 “Tractaui Psalmum 83, in quo diuinus ille Spiritus mire nobis commendat ecclesiae concordiam. Non parum iuuat hortator in hoc sane negotiorum genere, in quo bona pars facti est propensa voluntas, cui nunquam deesse solet benigni numinis praesidium. Quod si Christus et illud largiri dignetur, vt ecclesiasticae pacis amor, quo tu tam insigniter flagras, omnium animas corripiat, breui futurum est, vt nec tu flagitando, nec ego recusando sumam inanem operam, sed vterque alteri gratulemur”; Erasmus, De sarcienda ecclesiae Concordia, 257, 1.18–24. 14 “Haec et huius generis multa facile possent vel tolerari vel corrigi. … Ita si constitutiones principum inuitant ad honesta, non traheris sed admoneris; sin iniquae sunt et graues, sic eas tolera quemadmodum martyr tolerat impium tyrannum”; Erasmus, De sarcienda ecclesiae concordia, 308, 1.789; 356, 1.713–15: 15 “Servi qui volunt ante tempus colligere zizania, sunt ii, qui Pseudoapostolos & Haeresiarchas gladiis ac mortibus existimant e medio tollendos, cum paterfamilias nolit eos exstingui, sed tolerari, si forte resipiscant, & e zizaniis vertantur in triticum”; “In Evangelium Matthaei paraphrasis, per Des. Erasmum Roterodamum”, in Le Clerc (ed.) Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami Opera omnia, vol. 7, 1–146, on p. 80E. “At Deus cui debetur omnis gloria tanta lenitate tolerat Iudaeos, paganos et haeretieos, inuitans ad poenitentiam. Miranda sane lenitas, sed admirabilior est qua quotidie tolerat christianos post acceptam baptismi gratiam, post gustatum bonum Dei verbum toties relabentes in omne scelerum genus, ostentui habentes Filium Dei et illius sanguinem pollutum ducentes, eumque quod sane in ipsis est denuo erucifigentes”; Erasmus, Concionalis interpretatio in Psalmum LXXXV, ed. C.S.M. Rademaker, in Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami, vol. 5/3, 329–427, on p. 407,

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important analogy was taken and repeated word for word by Sebastian Castellio, who likewise sought to find the essential and functional meaning of tolerance.16 Erasmian argument from analogy was not, however, put forward to justify tolerance in divine terms but rather to indicate that such attitude towards the disadvantages was not a self-reliant virtue. It depended entirely on external and separate conditions that could make tolerance reasonable. That is a distinctive feature of the early modern, pre-Enlightenment meaning of tolerance. Such usage of tolerantia notion, however, was neither a genuinely Erasmian feature nor a property exclusive to the sixteenth century. In a similar way, Luther used to speculate that even if some intellectual tricks might be justified conditionally in the philosophical schools, they cannot be tolerated within the Christian community.17 In exactly the same manner, John Milton addressed the Parliament of England in 1644: “If all cannot be of one mind … this doubtless is more wholesome, more prudent and more Christian, that many be tolerated rather than all compelled”.18 Similarly, Samuel Przypkowski in his famous treatise Dissertatio de pace et concordia ecclesiae of 1628 included a separate chapter where he listed a large number of arguments that altogether made the tolerantia a reasonable attitude towards those who differ in religious matters. Among them, the Christian promise of absolution and salvation was of supreme importance. For that reason, Przypkowski was keen to consider tolerance as a civic form of forgiveness.19 Regardless of his confessional identity and Socinian standpoint, Przypkowski could still be regarded as the spokesman of his age. When he examined the foundations of the commonwealth in order to determine its origin, nature and purposes, there was no need for him to ponder about tolerance. Instead, he took advantage of the concepts of dignitas, pax, securitas and concordia which provided the substructure for two cornerstones of every community: the centuries-old privileges of the nobility were recognised as the first fundament, constituting both the symbolic and measurable source of social order; while peace, which ensures civic safety and religious con-

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1.105–10. See also “Desiderii Erasmi Supputatio errorum in censuris Beddae”, in Le Clerc (ed.) Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami Opera omnia, vol. 9, 515–702, on p. 580C–D. S. Castellio, De haereticis an sint persequendi et omnino quomodo sit cum eis agendum, Luteri & Brentii, aliorumque multorum tum veterum tum recentiorum sententiae (Geneva: Droz, 1954), 74. “Ac si possit subtilibus kenophoniis sophistarum defendi, tamen non debet tolerari in ecclesia Dei. Multo minus ista ferenda est: Omnis caro est creatura. Verbum est caro. Ergo verbum est creatura”; WA 39/2, 5, l. 1–4. J. Milton, “Areopagitica: A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing to the Parliament of England”, in J. Milton, The Major Works, ed. S. Orgel/J. Goldberg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) 236–72, on p. 270. S. Przypkowski, Samuelis Przipcovii Dissertatio de pace et concordia ecclesiae (Warsaw: PWN, 1981), 90–7.

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cord, was the second.20 In this conceptual respect there was no essential difference between the conflicting adversaries on all fronts. Conceptual instruments designed for understanding and controlling the inter-confessional reality formed a relatively coherent, stable and, above all, commonly used vocabulary. In this particular circle, the testimony of the so-called Farrago belliana prepared by Castellio in 1554 – some of his contemporaries used to call it De haereticis, an sint persequendi – becomes more than obvious. The pre-Enlightenment meaning of tolerantia consisted of both the internal and the external ability to endure religious or civil adversities, to wait them out, and as such had nothing in common with the conciliatory or simply favourable attitude towards confessional or political outsiders. In some respects, another Socinian theologian, namely, Stanislaus Lubieniecki, occupies a distinctive place in this conceptual history: he certified nearly all the pre-Enlightenment features of tolerance by juxtaposing the differences between tolerance and other concepts; he used semantic contrast to introduce the hierarchy of goals; and finally he verbalised the usage of the tolerantia concept as a lesser evil or the least important aim. In such a form, tolerance could be neither a self-sufficient nor desired objective of the inter-confessional agenda. Quite the opposite, it was stigmatised as the last resort, chosen when all others had failed. Since Lubieniecki followed in the footsteps of the Erasmian usage, he was able to grasp the subtle, albeit decisive, difference between the voluntary acceptance of otherness and inalienable endurance, or even playing the waiting game. Before the representatives of predominant Christian denominations, he argued: You behave, my dear, like the judges in your own case and without a doubt against the law of Christian charity and Catholic truth which insistently prescribe the tolerance when absolute concord and unity cannot be achieved. … Disagreements do not deserve praise, and, as far as we can, they should be resolved not with coercive measures (as Lipsius claims) but … in mild and non-violent, instructive and not harmful manner. If all that turns out impossible the disagreements should be tolerated and left to God alone in order

20 “Subvertit igitur Lex ista & constitutio primum acceptam a Majoribus Ordinis Equestris praeeminentiam & dignitatem, quae est primum fundamentum aedificii Liberae Reipublicae nostrae … Subvertit deinde Pacem & securitatem Dissidentium in Religione civium, quae quod sit alterum Reipublicae fundamentum, primum recta ratio ostendit, cum civium Concordiam firmet, qua res etiam minimae crescunt, ac medetur discordiae, qua vel maximae dilabuntur”; “Iudicium Synceri & Antiqui Majorum moris retinentis; nec minus Religionis, quam Patriae Suae amantis Catholice de libello ordinibus Regni Poloniae a patre Nicolao Cichovio Soc: Jesu oblato”, in S. Przypkowski, Equitis Poloni et Consiliarii Electoris Brandenburgici Cogitationes sacrae ad initium Euangelii Matthaei et omnes Epistolas Apostolicas Nec non tractatus varii argumenti, Praecipue De jure christiani magistratus… (Eleutheropoli, 1692) 437–50, on p. 441a.

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to prevent those who disagree with the prince or magnates over the religion from acting against the authority, office and civil laws.21

Hence Lubieniecki was actually forced to admit that tolerance should be considered nothing but a minimum demand, that is, a highly insufficient goal in comparison to peace and concord.22 Furthermore, vernacular equivalents of Latin tolerantia leave no doubt that it was not only a matter of choosing a lesser evil but most of all it stood for an inability to solve the problem, renouncement and despondency, in a way condemning the unfavourable state of affairs. In old-Polish, tolerare meant “cierpieć” or “znosić”, that is “to suffer” and “to endure”.23 In late-mediaeval German, it was rendered in exactly the same manner, namely: “tragen”, “lyden”, “lassen”, “fürgeen”, “zuolassen”, “geduldig tragung/lydung”.24 To cut a long story short, these pre-Enlightenment meanings indicated negative consequences of diversity and change, rather that the desirable way out. The possibility of achieving peace and concord had hardly anything in common with the severe necessity of enduring or surviving adversities. That truly intolerable tolerantia could be, however, both a relevant and an irrelevant concept to the understanding of the early modern state of affairs. On the one hand, it suited the case of the predominant tendency to exclude rather than to include the intolerable elements in society, like vagabonds, lepers, fools or heretics. Thus, the following generations, from the Narrenschiff (1494) by Sebastian Brant and Thomas Murner’s Von dem grossen Lutherischen Narren (1522) onwards, were constantly exercising what Michel Foucault once called the “general means of expulsion”.25 On the other hand, when agreement took the place of expulsion,

21 “Vos, o boni, judices estis in propria causa, & quidem contra leges Charitatis Christianae & Veritatis Catholicae, quae Tolerantiam docet et inculcat, nisi concordiam integram & unionem obtinere possit. … Dissidia non sunt laudanda, & quantum possumus, non per media violenta (ut vult Lipsius) sed … lentis, non violentis, docentibus, non nocentibus medijs tollenda, sed nisi haec proficiant, toleranda ac Deo relinquenda sunt, dummodo qui in religione a Principe et potentioribus dissentiunt, contra Principem & Magistratum, leges publicas, alioqui non peccent”; S. Lubieniecki, Compendium veritatis primaevae, ed. K.E. Jordt Jørgensen (2 vol.; Copenaghen: Akademisk Forlag, 1982), vol. 2, 336, 435. 22 “Si tolerantia, praesertim haec remotior & laxior, quam nos ad minimum postulamus, stabiliretur, semper dominaretur religio Principis & Magistratus, reliquae certis legibus adstrictae & superiorem recognoscentes tolerarentur & quiescerent”; Lubieniecki, Compendium veritatis primaevae, 441. 23 For further evidences, see J.T. Maciuszko, Konfederacja warszawska 1573 roku: Geneza, pierwsze lata obowiązywania (Warsaw: ChAT, 1984), 34–46. 24 See A. Dröse, “Lichtblicke in einer ‘finstern Zeit’: Aspekte des Toleranzdenkens im Mittelalter”, in G. Naschert/M. Rebes (ed.), European Ideas on Tolerance (Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2009) 33–45, on pp. 36–7. 25 M. Foucault, History of Madness, ed. J. Khalfa (London/New York: Routledge, 2006), 9.

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the tolerantia concept could never be considered appropriate. Consequently, if I am not mistaken, tolerance in its modern meaning of a civil virtue is nowhere to be found in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century treatises on religious and political reconciliation. These documents prove conclusively that the success of every attempt to restore a harmony between conflicting parties depended on exercising Christian virtues (e. g. amity and love) more than on anything else, while preventive legal measures (e. g. exile) might apply only occasionally. For instance, the text of the Peace of Augsburg of 1555 speaks of “the forthcoming Christian, friendly and ultimate renewal of religion”. It indicates, therefore, “Freundschafft und Christlicher Lieb” as the key measures to achieve that goal: “A complete peace within the disputed Christian religion shall be attained only by Christian, friendly and peaceful means … and by the threat of punishment for violation of the public peace”.26 In the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, exactly the same intentions were verbalised, namely the universal, everlasting, and genuine Christian peace as well as the true and pure amity between the conflict-ridden parties. Above all, however, the Treaty of Westphalia introduced the concept of the so-called “culture of peace and amity” (studiorum pacis atque amicitiae cultura), which was aimed at a good company of different nations founded upon a particular way of being that consisted in cultural and religious training in numerous practices of controlling the differences and thus effectively pursing peacemaking aims, whereas some remaining confessional discrepancies between the Lutherans and Catholics should be tolerated with patience, solely “in order to give no occasion to any disturbances”.27 There-

26 “Ein jeder den andern mit rechter Freundschafft und Christlicher Lieb meynen, … soll die streitige Religion nicht anders dann durch Christliche, freundliche, friedliche Mittel und Wege zu einhelligem, Christlichem Verstand und Vergleichung gebracht werden, alles bey Kayserl. und Königl. Würden, Fürstl. Ehren, wahren Worten und Pön des Land-Friedens. … künfftiger Christlicher, freundlicher und endlicher Vergleichung der Religion … endlicher Christlicher Vergleichung der Religion … Christlicher, freundlicher und endlicher Vergleichung der Religion und Glaubens-Sachen stät”; “Abschied des Augsburger Reichstages”, in K. Zeumer (ed.), Quellensammlung zur Geschichte der Deutschen Reichsverfassung in Mittelalter und Neuzeit (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1913), vol. 2, 341–70, on pp. 344–7. See also G. Besier/K. Schreiner, “Toleranz”, in O. Brunner/W. Conze/R. Koselleck (ed.), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland (8 vol.; Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1972–97), vol. 6 (1990), 445–605, on p. 447. 27 “Pax sit Christiana, universalis, perpetua, veraque et sincera amicitia inter sacram Caesaream Maiestatem, domum Austriacam, omnesque eius foederatos et adhaerentes, et singulorum haeredes et successores, … fida vicinitas, et secura studiorum pacis atque amicitiae cultura revirescant et reflorescant. … Placuit porro, ut illi catholicorum subditi Augustanae confessioni addicti, ut et catholici Augustanae confessionis statuum subditi, qui anno millesimo sexcentesimo vicesimo quarto publicum vel etiam privatum religionis suae exercitium nulla anni parte habuerunt, nec non qui post pacem publicatam deinceps futuro tempore diversam a territorii domino religionem profitebuntur et amplectentur, patienter tolerentur et conscientia libera domi devotioni suae sine inquisitione aut turbatione privatim vacare, in vicinia vero ubi et quoties voluerint publico religionis

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fore, the phrase patienter tolerentur used in the fifth article corresponds precisely to the above-mentioned Erasmian usage. It stood for being forced to sustain a disadvantageous state of affairs only to retain the peace among the communities still consisting of denominationally mixed citizens. In other words, the tolerantia or tolerare attitude was made fully subject to the supreme principle of peace. The aim of pre-Enlightenment toleration was thus to avoid a greater evil rather than to achieve anything eventually desirable and advantageous in political or religious terms. Consequently, tolerance – unlike peace, concord, amity or studiorum pacis atque amicitiae cultura – could not have been considered the ultimate goal. In the best-case scenario, it was only a measure taken to achieve a reconciliatory aim. The example of the Warsaw Confederation of 1573 can be equally significant and instructive. Ever since the beginning of twentieth century, it has been recognised in historiography as the magna charta of Polish toleration or even of European toleration in general,28 for the original Polish-Latin text was soon translated into Ruthenian, French and German, while already in the late sixteenth century the Warsaw Confederation itself was acclaimed as an antithesis of the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre, a claim accepted and actually made famous by the Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot and Jean-Baptiste Le Rond d’Alembert.29 Unsurprisingly, however, the tolerantia notion (or any other vernacular variant of it) is nowhere to be found in the text of Confederatio Generalis Varsoviae. Instead, one can repeatedly come across the political and religious notions of pokój, пакой, paix or Frieden. Its reconciliatory intentions can be summarised as follows:

exercitio interesse, vel liberos suos exteris suae religionis scholis aut privatis domi praeceptoribus instruendos committere, non prohibeantur sed eiusmodi landsassii, vasalli et subditi in ceteris officium suum cum debito obsequio et subiectione adimpleant nullisque turbationibus ansam praebeant”; “Instrumentum pacis Caesareo-Suecicum sive Osnabrugense”, in E. Reich (ed.), Select Documents Illustrating Medieval and Modern History (London: P.S. King, 1905) 4–14, on pp. 6, 9. 28 A large number of studies devoted to the Warsaw Confederation were discussed or mentioned in M. Korolko, Klejnot swobodnego sumienia: Polemika wokół konfederacji warszawskiej w latach 1573–1658 (Warsaw: PAX, 1974), 15–16, 161–5. See also N. Davies, God’s Playground: A History of Poland (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), vol. 1, The Origins to 1795, 125–6; O.P. Grell/B. Scribner (ed.), Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 163, 272; Z. Rau/P. Żurawski vel Grajewski/M. Tracz-Tryniecki (ed.), Magna Carta: A Central European Perspective of our Common Heritage of Freedom (London/New York: Routledge, 2016), 158–9. 29 “Cet esprit de paix & de douceur dans les rois, passa à la nation. Elle prit fort peu de part à toutes les guerres de religion qui désolerent l’Europe au xvj. & xvij. siecle. Elle n’a eu dans son sein ni conspiration des poudres, ni saint Barthelemy, ni sénat égorgé, ni rois assassinés, ni des freres armés contre des freres ; & c’est le pays où l’on a brûlé moins de monde pour s’être trompé dans le dogme”; “Pologne”, in Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers par une société de gens de lettres (17 vol.; Neufchastel: Samuel Faulche, 1751–65), vol. 12 (1765), 925–34, on p. 930.

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We promise to one another, pro nobis et successoribus nostris in perpetuum, sub vinculo iuramenti, fide, honore et conscientiis nostris, that as the dissidentes de religione we will keep the peace among us and will not shed blood for the sake of a different faith or church, nor will we accept punishment by the confiscatione bonorum, deprivation of nobility, carceribus et excilio, nor will we support any person or office in such an undertaking. … And who would like to oppose this and to disturb the peace and social order, contra talem omnes consurgemus in eius destructionem.30

Before it became the great monument to toleration, the Warsaw Confederation was followed by multilateral, long-drawn-out and even fierce negotiations among the Catholic, Protestant and Antitrinitarian theologians on the legal and religious perplexity as to whether the different confessional parties should accept the new law or not. None of the spokesmen spoke of toleration as a desired end of the inter-confessional encounters, but they all ran into controversy over possible and actual consequences of the Warsaw Confederation, that is whether it advocated religious and political peace or rather entailed confessional anarchy. The reconciliatory terms pax, concordia and amicitia (together with their vernacular renderings) considered Christian οἰκουμένη to be composed of relative, pluriform, concurring rules and values. Both entailed the disgust at rejecting or suppressing the differences within the range of an established Christian order, for among members of Christian society peace and concord permitted differences, making them a sign of richness rather than of superfluity. However, when taken to extremes, pax and concordia could, and actually did, slip into opportunism or even indifferentism. As a way of conduct, they both consisted in reducing the differences in order to reach a common ground, for the common bond is stronger than the diversity of opinions, which is the first commandment in the reconciliatory decalogue. To a fair degree, it is hence reasonable to consider pax and concordia to be the conceptual forerunners to eirenicum/irenicum, a Greco-Latin catchword which did not appear until the publication of Franciscus Junius’s meditations on the Psalms in 1593 and, most specifically, of a dozen or so separate treatises that were published throughout the seventeenth century, authored, among others, by

30 “Obiecujemy to sobie spólnie, pro nobis et successoribus nostris in perpetuum, sub vinculo iuramenti, fide, honore et conscientiis nostris, iż którzy jestechmy dissidentes de religione, pokój między sobą zachować, a dla różnej wiary i odmiany w Kościelech krwie nie przelewać, ani się penować confiscatione bonorum, poczciowścią, carceribus et excilio, i zwierzchności żadnej ani urzędowi do takowego progressu żadnym sposobem nie pomagać. … A kto by się temu sprzeciwiać chciał i pokój a porządek pospolity psować, contra talem omnes consurgemus in eius destructionem”; “Confederacio Generalis Varsoviae. Konfederacja Generalna Warszawska”, in M. Korolko/J. Tazbir (ed.), Konfederacja warszawska 1573 roku: Wielka karta polskiej tolerancji (Warsaw: PAX, 1980) 25–6.

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David Pareus, John Dury, Daniel Zwicker and John Amos Comenius.31 One of the authors openly described irenicism as “the pursuit of peace and concord”, the other called it “the desire for peace”.32 In spite of these conceptual similarities, irenicism was a separate phenomenon within early modern reconciliatory endeavours. Even though it stood for a methodically distinct yet diverse and incoherent standpoint focused on speculative, if not to say armchair, deliberations about the origin, operation and outcome of peace,33 it had measurable aspirations and ramifications nonetheless, just to mention truly irenic negotiations over the commonly shared set of beliefs which were conducted during the second Colloquium charitativum or Colloquium Roznoviae.34 It is rather significant, however, that such a reductionist attitude typical of that kind of endeavour was made unsound or erroneous by both the contemporary Roman Catholic conservatives and the ecumenists. For instance, in the papal encyclical Humani generis of 1950, and later in the Unitatis redintegratio decree, it was termed “false irenicism”, while its spokesmen were called “impudent enthusiasts” who cause a pernicious effect on the purity and meaning of doctrine.35 In turn, Edward Schillebeeckx confidently added that theologically legitimised toleration could not be confused with indifferentism and irenicism,

31 See A.H. Swinne, Bibliographia irenica 1500–1970: Internationale Bibliographie zur Friedenswissenschaft: Kirchliche und politische Einigungs- und Friedensbestrebung, Oekumene und Völkerverständigung (Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1977). 32 J. Hoornbeeck, Irenicum sive de studio pacis et concordiae (Ultrajecti: Johannem & Guiljelmum van de Water, 1688), 1–3. Acta conventus Thoruniensis celebrati Anno 1645 mens. Septembr. Octobr. Novembr. Pro ineunda ratione componendorum Dissidiorum in Religione, per regnum Poloniae (Warsaw: Elert, 1646), 2v. 33 That general plan for the scientific study of peace was drawn up already by Franciscus Junius at the threshold of irenicism. “Partes autem sermonis istius duae futurae sunt: Vna, de modo pacis: Altera, de frutus illius”; F. Junius, Eirenicum de pace ecclesiae catholicae, in A. Kuyper (ed.), D. Francisci Junii Opuscula theologica selecta (Amsterdam: Muller & Kruyt, 1882) 395–494, on p. 399. See also P.G. Bietenholz, Daniel Zwicker 1612–1678: Peace, Tolerance and God the One and Only (Florence: Olschki, 1997), 55–78. 34 “Summa colloquii Roznoviae habiti, communicata ab Andrea Jovedeczio”, in A. Wengerscius, Andreae Wengerscii Libri quattuor Slavoniae reformatae (Warsaw: PWN, 1973), 538–86; Acta conventus Thoruniensis. See also H.-J. Müller, Irenik als Kommunikationsreform: Das Colloquium Charitativum von Thorn 1645 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004). 35 “At vero imprudenti aestuantes “irenismo”, nonnulli veluti lobices ad fraternam unitatem restaurandam ea putare videntur, quae ipsis legibus ac principiis a Christo datis innituntur itemque institutis ab eo conditis, vel quae munimina ac fulcimina exstant integritatis fidei, quibus collapsis, omnia uniuntur quidem, sed solummodo in ruinam. … nec denique putent, falso “irenismo” indulgentes, ad Ecclesiae sinum dissidentes et errantes feliciter reduci posse, nisi integra veritas in Ecclesia vigens, absque ulla corruptione detractioneque, sincere omnibus tradatur”; Pius XII, Humani generis, in Acta Apostolicae Sedis 42 (1950) 561–78, on pp. 565, 578. “Integra doctrina lucide exponatur omnino oportet. Nil ab oecumenismo tam alienum est quam ille falsus irenismus, quo puritas doctrinae catholicae detrimentum patitur et eius sensus genuinus et certus obscuratur”; “Dekret über den

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since the irenic attitude concerned solely not violating other people’s beliefs rather than defending the truth itself.36 Regardless of these estimations of today, peace, concord and irenicism remain nonetheless the antithesis to pre-Enlightenment tolerance. Johann Crell, the prominent Socinian theologian of the seventeenth century, proceeded in exactly the same way as Erasmus and his contemporaries. In his short treatise Vindiciae pro religionis libertate (Plea for the liberty of conscience, 1637), he did not advocate tolerance, but only religionis libertas as the guarantor of restoring political concord among the Christian denominations, whereas regarding tolerance, Crell spoke of it as a lesser, yet hardly tolerable, evil. He expected the Roman Catholics only to tolerate rather than to obliterate Socinians, namely to grant them liberty of conscience.37 The question concerning peace and religious liberty remained – as witnessed by Przypkowski, Jonas Schlichting and most of all by the Racovian Catechism – a distinctive as well as constitutive element of the whole Socinian doctrine. During Crell’s lifetime, however, his plea had no religious or social influence whatsoever. It achieved massive popularity in the eighteenth century when it was translated into French in 1769. It is extremely significant and thus worth mentioning that the title Vindiciae pro religionis libertate was not only rendered as De la tolérance dans la religion ou De la liberté de conscience, but most of all advertised by its editor as the book which “brings to light the utility, fairness and necessity of tolerance”.38 The silent legacy of the Enlightenment was then fully brought to light as well. However, not until the end of seventeenth century, was it possible to speak of tolerantia as a prescriptive phenomenon or positive rule of conduct. That unprecedented change was first introduced deliberately and most of all systematically by John Locke in his numerous writings on toleration, in the

Ökumenismus ‘Unitatis redintegratio’”, in H. Denzinger, Enchiridion symbolorum definitionum et declarartionum de rebus fidei et morum (Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 2009) 4185–94, on p. 4192. 36 E. Schillebeeckx, “The Concept of Truth and Related Problems”, in L.A. von Gesau (ed.), Ecumenism and the Roman Catholic Church (London/Melbourne: Sheed & Ward, 1966) 169–86, on p. 182. 37 “Cum ergo fides postulet, ut fiat, quod díctum est, necesse est, ut catholici, si perfidiae crimen effugere velint, etiam tunc ferant haereticos, cum eos opprimere sine suo incommodo possent; et porro, si conscientia illis permittit, ut haereticis de libertate religionis in posterum sine ulla limitatione temporis aut expresse etiam in perpetuum caveant, permittet etiam conscientia, imo requiret, ut haereticis libertatem istam perpetuo sartam tectam praestent, etiamsi eos opprimere commode possent”; J. Crell, Johannis Crellii Vindiciae pro religionis libertate, ed. L. Chmaj et. al. (Warsaw: PWN, 1957), 2–3. 38 “Livre qui met dans un si beau jour l’utilité, la justice & la nécessité d’une tolérance universelle”; De la tolérance dans la religion ou De la liberté de conscience. Par Crellius. L’intolérance convaincue de crime et de folie (London, 1769), unnumbered page 3 of the prefatory “Avertissement”.

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Epistola de tolerantia in particular.39 It is quite significant that his epoch-making take-over of meaning was immediately noticed by none other than Socinians or, more precisely, by the distinguished poet and Socinian polemicist Christopher de Niemeritz in about 1695. In his dialogue evocatively entitled La verité & la Religion en visite chez les Theologiens en y cherchant leurs filles la charité & la Tolerance, the idea of tolerance became explicitly a truly Christian virtue, for according to de Niemeritz tolerance was not only prescribed in the Gospels but most of all exercised by Christ himself.40 Accordingly, truth was compelled to bring love, while religion involved tolerance as its inevitable consequence. Regardless of a possible yet unproven direct influence of Locke on de Niemeritz, it should be noticed that such a semantic change was already considerably facilitated by Socinian Christology. If Jesus was reduced to a number of virtues and held up as an example to follow, it was therefore actually a matter of bringing one more virtue to light, namely tolerance. On the other hand, neither Crell nor Przypkowski took advantage of such an opportunity. That path was first chosen deliberately by John Locke.41 Far from considering it a choice of the lesser evil, Locke derived tolerance directly from the Gospel and natural reason.42 Consequently, he defined tolerantia in religious and social terms: as the praecipuum verae ecclesiae criterium, or the principal mark of the true church, and the rule of proper conduct (recte faciendorum norma).43 From then on, as a genuine Christian virtue, tolerantia originated from goodness and piety, and then developed in civic qualities like purity, integrity and kindness.44 For that reason, an evangelically ratified system of human intercourse

39 All these writings, including the Epistola de tolerantia and three other letters, as well as relevant fragments taken from An Essay concerning Human Understanding, were collected in one volume: R. Vernon (ed.), Locke on Toleration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 40 “Cela ne peut pas estre autrement depuis qve nos filles la charité & la tolerance se sons perdues Nous les avions devouées au service de la chretienté, croyant qve les chretiens suivant les loix de leur divin legislateur Jesus Christ ne devoyent rien tant aymer qv’ elles”; C. de Niemeritz, La verité & la Religion en visite chez les Theologiens en y cherchant leurs filles la charité & la Tolerance (1695), 4. 41 It is worth recalling here that Locke, already by his contemporaries accusingly called “rabbi from Rakow”, came under the significant influence of Socinian writings. See H.J. McLachlan, Socinianism in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951), 325–30; J. Marshall, “Locke, Socinianism, ‘Socinianism’, and Unitarianism”, in M.A. Stewart (ed.), English Philosophy in the Age of Locke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) 111–82; J. Marshall, John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 415–27. 42 “Tolerantia eorum qui de rebus religionis diversa sentiunt Evangelio et rationi adeo consona est, ut monstro simile videatur, homines in tam clara luce caecutire”; J. Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, ed. M. Montuori (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1963), 14. 43 Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, 6, 88. 44 “Alia res est verae religionis, non ad externam pompam, non ad dorninationem ecclesiasticam, non denique ad vim; sed ad vitam recte pieque instituendam natae. Primo omnium vitiis suis, fastui et libidini propriae bellum debet indicere, qui in ecclesia Christi velit militare; alias sine

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was able to accept the religious, moral and political discrepancies within one and the same society as long as they did not disturb social order. As such, tolerance became a functional equivalent of the lack of ecclesiastical and political domination, peace, concord, equity, humanity, benevolence, Christian charity and liberty of conscience – all of these were used by Locke interchangeably. Koselleck aptly observed that the absolute truth of any particular church, or its socio-political structure and influence, was no longer at stake. Instead, the whole controversy over toleration centred on the issue of personal freedom, independence and autonomy that was once guaranteed to citizens by the political system rather than for religious purposes.45 Regardless of its biblical origins, tolerantia, was aimed primarily at ridding politics of any religious motivations. That profound or even topsy-turvy change was confirmed by Voltaire in his Traité sur la tolérance of 1763 and in the Dictionnaire philosophique first published a year later. Although his reasoning was devoid of any religious implications, in particular Christian, he nonetheless was following in the footsteps of Locke. To the question what is tolerance, Voltaire firmly answered “the prerogative of humanity” or “the only remedy for every discord which remains the great calamity of mankind”.46 Hence, at the end of eighteenth century, the Kehl editors of Voltaire’s complete works were able to speculate that every attempt to eradicate such tolerance would be tantamount to spreading slander about human nature.47 This significant semantic shift brought about by Voltaire eventually led up to a permanent secularisation of toleration, from then on purged of an unwanted religious premise or justification. The principle of tolerance was thus concerned not so much with confessional issues (otherwise subjected to a human reason and political reckoning) but first and foremost with social order and public safety, as the Kehl editors insisted.48 At the

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vitae sanctimonia, morum castitate, animi benignitate et mansuetudine, frustra quaerit sibi nomen Christianum. … Si enim Evangelio, si Apostolis credendum sit, sine caritate, sine fide per amorem, non per vim, operante nemo Christianus esse potest”; Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, 6–8. Koselleck, Begriffsgeschichte, 340–62, especially 342. See also G. Mensching, Toleranz und Wahrheit in der Religion (Munich: Siebenstern Taschenbuch, 1966), 53–68. “Qu’est-ce que la tolérance? c’est l’apanage de l’humanité. … la discorde est le grand mal du genre humain, et la tolérance en est le seul remède”; Œuvres complètes de Voltaire (52 vol.; Paris: Garnier, 1877–85), vol. 20, Dictionnaire philosophique (1879), 518. Similar statement can be found in the preface of the Kehl editors to Voltaire’s Traité sur la tolerance: “Nous osons croire, à l’honneur du siècle où nous vivons, qu’il n’y a point dans toute l’Europe un seul homme éclairé qui ne regarde la tolerance comme … un devoir prescrit par l’humanité”; Voltaire, Traité sur la tolérance, in Œuvres completes, vol. 25, Des Mélanges (1879), 13–118. “Quelques personnes prétendent que la liberté de penser étant une suite naturelle de la tolérance, et la liberté de penser conduisant à la destruction de la morale, l’intolérance est nécessaire au bonheur des hommes: c’est calomnier la nature humaine”; Voltaire, Traité sur la tolérance, 16. “Supposons maintenant un homme qui, n’ayant aucune religion, les regarde toutes comme des fables absurdes ; cet homme sera-t-il intolérant ? Non sans doute. À la vérité, comme ses preuves sont d’un

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same time, tolerance was explicitly acknowledged by the French encyclopaedists as “a conciliatory virtue”.49 What we have here is not only an unprecedented usage of the toleration concept, but also an extremely significant revaluation of the major goals strived for in religious and political relations. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries peace continued to be commonly regarded as the value superior to all others. When Erasmus termed it “the source of all human happiness” or even “the fount and source, the sustainer, amplifier, and preserver of all the good things of heaven or earth”, he was only letting the sentiments of his age get a word in edgeways.50 Brand new Enlightenment usage enabled tolerance to take the place once occupied by peace, concord or amity. As such, tolerance was not only emblematic of Voltaire himself or Enlightenment ideas but also the great stumbling block to every single form of fanaticism, to pathology of authority and thinking. That was ultimately the turning point of a far-reaching and formative influence upon the contemporary usage of this term. Although the rational means of achieving toleration or, in general, the reason used to promote and put the Enlightenment idea of universal progress into practice was later discredited or even disgraced by Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer,51 it is Locke and Voltaire more than anyone else who still provide us with the ways of understanding tolerance with which we are all familiar. Moreover, they gave us the notion of tolerance which nowadays could easily become a feelgood catchword printed on T-shirts with the image of Erasmus. Therefore, it was

autre genre, comme les fondements de ses opinions sont appuyés sur des principes d’une autre nature, le devoir d’être tolérant est fondé, pour lui, sur d’autres motifs. S’il regarde comme des insensés les sectateurs des différentes religions, se croira-t-il en droit de traiter comme un crime une folie qui ne trouble pas l’ordre de la société, de priver de leurs droits des hommes que l’espèce de démence dont ils sont atteints ne met pas hors d’état de les exercer? … dans ce cas, ce n’est plus d’intolérance religieuse qu’il s’agit, mais de l’ordre et du repos de la société”; Voltaire, Traité sur la tolérance, 14. 49 “La tolérance est en général la vertu de tout être foible, destiné à vivre avec des êtres qui lui ressemblent. L’homme si grand par son intelligence, est en même tems si borné par ses erreurs & par ses passions, qu’on ne sauroit trop lui inspirer pour les autres, cette tolerance & ce support dont il a tant besoin pour lui-même, & sans lesquelles on ne verroit sur la terre que troubles & dissentions. C’est en effet, pour les avoir proscrites, ces douces & conciliantes vertus, que tant de siecles ont fait plus ou moins l’opprobre & le malheur des hommes; & n’esperons pas que sans elles, nous rétablissions jamais parmi nous le repos & la prospérité”; “Tolérance”, in Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné, vol. 16, 390–5, on p. 390. 50 Erasmus, A Complaint of Peace / Querela pads, trans. and annotated B. Radice, in Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 27, A.H.T. Levi (ed.), Literary and Educational Writings (1986), 292–322, on p. 293. 51 See, for instance, “Solange man davon absieht, wer Vernunft anwendet, hat sie nicht mehr Affinität zur Gewalt als zur Vermittlung, je nach der Lage von Individuum und Gruppen läßt sie Frieden oder Krieg, Toleranz oder Repression als das Gegebene erscheinen. … Für die Herrschenden aber werden die Menschen zum Material wie die gesamte Natur für die Gesellschaft”; T.W. Adorno/M. Horkheimer, Dialektik der Aufklärung: Philosophische Fragmente (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer, 1988), 94.

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not merely a coincidence that none other than the image of Voltaire was decorated with a “je suis Charlie” black band on the posters which went up some years ago all over the streets of Paris.

3.

Conclusion: The Profitable Risk of Cutting Hydra’s Head Off

I do hope that this survey, limited to only a small handful of proofs, already suggests how beneficial historical semantics and pragmatics can be to the purpose of disclosing the pre-conceptual and conceptual genealogy of the religious and secular melting pot of the Reformation. Before giving any innovative description of religious and political relations in the early modern era, we must first reconstruct their conceptual framework. For language usage, or consuetudo loquendi, not only provides us with the overwhelming, ready-made interpretation of reality, but above all language alone makes every following interpretation and alteration possible. Basically, most if not all of these reconciliatory or militant endeavours were ingrained irreducibly in the receptive and productive forces of language and therefore aimed at changing the state of affairs of the time. That is not all, however. Advocated and deliberately exercised by the leading scholars in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the pragmatic nature of language usage at the turn of the modern era became an exceptionally peculiar, if not to say embarrassing, key to understanding all human affairs. Although it constituted the irreducible substructure of human thinking and acting, consuetudo loquendi might expose itself to a danger of proto-Derridian or Wittgensteinian play at self-referential solipsism.52 While the vocabulary, being the sum of the pragmatic and customary rather than lexical resources of language, sought to enlarge itself by introducing new lexemes and new semantic halftones of the already existing lexical units, at the same time it strove to seal its borders, permitting one word to refer to another rather than to linguistically unconditioned and undetermined phenomenon. Michel de Montaigne, who kept a sharp eye on sealed transformations of his age, observed that human affairs originated from a common language which thanks to its specialisation and progress became more and more uncommon: instead of providing man with a master, or at least a skeleton, key, language usage increased insecurity or ignorance about oneself, because in understanding and expressing oneself it was hardly possible not to fall into doubt

52 See B. Cummings, The Literary Culture of the Reformation: Grammar and Grace (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 28–9; J.D. Tracy, “Erasmus among the Postmodernists: Dissimulatio, Bonae Litterae and Docta Pietas Revisited”, in H.M. Pabel (ed.), Erasmus’ Vision of the Church (Kirksville: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1995) 1–40, on pp. 5–9; J. Monfasani, “Was Lorenzo Valla an Ordinary Language Philosopher?”, Journal of the History of Ideas 50/2 (1989) 309–23, on pp. 322–3.

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and contradiction.53 For all these reasons, Montaigne was able to emphasise, “Our controversies are verbal ones. I ask what is nature, pleasure, circle or substitution. The question is about words: it is paid in the same coin. – ‘A stone is a body’. – But if you argue more closely: ‘And what is a body?’ – ‘Substance’. – ‘And what is substance?’ – and so on; you will eventually corner your opponent on the last page of his lexicon”.54 Consequently, every attempt to transcend the language conditions that determine essentially man’s contemplative and causative being in the world would end up in cutting off the Hydra’s head, he thought.55 His assumption thus carries some far-reaching implications for the contemporary study of history. Just as historical semantics and pragmatics are adequate tools for examining the dynamics of the horizons of understanding and transforming reality, these tools burrow into the elementary, basic structure of that dynamics as well. Consequently, the image they provide is not only the more comprehensive one but is also striking or even perplexing, for instead of plotting and laying the foundation they undermine it. They convincingly show that interpretation of history does not consist in the progressive exposure of its hidden, fixed, objective and detached meaning but rather in tracking down the slippery transitions, discontinuities and interruptions because – as Montaigne already noticed – “no quality is so universal as diversity and variety”.56 What historical semantics and pragmatics discover is, for the most part, substitution and displacement rather than the set of forms of one and the same meaning that constitute altogether the everlasting quality of certain historical objects. What was considered self-evident is now called into question, what was regarded as uniform becomes differentiated, what was recognised as something’s difference may lose its sharpness and reduce its contrast. To take the dynamics of historical process into account properly, as witnessed by the melting pot of Reformation thought and conduct, means admitting that history as such does not provide all-purpose and thus ready-made, quick solutions to its versatile

53 “Why is it that our tongue, so simple for other purposes, becomes obscure and unintelligible in wills and contracts? Why is it that a man who expresses himself with clarity in anything else that he says or writes cannot find any means of making declarations in such matters which do not sink into contradictions and obscurity? Is it not that the ‘princes’ of that art, striving with a peculiar application to select traditional terms and to use technical language, have so weighed every syllable and perused so minutely every species of conjunction that they end up entangled and bogged down in an infinitude of grammatical functions and tiny sub-clauses which defy all rule and order and any definite interpretation?”; M. de Montaigne, “On experience”, in M. de Montaigne, The Complete Essays, trans. and ed. M.A. Screech (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 1209. 54 Montaigne, “On experience”, 1213. 55 “We change one word for another, often for one less known. I know what ‘Man’ is better than I know what is animal, mortal or reasonable. In order to satisfy one doubt they give me three; it is a Hydra’s head”; Montaigne, “On experience”, 1213. 56 Montaigne, “On experience”, 1207.

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understanding. Therefore, in the retold story of the concepts peace and toleration here the only sufficiently stable constant is the permanent lack of commonplaces and scholarly convictions shared once and for all, which provides a hazardous and expensive, yet profitable, benefit.

Bibliography Acta conventus Thoruniensis celebrati Anno 1645 mens. Septembr. Octobr. Novembr. Pro ineunda ratione componendorum Dissidiorum in Religione, per regnum Poloniae (Warsaw: Elert, 1646). “Abschied des Augsburger Reichstages”, in K. Zeumer (ed.), Quellensammlung zur Geschichte der Deutschen Reichsverfassung in Mittelalter und Neuzeit (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1913), vol. 2, 341–70. Adorno, T.W./Horkheimer, M., Dialektik der Aufklärung: Philosophische Fragmente (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer, 1988). Bejczy, I., “Tolerantia: A Medieval Concept”, Journal of the History of Ideas 58/3 (1997) 365–84. Besier, G./K. Schreiner, “Toleranz”, in O. Brunner/W. Conze/R. Koselleck (ed.), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland (8 vol.; Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1972–97), vol. 6 (1990), 445–605. Bietenholz, P.G., Daniel Zwicker 1612–1678: Peace, Tolerance and God the One and Only (Florence: Olschki, 1997). Castellio, S., De haereticis an sint persequendi et omnino quomodo sit cum eis agendum, Luteri & Brentii, aliorumque multorum tum veterum tum recentiorum sententiae (Geneva: Droz, 1954). “Confederacio Generalis Varsoviae. Konfederacja Generalna Warszawska”, in M. Korolko/J. Tazbir (ed.), Konfederacja warszawska 1573 roku: Wielka karta polskiej tolerancji (Warsaw: PAX, 1980) 25–6. Crell, J., Johannis Crellii Vindiciae pro religionis libertate, ed. L. Chmaj/D. Gromska/V. Wąskik (Warsaw: PWN, 1957). Cummings, B., The Literary Culture of the Reformation: Grammar and Grace (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Davies, N., God’s Playground: A History of Poland (2 vol.; New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), vol. 1, The Origins to 1795. “Dekret über den Ökumenismus ‘Unitatis redintegratio’”, in H. Denzinger, Enchiridion symbolorum definitionum et declarartionum de rebus fidei et morum (Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 2009) 4185–94. De la tolérance dans la religion ou De la liberté de conscience. Par Crellius. L’intolérance convaincue de crime et de folie (London, 1769). D. Martin Luthers Werke (120 vol.; Weimar: Böhlaus), vol. 39/2.

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de Montaigne, M., “On experience”, in M. de Montaigne, The Complete Essays, trans. and ed. M.A. Screech (London: Penguin Books, 2003). de Niemeritz, C., La verité & la Religion en visite chez les Theologiens en y cherchant leurs filles la charité & la Tolerance (1695). Dröse, A., “Lichtblicke in einer ‘finstern Zeit’: Aspekte des Toleranzdenkens im Mittelalter”, in G. Naschert/M. Rebes (ed.), European Ideas on Tolerance (Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2009) 33–45. Erasmus, The Antibarbarians / Antibarbarorum liber, trans. and annotated M.M. Phillips, in Collected Works of Erasmus (86 vol.; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974–), vol. 23/1, C.R. Thompson (ed.), Literary and Educational Writings (1978), 1–122. Erasmus, A Complaint of Peace / Querela pads, trans. and annotated B. Radice, in Collected Works of Erasmus (86 vol.; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974–), vol. 27, A.H.T. Levi (ed.), Literary and Educational Writings (1986), 292–322. Erasmus, Things and Names / De rebus ac vocabulis 1527, in Collected Works of Erasmus (86 vol.; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974–), vol. 40, C.R. Thompson (trans.), Colloquies (1997), 809–17. Erasmus, A Warrior Shielding a Discussion of Free Will against The Enslaved Will by Martin Luther, book one / Hyperaspistes liber unus, trans. C.H. Miller, annotated C.H. Miller/C. Trinkaus, in Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 76, C. Trinkaus (ed.), Controversies (1999), 91–298. Erasmus, Concionalis interpretatio in Psalmum LXXXV, ed. C.S.M. Rademaker, in Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami: Recognita et adnotatione critica instructa notisque illustrata (Amsterdam: Elsevier), vol. 5/3, A.G. Weiler/R. Stupperich/C.S.M. Rademaker (ed.), Ordinis quinti tomus tertius (1986), 329–427. Erasmus, De sarcienda ecclesiae concordia, ed. R. Stupperich, in Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami: Recognita et adnotatione critica instructa notisque illustrata (Amsterdam: Elsevier), vol. 5/3, A.G. Weiler/R. Stupperich/C.S.M. Rademaker (ed.), Ordinis quinti tomus tertius (1986), 257–313. Foucault, M., History of Madness, ed. J. Khalfa (London/New York: Routledge, 2006). Gadamer, H.-G., “Begriffsgeschichte als Philosophie (1970)”, in Gesammelte Werke (10 vol.; Tübingen: Mohr, 1960–95), vol. 2, Hermeneutik II: Wahrheit und Methode, Ergänzungen, Register (1986), 77–91. Grell, O.P./Scribner, B. (ed.), Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Hoornbeeck, J., Irenicum sive de studio pacis et concordiae (Ultrajecti: Johannem & Guiljelmum van de Water, 1688). “Instrumentum pacis Caesareo-Suecicum sive Osnabrugense”, in E. Reich (ed.), Select Documents Illustrating Medieval and Modern History (London: P.S. King, 1905) 4–14. “Iudicium Synceri & Antiqui Majorum moris retinentis; nec minus Religionis, quam Patriae Suae amantis Catholice de libello ordinibus Regni Poloniae a patre Nicolao Cichovio Soc: Jesu oblato”, in S. Przypkowski, Equitis Poloni et Consiliarii Electoris Brandenburgici

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Cogitationes sacrae ad initium Euangelii Matthaei et omnes Epistolas Apostolicas Nec non tractatus varii argumenti, Praecipue De jure christiani magistratus… (Eleutheropoli, 1692) 437–50. Junius, F., Eirenicum de pace ecclesiae catholicae, in A. Kuyper (ed.), D. Francisci Junii Opuscula theologica selecta (Amsterdam: Muller & Kruyt, 1882) 395–494. Korolko, M., Klejnot swobodnego sumienia: Polemika wokół konfederacji warszawskiej w latach 1573–1658 (Warsaw: PAX, 1974). Koselleck, R., Begriffsgeschichte: Studien zur Semantik und Pragmatik der politischen und sozialen Sprache (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 2006). Lecler, J., Histoire de la tolérance au siècle de la Réforme (Paris: Aubier, 1955). Le Clerc, J. (ed.), Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami Opera omnia emendatiora et auctiora (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1962). Locke, J., A Letter Concerning Toleration, ed. M. Montuori (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1963). Lubieniecki, S., Compendium veritatis primaevae, ed. K.E. Jordt Jørgensen (2 vol.; Copenaghen: Akademisk Forlag, 1982). Maciuszko, J.T., Konfederacja warszawska 1573 roku: Geneza, pierwsze lata obowiązywania (Warsaw: ChAT, 1984). Marshall, J., “Locke, Socinianism, ‘Socinianism’, and Unitarianism”, in M.A. Stewart (ed.), English Philosophy in the Age of Locke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) 111–82. Marshall, J., John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). McLachlan, H.J., Socinianism in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951). Mensching, G., Toleranz und Wahrheit in der Religion (Munich: Siebenstern Taschenbuch, 1966). Milton, J., “Areopagitica: A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing to the Parliament of England”, in J. Milton, The Major Works, ed. S. Orgel/J. Goldberg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) 236–72. Monfasani, J., “Was Lorenzo Valla an Ordinary Language Philosopher?”, Journal of the History of Ideas 50/2 (1989) 309–23. Moss, A., Renaissance Truth and the Latin Language Turn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Müller, H.-J., Irenik als Kommunikationsreform: Das Colloquium Charitativum von Thorn 1645 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004). Œuvres complètes de Voltaire (52 vol.; Paris: Garnier, 1877–85), vol. 20, Dictionnaire philosophique (1879). Pius XII, Humani generis, in Acta Apostolicae Sedis 42 (1950) 561–78. “Pologne”, in Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers par une société de gens de lettres (17 vol.; Neufchastel: Samuel Faulche, 1751–72), vol. 12 (1765), 925–34.

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Przypkowski, S., Samuelis Przipcovii Dissertatio de pace et concordia ecclesiae (Warsaw: PWN, 1981). Rau, Z./Żurawski vel Grajewski, P./Tracz-Tryniecki, M. (ed.), Magna Carta: A Central European Perspective of our Common Heritage of Freedom (London/New York: Routledge, 2016). Ruffini, F., La libertà religiosa: Storia dell’idea (Turin: Fratelli Bocca, 1901). Rummel, E., “Erasmian Humanism in the Twentieth Century”, Comparative Criticism 23 (2001) 57–67. Rummel, E., Erasmus (London/New York: Continuum, 2004). Schillebeeckx, E., “The Concept of Truth and Related Problems”, in L.A. von Gesau (ed.), Ecumenism and the Roman Catholic Church (London/Melbourne: Sheed & Ward, 1966) 169–86. “Summa colloquii Roznoviae habiti, communicata ab Andrea Jovedeczio”, in A. Wengerscius, Andreae Wengerscii Libri quattuor Slavoniae reformatae (Warsaw: PWN, 1973). Swinne, A.H., Bibliographia irenica 1500–1970: Internationale Bibliographie zur Friedenswissenschaft: Kirchliche und politische Einigungs- und Friedensbestrebung, Oekumene und Völkerverständigung (Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1977). “Tolérance”, in Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers par une société de gens de lettres (17 vol.; Neufchastel: Samuel Faulche, 1751–72), vol. 16 (1765), 390–5. Tracy, J.D., “Erasmus among the Postmodernists: Dissimulatio, Bonae Litterae and Docta Pietas Revisited”, in H.M. Pabel (ed.), Erasmus’ Vision of the Church (Kirksville: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1995) 1–40. Valla, L., Dialectical Disputations (2 vol.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), vol. 2, Books II–III. Vernon, R. (ed.), Locke on Toleration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). Vives, J.L., Against the Pseudodialecticians: A Humanist Attack on Medieval Logic (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979). Völker, K., Toleranz und Intoleranz im Zeitalter der Reformation (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1912). Voltaire, Traité sur la tolérance, in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire (52 vol.; Paris: Garnier, 1877–85), vol. 25, Des Mélanges (1879). Waswo, R., Language and Meaning in the Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987). White, G., Luther as Nominalist: A Study of the Logical Methods Used in Martin Luther’s Disputations in the Light of Their Medieval Background (Helsinki: Luther-Agricola-Society, 1994).

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The German Peasants’ War (1524–5) Facts, Reception History and New Approaches1

1.

The Revolts of 1524 and 1525, the Sequence of Events: An Overview

On 23 June 1524, a group of subjects of the landgraviate of Stühlingen (located about 60 km west of Lake Constance) gathered in front of the palace of their ruler, the landgrave Siegmund II of Lupfingen, to voice complaints about the unprecedented increase in duties. The protest, which initially included a few villages, soon spread to the entire landgraviate. By September 1524, the uprising had reached the areas of Hegau,2 Klettgau and the Black Forest and was called a “peasants’ war” for the first time by the nobles. An (historically undocumented) order of the female landgrave of Lupfingen is said to have triggered the revolt. She allegedly ordered the peasants to interrupt the harvesting to collect snail shells for her maids to coil yarn.3 Historians used to view the protest in Stühlingen as the outset of the German Peasants’ War, before more recent research emphasised the lack of demands for reform in 1525. They related the protest primarily to late-medieval uprisings such as the Armer Konrad (Poor Conrad) and the Bundschuh conspiracy.4 In his comprehensive study of 1998, Hiroto Oka, however, concludes: “The uprising of Stühlingen not only represented the beginning of the movement of peasants and urban dwellers of the years 1524–5, it also expressed opposition, which, if not necessarily truly revolutionary, still challenged the feudal elite and demanded a reform of governance”.5 At Christmas 1524, the peasants of Baltringen near Ulm organised the Baltringer Haufen, a militia with a formal commander and even a clerk, and called up to 10,000 men to arms.6 At about the same time, the subjects of the imperial abbey of Kempten

1 Many thanks to Mr Kai Yamaguchi-Fasting, Copenhagen, for the English translation. 2 C. Bumiller, “Der Bauernkrieg im Hegau 1524/25: Rekonstruktion einer revolutionären Bewegung”, in Hilzingen Geschichte und Geschichten (3 vol.; Konstanz-Hilzingen: Gemeinde Hilzingen, 1998–2005), vol. 1 (1998), 251–431. 3 H. Oka, Der Bauernkrieg in der Landgrafschaft Stühlingen und seine Vorgeschichte seit der Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts (Konstanz: Hartung-Gorre, 1998). 4 P. Blickle, Die Revolution von 1525 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2004). 5 Oka, Der Bauernkrieg, 283. 6 K. Diemer, “Der Baltringer Haufen”, in E.L. Kuhn/P. Blickle (ed.), Der Bauernkrieg in Oberschwaben (Tübingen: Bibliotheca Academica, 2000) 67–96.

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rose up and formed the Allgäuer Haufen.7 Near Lake Constance, the Seehaufen, the army of the lake, was formed.8 Personal freedom and the implementation of the Reformation were core demands of the insurgents. 50 representatives of the three Haufen, the three groups, met on 7 and 8 March 1525 in Memmingen to draft a joint program. Reportedly, the Allgäuer bands were lobbying for an armed confrontation, while the Baltringer ones seemed to have been favouring a peaceful settlement. Eventually, the insurgents agreed on a joint catalogue of demands, the Twelve Articles, which we shall examine later. Concurrently, they finalised the statutes of the Christian Alliance in which the three Haufen would formally merge. Meanwhile, the authorities founded the Schwäbischer Bund (Swabian League),9 an alliance of Southern-German imperial cities, imperial abbeys, knights, counts and other nobility. The alliance put Georg, Truchsess von Waldburg10 in charge, who then hired numerous mercenaries and prepared for a military solution. Subsequently, after a couple of skirmishes, the Christian Alliance, which had assembled about 12,000 men, and the army of the Schwäbischer Bund, with about 7,000 soldiers led by Truchsess von Waldburg, met at Weingarten. Truchsess decided against an attack and offered his terms: the Christian Alliance was to disband but was assured that its complaints would be investigated. The terms were accepted in principle in the Treaty of Weingarten on Easter Monday (22 April 1525), which also marked the end of the Peasants’ War in Upper Swabia.11 Only the Allgäuer Haufen initially refused, but had to surrender three months later. In the meantime, revolts erupted during March and April 1525, in Alsace,12 in the Palatinate,13 in Franconia,14 at the Middle Rhein, in Hesse15 and Thuringia.16 In 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

M. Haggenmüller, “Der Allgäuer Haufen”, in Kuhn/Blickle (ed.), Der Bauernkrieg, 37–66. E.L. Kuhn, “Der Seehaufen”, in Kuhn/Blickle (ed.), Der Bauernkrieg, 97–140. D. Miller, The Army of the Swabian League 1525 (Warwick: Helion & Company, 2019). P. Blickle, Der Bauernjörg: Feldherr im Bauernkrieg: Georg Truchsess von Waldburg 1488–1531 (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2015). H.-U. Rudolf, “Ende und Ausgang: Der Weingartener Vertrag und die Folgen”, in Kuhn/Blickle (ed.), Der Bauernkrieg, 199–232. G. Bischoff, La guerre des Paysans: L’Alsace et la révolution du Bundschuh 1493–1525 (Strasbourg: La Nuée Bleue, 2010). W. Alter, Der Aufstand der Bauern und Bürger im Jahre 1525 in der Pfalz (Speyer: Verl. der Pfälzischen Ges. zur Förderung der Wiss, 1996). F. Fuchs/U. Wagner (ed.), Bauernkrieg in Franken (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2016). W.-H. Struck, Der Bauernkrieg am Mittelrhein und in Hessen: Darstellung und Quellen (Wiesbaden: Selbstverlag der Historischen Kommission fur Nassau, 1975). G. Vogler (ed.), Bauernkrieg zwischen Harz und Thüringer Wald (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2008); U. Schirmer, “Reformation und Bauernkrieg in Thüringen (1520–1525): Anmerkungen zur schrittweisen Entfachung des gewaltsamen Protestes”, in W. Greiling/A. Krünes/U. Schirmer (ed.), Thüringen im Jahrhundert der Reformation: Bilanz eines Projektes: Perspektiven der Forschung (Jena: Vopelius, 2019) 85–116; T.T. Müller, “Bauernkrieg in Thüringen: Eine kurze rezeptionsgeschichtliche Ein-

The German Peasants’ War (1524–5)

the imperial city of Mühlhausen in Thuringia, where the radical Reformer Thomas Müntzer17 had been active since 1524,18 the Eternal League of God was created as a secret paramilitary society. Peasants and citizens rallied to arms in other parts of Thuringia, as well. The decisive battle of Thuringia took place in mid-May near Frankenhausen. The united armies of the nobility of Saxony, Hesse and Brunswick completely defeated the peasants’ militias. 5,000 of the 6,000 insurgents were slain.19 Reportedly, the attack commenced just as Thomas Müntzer finished his sermon and pointed at the sun, which, at that very moment, happened to have a rainbowcoloured aura.20 During his sermon, Müntzer had preached about the bond between God and man, symbolised by the rainbow on the banner of the insurgents in Thuringia. For a brief moment, the insurgents may have taken the aura as a sign for divine support on the battlefield. However, when first contact with the charging enemy dashed all hopes, panic broke out and no effective resistance was offered. Müntzer was caught, tortured and executed. This put an end to the uprising in Thuringia.21 Just a few days later, on 12 May in Wurttemberg, thousands of peasants were killed near Böblingen during fighting with troops under command of Truchsess von Waldburg. The revolt in Alsace ended on 17 May near Zabern. During and after the battle, the Duke of Lothringia put 18,000 men to the sword. The Palatinate peasants were completely defeated on 23 and 24 June. Reportedly, more than 4,000 insurgents were killed.

17

18 19 20 21

führung”, in W. Greiling/T.T. Müller/U. Schirmer (ed.), Reformation und Bauernkrieg (Quellen und Forschungen zu Thüringen im Zeitalter der Reformation 12; Vienna/Cologne/Weimar: Böhlau, 2019) 9–17; U. Schirmer, “Die Ursachen des Bauernkrieges in Thüringen: Eine sozial-, verfassungsund reformationsgeschichtliche Spurensuche”, in Greiling/Müller/Schirmer (ed.), Reformation und Bauernkrieg, 21–70. H.-J. Goertz, Thomas Müntzer: Revolutionär am Ende der Zeiten: Eine Biographie (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2015); S. Bräuer/G. Vogler, Thomas Müntzer: Neu Ordnung machen in der Welt: Eine Biographie (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2016); G. Vogler, Müntzerbild und Müntzerforschung vom 16. bis zum 21. Jahrhundert (2 vol.; Berlin: Weidler Buchverlag, 2019–21), vol. 1 (2019). T.T. Müller, Thomas Müntzer im Bauernkrieg: Fakten - Fiktionen - Desiderate (Mühlhausen: ThomasMüntzer-Gesellschaft e.V, 2016). D. Miller, Frankenhausen 1525 (Seaton Burn: Blagdon Publications, 2017). D. Wattenberg, Der Regenbogen von Frankenhausen am 15. Mai 1525 in Lichte anderer Himmelserscheinungen (Berlin-Treptow: Archenhold-Sternwarte, 1965). S. Hoyer, “Die ‘Schlacht’ bei Frankenhausen”, in Vogler (ed.), Bauernkrieg zwischen Harz, 211–24, S. Bräuer, “Die Überlieferung von Thomas Müntzers Gefangenschaftsaussagen”, Lutherjahrbuch 73 (2006) 41–86. On the consequences of the uprising, see also: T.T. Müller, Bauernkrieg nach dem Bauernkrieg- Die Verwüstung der Mühlhäuser Dörfer Dörna, Hollenbach und Lengefeld durch Eichsfelder Adel und Klerus (Duderstadt: Mecke, 2001); A. Schloms, “Nach dem Ende Thomas Müntzers: Abrechnung (mit) einer Stadt”, in Greiling/Müller/Schirmer (ed.), Reformation und Bauernkrieg, 259–74.

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In Franconia, the bands of Neckartal-Odenwald and of the Taubertal achieved considerable initial success. Namely, they convinced Götz von Berlichingen, an influential knight of Franconia, to join their cause. Numerous cities, like Rothenburg ob der Tauber, joined the uprising, too – some of them voluntarily, others under compulsion. However, resistance collapsed upon the arrival of the army of the Schwäbischer Bund. On 2 June, about 5,000 insurgents took their last stand against Truchsess von Waldburg and his more than 10,000 seasoned soldiers at Königshofen. Reportedly, only few rebels survived.22 Consequently, the Schwäbischer Bund ended the alpine sector of the Peasants’ War which had started in January 1525 in Tyrol. The last insurgents, led by Michael Gaismair, were wiped out during the first week of July 1526. Gaismair managed to escape but was assassinated in 1532 in Padua.23 Remembering these times, Friedrich Myconius wrote: “It is hard to believe how rulers, knights and regents in the whole of Germany could get such a fright that ten peasants without armour were able to take an invincible castle. But then the tables turned: a single rider was able to take ten peasants prisoner”.24 Friedrich Myconius was a direct witness to the German Peasants’ War. He was a preacher at the Church of St Mary in Gotha and bears to some extent responsibility that the city did not become too involved in the uprising. These critical words, from his work Geschichte der Reformation, articulate clearly his utter lack of comprehension of how the “topsy-turvy world”, thus far only known from satirical pictures, books, stories or during carnival, could become a reality in the unruly years of 1524 and 1525. It was a lack of comprehension that he shared with many contemporary scholars.25 The ruling class in particular had little explanation for what was happening.26 For some time, it remained a mystery to many scholars at the time as to how the uprising, which spread to many regions of Germany within two years, could have come to pass. To solve this mystery, the Reformers of Wittenberg around Martin

22 P. Blickle, Der Bauernkrieg: Die Revolution des gemeinen Mannes (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2012). 23 A. Stella, Il “Bauernführer” Michael Gaismair e l’utopia di un repubblicanesimo populare (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1999). W. Klaassen, Michael Gaismair: Revolutionary and Reformer (Leiden: Brill, 1978). 24 “Es ist nicht wohl zu glauben, wie alle Herrschaft, Ritterschaft und Regenten in ganz Deutschland so verzagt wurden, daß auch zehen Bäuerlein ohne Harnisch ein ungewinnlich Schloß einnehmen konnten. – Darnach kehret’s sich wieder um, daß ein einziger Reuter zehen Bauern gefangen nehmen konnt”; F. Myconius, Geschichte der Reformation (Leipzig: Voigtländer, 1914), 62. 25 B. Heidenreich, Ein Ereignis ohne Namen?: Zu den Vorstellungen des ‚Bauernkriegs‘ von 1525 in den Schriften der ‚Aufständischen‘ und in der zeitgenössischen Geschichtsschreibung (Berlin/Munich/ Boston: De Gruyter, 2018). 26 J. Mandry, “Die Reflexionen der thüringischen, sächsischen und hessischen Fürsten über die Aufständischen im Bauernkrieg”, in Greiling/Müller/Schirmer (ed.), Reformation und Bauernkrieg, 149–71.

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Luther quickly offered a solution. They understood that it was important, not least for political reasons, to put a firewall around the young, emerging “pure evangelical teaching” in Wittenberg, which had started in 1517 with Luther’s Ninety-five Theses Theses, and distance it from the teachings of the preachers involved in the uprising. This distancing from the uprising created several opportunities: the Wittenberg Reformers could counter criticism from followers of the old faith. Moreover, they could reassure the Protestant German nobility about their loyalty. Finally, pointing out the disastrous consequences of the uprising offered a splendid way of isolating any deviating voices and returning their followers to the Lutheran fold. The problem for Martin Luther, from the first year of the uprising, 1524, was that the insurgents frequently referred to him and to his Reforming movement. They used especially Luther’s “On the Freedom of a Christian”, written in 1520, as a justification for the uprising. Luther had written: “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none”.27 The insurgents in the south of Germany took this as a validation of their demand for the total abolition of serfdom, which was an explosive demand for the order of society at the time. This link to the Reformation seems to have lent substantial theological legitimation to the Peasants’ War of 1524–5, no matter how far Luther distanced himself from it, rather than relating it to previous peasants’ rebellions like the Bundschuh movement or the uprising of the Armer Konrad. Later, it would become crystal clear that Luther’s quote was written primarily in relation to theological questions and not in relation to the worldly circumstances of the peasants.28

2.

The Bundschuh and Armer Konrad Revolts

Scholars often hint at perceived connections and continuities in the German Peasants’ War seemingly stemming from the Bundschuh conspiracy and the uprising of the Armer Konrad.29 To examine the true relationship, it is necessary to revisit those predominantly agrarian revolts at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

27 “Eyn Christen mensch ist eyn freyer herr über alle ding und niemandt unthertan. Eyn Christen mensch ist eyn dienstpar knecht aller ding und ydermann unterthan”; D. Martin Luthers Werke (120 vol.; Weimar: Böhlaus), vol. 7, 21 (hereafter WA). 28 M. Beyer, “Die drei Bauernkriegsschriften Martin Luthers aus dem Jahr 1525”, in Greiling/Müller/ Schirmer (ed.), Reformation und Bauernkrieg, 241–58; A.M. Bateza, “Reconciling Rapacious Wolves and Misguided Sheep: Law and Responsibility in Martin Luther’s Response to the German Peasants’ War”, Political theology 19 (2018) 264–81. 29 C. Köhler, “‘Armer Konrad’ und Bauernkrieg: Darstellung und Wahrnehmung der Aufständischen im Quellenvergleich”, Zeitschrift für Württembergische Landesgeschichte 78 (2019) 143–65.

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The Bundschuh movement, which emerged in the Upper Rhine area between 1502 and 1517, underlined its conspiratorial character from the outset by using a code of greeting to identify its members. The greeting “God be with you, friend, what [are the] news?” was answered by the other member with “We just can’t recover from the priests”.30 This alone already indicates the anticlerical nature of the conspiracy of 1502, although freedom in a slightly broader sense was to become one of the most prominent demands. It is noteworthy that the answer changed in the second Bundschuh revolt of 1513 to “the poor man just can’t recover in this world”.31 By that time the struggle was no longer primarily directed at the clergy, but at achieving freedom for the common man. Freedom in the sense of the late-medieval Bundschuh movement essentially meant the restoration of common rights and observances in rural and some urban communities. During previous decades, the aristocracy, clergy and urban oligarchy had continuously encroached on “traditional” rights and practices. The Bundschuh movement, named after the peasants’ typical footwear, opposed (if needs be even violently) any further interference with the so-called Altes Recht (Old Law), a common law order in the communities borne by a broad consensus of the “common man”. The insurgents in no way demanded the introduction of a new order, but rather a return to the old one. The Bundschuh conspiracy was conservative in its core. Nevertheless, it referred to “godly rights” and sought to synchronise worldly laws and the divine order of creation. This was a new aspect that distinguished it from earlier agrarian uprisings. Like earlier and later developments at the Upper Rhine, revolts had taken place in the Duchy of Württemberg. They were mainly triggered by the renewed rise of prices on staple food. The heavily indebted duke had the official weights and measures reduced, so that people would get less for the same price. He tried to exact more money from his subjects, who already suffered from several failed harvests. Additionally, the population complained about frequent encroachments by the aristocracy and oligarchic councilmen of the rising cities on traditional rights and practices. Rumour has it that the uprising started with a so-called divine judgement, a test by water. Reportedly, the day-labourer Peter Geis from Beutelsbach threw official weights into a river in front of a large audience. He declared them to be just if they floated, and unjust if they did not. Of course, they did not. Geis explained

30 The original greeting was: “Gott grüß dich, Gesell, was ist nun für ein Wesen”. The correct answer was: “Wir mögen von den Pfaffen nicht genesen”. See T. Adam, Joß Fritz: Das verborgene Feuer der Revolution: Bundschuhbewegung und Bauernkrieg am Oberrhein im frühen 16. Jahrhundert (Ubstadt-Weiher: Verl. Regionalkultur, 2013), 92. 31 Original: “Der arm man in der welt mag nit mer genesen!”. See Adam, Joß Fritz, 165.

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to his followers that henceforward he would stand for the Armer Konrad. Like the Bundschuh, Armer Konrad was a synonym for the common man. Potential insurgents soon formed groups under that name. As in other uprisings, membership had to be confirmed by oath.32 Although it did not take long before the rebels occupied some strategically important places, the revolt collapsed before any battle ensued, on the arrival of the duke’s militarily superior army. Subsequently, the duke had any leaders of the uprising he could find gruesomely and publicly executed.33 The insurgents under the banner of the Bundschuh, in 1502 in Untergrombach, 1513 in Lehen and in 1514–17, met a similar fate, even though they were betrayed and fell into the hands of the authorities before they could take any significant action.34

3.

Statement of Principles: The Twelve Articles of Memmingen

Apart from the incorporation of some reformative aspects, the revolts of 1524–6 differed vastly from both the Armer Konrad and the Bundschuh in their core demands. In March 1525, the insurgents in the city of Memmingen issued a list of requests. They not only listed their complaints but also tried to legitimise them by including various biblical citations.35 This list, which was widely known as the “Twelve Articles of the Peasantry”, spread rapidly. Approximately 25,000 copies were published in 25 editions.36 In some ways, it became the manifesto of the movement and provided a common cause for various local insurgencies, possibly thus permitting a genuine German peasants’ war.

32 A. Schmauder, “Gaispeter und der Aufstand des Armen Konrad in Beutelsbach im Jahre 1514”, in B. Breyvogel (ed.), Festschrift 925 Jahre Beutelsbach (Remshalden: Greiner, 2006) 77–109. 33 P. Rückert (ed.), Der „Arme Konrad“ vor Gericht: Verhöre, Sprüche und Lieder in Württemberg 1514 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2014); A. Schmauder, Württemberg im Aufstand - der Arme Konrad 1514: Ein Beitrag zum bäuerlichen und städtischen Widerstand im Alten Reich und zum Territorialisierungsprozeß im Herzogtum Württemberg an der Wende zur Frühen Neuzeit (LeinfeldenEchterdingen: DRW, 1998). 34 Adam, Joß Fritz; T. Adam/P. Blickle (ed.), Bundschuh: Untergrombach 1502 das unruhige Reich und die Revolutionierbarkeit Europas (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2004). 35 D. von Mayenburg, Gemeiner Mann und Gemeines Recht: Die Zwölf Artikel und das Recht des ländlichen Raums im Zeitalter des Bauernkriegs (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 2018); G.K. Hasselhoff/D. von Mayenburg (ed.), Die Zwölf Artikel von 1525 und das „Göttliche Recht“ der Bauern - rechtshistorische und theologische Dimensionen (Würzburg: Ergon, 2012); F.D. Marquardt, “God Christ and Serfdom: Christian Egalitarianism in the Twelve Articles of the Upper Swabian Peasants (1525)”, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte/Archive for Reformation History 107 (2016) 35–60. 36 Blickle, Die Revolution, 24.

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The first demand regarding the election of priests was not unknown at the time and can, for example, be found in the settlement of 1523 between the rebellious community and the municipal council of the imperial city of Mühlhausen in Thüringen.37 In that sense, the free election of the community priest was a standard request of the Protestant movement and found its way into article one accordingly. Nonetheless, this demand linked the rebellion to the Reformations of Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli. Undoubtedly, the new Reformation thinking also influenced article two, which demanded that priests should get paid only the regular church tax (the tithe). Any eventual surpluses should then be used for the poor or to pay for war taxation. Scholars tend to emphasise the importance of article three, which demanded the formal abolition of serfdom. It should be noted that while this indeed may have been a radical idea in some parts of Southern Germany, formal serfdom was no longer in practice in Central Germany at the time and this article by itself would hardly have been a reason to join the rebellion. There was an article concerning common property that is likely to have had far more importance for most rebels. Over the previous decades, rulers had successively taken away formerly common areas like forests, pastures, arable fields or land for haymaking. The rebels sought to reverse this and to restore traditional rights. The same article also demanded a reduction in the ever-increasing duties and financial obligations imposed on socage and land tenure, and with fines. It further commanded a complete end to inheritance taxes, to lessen the burden for widows and orphans and to prevent someone taking advantage of their misfortune. All this was based on the central demand to restore the “old rights”, which had been progressively replaced by new norms. Furthermore, commissions of “honourable men” were to validate the possessions of farmers in order to establish realistic taxation and to ensure that there was enough left to make a living for peasants themselves and their families. The demand for common rights to hunt and to fish was, however, revolutionary. The argument was justified by referring to the biblical book of Genesis, where God declared that humankind may rule over all creatures, including fish, livestock and wild animals. Realistically, this demand might be the one most advanced by the rebels. Frequently, rebels hunted game and netted the fishponds of nobility and monasteries. The occasional public feast after the catch must have been perceived as a show of force by the rebellion.

37 T.T. Müller, Mörder ohne Opfer: Die Reichsstadt Mühlhausen und der Bauernkrieg in Thüringen: Studien zu Hintergründen Verlauf und Rezeption der gescheiterten Revolution von 1525 (Petersberg: Imhof, 2021).

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Almost all the Memmingen articles were linked to the Word of God. Hence, unsurprisingly, a clause was added at the end stating that any of the demands irreconcilable with the Bible should be omitted and not replaced. Soon it became obvious that the Reformers to whom the rebels referred felt gravely misunderstood. Martin Luther was one of the first to respond. He immediately wrote, in April 1525, his “Admonition to Peace Concerning the Twelve Articles of the Peasants”,38 where he makes it clear that he never intended to address social problems and criticises the biblical legitimation of the Twelve Articles from a theological point of view. He calls upon the nobility to acknowledge the peasants’ demands as far as they turned out to be justified while commanding the peasants to show unconditional obedience to their rulers.39 However, he turned against the peasants when he heard of the first battles, adding a section to the third edition of the “Admonition to Peace”, which soon became a separate publication under the title: “Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants”.40 Here, Martin Luther drastically condemns them, as his wording indicates: “Whoever is able should strangle or stab the insurgents! No-one is more venomous, harmful, devilish than an insurgent! He shall be slain like a mad dog!”41 The Reformer even venerates those who counteract the insurgents, promising that “anyone who is killed fighting on the side of the rulers may be a true martyr in the eyes of God”, while demonising the rebellious peasants and their allies and prophesying eternal damnation for them.42

38 WA 18, 291–334. 39 M. Basse, “Freiheit und Recht in biblischer Perspektive: Luthers Stellungnahme zu den Zwölf Artikeln der Schwäbischen Bauern”, in Hasselhoff/von Mayenburg (ed.), Die Zwölf Artikel, 163–77. 40 WA 18, 357–61. 41 “Drumb sol hie zuschmeyssen, wurgen und stechen heymlich odder offentlich, wer da kan, und gedencken, das nicht gifftigers, schedlichers, teuffelischers seyn kan, denn eyn auffrurischer mensch, gleich als wenn man eynen tollen hund todschlahen mus, schlegstu nicht, so schlegt er dich und eyn gantz land mit dyr”; WA 18, 358. 42 “Also kans denn geschehen, das, wer auff der oberkeyt seyten erschlagen wird, eyn rechter merterer fur Gott sey, so er mit solchem gewissen streyt, wie gesagt ist. Denn er geht ynn Göttlichem wort und gehorsam. Widderumb was auff der bawren seytten umbkompt, eyn ewiger hellebrand ist. Denn er fůret das schwerd widder Gotts wort und gehorsam und ist eyn teuffels glied”; WA 18, 360.

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4.

Double Remembrance: The Reception of the Peasants’ War in Divided Germany (1945–90)

Luther and his supporters continued to agitate against the rebels long after the end to the uprising.43 It is not too daring to say that orchestrated propaganda against deviators from the strict Lutheran teaching eventually lashed out with unprecedented ferocity against the radical Reformer Thomas Müntzer and made him synonymous with the insurgents of the entire German Peasants’ War. This enforced Müntzer’s image as Luther’s negative opposite: an image which proved to be as inflexible as the foundations of the Wartburg and remained unchallenged for more than 400 years.44 For centuries, official German chronicles referred to the insurgents of 1525 solely as “barbaric gangs”. Martin Luther himself claimed that only the devil’s work could have driven them forward, personified by Thomas Müntzer, “the archdevil, who ruled in Mühlhausen, and who had nothing but robbery, murder and bloodshed in his mind”.45 Despite the lack of any evidence, Luther went as far as to accuse Müntzer of having instigated the entire German Peasants’ War. A reception of the German Peasants’ War that made more precise distinctions did not emerge before the nineteenth century. Wilhelm Zimmermann published his history of the Great Peasants’ War in several parts during the years 1841–3.46 His thorough analysis, based on a sound knowledge of historical sources, attracted considerable attention. The findings of the theologian and later delegate to the first German National Assembly in 1848–9 seemed so radical at the time that his works were banned in some parts of Germany.47 Friedrich Engels,48 later August Bebel49 and many more thinkers of the Marxist, communist and social-democratic

43 Thomas Kaufmann confirmed this in recent research. See T. Kaufmann, Der Anfang der Reformation: Studien zur Kontextualität der Theologie, Publizistik und Inszenierung Luthers und der reformatorischen Bewegung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 23. 44 T.T. Müller, “Reformator, Erzteufel oder Protokommunist?: Thomas Müntzer und Mühlhausen”, in U. Weiß/J. Vötsch (ed.), Historische Korrespondenzen: Festschrift für Dieter Stievermann zum 65. Geburtstag von Freunden Kollegen und Schülern (Hamburg: Kovač, 2013) 115–40. 45 WA 18, 357. 46 W. Zimmermann, Allgemeine Geschichte des großen Bauernkrieges: nach handschriftlichen und gedruckten Quellen (Stuttgart: F.H. Köhler, 1841–3). 47 R. Müller/A. Schindling (ed.), Bauernkrieg und Revolution: Wilhelm Zimmermann, ein Radikaler aus Stuttgart (Stuttgart: Hohenheim, 2008); W. Greiling, “Vorbild oder Schreckgespenst?: Zur Rezeption des Bauernkrieges in der Volksaufklärung”, in Greiling/Müller/Schirmer (ed.), Reformation und Bauernkrieg, 301–30. 48 Die Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA) (Berlin: Dietz Verlag), 1st sec., vol. 10 (1977), 367–443. 49 A. Bebel, Der deutsche Bauernkrieg mit Berücksichtigung der hauptsächlichsten sozialen Bewegungen des Mittelalters (Braunschweig: Bracke, 1876).

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movements competed for the ideological right to represent the demands raised by the peasants’ some 400 years earlier. In short, they declared retrospectively the German Peasants’ War to be a failed precursor of their own revolutionary agenda. In doing so, special attention fell naturally on the alleged theological leader of the insurgents in Central Germany, Thomas Müntzer. As a radical counterpart to Martin Luther, whose legacy was already charged with national-conservative interpretations, Müntzer offered an ideal platform to establish a leftist narrative. Even the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, showed an interest in the peasants’ alleged leader, Müntzer. On the occasion of the celebrations of his 70th birthday50 on 21 December 1949, which already bore strong traits of a Stalin cult, many international guests attended the gala at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Among them, for example, were the leader of the Italian Communist Party, Palmiro Togliatti, the founding father of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong, and the First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Walter Ulbricht. He brought an extraordinary gift from Dresden: a convolute of manuscripts from the belongings of Thomas Müntzer, including hand-written personal letters. Stalin seems to have held the gift from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in some esteem. After his death on 5 March 1953, the convolute of Müntzer was found in Stalin’s personal library. From there it made its way into what later became the National Library of Russia, where it is still archived under “Fons 218, No. 390”. It may be added that, as it was an official gift from the GDR, this has remained entirely unchallenged by international law.51 In view of the alleged role of Müntzer as the peasents’ leader, it comes as no surprise that Wilhelm Pieck, the later President of the GDR, commemorated as early as 2 September 1945, the great sacrifices of the peasants in 1525 in his speech about the East German land reform (a redistribution of expropriated land). Pieck postulated that the events of 1524–25 marked the beginning of the historical struggle of the suppressed peasants. This fictional hypothesis was picked up and became, albeit refined, the reference point of official historical research in East Germany.52

50 Stalin’s actual birthday was 18 December 1878. 51 M. Kobuch, “Der beschwerliche Weg von Thomas Müntzers Briefwechsel von Dresden nach Moskau”, in F. Beck/E. Henning (ed.), Archive und Gedächtnis: Festschrift für Botho Brachmann (Potsdam: Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, 2005) 615–22. 52 J. Scheunemann, “Der Bauernkrieg und Thomas Müntzer: Aspekte der politischen, wissenschaftlichen und populären Rezeption im Kontext der deutschen Teilung”, in Greiling/Müller/ Schirmer (ed.), Reformation und Bauernkrieg, 331–57.

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This went as far as Thomas Müntzer’s being honoured as “Peasant Leader” on paper currency in the GDR in 1975.53 The alteration of Müntzer’s memory to one of a flawless proto-Communist pioneer is reflected in roughly 350 streets named after the Reformer in East Germany, while in West Germany there are only seven. Various mining and industrial plants, dozens of schools and agrarian production sites, and even a regiment of the GDR National People’s Army also bore his name. Two municipalities, Mühlhausen (since 1975) and Stolberg (since 1989) received the addition of “Thomas Müntzer City”. In contrast, no production site or school named after Martin Luther can be found in the area of East Germany. There are several Luther streets, but they were all named before 1945.54 Only Eisleben received the title of “Luther City” in 1946 after Wittenberg received it in 1938. From 1956, a monumental motion picture, heavily imbued with Marxist propaganda, produced by the DEFA studios based on a script by Friedrich Wolf, dominated the perception of the Reformers Müntzer and Luther. In the film, a larger-than-life Müntzer and leader of “peasants and plebeians” is pitched against a Luther, not appearing on screen, but nonetheless a traitor to the common man and a collaborator with the aristocratic ruling class. The movie had a significant influence on the historical perception of the two men by a whole generation of East Germans. About two million spectators saw it in the cinemas.55 In 1975, one of the most important monuments to the German Peasants’ War, the former Franciscan monastery church in Mühlhausen, also became an important place for worshipping Müntzer and his comrades. The foundation of the new German Peasants’ War central memorial provided the institutional platform for it.56 Later, the integration of Müntzer’s St Marien Church into the larger ensemble of the memorial, created to promote the official interpretation of Müntzer’s deeds, added another place of remembrance, although at first more in name than in matter. It lacked appropriate exhibits for many years.57

53 A. Fleischauer, “Die Enkel fechten’s besser aus”: Thomas Müntzer und die Frühbürgerliche RevolutionGeschichtspolitik und Erinnerungskultur in der DDR (Münster: Aschendorff, 2010). 54 J. Sänger, “Geduldet und geehrt: Martin Luther und Thomas Müntzer in Straßen- und Ehrennamen der DDR”, in J. Scheunemann (ed.), Bauernkrieg und Reformation: Erinnerungskultur und Geschichtspolitik im geteilten Deutschland (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2010) 87–100. 55 M. Grisko, Thomas Müntzer in Film und Fernsehen (Mühlhausen: TMG, 2012). On the typical depiction of Müntzer, see also F. Staemmler, “Die künstlerische Rezeption des deutschen Bauernkrieges in der DDR am Beispiel der Müntzer-Gemälde von Wilhelm Otto Pitthan (1896-1967)”, in Greiling/ Müller/Schirmer (ed.), Reformation und Bauernkrieg, 359–676. 56 A. Fleischauer, “Die Einrichtung der Zentralen Gedenkstätte Deutscher Bauernkrieg in der Mühlhäuser Kornmarktkirche 1975”, in Scheunemann (ed.), Bauernkrieg und Reformation, 231–40. 57 T.T. Müller/A. Schwarze, “Kirchenumnutzung in der DDR: Die Übergabe der Mühlhäuser Marienkirche an die Zentrale Gedenkstätte Deutscher Bauernkrieg im Jahr 1975”, in H. Kühne et al.

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At the time that the planning for the central memorial in Mühlhausen began, there were suggestions for a large panoramic painting to remind people of the Battle of Bad Frankenhausen in May 1525 through art. After drawn-out discussions and several drafts, going as far as dedicating the entire museum to the “revolutionary struggle of the oppressed” and even including Spartacus’s slave rebellion, the GDR minister for culture, Hans-Joachim Hoffmann, personally sanctioned the concept of the historic commission of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin. The concept advised focusing on the Early Bourgeois Revolution58 and “urgently” treating the Reformation as an integral element in it. On 28 April 1975, the ministry commissioned the historians Siegfried Hoyer and Manfred Bensing, and the director of the Leipzig Academy of Fine Arts, Werner Tübke, for the artistic implementation.59 Tübke did not necessarily prove to be the herald of state-led indoctrination that his employers hoped he would be.60 In 1984 he declared: “For me, art is in no way a vessel for ideas, etc. I make art for the sake of art, which then in turn has an impact on society”.61 There was not much time for his art in Frankenhausen to influence the society he was asked to create it for: after one-and-a-half decades, the memorial was eventually opened in September 1989. West Germany had its own share of remembering the uprisings of 1524 and 1525. Even in the 1960s, the predominant opinion, not limited to Protestant circles, was the old Lutheran legacy of dismissing the rebellious peasants and above all Thomas Müntzer. Even a reputable West German scholar, like the church historian Karl Kupisch from Berlin, declared that it was over simplistic to reduce the popularity of Müntzer as a “champion of the poor and wretched” in “parts of our divided fatherland” to Communist propaganda, merely adding “that the peasants’ cause was spiritually unholy and politically in any case futile. Müntzer with all his talent was still unstable and no-one who did not want utter chaos could even contemplate

58

59

60

61

(ed.), Thomas Müntzer - Zeitgenossen - Nachwelt: Siegfried Bräuer zum 80. Geburtstag (Mühlhausen: TMG, 2010) 261–90. M. Steinmetz, “Reformation und Bauernkrieg: Die frühbürgerliche Revolution in Deutschland”, in M. Steinmetz (ed.), Die frühbürgerliche Revolution in Deutschland (Berlin: Akademie-Verl., 1985) 9–31. G. Lindner, “Der entwendete Auftrag: Zur Entstehungsgeschichte und Konzeption des Panoramas zu Bad Frankenhausen”, in Deutsche Erinnerungslandschaften: Rudelsburg-Saaleck/Kyffhäuser. Protokollband der wissenschaftlichen Tagungen 14.–16. Juni 2002 in Bad Kösen und 13.–15. Juni 2003 in Bad Frankenhausen (Halle: Stekovics, 2004) 195–209. U. Eydinger, “Motive historischer Flugblätter und Druckgrafiken im Bauernkriegspanorama von Werner Tübke: Zur Genese des Kunstwerkes”, in Kühne et al. (ed.), Thomas Müntzer - Zeitgenossen Nachwelt, 377–96. W. Tübke, “Wir wollen doch auch nicht, dass unsere mühevolle Arbeit flugs Vergangenheit wird”, Bildende Kunst 9 (1984) 428–9.

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entrusting him with the fate of Germany”. What is more, Kupisch also did not fail to defend Luther in the same breath “who was anything but a coward or collaborator”.62 This attitude changed in the 1970s after a famous speech by President Gustav Heinemann on 13 Feb 1970. As one of the leading politicians in West Germany, he saw a connection between the Peasants’ War and a tradition of liberal-democratic thinking: Traditions do not belong solely to the legacy of reactionaries, although they are usually the loudest to talk about them. … A democratic society, I think, does not do itself justice if it still disregards rebelling peasants as nothing but mutinous bands, which were brought down and silenced quickly by the authorities. This is how victors wrote history … It is time that a liberal-democratic Germany rewrites its history in its history textbooks.63

It is difficult to judge whether Heinemann intended to spar with popular demands on the part of the political movement of 1968 or whether he wanted to point out alternatives to the East German dogmatic view on 1524 and 1525. Be that as it may, his speech in the city of Bremen, entitled “Historical Awareness and Tradition in Germany” was an important contribution to the fact that the Peasants’ War, as Reinhard Jensch puts it, “lost the odour of subversive”64 in society’s thought in West Germany. In 1972 – two years after the president’s speech – the state government in Bavaria erected a memorial stone in the Allgäu to remind people of the victims of the Peasants’ War. District officials emphasised that the memorial was a testament to “the persistence of democratic movements across the centuries” and reinforced “the ‘heimatliche’ self-confidence of the peasant class altogether”.65 Nevertheless, in as early as 1895 the regional historian Franz Ludwig Baumann had already compared the impact of the peasants’ Twelve Articles to that of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in France, some three centuries later.66

62 K. Kupisch, “Thomas Müntzer und die deutsche Geschichte”, Luther: Mitteilungen der Luthergesellschaft 26 (1955) 146–51, on p. 147. 63 G.W. Heinemann, “Geschichtsbewusstsein und Tradition in Deutschland: Ansprache bei der Schaffermahlzeit im Bremer Rathaus am 13. Februar 1970”, in G.W. Heinemann, Allen Bürgern verpflichtet: Reden des Bundespräsidenten 1969–1974 (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1975), 30–5, on p. 34–5. 64 R. Jonscher, “Bauernkrieg und Bauernkriegserinnerung in Thüringen”, Deutsche Erinnerungslandschaften, 171–94, on p. 190. 65 R. Kiessling, “Treue zum Fürsten - Kampf um die Freiheit: Der Bauernkrieg als ‘Erinnerungsort’ in Altbayern und Schwaben”, in W. Hasberg (ed.), Erinnern - Gedenken - Historisches Lernen: Symposium zum 65. Geburtstag von Karl Filser (Munich: Vögel, 2003) 79–106, on p. 99. 66 F.L. Baumann (ed.) Akten zur Geschichte des deutschen Bauernkrieges aus Oberschwaben (Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 1877), iii.

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Beyond political and academic discussions, the collective memory seemed to focus for centuries on the spirit of resistance, especially in areas of Southwest Germany affected by the Peasants’ War. This translated in various ways into presentday life. When in late 1970, for example, the company Daimler Benz announced plans to construct an extensive test track in Swabia, the local opposition to the project formed a Bundschuh alliance, quite literally under a banner depicting the Bundschuh together with a plough. The historical reference became even more obvious when this Bundschuh of Schwabhausen issued its own Twelve Articles of Schwabhausen. Unlike the real Bundschuh conspiracy over 450 years earlier, the political alliance, consisting of youth organisations, agrarians and environmentalists, confined itself to legal means and emerged victorious. In 1987, the constitutional court in Karlsruhe ruled in their favour.67 During that time, civic commitment in many places, including in West Germany, led to smaller and larger museums commemorating the uprising.68 Since Germany’s reunification in 1990, public discussion tends to categorise the Peasants’ War as an uprising for human rights and democracy, bearing Protestant Christian values. Accordingly, in a speech held on 10 March 2000, in Memmingen, the German federal president, Johannes Rau, concluded: “The Twelve Articles are in their core an expression of the universality of human rights. With this conviction, they were centuries ahead of their time!” The first article of the German constitution as formulated after World War II, “The dignity of humanity is inviolable”, remains a distant echo of the peasants’ articles of 1525, according to President Rau.

5.

Conclusion and Scholarly Desiderata

The German Peasants’ War was the first uprising in Europe in whose spread the media revolution, generated by the movable printing press, played a decisive role.69 As the uprisings spread, so did the confusion amongst the ruling elite. It further added to the confusion that the confession of the respective nobility – whether

67 T.T. Müller, “Zwanzig Jahre doppelte Vergangenheit: Zur Rezeption von Reformation und Bauernkrieg im geteilten Deutschland (1970–1990)”, in T.T. Müller/R. Luhn/J. Winter (ed.), Sichtungen & Einblicke: Zur künstlerischen Rezeption von Reformation und Bauernkrieg im geteilten Deutschland (Mühlhäuser Museen - Forschungen und Studien 3; Petersberg: Imhof, 2011) 13–28. 68 T.T. Müller, “Zwischen Staatsdoktrin und Bürgerwillen: Die Gründung der Bauernkriegsmuseen in Deutschland”, in Scheunemann (ed.), Bauernkrieg und Reformation, 215–29. 69 A. Würgler, “Medien in Revolten - Revolten in Medien: Zur Medialität frühneuzeitlicher Bauernrevolten und Bauernkriege”, in P. Rauscher/M. Scheutz (ed.), Die Stimme der ewigen Verlierer: Aufstände, Revolten und Revolutionen in den österreichischen Ländern (ca. 1450-1815) (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2013) 273–96.

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Protestant or old faith – remained largely irrelevant. In the eyes of the insurgents, it hardly mattered whether their rulers leaned towards Rome or Wittenberg in religious matters. Everything seemed to be in a turmoil. Some even took this as a foreboding of the seemingly immanent Day of Judgement. The insurgents looted monasteries, castles and palaces. Cities surrendered, when they did not voluntarily join the uprising. The ruling elite withdrew to a few well-fortified castles, re-grouped and waited to eventually launch a bloody counterattack. Meanwhile, the insurgents benefitted from the vacuum of power, particularly as far as the notoriously disliked monasteries were concerned. The pattern of events was almost identical everywhere: the insurgents broke through the gates and doors of the monasteries, which had usually already been abandoned by monks and nuns, and looted the food stores. A particular interest was shown for wine and beer. Attacks on minor castles and manors followed suit, on principle, but often ended with razing the fortifications to the ground by fire. With this, the insurgents hoped to hamper the nobles’ potential military attempts at revenge. Despite these locally recurrent patterns, the German Peasants’ War was far from being a homogeneous, centrally controlled revolution. The revolts, terminologically subsumed under Peasants’ War, were a culmination of insurgencies and uprisings prompted by a wide range of interests of a largely heterogeneous group of actors having quite distinct objectives. It is important to bear this in mind, particularly in perspective of the approaching 500th anniversary of the German Peasants’ War in 2025. It will be necessary to revisit some of the most deeply instilled legends about the closely related history of the Reformation and the Peasants’ War70 and to check them against historical accounts and evidence. This also means distinguishing fictional and hasty conclusions from those findings thoroughly grounded in credible records and other historical sources. Even seemingly well-known assumptions should be reconsidered. For a sound understanding of the uprising, research should also focus on the various motivations of individual insurgents as well as on frequent patterns of behaviour, actions and objectives. Equally as important as the motivation of the “common man” to take up arms is that of the cities to join or to oppose him. Moreover, the nobles offer their own array of interests and differing roles. More important is the question about the rural communities and their role in the uprisings. There were individual villages in insurgents’ territory which were not willing to join the rebellion. What happened to them and what was the reason

70 Overally: R. Kiessling, “Der Bauernkrieg”, in E. François/H. Schulze (ed.), Deutsche Erinnerungsorte (3 vol.; München: Beck, 2009), vol. 2, 137–53. Scheunemann (ed.), Bauernkrieg und Reformation.

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for their refusal? Why did most of the regions in Germany remain completely untouched by the events? A survey of repetitive patterns and annual priorities (including local and religious festivities) offers an important perspective, too. Notably, none of the abovementioned uprisings happened truly spontaneously. Before erupting in public, they were all preceded by planning. Yet even for such planning there is a time window in the agrarian calendar. It was no coincidence that the first Bundschuh uprising began in 1502 at the end of April and the beginning of May. This was one of the few times in a year when the peasants could leave their farms and houses at least for a few days without neglecting the sowing or harvesting of their crops. This window opened again only in autumn after harvesting. These times remained valid for many years. Almost all the uprisings that are mentioned broke out either in April/May or in autumn. Already in 1502, careful preparation was essential in order to prepare for rebellion. The induction of new members followed ritualised, late-medieval patterns: the core element was naturally an oath, confirmed initially (until the Reformation) by repeating five times “Our Father” and “Hail Mary” on bended knee,71 and later calling on the Word of God. Generally speaking, the rebels hoped, at least from 1524, for the support of the new theological teachers in Wittenberg. However, this hope was eventually utterly dashed with Luther’s Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants of May 1525. Furthermore, Wittenberg issued a series of partly tendentious, emotionally highly charged publications, which would influence public discourse well into the twentieth century, albeit without consistently overcoming the prejudice of their point of departure. Later, political-ideological beliefs added their own contribution to clouding, if not completely obstructing, the view of the events during the uprising. On occasion, ideological wishful thinking led willingly, or unwillingly, to overinterpretation or misinterpretation. There is clear historical evidence that Thomas Müntzer never challenged the principle division of society into the three Estates, not to mention never promoting a Communist society or the redistribution of wealth. His alleged quote “omnia sunt communia” (“everything shall be held in common”), reportedly made under torture, stands quite isolated from all his writings and letters, but has nevertheless been taken as proof of Müntzer’s proto-Communist views for more than one and a half centuries.72 Until today, there has been political or real profit

71 Adam, Joß Fritz, 91. 72 As early as December 1987, Adolf Laube pointed out to the GDR Academy of Sciences that this is an overinterpretation. See A. Laube, “Probleme des Müntzerbildes”, in H. Stiller (ed.), Prob-

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in misinterpreting Thomas Müntzer as can be seen in the popular contemporary novel by Éric Vuillard.73 Bearing this in mind, it is necessary to review both the narrative stories and the research behind them in order to discover the basis of their evidence as well as their potential ideological motivation. An understanding of the respective contexts and objectives would then permit a more accurate reassessment of the German Peasants’ War. For example, historians have hitherto paid very little attention to the fact that there is as yet no piece of sound evidence that the insurgents, so darkly described by Luther as sinister murderers under the leadership of the “archdevil” Müntzer, killed a single person before they were eventually destroyed at the Battle of Bad Frankenhausen. This phenomenon was by no means limited to Thuringia. In the Peasants’ War in the Palatinate, too, there seem to have been no casualties of clergy or nobility until the final battle at Pfeddersheim. Hence, from a scientific point of view, it is absolutely worthwhile to take a closer look at the actual evidence wherever gruesome stories about what the rebels did are reported. In short, the history of the German Peasants’ War continues to fascinate us with historically unsolved questions and the possibilities for new perspectives.

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leme des Müntzerbildes (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2018) 5–2;. F. Stengel, “Omnia sunt communia: Gütergemeinschaft bei Thomas Müntzer?”, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 102 (2011) 113–74. 73 É. Vuillard, La Guerre de pauvres (Arles: Actes Sud, 2019); German translation by Nicola Denis: É. Vuillard, Der Krieg der Armen (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz Berlin, 2020).

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Greiling, W., “Vorbild oder Schreckgespenst?: Zur Rezeption des Bauernkrieges in der Volksaufklärung”, in W. Greiling/T.T. Müller/U. Schirmer (ed.), Reformation und Bauernkrieg (Vienna/Cologne/Weimar: Böhlau, 2019) 301–30. Grisko, M., Thomas Müntzer in Film und Fernsehen (Mühlhausen: TMG, 2012). Haggenmüller, M., “Der Allgäuer Haufen”, in E.L. Kuhn/P. Blickle (ed.), Der Bauernkrieg in Oberschwaben (Tübingen: Bibliotheca Academica, 2000) 37–66. Hasselhoff, G.K./von Mayenburg, D. (ed.) Die Zwölf Artikel von 1525 und das „Göttliche Recht“ der Bauern - rechtshistorische und theologische Dimensionen (Würzburg: Ergon, 2012). Heidenreich, B., Ein Ereignis ohne Namen?: Zu den Vorstellungen des ‚Bauernkriegs‘ von 1525 in den Schriften der ‚Aufständischen‘ und in der zeitgenössischen Geschichtsschreibung (Berlin/Munich/Boston: De Gruyter, 2018). Heinemann, G.W., “Geschichtsbewusstsein und Tradition in Deutschland: Ansprache bei der Schaffermahlzeit im Bremer Rathaus am 13. Februar 1970”, in G.W. Heinemann, Allen Bürgern verpflichtet: Reden des Bundespräsidenten 1969–1974 (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1975) 30–5. Hoyer, S., “Die ‘Schlacht’ bei Frankenhausen”, in G. Vogler (ed.), Bauernkrieg zwischen Harz und Thüringer Wald (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2008) 211–24. Jonscher, R., “Bauernkrieg und Bauernkriegserinnerung in Thüringen”, in Deutsche Erinnerungslandschaften: Rudelsburg-Saaleck/Kyffhäuser. Protokollband der wissenschaftlichen Tagungen 14.–16. Juni 2002 in Bad Kösen und 13.–15. Juni 2003 in Bad Frankenhausen (Halle: Stekovics, 2004) 171–94. Kaufmann, T., Der Anfang der Reformation: Studien zur Kontextualität der Theologie, Publizistik und Inszenierung Luthers und der reformatorischen Bewegung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebck, 2012). Kiessling, R., “Treue zum Fürsten - Kampf um die Freiheit: Der Bauernkrieg als ‘Erinnerungsort’ in Altbayern und Schwaben”, in W. Hasberg (ed.), Erinnern - Gedenken - Historisches Lernen: Symposium zum 65. Geburtstag von Karl Filser (Munich: Vögel, 2003) 79–106. Kiessling, R., “Der Bauernkrieg”, in E. François/H. Schulze (ed.), Deutsche Erinnerungsorte (3 vol.; Munich: Beck, 2009), vol. 2, 137–53. Klaassen, W., Michael Gaismair: Revolutionary and Reformer (Leiden: Brill, 1978). Kobuch, M., “Der beschwerliche Weg von Thomas Müntzers Briefwechsel von Dresden nach Moskau”, in F. Beck/E. Henning (ed.), Archive und Gedächtnis: Festschrift für Botho Brachmann (Potsdam: Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, 2005) 615–22. Köhler, C., “‘Armer Konrad’ und Bauernkrieg: Darstellung und Wahrnehmung der Aufständischen im Quellenvergleich”, Zeitschrift für Württembergische Landesgeschichte 78 (2019) 143–65. Kuhn, E.L., “Der Seehaufen”, in E.L. Kuhn/P. Blickle (ed.), Der Bauernkrieg in Oberschwaben (Tübingen: Bibliotheca Academica, 2000) 97–140. Kupisch, K., “Thomas Müntzer und die deutsche Geschichte”, Luther: Mitteilungen der Luthergesellschaft 26 (1955) 146–51.

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Laube, A., “Probleme des Müntzerbildes”, in H. Stiller (ed.), Probleme des Müntzerbildes (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2018) 5–27. Lindner, G., “Der entwendete Auftrag: Zur Entstehungsgeschichte und Konzeption des Panoramas zu Bad Frankenhausen”, in Deutsche Erinnerungslandschaften: RudelsburgSaaleck/Kyffhäuser. Protokollband der wissenschaftlichen Tagungen 14.–16. Juni 2002 in Bad Kösen und 13.–15. Juni 2003 in Bad Frankenhausen (Halle: Stekovics, 2004) 195–209. Mandry, J., “Die Reflexionen der thüringischen, sächsischen und hessischen Fürsten über die Aufständischen im Bauernkrieg”, in W. Greiling/T.T. Müller/U. Schirmer (ed.), Reformation und Bauernkrieg (Vienna/Cologne/Weimar: Böhlau, 2019) 149–71. Marquardt, F.D., “God Christ and Serfdom: Christian Egalitarianism in the Twelve Articles of the Upper Swabian Peasants (1525)”, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte/Archive for Reformation History 107 (2016) 35–60. Miller, D., Frankenhausen 1525 (Seaton Burn: Blagdon Publications, 2017). Miller, D., The Army of the Swabian League 1525 (Warwick: Helion & Company, 2019). Müller, R./Schindling, A. (ed.), Bauernkrieg und Revolution: Wilhelm Zimmermann, ein Radikaler aus Stuttgart (Stuttgart: Hohenheim, 2008). Müller, T.T., Bauernkrieg nach dem Bauernkrieg: Die Verwüstung der Mühlhäuser Dörfer Dörna, Hollenbach und Lengefeld durch Eichsfelder Adel und Klerus (Duderstadt: Mecke, 2001). Müller, T.T., “Zwischen Staatsdoktrin und Bürgerwillen: Die Gründung der Bauernkriegsmuseen in Deutschland”, in J. Scheunemann (ed.), Bauernkrieg und Reformation: Erinnerungskultur und Geschichtspolitik im geteilten Deutschland (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2010) 215–29. Müller, T.T./Schwarze, A., “Kirchenumnutzung in der DDR: Die Übergabe der Mühlhäuser Marienkirche an die Zentrale Gedenkstätte Deutscher Bauernkrieg im Jahr 1975”, in H. Kühne et al. (ed.), Thomas Müntzer - Zeitgenossen - Nachwelt: Siegfried Bräuer zum 80. Geburtstag (Mühlhausen: TMG, 2010) 261–90. Müller, T.T., “Zwanzig Jahre doppelte Vergangenheit: Zur Rezeption von Reformation und Bauernkrieg im geteilten Deutschland (1970–1990)”, in T.T. Müller/R. Luhn/J. Winter (ed.), Sichtungen & Einblicke: Zur künstlerischen Rezeption von Reformation und Bauernkrieg im geteilten Deutschland (Petersberg: Imhof, 2011) 13–28. Müller, T.T., “Reformator, Erzteufel oder Protokommunist?: Thomas Müntzer und Mühlhausen”, in U. Weiß/J. Vötsch (ed.), Historische Korrespondenzen: Festschrift für Dieter Stievermann zum 65. Geburtstag von Freunden Kollegen und Schülern (Hamburg: Kovač, 2013) 115–40. Müller, T.T., Thomas Müntzer im Bauernkrieg: Fakten - Fiktionen - Desiderate (Mühlhausen: Thomas-Müntzer-Gesellschaft e.V, 2016). Müller, T.T., “Bauernkrieg in Thüringen: Eine kurze rezeptionsgeschichtliche Einführung”, in W. Greiling/T.T. Müller/U. Schirmer (ed.), Reformation und Bauernkrieg (Vienna/ Cologne/Weimar: Böhlau, 2019) 9–17.

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Müller, T.T., Mörder ohne Opfer: Die Reichsstadt Mühlhausen und der Bauernkrieg in Thüringen: Studien zu Hintergründen Verlauf und Rezeption der gescheiterten Revolution von 1525 (Petersberg: Imhof, 2020). Myconius, F., Geschichte der Reformation (Leipzig: Voigtländer, 1914). Oka, H., Der Bauernkrieg in der Landgrafschaft Stühlingen und seine Vorgeschichte seit der Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts (Konstanz: Hartung-Gorre, 1998). Rückert, P. (ed.), Der „Arme Konrad“ vor Gericht: Verhöre, Sprüche und Lieder in Württemberg 1514 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2014). Rudolf, H.-U., “Ende und Ausgang: Der Weingartener Vertrag und die Folgen”, in E.L. Kuhn/ P. Blickle (ed.), Der Bauernkrieg in Oberschwaben (Tübingen: Bibliotheca Academica, 2000) 199–232. Sänger, J., “Geduldet und geehrt: Martin Luther und Thomas Müntzer in Straßen- und Ehrennamen der DDR”, in J. Scheunemann (ed.), Bauernkrieg und Reformation: Erinnerungskultur und Geschichtspolitik im geteilten Deutschland (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2010) 87–100. Scheunemann J. (ed.), Bauernkrieg und Reformation: Erinnerungskultur und Geschichtspolitik im geteilten Deutschland (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2010). Scheunemann, J., “Der Bauernkrieg und Thomas Müntzer: Aspekte der politischen, wissenschaftlichen und populären Rezeption im Kontext der deutschen Teilung”, in W. Greiling/T.T. Müller/U. Schirmer (ed.), Reformation und Bauernkrieg (Vienna/Cologne/ Weimar: Böhlau, 2019) 331–57. Schirmer, U., “Reformation und Bauernkrieg in Thüringen (1520–1525): Anmerkungen zur schrittweisen Entfachung des gewaltsamen Protestes”, in W. Greiling/A. Krünes/ U. Schirmer (ed.), Thüringen im Jahrhundert der Reformation: Bilanz eines Projektes: Perspektiven der Forschung (Jena: Vopelius, 2019) 85–116. Schirmer, U., “Die Ursachen des Bauernkrieges in Thüringen: Eine sozial-, verfassungs- und reformationsgeschichtliche Spurensuche”, in W. Greiling/T.T. Müller/U. Schirmer (ed.), Reformation und Bauernkrieg (Vienna/Cologne/Weimar: Böhlau, 2019) 21–70. Schloms, A., “Nach dem Ende Thomas Müntzers: Abrechnung (mit) einer Stadt”, in W. Greiling/T.T. Müller/U. Schirmer (ed.), Reformation und Bauernkrieg (Vienna/Cologne/ Weimar: Böhlau, 2019) 259–74. Schmauder, A., Württemberg im Aufstand - der Arme Konrad 1514: Ein Beitrag zum bäuerlichen und städtischen Widerstand im Alten Reich und zum Territorialisierungsprozeß im Herzogtum Württemberg an der Wende zur Frühen Neuzeit (Leinfelden-Echterdingen: DRW, 1998). Schmauder, A., “Gaispeter und der Aufstand des Armen Konrad in Beutelsbach im Jahre 1514”, in B. Breyvogel (ed.), Festschrift 925 Jahre Beutelsbach (Remshalden: Greiner, 2006) 77–109. Staemmler, F., “Die künstlerische Rezeption des deutschen Bauernkrieges in der DDR am Beispiel der Müntzer-Gemälde von Wilhelm Otto Pitthan (1896–1967)”, in W. Greiling/

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T.T. Müller/U. Schirmer (ed.), Reformation und Bauernkrieg (Vienna/Cologne/Weimar: Böhlau, 2019) 359–676. Stella, A., Il “Bauernführer” Michael Gaismair e l’utopia di un repubblicanesimo populare (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1999). Steinmetz, M., “Reformation und Bauernkrieg: Die frühbürgerliche Revolution in Deutschland”, in M. Steinmetz (ed.), Die frühbürgerliche Revolution in Deutschland (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1985) 9–31. Stengel, F., “Omnia sunt communia: Gütergemeinschaft bei Thomas Müntzer?”, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 102 (2011) 113–74. Struck, W.-H., Der Bauernkrieg am Mittelrhein und in Hessen: Darstellung und Quellen (Wiesbaden: Selbstverlag der Historischen Kommission fur Nassau, 1975). Tübke, W., “Wir wollen doch auch nicht, dass unsere mühevolle Arbeit flugs Vergangenheit wird”, Bildende Kunst 9 (1984) 428–9. Vogler, G., (ed.), Bauernkrieg zwischen Harz und Thüringer Wald (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2008) Vogler, G., Müntzerbild und Müntzerforschung vom 16. bis zum 21. Jahrhundert (2 vol.; Berlin: Weidler Buchverlag, 2019–21), vol. 1 (2019). von Mayenburg, D., Gemeiner Mann und Gemeines Recht: Die Zwölf Artikel und das Recht des ländlichen Raums im Zeitalter des Bauernkriegs (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 2018). Vuillard, É., La Guerre de pauvres (Arles: Actes Sud, 2019). Vuillard, É., Der Krieg der Armen (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz Berlin, 2020). Wattenberg, D., Der Regenbogen von Frankenhausen am 15. Mai 1525 in Lichte anderer Himmelserscheinungen (Berlin-Treptow: Archenhold-Sternwarte, 1965). Würgler, A., “Medien in Revolten - Revolten in Medien: Zur Medialität frühneuzeitlicher Bauernrevolten und Bauernkriege”, in P. Rauscher/M. Scheutz (ed.), Die Stimme der ewigen Verlierer: Aufstände, Revolten und Revolutionen in den österreichischen Ländern (ca. 1450-1815) (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2013) 273–96c.

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Women and War The Swiss Connection

1.

In the Beginning There Was a Legend

One of the first Christians in Turicum was a woman; she was a member of the small group of refugees that fled from Valais to Zurich in order to avoid execution.1 Legend has it, that in 287 AD Felix and Regula, together with their servant Exuperantius, members of the Theban Legion under St Maurice stationed in Valais, escaped the army and hid in Zurich on the banks of the Limmat River. The brother and sister had left the legion just as the army with its entourage were to be executed for refusing to sacrifice to the Emperor of Rome. Christian hagiographical renderings claim the trio preached the Gospel until soldiers discovered them. Once the guards realised the Christians were speaking about Christ, not the Roman gods, the three foreigners were beheaded. Then a miracle happened: the beheaded refugees picked up their heads and carried them up the hill to where they were to be buried. The symbolic value of their resistance to the gods and the power of the Gospel set reform in motion. The tale continues with the story that in 810 AD the horse of the Holy Roman Christian Emperor Charlemagne bowed down on the spot marking the graves of Felix and Regula. Afterwards, Charlemagne ordered the great cathedral, Grossmünster, be built there, which became the centre of Zurich. The church was for a long time home to the bones and relics of Felix and Regula; their emptied crypts in the Krypta below Grossmünster mark the spot to this day. One might argue that war, violence, martyrdom, and the Reformation have always been at the heart of Zurich, where first Huldrych Zwingli, then Heinrich Bullinger, then their followers preached at the place where two men and a female preacher had been buried long before.

2.

Women and War in Swiss History

Women participated in the wars in Swiss Christian history from its inception. Just as with the Turicum refugees Felix and Regula, reflections on women and war in the

1 K.W. Glaettli, Zürcher Sagen (Zurich: Rohr, 2 1970), 10.

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sixteenth century are located somewhere between history and legend. Wars, conflict, and violence impacted the lives of everyone in the Swiss Confederacy; women not only suffered, but also served as agents, co-workers, proponents, and opponents of politics, religious ideals, social change, persecution and other demands for reform. Today’s Switzerland has a certain mystique surrounding its status as a neutral state, which may be one reason why its wars are frequently overlooked minor topics. The scant presence of women in the rich histories of the Swiss Reformation is also a phenomenon that continued throughout modernity in the Swiss social and political attitudes towards women.2 Even if they are difficult to locate, women, war, and the violence done to and by women are critical to an inclusive, gendered, historical narrative of the Swiss sixteenth-century. Moreover, as social history grows increasingly central to the history of people of every gender and ethnic background, the subject of Swiss women and war in the Reformation is timely. While the Swiss Reformers’ thoughts and agency in the European Reformation(s) are still subject to ongoing theoretical analyses, the Reformers’ relationships, correspondences and interactions also belong to the larger story of the social history of the Reformation, which naturally includes women’s roles and agency. Inclusive history has come of age. While defining and seeking women who lived in the Swiss context to speak from history means approaching a world mostly left to our imaginations, the direction is promising. Scholars of historical theology like Bruce Gordon brought Swiss women to the Anglophone world with trailblazing volumes such as The Swiss Reformation in which chapters on women are included to shape the big picture. Gordon sketched an overview of some aspects of the violence affecting women in the Swiss Reformation, including marital strife, the perils of childbirth, persecution for religious beliefs, plague, iconoclasm and witch-hunts.3 Many others wrote biographies of key female figures; however, many of them are hagiography and conjecture. Thus, the intersections where Swiss men and women of the Reformation meet are possibly the best place to find data for both topical and biographical in-depth studies. The topic of women and war in the sixteenth century also lends itself to thematic engagement from the perspective of actual wars on the battlefields of Europe. John A. Lynn II published a pragmatic study of Europe in Women, Armies, and Warfare

2 For instance, women were excluded from the right to vote in federal elections until 1971, compared to German women’s suffrage in 1919. Truly unique in Western culture, the last canton to award women the right to vote in local elections was Appenzell Innerhoden after the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland intervened on women’s behalf in 1991. Swiss women still protest on a yearly basis for equal pay with their male counterparts doing the same work in many branches of the Swiss economy. 3 B. Gordon, The Swiss Reformation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 264–70.

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in Early Modern Europe.4 The wars in France, Germany, and Spain spring to life with the documentation of female participation from peasantry to queens at war. The contours of concrete agency and collective identities of women in the actual context of raging wars is proof that sixteenth-century women throughout Europe were at home in wars. Lynn II well illustrates how the practical non-combative tactical work of war, the cooking, prostitution, and plundering, were more often than not the work of peasantry, the lower-class women in need of place and money. While women of political power often gazed on as armies fought, most women cared for the armies. In the following, the question of Swiss women’s agency and the various theological and social roles women assumed or not in relation to war and violence in the Swiss Reformation will be examined. Examples of Swiss women and war in the Reformation follow some considerations of a compelling argument for the beautiful soul theory, explaining why women are excluded from war stories in general. An overview of the practices for writing about Swiss women in later modern history supports the beautiful soul assumptions. At its core, this essay is a compilation of some of the legends and history of certain women in the Swiss Reformation in order to stress the multidimensional lives and fluid identities of women as beautiful souls at war, who were sometimes fierce, at other times defiant, and often divergent. How these women shifted and adapted between stereotypes, prescribed roles, and unique frameworks, is partly reconstructed. The parameters of this essay do occasionally reach beyond the geographical Swiss Reformation to include women in Strasbourg and England who were influenced by the Swiss Reformers – Huldrych Zwingli, Heinrich Bullinger and John Calvin.

3.

Oh, To Be a Beautiful Soul

The violence of war is a social phenomenon that influences all people regardless of gender. Jean Bethke Elshtain’s groundbreaking work, Women and War outlines and explains one reason why women and war continue to be disassociated.5 She provides a socio-political overview of Western thought alongside the philosophy of war from a historical perspective and defines the gendered categories of how women have been perceived in relation to it. Her theory is that no matter how violent or engaged women are in war, they continue to be viewed as virtuous vessels because we want to see them as beautiful souls. Elshtain explores the politics of

4 J.A. Lynn II, Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 5 J.B. Elshtain, Women and War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).

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war discourse and repeatedly finds “a tale of arms and men”.6 The virtuous female soul remained a central motif in literature and philosophy from ancient times; consequently, women’s participation in public life and war are easily overlooked when viewed through the default lens of preconceived gender role stereotypes. The ethical sensitivity of Western culture prefers men to be just warriors and prefers its women “by virtue of the attributes of a new evangel of womanhood, to exalt purity, virtue, morality, true religion, to lift man into higher realms of thought and action”.7 Such a sensitivity restricts the history of women’s agency in men’s wars. As one may suspect, descriptions of women in general are thus preprogrammed in Western minds to default, with the notion of women as beautiful souls no matter which aspect of war is considered. Elshtain brackets off the politically shaped sociological gender associations, “we in the West are the heirs of a tradition that assumes an affinity between women and peace, between men and war, a tradition that consists of culturally constructed and transmitted myths and memories”.8 That we have inherited from history how we think about women and war is not surprising. Yet, our affinity for philosophically determined notions is. Women and War points out that it was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who gave the attribution of virtue to the female soul an idiom. In his Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel characterizes the “beautiful soul” as a being defined by a mode of consciousness which allows him or her to protect “the appearance of purity by cultivating innocence about the historical course of the world.” Although Hegel does not make the case – having other fish to fry – I was struck upon rereading him with the recognition that women in Western culture have served as collective, culturally designated “beautiful souls.” The cultivation of socially sanctioned innocence about the world’s ways is not, of course, woman’s own doing in any simple sense. But it is partly her doing in a complex sense: that is, the image is continually being reconstructed by women and reinforced by men.9

The myths and legends of history are set up to recreate and secure women’s social positions as non-combatants and men’s identity as warriors. This and the challenge of lesser eyewitness reports from women also explains why relatively little has been written on women and war in the Reformation(s) as such because the overarching beautiful soul topos is so strongly embedded and culturally designated. To place women in the historical context of the wars or violence that surrounded them and

6 7 8 9

Elshtain, Women and War, 47. Elshtain, Women and War, 6. Elshtain, Women and War, 4. Elshtain, Women and War, 4.

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then interpret their actions and words is to move beyond the cameos or silhouettes of sixteenth-century women taking a step towards the big story. In comparison to Elshtain, Gerry Milligan studied Italian Renaissance literature for how women and war are related to each other in Renaissance literature, taking philosophy, history, poetry and real life, employing some case studies, with a view to Christian models of warring women. Milligan claims in Moral Combat: Women, Gender, War in Italian Renaissance Literature that “in contrast to modern putative beliefs, women’s fame – at least by the late sixteenth-century – is linked in part to war”.10 Normative historical Swiss early modern female figures are traditionally reconstructed in the roles of wives, mothers, and models of virtue – quiet, chaste and obedient. These constructs adhere to religiously sanctioned and socially approved female behaviour and fit well into the beautiful soul category. Figures like Queen Elizabeth I of England, Marguerite of Navarre, and other nobly birthed leaders, who engaged in wars, leadership and controversy, are considered unique in history and to have acted outside gender norms.

4.

Legends and History: Soup as an Instrument of War

Chapter four of Milligan’s book traces Italian literature written on women from Plutarch to Boccaccio along philosophical lines, the types of classical and Christian models, and warring women in Italian history.11 Although there are few literary traces, the Swiss women at war in the Confederacy were indeed drawn, that is, constructed by Swiss historians between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. Men wrote history and romanticised the beautiful souls they raised from the critical factual perspective of war narratives and turned them into virtuous mothers, wives, and models for religiously sanctioned female behaviour.12 An article written by Julia Slater in 2014 entitled “Remembering Switzerland’s Forgotten Heroines” tells a number of stories about Swiss women and war.13 The bold caption for Slater’s article reads, “Women who hurl rocks and tree trunks onto unsuspecting attackers, women who make a huge din to alarm and fool the enemy,

10 G. Milligan, Moral Combat: Women, Gender, War in Italian Renaissance Literature (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018). 11 Milligan, Moral Combat, 120–51. 12 For example, see H. Merz, Christliche Frauenbilder aus der Geschichte der Kirche zur Innern Mission (2 vol., Stuttgart: Steinkopf, 1855). 13 The SWI, Swissinfo, a branch of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR) hosts a series of thematic articles on Swiss history; see J. Slater, “Remembering Switzerland’s Forgotten Heroines”, 7 March 2014, available at (accessed 14 September 2021).

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women who dress up as soldiers – Swiss women have always shown themselves ingenious and brave. Or so the legends have it”. Note the reference to legends here. As the legend goes, women held back enemy armies in Val Lumnezia, a valley in Canton Graubünden, while the townsmen were fighting on another field of battle. In 1352, when the townswomen realised enemy soldiers were coming into their village through side paths, they determined to defend the village at the Porclas (Women’s Gate). In her article, Slater consults Meret Fehlmann from the Institute of Popular Culture at the University of Zurich for expertise. Fehlmann contends that “in many stories, Swiss women appear outside of their traditional roles – it looks like they are ready to fight, but they do not really take up the fighting”.14 Fehlmann then cites an example from 1292 where women are said to have jumped into men’s heavy armour bearing lances. Thus equipped for war, they then positioned themselves on the Lindenhofmauer looking down on the city of Zurich. The attacking troops were too far away to recognise what was really happening; the enemies of Zurich thought the women were part of a vast army, so the invaders retreated, believing the city was well protected”. Fehlmann continues interpreting why the events involving Swiss women and war are missing from Swiss history proper. He suggests that historians did not want to promote women in their role as heroines because heroes like William Tell, who violently speared an apple, are more to the liking of traditional historians. In the same article, a Swiss professor of History at the University of Basel, Georg Kreis, offers another interpretation of the event on the Lindenhofmauer. He wonders if “the meta-message is perhaps, to be aware of women. They are dangerous, because they are so cunning and wily”.15 The historical reception of Swiss women and war is the polar opposite to that of men. As Elshtain suggests, men in Swiss wars are just warriors, and women will remain beautiful souls. An anecdote from Dr Johannes Dierauer’s lecture about “Die Schlacht am Stoss” (Battle on the Stoss pass in Appenzell) completes this survey of legends and what we know about Swiss women and war before the Reformation. Dierauer presented his lecture to the Jahresversammlung der Schweizerischen geschichtsforschenden Gesellschaft in Zürich, on 19 August 1873 adhering to the modernist premise of history “wie es eigentlich gewesen ist” (Leopold von Ranke).16 He shared the facts from several archival documents and Johannes von Müller’s Geschichte Schweizerischer Eidgenossenschaft written between 1786 and 1808. Dierauer argued that Müller’s history is written with inadequate criticism.

14 Slater, “Remembering Switzerland’s Forgotten Heroines”. 15 Slater, “Remembering Switzerland’s Forgotten Heroines”. 16 J. Dierauer, “Die Schlacht am Stoss: Geschichte und Sage”, Archiv für schweizerische Geschichte 19 (1874) 1–40.

Women and War

A proponent of the nineteenth-century critical method, Dierauer is a fine example of scholarship that contributed to designating women beautiful souls, rather than heroines. Dierauer tells his audience, the shortcomings (to be found to some extent also by our great eighteenth-century chronologists) are well-known, and for tens of years historical researchers have tried, without a view to the results, to win concrete foundations for the older members of the history of the fatherland through careful critique (criticism). This to reach a new, in certain areas perhaps less splendid, building, but in its totality only a more sustainable building of native history.17

Dierauer and his contemporary compatriots took liberty in the name of positivism and criticism to deconstruct chronicles they felt contained myths to construct their masculine, historical critical narrative.18 Fierce women lost out; the violence perpetrated upon them was not necessarily examined in search of the true kernel of legend, which is often historical. Women’s history became stories of legends or were erased from the meta-narrative. Proving this observation, Dierauer writes, let us return to the battleground on the Stoss to look for the leaders under whose leadership the mountain folk were victorious and single heroes (just warriors) shined forth through their bravery or for the fierce characteristics of the women of Appenzell, whose appearance in the written records seem so fortuitous. However, the critical eye discovers nothing of these phantasy figures.19

His historical critical perspective did not even permit women to attend the legendary event. In contrast to Dierauer, who delivered his lecture in 1873, the same story about the Stoss in Appenzell is easily reclaimed and told from the historical sources available of the women from Appenzell and their daughters. In June 1405, the farmers, whom the Abbot had ordered his troops to contain, were severely defeated. It was raining, and the weaponry of the army was so wet that it was useless. Then women, whose lives were also seriously threatened by the invading troops, rolled up and then threw stones onto the invading Austrians from the hills above. The women and daughters from the towns nearby were dressed as shepherds. The women and girls were unconcerned for their safety, they were angry, and they were fierce, and they were valiant heroines with no choice but violence. The women took what they

17 Dierauer, “Die Schlacht am Stoss”, 37 (English translation is the author’s). 18 Dierauer, “Die Schlacht am Stoss”, 34–5. 19 Dierauer, “Die Schlacht am Stoss”, 26–7 (English translation is the author’s).

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found around them, sticks and stones to counterattack the right wing of the enemy army to protect their Heimat. Were these women fantasy figures, legends, or just plain fierce Appenzell women trapped in a corner? I do not know, but some sources claim the women, for lack of other means, also poured soup onto their assailants. History, it seems, preferred to leave the beautiful souls behind; moreover, the fierce and violent women remained anomalies in the larger story told about men.

5.

Reformers’ Wives: Beautiful, Patient, Valiant Warriors

Women in the Zurich Reformation certainly bore the scars of wars and men’s choices. Some of them served on the battlefields. Anna Reinhart began life as a Zurich innkeeper couple’s daughter. She married Junker Johannes Meyer from Knonau without his father’s consent. Shunned by his father and being disinherited from affluence and money, Meyer was left little choice but to serve as a Swiss mercenary to support his growing family. Some sources say Meyer returned from a military campaign in ill health and died in Anna’s arms after only thirteen years of marriage on 26 November 1517; whereby, the historian and Zwingli biographer, Gottfried Locher, says that Johannes Meyer died in the wars in Lombardy in 1517. Meyer and Anna Reinhart had three children.20 Huldrych Zwingli was a military chaplain in Lombardy. At the Battle of Marignano, he was disgusted at the senseless loss of life and was convinced that the evils of war and mercenary service must end when he saw the massive and cruel casualties suffered by the Swiss mercenary soldiers.21 The so-called Reisläufer soldiers fought for the money paid to them by foreign kings, leaving starving women and children in their homeland to fend for themselves. Christiane Andersson published an article in 2018 titled “Harlots and Camp Followers: Swiss Renaissance Drawings of Young Women circa 1520” pointing out that Helvetian women joined the mercenary armies during the Middle Ages and sixteenth century.22 Andersson’s essay is based on the drawings of women by the Swiss artists Niklaus Manuel Deutsch and Urs Graf, from about 1520. The drawings and woodcuts depict prostitutes and camp followers in the wars in which Swiss mercenary soldiers participated. Zwingli’s 67 theses presented to the Zurich council in 1523 included demands to end Swiss mercenary service and the slaughter of young men to foreign powers for

20 G. Locher, Die Zwinglische Reformation im Rahmen der europäischen Kirchengeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979). 21 Locher, Die Zwinglische Reformation, 25–30. 22 C. Andersson, “Harlots and Camp Followers Swiss Renaissance Drawings of Young Women circa 1520”, in E. Cohen/M. Reeves (ed.), The Youth of Early Modern Women (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018) 117–34.

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monetary purposes.23 Women are not mentioned other than in regard to marriage in the 67 theses. Violence and change went hand in hand, and in this case, war was no stranger to the men and women of the Swiss Reformation. After living in concubinage with Huldrych Zwingli for two years, Anna Reinhart and the Zurich Reformer confirmed their marital status in a public church ceremony on 2 April 1524.24 Anna Reinhart experienced violence in her own home a few months after she and Huldrych married. “Two angry citizens smashed their windows with large stones so that pieces of glass flew while the stones chased the dust bunnies in the parlor”.25 One of the rabble-rousers was eventually detained. Many more attempts were made to harm Zwingli, which certainly left Anna uneasy. Zwingli was verbally accosted by at least one participant in his disputations: “They should do to him what the Bishop of Constance did with Johann Züglin zu Meersburg in 1526. That is, he should be burnt or drowned as Peter Spengler was”.26 Despite Zwingli’s caution and deep wariness when slowly implementing his reforms, in order not to alarm the citizens of Zurich, the many social and religious changes were not greeted well by traditionalists, and many of the townsfolk were agitated, which led to more violence. Zwingli was not present at the birth of their second child, his namesake, Huldrych, in January 1528, which is attributed to him by some as violence perpetrated against Anna. Ironically, at the time, Zwingli was away from home seeking a solution to conflict. The Reformer travelled to serve as the central figure in the Disputation of Bern, a three-week debate on the soul of the canton. He reached Bern under military protection along with 69 pastors and civil servants, and other Reformers, such as Johannes Oecolampadius from Basel and Joachim Vadian of St Gallen.27 Zwingli’s letter of 11 January reached Anna after the birth. He wrote: “Grace and peace to you from God. Dearest housewife, I thank God that he gave you a joyful birth; may he give us what we need to raise him according to God’s will”. This much criticised letter is not an affront to Anna but simply an example of how the world functions in times of war, conflict, and reform. Immediately afterwards, on 28–9 January 1528, the tension of reform exploded in iconoclasm at Grossmünster, where Zwingli was antistes. On 6 June 1529, Zwingli and his supporters declared war on the five Catholic Central Swiss cantons to oblige them to adhere to the Reformation. The chief military chaplain, Zwingli, led the way to war. The conflict however was resolved

23 H. Zwingli, Auslegung und Begründung der Thesen oder Artikel (1523), in T. Brunnschweiler/S. Lutz (ed.), Huldrych Zwingli, Schriften (4 vol.; Zurich: TVZ, 1995), vol. 2, 410–12. 24 Locher, Die Zwinglische Reformation, 104. 25 Merz, Christliche Frauenbilder, vol. 1, 412 (English translation is the author’s). 26 Merz, Christliche Frauenbilder, vol. 1, 413 (English translation is the author’s). 27 Locher, Die Zwinglische Reformation, 358.

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without violence. The milk soup chapter of this story, in which the parties took bread with milk soup from a big pot on the line marking their own territory, is popular in Swiss legends. The soup of the First Peace of Kappel grew to be a symbol of the willingness of the reformed to compromise. The Kappeler Milchsuppe was shared, while the beautiful souls waited at home for their valiant warriors to return. The Second War of Kappel in October 1531 caused deaths and left Anna Reinhart widowed when the father of four of her seven children was killed. The Catholic army of 7,000 men from Inner Switzerland defeated the Reformed army of 2,000. 500 men fell, 450 of them were men from Zurich, including key members of the clergy,28 while the Catholics lost 80 men. The Catholics held Zwingli responsible for the war, so he faced the traditional fate of an enemy leader who had lost. His head was severed, he was drawn, quartered and burnt, and his ashes were thrown in a river. We have no record of Anna Reinhart’s lament, mourning or sorrow, but we do know that she lost her son Gerold from her first marriage, a brother, and son-in-law in the Second War of Kappel. Recent research suggests that Anna Reinhart-Zwingli lived in a home of her own until she died in 1538. Salomon Hess attributes a typical sixteenth-century poem of lament to her son Huldrych Zwingli in his biography of Anna Reinhart of 1820.29 War framed and determined the lives of the women of the Swiss Reformation, and the violence resulting from fear and change were experienced by both men and women. The first Zurich Reformer and antistes is unfortunately remembered with the Bible in one hand and the sword in the other, and the second with a quill. Heinrich Bullinger became the “Architect of the Reformation”.30 He and his wife, Anna Adlischwyler, had eleven children. The wars that affected Anna Reinhart were the same for Anna Adlischwyler. Three specific historical events, and the stories or legends surrounding Anna’s life, support my point that women faced the perils of war as did their men, but their story is missing from history. One can note that there are patterns to be found in the narratives of how war and violence were experienced by women in diverse social contexts in the Swiss Reformation. The daughter of Elisabeth Stadler and Hans Adlischwyler of Rapperswil, St Gallen, a cook and member of two prominent Zurich guilds, Anna Adlischwyler was placed in the Dominican convent of Oetenbach in Zurich by her mother after the death of her father at war in the Grosser Pavierzug. Adlischwyler had served as the chef

28 Gordon, The Swiss Reformation, 133; F. Büsser, Heinrich Bullinger: Leben, Werk und Wirkung (2 vol.; Zürich: TVZ, 2004–5), vol. 1 (2004), 64–5. 29 S. Hess, Anna Reinhard: Gattin und Wittwe von Ulrich Zwingli, Reformator (Zurich: Näf, 1820), 312–18. 30 B. Gordon/E. Campi, Architect of Reformation: An Introduction to Heinrich Bullinger, 1504–1575 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004).

Women and War

of a well-known field captain.31 Anna Adlischwyler was a girl of eight at the time, who experienced the grief and tragic outcomes of the Swiss mercenary situation as she mourned her own father in the convent. The Dominican sisters and brothers were acutely aware of the political discrepancies of Zwingli’s reforms, and we know from Zwingli’s insistence on preaching in the convent that the religious renewal program was consistently presented to the women in the convent.32 The Oetenbach convent also became a place of refuge for the nuns who fled the convents that were closed in Grempenturm, Selnau, and St Verena. Anna Adlischwyler first appears in the records for the Oetenbach Dominican sister’s roll in 1523, just two years before Oetenbach was to be closed as the Catholic refugee nuns took shelter in Oetenbach. In this time of political change, it seems that Anna Adlischwyler participated in, or was at least aware of, the opposition fermenting in her convent. When Katharina von Zimmern renounced her leadership of the Fraumünster Abbey Benedictine Convent in Zurich in 1525, bestowing its property on the city, Anna Adlischwyler remained in the Oetenbach convent.33 Anna either refused to abjure her Catholic religious training, or she was waiting for her mother to die, or she had not met the right man to marry. Finally, after her mother, who lived in the convent during the last weeks of her life, died, Anna Adlischwyler married Heinrich Bullinger on 17 August 1529.34 Anna took on the role of the first pastor’s wife in the town of Bremgarten immediately after the rule for celibacy of the priesthood was revoked, and Heinrich began to preach scripture according to reformed precepts. From the vantage point of Bremgarten where Heinrich Bullinger was born, Anna Adlischwyler observed and heard about the Reformation struggles and the various disputations her husband attended at the side of Huldrych Zwingli and Bullinger’s dear friend Pastor Gervasius Schuler.35 Heinrich Bullinger was a prolific writer, who kept meticulous records and a journal. He also kept a Reformation history in which he documented that he and Gervais attended the disputation in Bern with Huldrych Zwingli, and, to avoid war, they had, “urgently admonished both sides to unity and friendliness” and “the messengers, even those of the five regions, attended sermons regularly”.36

31 C. Pestalozzi, Heinrich Bullinger: Leben und aussgewählte Schriften: Nach Handschriften und gleichzeitige Quellen (Elberfeld: Friedrichs, 1858), 126. 32 U. Gäbler/F. Büsser/E. Zsindely (ed.), Heinrich Bullinger Werke (4 parts; Zürich: TVZ, 1972 ff.), part 2, Briefwechsel, vol. 1, Briefe der Jahre 1524–1531 (1974), 126. 33 H. Zwingli, Die Klarheit und Gewissheit des Wortes Gottes (1522), in Brunnschweiler/Lutz (ed.), Huldrych Zwingli, Schriften, vol. 2, 105–213. 34 R. Giselbrecht, “Myths and Reality about Heinrich Bullinger’s Wife Anna”, Zwingliana 38 (2011) 53–67. 35 Büsser, Heinrich Bullinger, vol. 1, 65. 36 Büsser, Heinrich Bullinger, vol. 1, 65.

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Heinrich Bullinger’s desire for peace did not influence the turn of events. In May 1530, and in April 1531, Anna Adlischwyler gave birth to Heinrich Bullinger’s first two daughters just as Anna Reinhart gave birth to her last two children with Huldrych. War with the Catholics was brewing, and the Anabaptists were, according to Bullinger, both excessive, stretching Christian truth, and endangering the common good with lifestyles that went beyond social acceptance.37 The supply ban for the five inner states created great tension among the Federation, and another war between the Reformed and Catholics seemed imminent. On 10–12 August, a comet was seen in the night skies over the Federation.38 Comets were typically interpreted from a mystical perspective – God speaks from the heavens. Paracelsus, an alchemist, sent a tract to Leo Jud for publication in 1531 that was heralded, at least later, as the common interpretation of the mystical event. Paracelsus wrote that the appearance of a comet at that very moment was relevant to public politics and the strife between the old and new church, “it (the blockade) will cost myself and many honourable men, and it will not harm the truth and the church, indeed, we will not abandon Christ”.39 The sources leave no traces as to how Anna Reinhart or Anna Adlischwyler felt or responded to the political situation or what they thought about the signs. Both women were in the tender early years of marriage, had recently given birth, faced both motherhood and filling the roles of being the first lady of a church community for the first time in historical memory. It is not stretching the narrative to assume the wars and struggles were worrisome, and the criticism from communities facing social change formidable. Anna Adlischwyler certainly knew that matters were in a bad state when Huldrych Zwingli turned up in Bremgarten to meet Heinrich Bullinger shortly before the Second War of Kappel. That same night, there was another reported metaphysical event. A white figure was observed wandering around Bremgarten. Zwingli had come to the town to talk to Bullinger about his premonition that the goods embargo against the five inner states would cost the Reformation lives. Bullinger is said to have walked with Zwingli before he set out on his journey back home to Zurich, when on the way Zwingli said to his friend, “my dear Heinrich, may God protect you. And, do be loyal to the Lord Christ and his church”.40 The comet, then a white ghost, and these words of parting on the night when Zwingli came to visit Bremgarten served Bullinger as omens of the difficult times ahead for the Swiss Reformation. The biographies of Heinrich Bullinger, including Pestalozzi’s in 1858 and Blanke’s in 1942, confirm what Bullinger thought. What did

37 38 39 40

Pestalozzi, Heinrich Bullinger, 62. Büsser, Heinrich Bullinger, vol. 1, 66. Büsser, Heinrich Bullinger, vol. 1, 66, ft.15 (English translation is the author’s). Büsser, Heinrich Bullinger, vol. 1.

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Anna Adlischwyler think? Did Bullinger’s wife worry? Modern histories exclude the omens, attributing them to legend. Pestalozzi in particular takes this opportunity in his narrative to expand on the supernatural moment and adds Anna Adlischwyler Bullinger to the story after the critical loss for Zurich and the Reformation in the Second War of Kappel.41 The disaster meant giving back territories and cities to the Catholics. The Reformed pastors of Bremgarten, Heinrich Bullinger and Gervasius Schuler, were thus forced into exile as the Catholic rites were reinstalled and the Confederacy divided into religious regions. The two men and Heinrich Bullinger’s father, also called Heinrich, and also a pastor, fled to Zurich, while Bremgarten and neighbouring towns returned to the old faith. At this juncture, when metaphysical explanations for war and violence, losses and dashed hopes abound, history required the story of a valiant woman. According to Pestalozzi, in the sweet name of Jesus and for the sake of his gospel, Bullinger was forced to enter the bitter way of the cross, this man who was to become mercy and a savior from peril for hundreds of exiles. In the night from the 20th to the 21st of November 1531, Bullinger left his beloved Bremgarten in the company of his elderly but still able father, as well as his loyal fellow cleric Gervasius Schuler and his brother Johann, also a pastor in the neighboring town of Rohrdorf who was robbed of his possessions and driven to Bremgarten by enemy plunderers. They arrived in Zurich without injury. The enemies overcame Bremgarten immediately, plundered and destroyed the home of the old Deacon, while they behaved better in the home of his son. After a few days, his wife and children wanted to follow him; they left the maid Brigitte in the house with the instruction to serve the thirty men who had moved in to the best of her ability. When they arrived at the entrance to the city, it was locked. The gatekeeper refused to let anyone out. However, she, a strong and decidedly spirited woman, violently wrestled the key from him, let herself and her children out and happily reached longed for Zurich. How pleased Bullinger was to be able to hold her in his arms again. His possessions were restored to him in a short time without any grave losses. Indeed, who knows what it means to be forced to flee their home, to leave the unfortunate town of their fathers in the midst of misery, this person can measure the depth of pain and shock that penetrated his heart.42

The tale of the valiant Amazonian Anna Adlischwyler, the wife of the great Swiss Reformer, is one of the few available narratives where she is the heroin of her own biography. Naturally the details are more than overblown, as are some of the stories that have been isolated to become legends of Swiss women throughout the history

41 Pestalozzi, Heinrich Bullinger, 67. 42 Pestalozzi, Heinrich Bullinger, 67 (English translation is the author’s).

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of Swiss wars and aggression. The traditional motif of the valiant female warrior is nevertheless present in this history following a war, loss, and fatal blow to the Reformation. The story of Anna Adlischwyler, Amazonian heroin is not without precedent. In her Den leydenden Christglaubigen weybern der gemain zu Kentzingen meinen mit schwestern in Christo Jhesu zu handen (Letter to the Women of Kentzingen) published in July 1524, Katharina Schütz Zell of Strasbourg, the wife of Matthias Zell the Reformed pastor, wrote and sent words of encouragement to the wives of the 150 men that had arrived as refugees in Strasbourg – as many as 80 of them staying at the Zell’s home.43 The tragedy of the women of Kentzingen began when the Protestant men of the village, together with their pastor, fled Kentzingen as the Catholic Habsburgs were attacking and reclaiming the towns in that region; the men left the women and children to fend for themselves. Schütz Zell was concerned with the welfare of these women and their children. She was concerned that the circumstances might force them to forfeit their religious convictions. The Reformer’s wife’s words of encouragement were punctuated with feminine imagery, taken from the Bible, and contextualised in a way that might strengthen those abandoned women; her feminine exegesis became the hallmark of Schütz Zell’s method of apologetics.44 Anna Adlischwyler and Katharina Schütz Zell became valiant warriors at unfortunate moments in stories of war, whereas they were mainly portrayed as beautiful souls, in the silent and chaste role of model pastors’ wives. Discerning the Reformers’ intentions and those of the authors in the primary and secondary sources is worthy of mention here as we locate women in war because not only did historians have a moral agenda for writing about women, but there are reasons why sixteenth-century narratives diverge from the truth. Some of them may obstruct the truthful assessment of history. Integrating women into a system where text and doctrine, dogma and systems, belief and actions appear together is perhaps an even greater problem in terms of authorial intent. Indeed, one need not seek too deeply in the Swiss Reformation to see that not only art but also poetry, literature and the theatre contained female heroines and references to war. From Erasmus to the Reformers themselves, women of the era are poorly documented, but creative expressions of womanhood by men abound.45 The Zurich Reformer Heinrich Bullinger wrote, for instance, at least two plays that were performed in public, the first about the patron saints Felix and Regula, the

43 K. Schütz Zell, Den leydenden Christglaubigen weyberen der gmain zu Kentzigen minen mitschwestern in Christo Jesu zu handen (1524), in E.A. McKee (ed.), Katharina Schütz Zell (2 vol.; Leiden: Brill, 1999), vol. 2, The Writings: A Critical Edition, 4–13. 44 McKee (ed.), Katharina Schütz Zell, vol. 1, The Life and Thought of a Sixteenth-Century Reformer, 385–90. 45 E. Rummel (ed.), Erasmus on Women (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996).

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second entitled Lucretia. Based on the Roman Fasti calendar by Ovid (43 BC–18 AD) Lucretia is among the myths of rape in book two of Ovid’s Fasti.46 “The Swiss had a distinct fondness for Lucretiae, because only a few decades before, in the late fifteenth century, her image and story were taken over by propagators of the Swiss Revolution, also in conjunction with the [William] Tell theme”.47 Lucretiae was traditionally portrayed as the chaste and humble wife of a Roman soldier. After Sextus Tarquinius raped her, she felt that her honour had been forfeited and told her kin that she had been violated. Her family swore revenge on her violator. Everyone assured Lucretiae that she was not at fault; however, while they watched, she pulled out a knife and killed herself. Both Tarquin the Proud and his son Sextus lost their positions in government and were replaced by Brutus and Collatinus. Martin claims that Bullinger’s Lucretiae and her suicide are thus only used as a catalyst for revolutionary change, rather than as an object of sympathy or, the most common use of her image and story throughout the centuries, a vision of wifely beauty, honour and chastity. Bullinger’s Lucretiae certainly epitomises those characteristics, but her suicide, her self-inflicted mortal protest against the loss of personal honour by a tyrant, catapults her kinsmen into action, and is the indirect instigator of the Roman Revolution, and the reason for Bullinger’s play.48 Bullinger’s play goes on to emphasise the revolutionary aspects also found in the Reformation, where the beautiful soul takes on dimensions of Reformation protest. In addition to the moral lesson, Bullinger’s play underscores the need for sacrifice for the Reformation cause, “staying with the idea of Tendenzdrama, a vehicle for imparting to the audience that a true Republic for the people is most important, even if it meant having to make radical personal sacrifices”.49 In line with the mentality and praxis in his day, Bullinger’s drama was to instil Christian behaviour in society even if martyrdom were the final outcome. While speaking against the pope and the bishop of Constance, Bullinger’s drama called attention to scriptural virtues that distinguished the Reformed agenda within the context of revolution and reform, war and violence, a veritable preshow of the violence and wars that marked the men and women of the Swiss Reformation. Prior to the Reformation, Lucretiae, the Apocryphal Judith and Susannah, and the Virgin Mary were role models for women in Zurich. All of these women’s lives are marked by violence and war. Heidnischwerk, hand embroidered tapestries of the time, were usually created by women and adorned with symbols and motifs of

46 C.E. Newlands, Playing with Time: Ovid and the Fasti (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995), 159. 47 S.J. Martin, Heinrich Bullinger’s “Lucretia und Brutus”: A Translation with Introduction and Annotations (PhD thesis; University of California, 2003), 51. 48 Martin, Heinrich Bullinger’s “Lucretia und Brutus”, 50. 49 Martin, Heinrich Bullinger’s “Lucretia und Brutus”, 53.

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these warrior women. Susannah Jill Martin, in an aside note on Bullinger and the intention of his dramas, points out that he not only chose to teach women about their roles through drama, but he also thought to use the same vehicle to elevate the negative image of peasants to a more positive light. Bullinger’s Lucretiae und Brutus features an entire monologue for the character of a peasant, something that was practically unheard of in Reformation drama. That same peasant presented the final “laurels of victory to all the characters involved in the play”.50 Women and war are thematically present in the art, literature, and poetry of the Swiss Reformation, but is there enough evidence to contend that Swiss women were encapsulated in a beautiful soul perception of women evidencing female agency? What impedes a more profound understanding of Anna Reinhart and Anna Zwingli in all the war, conflict and violence? A deeper search for motivating factors leads to the written portrayal of wives who stood trial in the polemic that scrutinised the proponents and foes of clerical marriage in the sixteenth century. The Genevan Reformation scholar, Irena Backus, made some extremely useful observations, analysing the rabbit trails and potholes of biographical and social research on Reformation figures. In her book, Life Writing in Reformation Europe, Backus addresses precisely the Zurich Reformation and provides useful warnings about the difficulties involved in gender-inclusive historiography.51 Her thesis adds another dimension – a reasonable historical evaluation of why women are missing from at least the Zurich Reformation. The propaganda war between the Reformed and Catholic proponents was another level of the conflict of war. Backus sees a chasm between biography and history, which she attributes to the agendas, that is, the subjective, even polemical, agendas of those involved in writing the chronicles of their experiences and perceptions. In the chapter “Lives of Chief Swiss Reformers”, a haunting and precarious example advises anyone working on women in the sixteenth-century Reformation to be cautious. The example introduces Josias Simler, who married Heinrich Bullinger’s daughter Elizabeth.52 Backus describes the portrayal of Peter Martyr Vermigli’s first wife Catherine de Dompmartin in Josias Simler’s biography of Vermigli. Backus writes, “it is also one of the rare partisan Lives to contain some slight criticisms of the subject’s early convictions as well as an account of his conversion and a very detailed account not only of his two marriages, but also of his first wife”. She continues,

50 Martin, Heinrich Bullinger’s “Lucretia und Brutus”, 54. 51 I. Backus, Life Writing in Reformation Europe: Lives of Reformers by Friends, Disciples and Foes (Aldershot: Ashgate 2008). 52 Backus, Life Writing, 47–94.

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Martyr’s first marriage as such was of no particular interest to Simler. Nor was he at all interested in the person of Catherine Dompmartin. What interested him was Catherine as a blueprint of a pious wife, and the fate of her remains. His portrayal of her is correspondingly schematic. She was “an honest and noble virgin, who, living at Metz and loving true religion, was sent for to Strasbourg by godly men and afterwards was married to Martyr”. Vermigli’s marriage was godly and chaste, like that of every other reformer. It is possible that Simler had access to James Calfhill’s account of her exhumation and reburial of her remains, for like Calfhill, he stresses that she was a ‘good and excellent matron’, particularly generous in helping the poor.53

Backus underscores her call to caution with what Simler wrote about Vermigli’s second wife, Catherine Merenda. Vermigli married her on the basis of testimony of good men and of the whole church for the sole purpose of begetting children, “being persuaded by his friends since he himself was very desirous of children, and that the more because he alone was left of the family of Vermigli which once had flourished, he did determine to take another wife, six years after his first wife’s death”.54 Sources suggest Simler saw Vermigli’s second wife as a child-bearer. Backus proceeds to isolate the politics behind Simler’s rationale. Simler had an agenda that was critical of Vermigli because Peter Martyr was “not young when he converted; second he was an Italian; and thirdly, he was never a leader of the Reformed church”.55 Backus’s argument warns that the few resources that can be found about women in the Zurich Reformation are tainted by the polemics of a propaganda war. In addition, and in an adjacent quadrant of the playing field, Backus illustrates and draws attention to another reason for caution, and a very good one to explain why the narratives and sources about women are lacking in the Reformation. She refers to the Reformation opponent James Laing, who wrote a hostile life of Vermigli. Laing wrote that Catherine de Dompmartin was never married to Vermigli at all, that they “fornicated publicly”, and that Vermigli’s second wife, “Catherine Merauda” [sic] “moved to Geneva to enjoy carnal liberties”.56 The opponents of the Reformation defamed the Reformers’ wives in their polemic against the Reformation. On the other hand, Reformers also told the nuns, who were still living in convents, that the women belonged to the devil unless they converted. The question of objectivity and subjectivity walks like a ghost alongside the narrative.

53 54 55 56

Backus, Life Writing, 69–70. Backus, Life Writing, 70–1. Backus, Life Writing, 71. Backus, Life Writing, 74.

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The beautiful soul framework is so central to how sixteenth-century history has been told that the violence women experienced in war is seldom mentioned. Yet, each Reformer’s wife is easily inserted into the historical framework of the wars and conflicts of the Reformation along with the data we do have in order to create a story. Bearing Backus’s observations in mind, we can note that the wives of the Swiss Reformers are classified as the noble elite women of sixteenth-century Switzerland by some sixteenth-century historians, whereas the categories in Switzerland do not include royal blood or royal birth. The only truth in this is that most of the Swiss Reformers’ wives were from families with adequate monetary means. Yet they were not valiant onlookers of the wars but more often portrayed as beautiful souls. Limitations are everywhere because these women left few to no actual hard copies of what they were experiencing or what they thought of the wars and violence released by the changes of an all-encompassing Reformation of state and religion. Piecing together the influence of war on them is best enhanced by including a study of the Reformers’ correspondence. Reformers wrote to each other about Wibrandis Rosenblatt, who was born in Bad Säckingen and raised in Basel.57 She led a life that lends itself to reconstruction precisely because she appears in the correspondence of many Reformers. Rosenblatt married the Basel humanist Ludwig Keller, and they had one daughter. After the birth of their daughter, Keller died in July 1526. Rosenblatt married the minister of St Martin’s Church at Basel, Oecolampadius, on 15 March 1528. They had three children, two died in childhood. Roland Bainton provides the polemic of the arguments of the men of the Swiss Reformation about this marriage in his article, noting that Wibrandis was 24 and Oecolampadius 45. Basel was in a fever as her husband led the Reformers to exclude the Catholics from the council, and celebration of the Mass was forbidden. Bainton writes, the mob assembled, a thousand strong, in the Barfüsserplatz. When after three days the council deliberated, the mob broke loose, stormed up the hill to the cathedral, smashed all of the images of wood and stone and left the artistic treasures of the piety of the ages strewn as rubble over the square. The Mass was abolished. Everyone was required to attend the Lord’s Supper, interpreted as a memorial after the manner of Zwingli or else leave the city.58

Then after the Second War of Kappel, Oecolampdius died just as the leaders of the Reformation were thinking of asking him to follow Zwingli as antistes of Zurich.

57 R.H. Bainton, “Wibrandis Rosenblatt”, in M. Geiger (ed.), Gottesreich und Menschenreich: Ernst Staehelin zum 80. Geburtstag (Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1969) 71–86. 58 Bainton, “Wibrandis Rosenblatt”, 76 (English translation is the author’s).

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After this, Wibrandis was persuaded to marry yet another Reformer from Strasbourg, Wolfgang Capito, on 11 August 1532, after his wife had died. Capito and Wibrandis had five children. After Capito died of the plague in 1541, Wibrandis married yet another Reformer, Martin Bucer, in April of 1542, with whom she had two children. Conflict over the Reformation in Cologne kept Bucer away from home for a year, and then he went to work in England to support the Anglican Church there. Wibrandis migrated to England where Bucer died in 1551. She returned to Strasbourg and then home to Basel, where she died in 1564 and was buried next to her husband Oecolampadius in the cathedral cloister walk. As the mother of eleven children from five men, Wibrandis Rosenblatt saw many of the Reformation conflicts and even wars. The violence of the bubonic plague finally killed her. War and violence shaped the context of the women in Geneva and elsewhere in Switzerland, too. The Reformers’ letters shape what we know about her. John Calvin’s nine-year marriage to Idelette de Bure, although brief, takes on similar dimensions to the Reformers’ wives mentioned above. Idelette de Bure, who had fled Liege for the sake of her Protestant faith, also lived her life within the unrest and strife of the Reformation. She was the widow of John Stordeur, an Anabaptist, who once lived in Strasbourg. Martin Bucer drew Calvin’s attention to Idelette and her many virtues. Calvin had persuaded Idelette and her husband to change from Anabaptism to the Reformed ways. Calvin and de Bure married on 1 August 1540. There is little documentation of Idelette and Calvin for the many reasons mentioned above and due to the brevity of their marriage. However, the violence of wars and the plague of Reformation and the harsh circumstances of the sixteenth century clearly determined her life as it did those of others. Calvin was overcome by grief and never remarried.

6.

Exile and Refugees or How Europe Became Confused

Exiled women and refugees are another category to consider in connection to women and war in the Swiss Reformation. The Marian exiles, the Locarnese exiles, Huguenot women, and persecuted Anabaptist and Spiritualist women were forced to leave their homes for reasons of faith. Ironically, the women who crisscrossed Europe and its faith boundaries in search of a home and peace created a network transporting international news among the Reformers and their church. Some of their actions and words made them brave and feared warriors in the annals of history and have not yet been transformed into legends or beautiful souls. Enemies of one or the other systems of dominating power, these women fled with their husbands, children and lives; they are more often than not relegated to a chapter or essay here or there – never integrated into the larger historical narratives of history’s great men, and not yet gathered together in a book.

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Carrie Euler’s revised dissertation, Couriers of the Gospel: England and Zurich, 1531–1558 describes the literary and historical intersections of the two places. Euler writes, “Several hundred English evangelicals followed the advice of Bullinger and Calvin in the Two epystles…whether it be lawful to be partaker of the masse of the papystes and fled the country rather than participate in Catholic services; several hundred of those who remained were executed for their beliefs”.59 The Marian exiles were English Protestants in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy and Poland between 1553–8. British exiles fled to Zurich, Geneva, Basel and Strasbourg and were particularly influenced by Bullinger and Calvin in the Schola Tigurina where they often studied under the Zurich Reformers. The theologians arrived in three groups. The first group came in 1536–7, the second between 1539 and 1547, and the third were the Marian exiles.60 Significant to women and war is that the men from England either brought their wives with them or met women in exile; and we have some of the documentation, particularly a series of letters published in The Zurich Letters;61 moreover, Heinrich Bullinger’s correspondence from these women has been published. The merchant’s wife, Anna Hilles wrote to Bullinger about the tragic and bloody events of the English Reformation. Interestingly, she and her husband Richard returned to England during the Marian exile.62 Anne t’Serclaes from Belgium met John Hooper, later Reformed Bishop John Hooper of Gloucester and Worcester. Hooper studied in Basel where their daughter, Rachel, the godchild of Heinrich Bullinger, was born. Anne Hooper corresponded with Bullinger in Latin between 1551 and 1555 with a great deal of news of the strife and conflicts in England. Anne Hooper ended up in exile once more communicating this to Bullinger from Frankfurt. John Hooper was executed on 9 February 1555.63 John Parkhurst was assistant to John Hooper and later became D.D., Bishop of Norwich. He and his wife Margaret Parkhurst were Marian exiles, and Margaret corresponded with Bullinger after their return to England. Margaret tells of the difficulties and harsh conditions in the Church of England and the constant “war” between the new faith and the “papists”. From her letters, the

59 C. Euler, Couriers of the Gospel: England and Zurich, 1531–1558 (Zurich: TVZ, 2006), 194–5. 60 Büsser, Heinrich Bullinger, vol. 1, 216. 61 H. Robinson, Original Letters Relative to the English Reformation, Written During the Reigns of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, and Queen Mary: Chiefly from the Archives of Zurich (Cambridge: University Press, 1846); H. Robinson, The Zurich Letters Comprising the Correspondence of Several Bishops and Others with Some of the Helvetian Reformers during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (2nd series; Cambridge: University Press, 1842–7). 62 R. Giselbrecht, “Religious Intent and the Art of Courteous Pleasantry: A Few Letters from English Women to Heinrich Bullinger (1543–1562)”, in J.A. Chappell/K.A. Kramer (ed.), Women During the English Reformations: Renegotiating Gender and Religious Identity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) 45–68, on p. 50–1. 63 Giselbrecht, “Religious Intent”, 57.

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sufferings during and after exile and how women were partners in all the sorrows and losses become evident.64 The Locarnese exiles were yet another group that included women in the story of persecuted souls seeking sanctuary in Switzerland. Mark Taplin mentions a number of women in The Italian Reformers and the Zurich Church c. 1540–1620,65 naming Barbara Muralto, Lucia Belò and Catarina Appiano among others, for whom Heinrich Bullinger advocated in front of the Zurich authorities for permission to reside in Zurich.66 The women had been convicted of blasphemy. “Muralto was charged by the papal nuncio Ottaviano Raverta with speaking ill of the Virgin Mary and her property declared forfeit; her companions had received fines of 50 Kronen”.67 The polemic and war of words mentioned above in regard to women and the doctrine of the church, which was a result of groups of people from various backgrounds in Switzerland, deserves brief mention here. The persecuted Anabaptist women and the Huguenots of France also sought refuge in areas of Switzerland – the Huguenots particularly in Geneva. The first Zurich Anabaptist women from Zollikon fled to St Gallen and then toward Moravia when their behaviour did not fit the beautiful soul narrative, and they were more militant beyond the gender roles ascribed to women as they grew more out of control, becoming like fierce warriors.68 The quintessence of these many examples of divergent women is that they were simply not tolerated. An examination of the war on witches would be an additional category with which to expand this section on women and war and the not so beautiful souls. One is left to try to imagine where these women are in history.

7.

Moral Warfare and Swiss Heroines

All the expressions of war and violence in the Swiss Reformation are somehow superseded by what must have been the wars that raged in the minds of the women who were forced to consider their personal conviction as they were confronted with scripture in their vernacular and how to reinterpret their everyday lives in the light of it. The Reformers’ exegesis, their own logic, and the circumstances, as is clear from the divisions within Switzerland after the Wars at Kappel, left the people to navigate a divided world and required, whether overtly or covertly, everyone to choose a

64 65 66 67 68

Giselbrecht, “Religious Intent”, 58–9. M. Taplin, The Italian Reformers and the Zurich Church c. 1540–1620 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003). Taplin, The Italian Reformers, 81. Taplin, The Italian Reformers, 81, ft.71. A. Jelsma, Frontiers of the Reformation: Dissidence and Orthodoxy in Sixteenth-Century Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), 40–51.

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side. One of the two pressing matters of conviction involved the decision to adhere to a new faith, and, as we have seen, the Reformers’ wives like Anna Reinhart and Anna Bullinger, exiles and persecuted women, are only a few examples of women facing new roles in lives with blurry contours. Furthermore, the emotional and sometimes violent struggles of the women who remained Catholic, and the nuns who upheld their convictions, should not be left unspoken as mere war casualties. Untold numbers of Swiss women cleaved to the conviction that the old church remained Catholic, the one true church, as the world around them changed. A brief mention of an exemplary woman, who did not cave in under pressure, serves here to underscore this truth. Jeanne de Jussie was a sister of the Second order of Holy Francis, the Order of St Clare founded by St Francis and Clare of Assisi.69 As a Poor Clare, she committed her life to discipleship of Christ in poverty. De Jussie wrote The Short Chronicle between 1535 and 1547 to inform nuns of the Reformation heresy and the violence that it caused to women in Geneva. Her volume was published by the Catholic Press in 1534 entitled The Leven of Calvinism, or the Beginning of Heresy in Geneva70 although Calvin is never mentioned in her text. The work argues that women are more loyal Catholics than men. Women were forced to fight for their chastity against the heretical women like Marie Dentière, also of Geneva. From her perspective, women played a much larger role in the struggles and violence of the Reformation than previously assumed. She describes fights in which women and wives were beaten, cheated and abused for the sake of religion, in particular by their own husbands. The women in Geneva, she argues, made stronger and clearer decisions and upheld the ideals of their faith far more strongly than most men. Jeanne de Jussie was a proponent of women’s right to privacy and private space as well as a choice to sexual separation from men. This Catholic perspective of the Swiss Reformation reminds one of the morality and war of conscience with which women struggled that remains largely in books dedicated exclusively to women and the Reformation. Iconoclast is another overlooked category in relation to women, war and the Swiss context. Lee Palmer Wandel addresses the material culture of the Swiss Reformation with her study of iconoclasm in the Swiss Reformation,71 whereas Marion KobeltGroch, in Aufsässige Töchter Gottes, treats the warlike participation of Anabaptist women in the German Peasants’ War between 1524–5, since these women fought to

69 J. de Jussie, The Short Chronicle: A Poor Clare’s Account of the Reformation of Geneva, ed. and trans. C.F. Klaus (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006). 70 J. de Jussie, Le levain du Calvinisme, ou Commencement de l’heresie de Geneve. Faict par Reverende Soeur Jeanne de Jussie, lors religieuse à Saincte Claire de Geneve, et apres sa sortie Abbesse au Convent d’Anyssi (Geneva: J.-G. Fick, 1853). 71 L. Palmer Wandel, Voracious Idols & Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg, and Basel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

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have some power in the German Reformation.72 Valiant women are however missing from Palmer Wandel’s description of Swiss iconoclasm in Zurich, Strasbourg, and Basel. Material culture would seem a fine avenue by which to imagine and design a gender inclusive history that is “first, to return to ordinary people, their agency in the process of reform and, thereby, to suggest a more dynamic vision of ‘Reformation’; second, to cover something of their theologies, their conceptions of the nature of God and of humanity’s relation to Him”.73 But alas, few court documents record female iconoclasts. The ordinary people appear to be men in the court records, which makes one wonder whether the historians were reluctant to say that the women supported or participated in the violence of the iconoclasts. Yet there is at least one woman who waged a private war, an iconoclast that I would like to add to the list of fierce, warrior women in the Swiss Reformation. The history of Luzern is symbolically illustrated in the actions that Aureola of Luzern took against a statue of the Holy Apollinaris. Here is an example of a beautiful soul, who fiercely went to war with her pre-Reformation self.74 She truly did violence and is an example of war between the Reformers and Catholics. In 1522, Dorothea Göldlin of Luzern, retrieved the statue she had personally contributed to the Beguine Chapel in Luzern and burnt it. The city council of Luzern noticed her act because the statue was in a very prominent public place, and Luzern was a Catholic canton. Göldlin was told she had acted against the faith of the Catholic Church and against the Gospel of Christ and everything holy and profane. Her act of violence against her statue was punished; she was to pay a fine of 40 gold pieces. The council also required that she provide a written statement, that is, a confession of her sin. In addition, she was to replace the statue. Göldin paid the fine and wrote her confession. However, her conscious would not allow her to replace the statue. She wrote to both the Reformer Oswald Myconius and Zwingli for help. It appears that at that point everyone Reformed, including Myconius, had left town to take refuge in Reformed places. We do not know whether Göldlin replaced the statue or not, simply that her inner ethical conviction leant towards the Reformation, and she did not want to replace the statue. Here a fierce woman associated with the Zurich Reformation became a beautiful soul in a story that has become a legend.

72 M. Kobelt-Groch, Aufsässige Töchter Gottes: Frauen im Bauernkrieg und in den Täuferbewegung (Frankfurt a. M.: Campus, 1993), 64–70. 73 Palmer Wandel, Voracious Idols, 3. 74 H. Jurt, “Aureola und der Hl. Apollinaris: Ein privater Bildersturm Luzern 1522”, University of Lucerne, Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät, Soziologisches Seminar (2007), 1–38.

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8.

Conclusion

War is a traditionally masculine topic that has turned out to be a fruitful place to examine female identity, inclusive history, the common perception of sixteenthcentury men and women, and to further develop how the Reformation story might be told. Historical research on women and war in the Zurich Reformation is a matter of evaluating factual evidence, legends, and myths to locate the subjects and their agency. Both topical and biographical aspects of women’s lives – where women were, what they thought and did during times of war – left a lasting mark. Women were involved in sixteenth-century military struggles, influenced by the wars men fought and the subject of propaganda wars. Women’s various theological positions on war can also be derived from setting women within the larger historical narrative, even though there are only a few extant documents written by them. The beautiful soul framework provided by Jean Bethke Elshtain, thanks to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, lends to the pursuit of these women and war socio-psychological contours as a backdrop for historical female figures to grow into multi-dimensional souls with fluid identities and rich lives. Strong evidence, but also threads, traces and simple logic, support the theory that women participated in the violence and wars which accompanied the social and religious processes of reform in the age of transitions between the Middle Ages and modernity. Seeing women as part of the whole requires a gender inclusive lens in order to understand better the dynamics that may one day lead to a common Reformation.

Bibliography Andersson, C., “Harlots and Camp Followers Swiss Renaissance Drawings of Young Women circa 1520”, in E. Cohen/M. Reeves (ed.), The Youth of Early Modern Women (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018) 117–34. Backus, I., Life Writings in Reformation Europe: Lives of Reformers by Friends, Disciples and Foes (Aldershot: Ashgate 2008). Bainton, R.H., “Wibrandis Rosenblatt”, in M. Geiger (ed.), Gottesreich und Menschenreich: Ernst Staehelin zum 80. Geburtstag (Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1969) 71–86. Büsser, F., Heinrich Bullinger: Leben, Werk und Wirkung (2 vol.; Zürich: TVZ, 2004–5), vol. 1 (2004). de Jussie, J., Le levain du Calvinisme, ou Commencement de l’heresie de Geneve. Faict par Reverende Soeur Jeanne de Jussie, lors religieuse à Saincte Claire de Geneve, et apres sa sortie Abbesse au Convent d’Anyssi (Geneva: J.-G. Fick, 1853). de Jussie, J., The Short Chronicle: A Poor Clare’s Account of the Reformation of Geneva, ed. and trans. C.F. Klaus (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006).

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Dierauer, J., “Die Schlacht am Stoss: Geschichte und Sage”, Archiv für schweizerische Geschichte 19 (1874) 1–40. Elshtain, J.B., Women and War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). Euler, C., Couriers of the Gospel: England and Zurich, 1531–1558 (Zurich: TVZ, 2006). Gäbler, U./Büsser, F./Zsindely, E. (ed.), Heinrich Bullinger Werke (4 parts; Zürich: TVZ, 1972 ff.), part 2, Briefwechsel, vol. 1, Briefe der Jahre 1524–1531 (1974). Giselbrecht, R., “Myths and Reality about Heinrich Bullinger’s Wife Anna”, Zwingliana 38 (2011) 53–67. Giselbrecht, R., “Religious Intent and the Art of Courteous Pleasantry: A Few Letters from English Women to Heinrich Bullinger (1543–1562)”, in J.A. Chappell/K.A. Kramer (ed.), Women During the English Reformations: Renegotiating Gender and Religious Identity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) 45–68. Glaettli, K.W., Zürcher Sagen (Zurich: Rohr, 2 1970). Gordon, B., The Swiss Reformation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002). Gordon, B./Campi, E., Architect of Reformation: An Introduction to Heinrich Bullinger, 1504–1575 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004). Hess, S., Anna Reinhard: Gattin und Wittwe von Ulrich Zwingli, Reformator (Zurich: Näf, 1820). Jelsma, A., Frontiers of the Reformation: Dissidence and Orthodoxy in Sixteenth-Century Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998). Jurt, H., “Aureola und der Hl. Apollinaris: Ein privater Bildersturm Luzern 1522”, University of Lucerne, Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät, Soziologisches Seminar (2007), 1–38. Kobelt-Groch, M., Aufsässige Töchter Gottes: Frauen im Bauernkrieg und in den Täuferbewegung (Frankfurt a. M.: Campus, 1993). Locher, G., Die Zwinglische Reformation im Rahmen der europäischen Kirchengeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979). Lynn II, J.A., Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). Martin, S.J., Heinrich Bullinger’s “Lucretia und Brutus”: A Translation with Introduction and Annotations (PhD thesis; University of California, 2003). McKee, E.A., (ed.), Katharina Schütz Zell (2 vol.; Leiden: Brill, 1999). Merz, H., Christliche Frauenbilder aus der Geschichte der Kirche zur Innern Mission (2 vol., Stuttgart: Steinkopf, 1855). Milligan, G., Moral Combat: Women, Gender, War in Italian Renaissance Literature (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018). Palmer Wandel, L., Voracious Idols & Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg, and Basel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). Pestalozzi, C., Heinrich Bullinger: Leben und aussgewählte Schriften: Nach Handschriften und gleichzeitige Quellen (Elberfeld: Friedrichs, 1858).

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Robinson H., The Zurich Letters Comprising the Correspondence of Several Bishops and Others with Some of the Helvetian Reformers during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (2nd series; Cambridge: University Press, 1842–7). Robinson H., Original Letters Relative to the English Reformation, Written During the Reigns of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, and Queen Mary: Chiefly from the Archives of Zurich (Cambridge: University Press, 1846). Rummel, E. (ed.), Erasmus on Women (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996). Schütz Zell, K., Den leydenden Christglaubigen weyberen der gmain zu Kentzigen minen mitschwestern in Christo Jesu zu handen (1524), in E.A. McKee (ed.), Katharina Schütz Zell (2 vol.; Leiden: Brill, 1999), vol. 2, The Writings: A Critical Edition, 4–13. Taplin, M., The Italian Reformers and the Zurich Church c. 1540–1620 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003). Zwingli, H., Auslegung und Begründung der Thesen oder Artikel (1523), in T. Brunnschweiler/ S. Lutz (ed.), Huldrych Zwingli, Schriften (4 vol.; Zurich: TVZ, 1995), vol. 2, 410–12. Zwingli, H., Die Klarheit und Gewissheit des Wortes Gottes (1522) in T. Brunnschweiler/S. Lutz (ed.), Huldrych Zwingli, Schriften (4 vol.; Zurich: TVZ, 1995), vol. 2, 105–213.

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When the Past Makes Saints The Knights of Malta from Sinners to Martyrs in Il glorioso trionfo della sacrosanta religion militare di S. Giovanni Gierosolimitano (1619)*

1.

Introduction: Semper reformanda

Over the last few years a promising field for historiographical research on the Order of St John has concerned its religious reform in the wake of the Tridentine Catholic renewal. This issue is extremely topical due to the recent dramatic events that led Pope Francis to put the Order under special delegate control in February 2017. This papal receivership arranged for the “renovation of the Constitutional Charter of the Order and of the Melitense Statute”, besides taking “care of all matters relating to the spiritual and moral renewal of the Order, especially the professed Members, so as to fulfil the purpose of ‘the promotion of the glory of God through the sanctification of its Members, service to the faith and to the Holy Father, and assistance to one’s neighbours’, as set forth in the Constitutional Charter”.1 Indeed, it is no coincidence that the Order has been attempting to re-launch its religious image through the

* I am thankful to Matthias Ebejer and Gianclaudio Civale for their suggestions during our shared panel Between Militia Christi and Vocation des Armes: The Reshaping of War Religious Ideals in Confessional Europe. 1 Papal letter to Giovanni Angelo Becciu, Substitute for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State, regarding his appointment as special delegate to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (2 February 2017). The italics are the author’s. See also another papal letter to the same Becciu from 2 May 2018 in which, on the occasion of the election of the new grand master Giacomo Dalla Torre del Tempio di Sanguinetto, Pope Francis wrote: “Considering the fact that the path of spiritual and juridical renewal of the S.M.O.M. has not yet been concluded, I ask you to continue to hold the office of my Delegate up to the conclusion of the reform process”. Both letters are available online: and (accessed 21 July 2021). On the whole affair that had led to the resignation of Grand Master Matthew Festing as a result of his dispute with Grand Chancellor Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager, and the appointment of Becciu as special delegate, see A. Tomer, “Il Sovrano Militare Ordine di Malta dalla crisi del 2016–2017 alla riforma costituzionale”, Stato, Chiese e pluralismo confessionale 13 (2018), available at (accessed 21 July 2021). On 1 November 2020 Becciu was replaced by Cardinal Silvano Maria Tomasi: see (accessed 22 July 2022).

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cause of the beatification and canonisation of grand master Andrew Bertie (the first case in the Order’s entire history), which was opened on February 2015 with the diocesan inquiry, and the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of his death in February 2018. As a result of these events, the grand priory of Naples and Sicily has promoted a special issue of its annual journal Studi Melitensi, dedicated to the spirituality and charitable activity of the Order in the past as well as its perspectives in the present.2 The latter are closely related to the previously mentioned debate on the Order’s juridical renewal. In fact, just like five and two centuries ago, on the occasion of the loss of Rhodes (1522) and Malta (1798) respectively, today the Order needs to redefine its identity, in order to combine its double legal status: subject to canonical law as an institute of consecrated life, and subject to international law as a humanitarian agency,3 which enjoys diplomatic relations with 112 countries and the European Union, and the role of permanent observer at the United Nations.4 This reform process is of great interest for scholars, because it is related to the only military order which has an uninterrupted history from its very foundation in the late eleventh century.

2.

From Rhodes to Malta: Printed Sieges and Crusade Literature

Ever since the invention and spread of printing, the Order of St John of Rhodes (later of Malta) paid particular attention to representing and promoting the image of its military endeavours. This involved propaganda, deemed necessary to justify the relevance of its mission in defence of the faith against the Turks and Barbary corsairs. It also gave force to the constant appeals to Christian princes and aristocrats to grant human resources (recruitment of new knights and military help when required), material resources (donations, legal and fiscal privileges) and, in the case of the Holy See, spiritual resources (indulgences and dispensations). This investment in the printed word was particularly evident during the dramatic sieges of Rhodes (1480 and 1522) and later of Malta (1565), which put the resistance (and existence) of the Knights of St John to a hard test. In the case of Rhodes, there is the famous Descriptio obsidionis Rhodiae by Guillame Caoursin, vice-chancellor

2 G. Scarabelli, “Dieci anni dalla morte del Servo di Dio fra’ Andrew Bertie”, Studi Melitensi 26 (2018) 11–22. 3 N. Loda, “L’Ordine di Malta: Eredità e prospettive per il nostro tempo”, Studi Melitensi 26 (2018) 191–225; Loda focuses also on the institutional reforms of the Order of Malta during the twentieth century. G. Pace Gravina, “Obsequium pauperum: Per una lettura istituzionale del carisma melitense”, in A. Cernigliaro (ed.), Il ‘privilegio’ dei ‘proprietari di nulla’: Identificazione e risposte nella società medievale e moderna: Convegno di Studi, Napoli 22–23 ottobre 2009 (Naples: Satura, 2010) 181–91. 4 Available at: (accessed 21 July 2021).

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of the Order, published for the first time in Venice in 1480, and before the end of the century republished seven times in Latin, reworked in French and translated into English, Italian, Danish and German.5 The most important printed report of the siege of 1522 is De bello Rhodio libri tres, drafted by Jacques Fontaine (alias Fontanus), jurist in the service of the council of the Order, and published for the first time in Rome the following year. Another five Latin editions followed as well as translations in Italian, Spanish and German, and again an adaptation in French.6 After basing themselves for two centuries on Rhodes, following the loss of the island,7 the Knights of St John found themselves needing not only to find a new base – eventually established in Malta in 15308 – but also to save their reputation. The latter was necessary to justify their presence in the new scenario of a Christian Europe that was torn by religious division9 and in which the ideals of knighthood were in decline, along with the medieval period that had seen them set out and flourish.10 There had to be an outright propaganda operation to relaunch the image of the Order. This came together in the year of 1523 with the publication of a discourse, Ut afflictionibus Rhodiorum militum Sancti Io. Baptistae, succuratur, ad Principes et Christianos omnes, not coincidentally commissioned by a German dignitary of the Order and written by the priest Otto Brunfels, a humanist scholar who had moved from a Nicodemist spiritual position to a more radical reformed one.11 One section was dedicated to a Laus militum S. Ioannis Baptistae, in which the author “describes the Hospitallers … emphasising their aristocratic extraction

5 T.M. Vann/D.J. Kagay, Hospitaller Piety and Crusader Propaganda: Guillaume Caoursin’s Description of the Ottoman Siege of Rodhes, 1480 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), preface. 6 A. Freeman, “Editions of Fontanus, De bello Rhodio”, The Library 24/4 (1969) 333–6. 7 N. Vatin, Rhodes et l’Ordre de Saint-Jean-de-Jérusalem (Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2000). 8 V. Mallia-Milanes, “Emperor Charles V’s Donation of Malta to the Knights of St John”, in Carlo V e Mercurino di Gattinara suo gran cancelliere: Convegno internazionale 9–11 giugno 2000, Malta Forte Sant’Angelo (Malta: Accademia Internazionale Melitense, 2001) 23–33. 9 On the impact of Lutheran Reformation on the Tongue of Germany (one of the eight geographical and administrative national constituencies of the Order), whose Bailiwick of Brandenburg adhered to Protestantism and was secularised, see H.J.A. Sire, The Knights of Malta (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1994), 198–200. 10 Labatut highlights that “l’ordre maintient dans l’Europe modern des comportements de haute tradition noble” and “préserve les noblesses d’un sentiment national trop exclusif et leur permet d’honorer leur vocation européenne”; J.-P. Labatut, Les noblesses européennes de la fin du XVe siècle à la fin du XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1978), 153. 11 The work was commissioned by Lukas Rembold, administrator Domus S. Ioannis in Neuenburg Brisgoiae, belonging to the Tongue and Priory of Germany; see G. de Antonellis, “L’apologia dei Cavalieri di Rodi di Otto Brunfels (1523)”, Studi Melitensi 25 (2017) 113–59.

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and highlighting the cause to which they had offered themselves in sacrifice on the island of Rhodes, that is, the defence of the Christian faith”.12 Less than 50 years later, the “great siege” of Malta of 1565 marked the definitive moral and military redemption of the Order, a Knights of St John version of Lepanto,13 and the start of the building of a basically independent principality despite being in theory a papal protectorate.14 The “new city” of La Valletta was inaugurated on 18 March 1571. An account of this and the building of the city, accompanied by a detailed copy of its “drawing”, symbolically closed Giacomo Bosio’s Istoria of the Order, not coincidentally leaving no space dedicated to the battle of Lepanto, fought only a few months later.15 The publishing impact of the great siege however had been enormous, as is testified by at least 120 publications on the subject, including originals and translations, printed before the end of the century in Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, German and Greek. Such were the number of publications that even two centuries later Voltaire exclaimed “Rien n’est pas connu que ce siège”.16 The literary genres employed were highly diverse: detailed military-like reports; short notices, copies of letters, accounts and speeches; stories and commentaries, extensive scholarly poetry in rhyme and popular verse.17 The best known works are the Verdadera Relación (1567) by Francesco Balbi da Correggio,18 harquebusier to the retinue of Spanish soldiers involved in the defence of the island, and the poem La Maltea (1582) by Hipólito Sans,19 knight of St John and also an eye witness to the events narrated.

12 L.M. De Palma, Il Frate Cavaliere: Il tipo ideale dei Giovanniti fra medioevo ed età moderna (Bari: Ecumenica Editrice, 2017), 43; this and the following English translations from Italian texts are the author’s. 13 Jacques Godechot and Michel Fontenay have referred to it respectively as the “Verdun du XVIe siècle” and “le Stalingrad de l’èpoque”; A. Brogini, 1565, Malte dans la tourmente: Le “Gran Siège” de l’île par les Turcs (Paris: Editions Bouchène, 2011), 233. 14 Already during the first stage of the Council of Trent, the Order of St John had been represented by its ambassador, who sat among the envoys of secular princes and not, it has to be noted, among those of religious orders. E. Buttigieg, Nobility, Faith and Masculinity: The Hospitaller Knights of Malta, c. 1580–c. 1700 (London: Continuum, 2011), 116–17. 15 G. Bosio, Dell’Istoria della Sacra Religione et Ill.ma Militia di San Giovanni Gierosolimitano (3 vol.; Rome: Guglielmo Facciotti, 1594–1602), vol. 3 (1602), 871–3. On Bosio and his work, see G. De Caro, “Bosio, Giacomo”, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani (100 vol.; Rome: Treccani, 1960–2020), vol. 13 (1971), 261–4. 16 Voltaire, Annales de l’Empire depuis Charlemagne (1753–54) (Paris: V.e H. Perronneau, 1817), 510. 17 F. Formiga, “‘Melita obsidione liberatur’: The Great Siege in 16th Century Booklets”, Culture del testo e del documento 51 (2016) 57–76. 18 Another revised and expanded edition was edited in Barcelona the following year. 19 On the content of the two works and another poem by Diego de Santistevan Ossorio (1599), see R. Puddu, “L’assedio di Malta e la cavalleria mediterranea”, Dimensioni e problemi della ricerca storica 2 (1995) 15–37. On La Maltea, see D. Gutiérrez Medina, “El Gran Turco a la caza del halcón maltés:

When the Past Makes Saints

Like all the literature of the “Maltese Golden Age” (1530–1648) that focused on military relations,20 these works had the aim of relaunching the image of the Order as a true Religion, as it was usually called, that fought on the front line in defence of the Catholic faith, uniting the weaponry of faith and the body. Indeed, its knights, unlike those belonging to “so many military orders that swarmed dynastic Europe of the time” declared a regular religious profession.21 In this way, the knight of Malta stood as a reformulation of the crusade knight, who represented a combination of nobility of birth, certified through thorough procedures,22 with the virtues of military discipline and Christian example worked into coeval catechistical literature destined for the “Christian soldier”. Such literature in its turn flourished in the religious wars in France, the Dutch revolt and the great expansion of Turkish pressure in the western Mediterranean.23 Such remodelling of the way in which the Order of St John was represented affected the parallel revival of the idea of a crusade. This revival was supported by Pius V on the wave of enthusiasm brought about by the victory at Lepanto and had been increased as much by the prophetic Messianism in the last years of the reign of Phillip II, acclaimed as the new David and heir to the Eastern Empire, as by a whole set of highly successful, heroic literary works. This ranged from Gerusalemme liberata by Torquato Tasso (1575) to Jerusalén conquistada by Lope de Vega (1609)24 and the above-mentioned Maltea by Hipólito Sans, in which “an old Palestine wind is breathed”.25 Bosio had also shown himself to be imbued with such crusade ideals, seen in the last lines of his Istoria where he prophesised in apocalyptic tones the

20

21

22

23 24

25

La Maltea, de Hipólito Sans: Valencia, 1582”, in P. García Martín (ed.), La péñola y el acero: La idea de Cruzada en la España del siglo de oro (Seville: S&C, 2004) 129–45. P. García Martín, “El imaginario de la Orden de Malta: Milicia de Cristo, Cruzada de Dios”, in M. Rivero Rodríguez (ed.), Nobleza hispana, Nobleza cristiana: La Orden de San Juan (2 vol.; Madrid: Polifemo, 2009), vol. 2, 1413–44, on p. 1430. A. Spagnoletti, “La componente religiosa ed ecclesiastica negli uomini e nei beni della Sacra Religione Gerosolimitana”, in G. Greco (ed.), Il principe, la spada e l’altare (Pisa: ETS, 2014) 161–80, on p. 165–6. During the second half of the sixteenth century, in the face of growing demand for entry, the Order provided itself with increasingly selective requirements (at least in theory) and procedures to verify them. See F. D’Avenia, Nobiltà allo specchio: Ordine di Malta e mobilità sociale nella Sicilia moderna (Palermo: Associazione Mediterranea, 2009) and F. D’Avenia, “Elites and Ecclesiastical Careers in Early Modern Sicily: Bishops, Abbots and Knights”, Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 3–4 (2014) 625–55. V. Lavenia, Dio in uniforme: Cappellani, catechesi cattolica e soldati in età moderna (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2018). P. García Martín, “La Jerusalén libertada: De cómo los intelectuales del Barroco cultivaron el discurso cruzado”, in García Martín (ed.), La péñola y el acero, 57–78; R. Herrero Muñoz, “La cruzada de la Reconquista y la reconquista de las Cruzadas: La Jerusalén conquistada, de Lope de Vega, Madrid, 1609”, in García Martín (ed.), La péñola y el acero, 147–69. Puddu, “L’assedio di Malta”, 25.

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reconquest not only of Rhodes but also the liberation of “the Holy Sepulchre of Christ”, where “everything” had had its beginning (the history of the Order and Salvation).26

3.

The Order of St John as a Triumphant Religion

In July 1614 a fleet of 60 Turkish galleys disembarked on Maltese soil for what was technically classified by the Order as a state of siege, although it only lasted little more than two days. It actually involved an episode of war scarcely considered by historiography, albeit one of importance.27 This small siege has been interpreted as a reaction to the intensification in corsair activity of the knights since 1605 (and which continued until 1620) under the French grand master de Wignacourt (1601–1622), who in the same period advanced a campaign of coastal fortification in Malta and Gozo with the aim of discouraging raids by the Turks and Barbary corsairs.28 In this lively context of war, testimony to “du fait que la course était bien le prolongement de l’activité guerrière qui avait dominé le siècle precedent”,29 an extensive hagiographic treatment of the military successes of the Order of Malta was published first in Milan and then in Naples (1619).30 Its title was Il glorioso trionfo della sacrosanta religion militare de’ nobili valorosi e invitti cavalieri di S. Giovanni Gierosolimitano detti prima Hospitalieri, e poi di Rodi, e ultimamemente di Malta. Its author was the Dominican and theologian Domenico Maria Curione d’Asso from Milan, an expert on Holy Scripture and “description of military and Christian feats”.31 The work, dedicated to the same grand master Wignacourt, was very likely commissioned by Teseo Cavagliati di Valmacca, a knight of Malta from the Priory of Lombardy (one of seven which made up the so-called Tongue of Italy),

26 Bosio, Dell’Istoria, 873. On the historiography of the Order of St John, see A. Spagnoletti, “Per una introduzione alla storiografia sulla Lingua d’Italia dell’Ordine di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme in età moderna”, Studi Melitensi 10 (2002) 131–48. 27 B. Dal Pozzo, Historia della Sacra Religione Militare di S. Giovanni Gerosolimitano detta di Malta (2 vol.; Verona: G. Berno, 1703–15), vol. 1 (1703), 588–93. 28 A. Brogini, Malte, frontiére de chrétienté (1530–1670) (Rome: École française de Rome, 2006), 300–6. 29 Brogini, Malte, 303. 30 D.M. Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo della sacrosanta religion militare de’ nobili valorosi e invitti cavalieri di S. Giovanni Gierosolimitano detti prima Hospitalieri, e poi di Rodi, e ultimamemente di Malta (Naples: Scipione Bonino, 1619 [Milan: Herede di Pacifico Pontio & Gio. Battista Piccaglia, 1617]). 31 F. Piccinelli, Ateneo dei letterati milanesi (Milan: F. Vigone, 1670), 163–4.

When the Past Makes Saints

at that time at the beginning of his career.32 In the same year as its publication, the Milan edition of Glorioso trionfo came into the hands of the Catalan Pablo Clascar del Valles, military chaplain to the retinue of Spanish troops involved in the taking of the Piedmonte city of Vercelli, not far from Milan, during the first War of the Montferrat Succession (1613–17).33 On his return home and at the insistence of some knights of Malta, the chaplain applied himself to the translation and extension (actually minimal) of the work, whose publication in Spanish in 161934 coincided with the Naples edition.35 El glorioso triumfo was dedicated to Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy, celebrated as a “Joshua and guide of naval armies”. Indeed, from 1610 he was Captain General of the Sea of the Spanish Crown and already from 1597, when he was only 9 years old, had been nominated Grand Prior of Castile and Leon of the Order of Malta by his grandfather Phillip II, thereby provoking the Castilian knights to protest.36

32 Cavagliati had been titular of an Order commandery at the time of the first edition. Later he became lieutenant of the admiral (1619–22), prior of Capua (1621–2), admiral (1622–5) and bailiff of Naples (1625–6); see T. Ricardi Di Netro/L.C. Gentile, “Gentilhuomini Christiani e Religiosi Cavalieri”: Nove secoli dell’Ordine di Malta in Piemonte (Milan: Electa, 2000), 173; Dal Pozzo, Historia, vol. 1, 685, 719, 748, 758; and U. Mori Ubaldini, La Marina del Sovrano Militare Ordine di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme di Rodi e di Malta (Rome: Regionale Editrice, 1971), 544, 551, who, however, refers to him as Francesco Cavallotti Valmacca. See also Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, vii. 33 A. Buono, “Frontiere politiche, fiscali e corporative dello Stato di Milano: La conquista e il mantenimento del presidio di Vercelli (1638–1650)”, in C. Donati (ed.), Alle frontiere della Lombardia: Politica, guerra e religione nell’età moderna (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2006) 151–76, on p. 154–6. 34 P. Clascar del Valles, El glorioso triumfo de la sacrosanta Religion militar de los nobles e invencibles cavalleros de S. Juan gerosolimitano […] Traduzida de Italiano en Español, y en muchos lugares acrecentada, por Pablo Clascar del Valles clerigo Presbytero, natural de la muy insigne y siempre leal Ciudad de Barcelona (Barcelona: Esteban Liberos, 1619), prologue. 35 The latter was printed on request of the bookseller Lazzaro Scoriggio, who included a dedicatory letter (1 December 1618) to the Marquis of St Agata, Cesaro Firrao. Firrao belonged to an upwardly mobile family from Cosenza (Calabria), two of whose members were Knights of St John; see S. Iorio, “La cappella Firrao nella chiesa di San Paolo Maggiore di Napoli: La committenza, gli artisti e le opere”, in D.A. D’Alessandro (ed.), Sant’Andrea Avellino e i Teatini nella Napoli del Viceregno spagnolo: Arte religione società (2 vol.; Naples: M. D’Auria, 2011–12), vol. 2 (2012), 289–426, on p. 290–6; and F. Bonazzi, Elenco dei Cavalieri del S. M. Ordine di S. Giovanni di Gerusalemme ricevuti nella Veneranda Lingua d’Italia (2 vol.; Naples: Libreria Detken & Rocholl, 1897–1907), vol. 1 (1897), 141. 36 Clascar del Valles, El glorioso triumfo, dedicatory letter (Barcelona, 30 January 1619). Three years later, when he came of age, he received the habit of St John. The right of appointment to the Castilian priory, which was exercised by the Crown on the basis of royal patronage, was a clear violation of Order independence and dated back to the beginning of the fifteenth century. From Philip II onwards, princes of royal blood were chosen for this position, see D. Aznar Martínez/F. Sánchez Marcos, “Don Juan (José) de Austria, bastardo regio y Gran Prior: La consolidación del poder real sobre la Orden de San Juan en la época de Felipe IV”, in Rivero Rodríguez (ed.), Nobleza hispana, vol. 2, 1555–81, on p. 1556–60. Between 1621 and 1624 Emmanuel Philbert was also viceroy of

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The aim of Curione’s hagiographic and historical-theological work was shown in the close bond existing between the “faithfulness of these knights towards God, and at the same time the protection God kept over them: giving them the virtue of strength to overcome numerous troops and defeat powerful armies”.37 Such a favourable interpretation of the reality of war – victory as a reward for the Christian virtue of the soldier, even when much lower in number than the enemy, versus defeat as a just punishment for his sins38 – was at the basis of the doctrine of a just war and constituted a precondition for the success of any crusading venture. It was confirmed by Pius V a little more than two months before Lepanto, when he stated, as reported by the Venetian ambassador in Madrid, that it was not “possible for us to have the help of the Lord God … accompanied by so much wickedness and with such clear contempt of religion”.39 This involved well established theological convictions even in the court of Phillip II, and can be seen, for example, in the reasoning adopted by Mateo Vázquez before the king to justify the loss of Goletta in 1574: “It is believed that it was divine anger to punish the sins and abominations that were being committed there”.40 The historical material used by Curione to support this theological perspective was mainly the above-quoted work by Bosio, “not being my intention to write history, but to present a triumphant account in praise of these highly illustrious Knights”.41 The latter were in fact immediately represented as the perfect synthesis of the new crusading knight: being faithful devotees of the true and approved Religion, which is the sword of the Catholic faith and the true path to follow to Christian perfection with the two swift feet of monastic and political virtue; monastic for self-reform and acquisition of moral and theological virtue: being ordered in their lives in the love of God and their neighbour through vows. Political, for the defence of the Catholic faith.42

37

38 39 40 41 42

Sicily, where he died in the famous plague of 1624; see M. Á. de Bunes Ibarra, “Filiberto de Saboya, un príncipe que llega a ser Gran Prior”, in Rivero Rodríguez (ed.), Nobleza hispana, vol. 2, 1529–54. Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, xi, 20–1. The work originally foresaw another two parts, which were never written or published, dedicated to the knights’ faithfulness to the Apostolic See and to Catholic emperors, kings and princes “both of the East and the West, respectively”. G. Civale, Guerrieri di Cristo: Inquisitori, gesuiti e soldati alla battaglia di Lepanto (Milan: Unicopli, 2009), 69–72. Civale, Guerrieri di Cristo, 51. G. Parker, Felipe II: La biografía definitiva (Barcelona: Planeta, 2013), 251. Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, xi. Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 8.

When the Past Makes Saints

With this double formula of monastic and political virtue, the Order of Malta had also indicated the route for its religious reform, thus to be laid down against the background of the Tridentine “Catholic renewal”,43 in which new or reformed religious orders had indeed been precursors or propagators. In particular, some knights, albeit a minority of about 80, described not coincidentally as reformed, and even encouraged by Gregory XIII,44 had obtained the pope’s approval for various reform proposals for the Order. Their aim was to take the Order back to its legendary origins, that is “hospital service, where three vows were observed, and living a contemplative life” jointly, in what was called the “Camerata”45 (started and completed between 1592 and 1604).46 It is no coincidence that for Curione it was primarily essential “to say in which place and by whom such a beautiful rose of a holy religion, so well ordered and well-disposed not only to hospital care but also to the militia, had its beginning”.47 This seems to echo the motto semper eadem (an affirmation in anti-Protestant terms of the continuity between the original church and that of the era of the time). This was a key element in the ecclesiastical CounterReformation historiography at the basis of the cultural project of the Annales Ecclesiastici by Cesare Baronio, and to which not coincidentally even Antonio Bosio, the nephew of Giacomo and so-called Columbus of the Catacombs48 had contributed, connecting “underground” Christian archaeology with holy Roman areas, as Simon Ditchfield has pointed out very well.49

43 R. Po-chia Hsia, The World of Catholic Renewal 1540–1770 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2 2005). 44 In 1576 an apostolic nuncio had been sent to Malta, not coincidentally together with two Jesuit fathers “in order to reform that Religion”; G.P. Maffei, Degli Annali di Gregorio XIII (2 vol.; Rome: Girolamo Mainardi, 1742), vol. 1, 252–3. 45 L.M. De Palma, Il Frate Cavaliere: Il tipo ideale del Giovannita fra Medioevo et età moderna (Bari: Ecumenica Editrice, 2007), 82. De Palma quotes Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Urb. lat. 1049, ff. 280v–281r. 46 This miniature monastic community was soon entrusted to the spiritual care of the Society of Jesus, which in 1592 had established its first college in Malta; Dal Pozzo, Historia, vol. 1, 483–4; De Palma, Il Frate Cavaliere, 82–96. 47 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 8. 48 S. Ditchfield, “An Early Christian School of Sanctity in Tridentine Rome”, in S. Ditchfield (ed.), Christianity and Community in the West: Essays for John Bossy (London: Routledge, 2001) 183–205, on p. 186; N. Parise, “Bosio, Antonio”, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 13 (1971), 257–9. 49 S. Ditchfield, “Reading Rome as a sacred landscape c.1586–1635”, in W. Coster/A. Spicer (ed.), Sacred Space in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) 167–92; S. Ditchfield, “What was Sacred History?: (Mostly Roman) Catholic Uses of the Past after Trent”, in K. Van Liere/S. Ditchfield/H. Louthan (ed.), Sacred History: Uses of the Christian Past in the Renaissance World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) 72–97; G.A. Guazzelli, “Cesare Baronio and the Roman Catholic Vision of the Early Church”, in Van Liere/Ditchfield/Louthan (ed.), Sacred History, 52–71.

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Such a reinvention of the origins of the Order primarily regarded the very reason for its foundation: “If many religions have been instituted for a contemplative life, why could not one be set up for works of an active life” like “care for the poor” and “defence of the whole Christian republic”?50 It involved a definition that could have easily been applied to the Society of Jesus, the religious order par excellence of the Counter-Reformation.51 The knights of Malta were basically presented as Jesuits “in arms”, sharing the same military attitude against sin (primarily personal sin) and heresy as St Ignatius’s disciples, but adding armed struggle against the infidel: “the religious Knights of St John can rightly be called true soldiers of Christ, because they fight against the World, the Devil, and the Flesh and also because they refuse to accept and are ready to answer to these errors of human rebels, and to drive back onslaughts from the Barbarians and Turks, major enemies of the Catholic faith”.52 The origin of such a distinctive active religious order was identified of course in Jerusalem, not coincidentally the coveted destination of the first group of Jesuits led by St Ignatius.53 Indeed, Curione remembers how the Order had had both “its origins in terms of hospital” and “military” provision in the Holy City. It was led respectively by the first rector, the Blessed Gerardo and the first master, Brother Raimondo del Podio, who placed the Order under Augustinian rule as well as the “form of habit” (the black cloak, memory of the “clothing … of camel hair” of St John the Baptist, their protector, and the octagonal cross, symbol of the Gospel Beatitudes).54 Even the requirement that the knights be of noble birth was apodictically (back) dated to the Jerusalem origins of the Order: “It is to be believed that at that time the religious nobles of this Religion began to introduce the honourable and noble practice of arming themselves under the title of Knight … since all are from noble families, neither a craftsman or plebeian is received among their ranks”.55

50 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 4–5. 51 Buttigieg, referring in particular to its hospital assistance, underlines that “the Order of Malta somewhat prefigured the new religious orders of the sixteenth century”; E. Buttigieg, Nobility, Faith and Masculinity: The Hospitaller Knights of Malta, c. 1580–c. 1700 (London: Continuum, 2011), 94. On spiritual affinity and relationships between the Order and the Society of Jesus, see Buttigieg, Nobility, Faith and Masculinity, 105, 111–12; De Palma, Il Frate Cavaliere, 163–70. 52 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 20. 53 J.W. O’Malley, The First Jesuits (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 23–36. 54 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 18. 55 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 6, 19. The first legal reference to nobility requirements for the Knights of St John was within grand master Hugh de Revel’s Statutes in 1262: “Qui in fratrem militem recipi optavit, necesse est ut authentice probet, se ex iis parentibus esse procreatum, qui nomine et gentilitiis insigniis sunt nobiles”; quoted in C. Donati, L’idea di nobiltà in Italia: Secoli XIV–XVII (Bari: Laterza, 1988), 247.

When the Past Makes Saints

In short, the Order was described in its origins with the same aura, symbols and rules as that of its present, with an inversion of historical interpretation typical of a public portrayal of the past. With this development, the first section of the Glorioso trionfo, dedicated to the “nobility and honour of the Religion”, could only conclude with a chapter dedicated to a “description of the Holy City”, which examined the origins of the name, geographical position, “almost the navel of the Asian world”, the urban layout, the history of destruction and revival, until “finally to our great shame, it fell into the hands of dogs, our enemies and no one there to face them but these blessed and glorious knights, whose origins and beginning were there”.56 In the following lines the author makes such a passionate appeal for a crusade that it is stereotypical and therefore anachronistic and unrealistic. This probably betrayed the urgency to justify the financial problems the Order was facing due to privateering and the fortification of Malta “not having help or relief ”, and especially since “in the May of this year 1615 (Ottomans) dared show themselves within the confines of Malta”, less than a year after their failed attempt to invade the previous July.57 However, one cannot exclude that painting the Order as the only institution faithful to the dream (or utopian vision) of the crusade and bestowing it with the military valour necessary for the task, had other reasons behind it. It might have been to minimise some of the moral shortcomings widespread among the knights – such as gambling, duelling and above all employing prostitutes – reported to, and condemned by, the Holy See in the very period from 1611 to 1616.58 More in general, between 1564 and 1696, many knights were accused of several sins/crimes before the Roman Inquisition in Malta. In addition to those mentioned above, these included heresy, sorcery and superstition, blasphemy, perusing prohibited books, non-compliance with fasts as well as sexual offences, including sodomy.59 In particular, these were the most frequent galley sins faced by the conventual chaplains providing religious support to knights, soldiers and crew (including slave rowers) during the naval campaigns of the Order’s fleet, the so-called caravane. In fact, the instructions that were directed to these chaplains clearly evidenced their lack of preparation in fully accomplishing their pastoral duties in the cramped and mixed space of the galley, where the specific recommendation of Tridentine separation between sacred and profane was almost impossible to respect.60 Finally

56 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 25–6. 57 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 26–8. 58 F. Russo, Un Ordine, una città, una diocesi: La giurisdizione ecclesiastica nel principato monastico di Malta in età moderna (1523–1722) (Canterano: Aracne, 2017), 116, 121–3. 59 Buttigieg, Nobility, Faith and Masculinity, 115–16. 60 These instructions, which were inspired both by literature on the Christian soldier and the spiritual care issues directly experienced by chaplains on board, also dealt with the administration of

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and not by chance, the grand master Marco Antonio Zondadari recommended that the master of novices tempered “the boiling nature of that age, increasingly lively when it results from more noble birth”.61

4.

Imitating the Counter-Reformation Saints and Martyrs

The same hagiographic intentions were in the second section of the Glorioso Trionfo, a type of acta sanctorum compendium of the Order. Between history and legend, the author presents some of the most famous exempla of fedeltà and santità de Cavalieri (knights’ faithfulness and sanctity), opening this section with an almost seminal story of divine favour being bestowed on the Order. It was about three young brothers, who had a major role in the conversion of Ismeria, their captor and daughter of the Sultan of Egypt. All four were then miraculously taken to the homeland of the three knights, Picardy, and there they founded the sanctuary of Our Lady at Liesse “no differently attended in France as the Holy House of Loreto in Italy and famous and prominent throughout the world”.62 The lengthy overview that followed categorised the model Jerusalem knight in four distinct types: the martyrs who perished in battle against the infidel; wise administrators of the Order’s resources but also authors, in a remarkable combination, of miracles before and after death;63 saints and the blessed officially venerated for

sacraments, compliance with devotions, behaviour during conflict, preaching, conversion of infidels and Christian instruction of neophytes; see F. D’Avenia, “‘Tiene per altro il cappellano nella sua galera sempre dinanzi un campo grande di messe’: L’assistenza religiosa nell’Ordine di Malta in un’istruzione di fine Seicento”, Dimensioni e problemi della ricerca storica 1 (2018) 141–67. 61 M.A. Zondadari, Breve e particolare istruzione del sacro ordine militare degli Ospitalari, detto oggidì volgarmente di Malta, e della diversa qualità di persone, e di gradi che lo compongono (Padua: Giuseppe Comino, 1724), 74; quoted in A. Spagnoletti, “Milizia e carità nella storia dei Cavalieri di Malta”, Studi Melitensi 26 (2018) 45–68, on p. 52. 62 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 59. This story (see Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 31–60) was also a literary success thanks to the novel L’Ismeria, ossia l’allegrezze della Francia nei Stupori dell’Egitto, which saw several publications (Malta, 1648; Rome, 1649; Viterbo, n.d.), and the play Ismeria, which was written between 1689 and 1705; F. D’Avenia, “‘Esse malo quam videri’: Sangre y mérito en la Orden de Malta a través de la literatura de ficción (Italia, siglos XVI–XVII)”, in J.J. Iglesias Rodríguez/R.M. Pérez García/M.F. Fernández (ed.), Comercio y Cultura en la Edad moderna: Actas de la XIII Reunión Científica de la Fundación Española de Historia Moderna (Seville: Editorial Universidad de Sevilla, 2015) 2665–80, on p. 2671–5. 63 St Ugo Canefri, commander of S. Giovanni di Prè in Genoa, and García Martínez, who was “constant in prayer, more than ready to obey, very faithful in governing and administering the commandery … the so-called five Kingdoms of Spain”. He was buried in the church of the Bailiwick of Leça (priory of Portugal or Crato), Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 65–70; also see G. Verdura, Vita morte e miracoli di S. Ugone cavaliere gerosolimitano (Genoa: n.p., 1665); C. Barquero Goñi, Los caballeros

When the Past Makes Saints

their life of harsh penance and complete dedication to the obsequium pauperum;64 and finally the benefactors of the Order, founders and donors of churches, chapels, and hospitals. Among the latter, particular mention is made of the grand master Juan Fernàndez de Heredia, founder of the collegiate church of the Bailiwick of Caspe (Tongue of Aragon), for his more than exemplary support for the cause of the Order. Heredia also founded another church, of family patronage, in Mora de Rubielos (also in Aragon) where the magnificent castle belonging to his family stood.65 However, Curione made no mention of the casual, nepotistic way in which this Aragonese knight had employed his income and how he had used a combination of rich benefices belonging to the Order (Castellany of Amposta, and the Priories of Castile, Saint-Gilles, and Catalonia) to increase his family possessions.66 Once again the distance between reality and public representation was evident. This was completely in line with similar attempts made by the same Order of St John “to rebrand its image of sanctity through a refashioning of its own saints”, following the Tridentine standards, that is, “using traditional saints to represent contemporary exemplars”.67 Just three years after Curione’s work, the same Giacomo Bosio edited in Rome Le Imagini de’ Beati e Santi della Sacra Religione (1622). This booklet included short biographies and pictures of eleven medieval Order saints and blessed, which were never officially recognised.68 However, Matthias Ebejer has compared their characteristics with those identified by Peter Burke in the 55 saints that were canonised by the Catholic Church in the period between 1588 and 1767,

64

65 66

67 68

hospitalarios en España durante la Edad Media (siglos XII–XV) (Burgos: La Olmeda, 2002), 133–5; Sire, The Knights of Malta, 137–8, 141. Blessed Gerardo Meccati, born near Florence, who was sergeant at arms of the Order and then Franciscan tertiary; blessed Ubaldesca Taccini and St Toscana de’ Crescenzi, nuns of St John in Pisa and Verona respectively, who were also performers of miracles before and after their death; Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 70–8; see also O. Monzecchi, Vita del b. Gherardo da Villamagna, frate servente de’ cav. di Malta, e religioso del Terz’ord. di S. Francesco (Florence: Giuseppe Manni, 1709); G. Zaccagnini, Ubaldesca, una santa laica nella Pisa dei secoli XII–XIII (Pisa: ETS, 1995); Vita di Santa Toscana cavata da molti, ed approvati autori tolta dalli scritti del r. P. Luigi Navarini chierico regolare (Verona: Domenico Carattoni, 1783). Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 91–3. This “Medieval Gran Seigneur” had four illegitimate children and was captain-general of the papal army at Avignon, where he built the beautiful walls of the city. He fought in the War of the Two Peters and faced his grand master, the Provencal Raymond Berenger, who forced him to renounce the priories of Saint-Gilles and Castile. As grand master in Rhodes, during the Great Western Schism, Heredia sided with the Avignon anti-pope Clement VII against Gregory XI, who deposed him. He was also a bibliophile and patron of letters (Sire, The Knights of Malta, 41–49). M. Ebejer, “‘Sanctify yourselves and be holy’: Hospitallers and their Counter-Reformation Saints”, Journal of Baroque Studies 2/1 (2017) 201–27, on p. 209–10. Five of them coincided with those included in Curione’s work: Ubaldesca Taccini, Toscana de’ Crescenzi, Ugo Canefri, Gerardo Mecatti and García Martínez.

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and has come to the conclusion that the former “were nonetheless representative of the values and morals that Tridentism was advocating”.69 The most substantial part of this second section was of course the part dedicated to the alleged martyrs of the Religion, who in fact opened and closed this pageant of saintly and distinguished lives. It started with the 90 knights who perished in defence of the castles of Arsur (Palestine) and Crac (Syria), in 1265 and 1271 respectively – “having alone and for many years maintained and preserved the Catholic faith in the East, zealously shedding their blood to defend it”70 . However, Curione seems very aware of the new rules which, before Trent, put the official declarations of martyrdom exclusively under the control of the pope,71 “whose authority in such cases has to be considered divine and infallible”.72 Indeed, it is no coincidence that the author includes the testimony of three popes (Clement IV, Pius II and Alexander IV as well as an entire letter from the latter) in order to ‘tridentinise’ his story.73 The final martyrs listed by Curione were the 17 who died (amongst other knights) in the Siege of Rhodes in 1480 and the 110 who perished in that of Malta in 1565, the latter while they were defending Fort St Elmo under the command of the fortress governor, Brother Melchior Monserrat.74 Despite his violent death, Monserrat was found “intact and fine-looking with his hands together, in the act of prayer, which was considered a highly miraculous thing”.75 A century after the Great Siege of Malta, the famous painter and knight of St John, Mattia Preti, depicted him in this position of prayer in the co-cathedral of St John. Here he was painted among 27 heroes and saints of the Order (nine of whom had died as ‘martyrs’ on the same occasion). At a distance of four centuries from the first knights who had died as martyrs in Palestine, this was a true visual confirmation that, to paraphrase

69 Ebejer, “‘Sanctify yourselves and be holy’”, 210–16, quotation on p. 210; P. Burke, “How to become a Counter-Reformation Saint”, in K. von Greyerz (ed.), Religion and Society in Early Modern Europe 1500–1800 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1984) 45–55. 70 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 62–5, 78–80, quotation on p. 80. Curione wrongly dated the loss of Crac to 1260 (Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 79). In 1291, the fall of Acre, which was defended against the Turks by the Knights of the Temple and of St John, marked the end of the Christian presence in the Holy Land (Sire, The Knights of Malta, 7, 14–15, 24). 71 Po-chia Hsia, The World of Catholic Renewal, 130–1. Actually, among the 32 saints who were canonised by the Roman Church between 1540 and 1770, only one died as a martyr, i. e. the Franciscan Juan de Prado, who was a missionary in Barbary. 72 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 107. 73 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 64, 80–4. 74 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 100–12. 75 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 114.

When the Past Makes Saints

Tertullian, “the blood of the martyrs of St Elmo was the seed of the Order in Malta”.76 In fact, the Religion of St John continued to be semper eadem, thanks to martyrdom, a very “core notion in the Hospitaller vocation”. Furthermore, “for many knights, particularly the less pious ones, this was a bonus, the opportunity to erase a lifetime of sin at the very moment of death”.77

5.

Miraculous Victories (and Defeats)

At this point in Curione’s glorious triumph, there was finally space for an extended and detailed report of the 39 “marvellous and miraculous Victories” reported by knights against the infidel, to which the remaining three sections of the work were dedicated in order to demonstrate the “protection God had placed over this Religion”.78 Curione traces a range of triumphs over four centuries, distributed over different scenarios: the Holy Land in the final years of Christian presence (from the Christian siege of Damietta in Egypt in 1219 to the fall of Acre in 1291), the conquest and defence of Rhodes and its adjacent islands (until its fall in 1522), the previously mentioned Great Siege of Malta in 1565, and some privateering in the Eastern Mediterranean between 1596 and 1616. Beyond isolated episodes, some recurring elements in the narrative deserve to be examined because they constituted the effective communication strategy for the reinvention of a past destined for a wider reading public.79 Firstly, what turns out to be of interest is the interpretation of the concept of victory. Paradoxically even some dramatic defeats were considered to be such, like the loss of the castle of Margat (1285) and even the epochal defeats of Acre and Rhodes. The reason was said to be: Because when they saw that they could not maintain those fortresses without great damage to their religion or to Christianity, they immediately submitted to the hands of

76 M. Ebejer, “The Concept of Martyrdom within Hospitaller Devotional Practices: The Fallen at St Elmo as a Case Study”, in M. Camilleri (ed.), Besieged: Malta 1565 (2 vol.; Valletta: Malta Libraries and Heritage Malta, 2015), vol. 1, 125–35, on p. 135. 77 Ebejer, “‘Sanctify yourselves and be holy’”, 218–24, quotations on p. 222. 78 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, Tavola de’ capitoli. The Spanish edition reported two further victories, which, however, are included in the Italian original, though not counted. 79 D. García Hernán, “Consecuencias político-culturales de la batalla de Lepanto: La literatura española”, Mediterranea. Ricerche storiche 23 (2011) 467–500, on p. 477.

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the enemy with agreements, and such conditions that rendered them the victors rather than the defeated.80

Regardless of the actual final outcome of the victories, a characteristic common to all accounts was the continual recourse to hyperbole, peppered sometimes with the sudden appearance of miraculous events. The recurring narrative was in fact that of a few knights, new Maccabees, who “were still few in number, fighting nonetheless manfully for divine worship and the Father’s laws, were accustomed to overcoming and winning against sometimes innumerable ranks of idolatrous and profane people”, causing the enemy to flee or at least inflicting enormous loss.81 To cite one of many examples, one only has to browse through the approximately 100 pages dedicated to the Siege of Rhodes in 1480: 160 Turkish boats reached the island loaded with men and artillery (probably there were less than half); 2,500 Turks were killed in just one attack on the Tower of St Nicolas; “sixteen enormous pieces of artillery, which in very few days shot three thousand five hundred cannonballs against the walls”; the final assault of 40,000 soldiers was also repelled due to a miraculous appearance: a “dazzling” cross of gold, the Virgin Mary armed with a shield and spear, and St John the Baptist, “behind whom could be seen a cohort of soldiers armed in shining armour, who appeared to be coming in haste to rescue the city”.82 The final tally was 9,000 Turks killed and 15,000 wounded throughout the whole siege.83 In the following siege of 1522, the Turks who would lose their lives were said to be 94,000.84 It involved numbers which were undoubtedly exaggerated

80 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 129–30 (italics are the author’s); 133–4. With reference to the Siege of Rhodes in 1522, Curione underlined the “so much damage that was caused for enemies … so many Turks having died, … all of which clearly show that the loss of Rhodes can be called victory” (Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 318, see also 296–97). However, a point of honour for the Order had been to never submit to the Ottoman Empire as tributary, even at the expense of favourable terms of peace (Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 182–6, 200, 216). 81 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 19; also 27, 117. This is a very frequent topos in ancient historiography, where Greeks and Romans fight “against endless hordes of Barbarians from the East or the North” (Puddu, “L’assedio di Malta”, 18). 82 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 272–3. A similar apparition was attested in the siege of Malta in 1565, during the defence of Fort St Elmo (Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 330–1). Among the victories there was room for epic hand-to-hand combat between a knight, the Grand Commander Dieudonné de Gozon, then elected as grand master (1346–53), and “a big and fearsome Dragon … which appeared there [in Rhodes] by divine permission”, a clear incarnation of the infidel Turk (Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 155–162, 218; see also Sire, The Knights of Malta, 30). 83 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 211, 226, 245, 261, 270–3. 84 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 315.

When the Past Makes Saints

in comparison to those worked out by more recent historiography, which calculated the Turkish force to be 1,500 in 1480 and 20,000 in 1522.85 The image of this mass of rowdy, undisciplined Turks, anonymous as the shower of firearm shot that preceded their attacks, was companion to that of the individual, clearly identifiable knights, by far superior in sword combat. It obeyed a stereotypical representation of the Muslim infidel, “barbarian”, “dog” and “cruel”, thirsty for revenge against an order to which they owed an infinite number of humiliating defeats.86 However, even the Christian princes were not spared heavy criticism on the part of the author, who accused them of selfishness, cowardice and mutual rivalry. This had marked the four-century struggle against the infidel,87 and had thwarted amongst other things the dream of a new crusade to free the Holy Land.88 However, from the author’s perspective, these evils of the past were also manifesting themselves in the present, in which the scourges and wounds that Christianity has received, are certainly mortal, if after so much time of sleep … Catholic prince, [you] do not take up the shield of strength and defence as soon as possible. Oh blame, oh dishonour, oh shame and disgrace of our times.89

Such a heartfelt accusation was moreover included in the chapter dedicated to the Siege of Rhodes in 1480, the narration of which was therefore functional to the needs of the present. It was no accident that the Glorioso trionfo closed with a passionate appeal to these “Catholic princes” so that together they might fight the infidel, without having “this Religion … left without help and succour”. The final ecumenical hope was that the favour recently bestowed on the Order, by the “highly powerful and united crowns” of Spain and France, probably reference to the double marriage treaty of 1612 (between Louis XIII and the Infanta Anne on the one hand, and between Prince Philip, then Philip IV, and Elizabeth of Bourbon, on the other), which was the result of the peaceful policy of Lerma several years

85 E. Brockman, The Two Sieges of Rhodes, 1480–1522 (London: John Murray, 1969), 55–7, 64–5, 89–90, 124–5; Sire, The Knights of Malta, 289. 86 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 11, 26, 61, 173, 217, 219, 315, 317, 327, 335–6. The term barbarian/s (barbaro/i) appears at least a hundred times; see also Puddu, “L’assedio di Malta”, 23–4. 87 On the occasion of the siege in 1522, the enemy would have been driven out “if negligence and division of Christian princes did not deprive it [the Order] of every help and soccour” (Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 316). 88 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 138, 152, 164. 89 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 196 and 217.

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earlier,90 might be translated into: “While even one day in this life, be able to see terrestrial Jerusalem again, so that then happy and content its Knights can rise after their death to the celestial peace and love, which God in his infinite goodness grants them. Amen”.91 Once again, the Holy Land is confirmed as the ideal and aesthetic reference point of a whole literary and historiographical culture, in which “these highly noble knights” had been transfigured into a symbol of religious faith and military valour, and to which the madrigal dedicated to the Glorioso trionfo by the Domenican friar Antonio Maria de Osimo could be applied: “High and noble work / that although vague illuminates / with illustrious events, and glorious friezes, / of great Heroes of Malta; / let it come to the light, and give light, / so [the work] from them [the knights] might have eternal light”.92

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90 J.H. Elliott, Imperial Spain 1469–1716 (London: Penguin, 2002), 321. 91 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, 354–6. 92 Curione d’Asso, Il glorioso trionfo, xiii.

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de Bunes Ibarra, M.Á., “Filiberto de Saboya, un príncipe que llega a ser Gran Prior”, in M. Rivero Rodríguez (ed.), Nobleza hispana, Nobleza cristiana: La Orden de San Juan (2 vol.; Madrid: Polifemo, 2009), vol. 2, 1529–54. De Caro, G., “Bosio, Giacomo”, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani (100 vol.; Rome: Treccani, 1960–2020), vol. 13 (1971), 261–4. De Palma, L.M., Il Frate Cavaliere: Il tipo ideale del Giovannita fra Medioevo ed età moderna (Bari: Ecumenica Editrice, 2007). Ditchfield, S., “An Early Christian School of Sanctity in Tridentine Rome”, in S. Ditchfield (ed.), Christianity and Community in the West: Essays for John Bossy (London: Routledge, 2001) 183–205. Ditchfield, S., “Reading Rome as a sacred landscape c.1586–1635”, in W. Coster/A. Spicer (ed.), Sacred Space in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) 167–92. Ditchfield, S., “What was Sacred History?: (Mostly Roman) Catholic Uses of the Past after Trent”, in K. Van Liere/S. Ditchfield/H. Louthan (ed.), Sacred History: Uses of the Christian Past in the Renaissance World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) 72–97. Donati, C., L’idea di nobiltà in Italia: Secoli XIV–XVII (Bari: Laterza, 1988). Ebejer, M., “The Concept of Martyrdom within Hospitaller Devotional Practices: The Fallen at St Elmo as a Case Study”, in M. Camilleri (ed.), Besieged: Malta 1565 (2 vol.; Valletta: Malta Libraries and Heritage Malta, 2015), vol. 1, 125–35. Ebejer, M., “‘Sanctify yourselves and be holy’: Hospitallers and their Counter-Reformation Saints”, Journal of Baroque Studies 2/1 (2017) 201–27. Elliott, J.H., Imperial Spain 1469–1716 (London: Penguin, 2002). Formiga, F., “‘Melita obsidione liberatur’: The Great Siege in 16th Century Booklets”, Culture del testo e del documento 51 (2016) 57–76. Freeman, A. “Editions of Fontanus, De bello Rhodio”, The Library 24/4 (1969) 333–6. García Hernán, D., “Consecuencias político-culturales de la batalla de Lepanto: La Literatura española”, Mediterranea. Ricerche storiche 23 (2011) 467–500. García Martín, P., “La Jerusalén libertada: De cómo los intelectuales del Barroco cultivaron el discurso cruzado”, in P. García Martín (ed.), La péñola y el acero: La idea de Cruzada en la España del siglo de oro (Seville: S&C, 2004) 57–78. García Martín, P., “El imaginario de la Orden de Malta: Milicia de Cristo, Cruzada de Dios”, in M. Rivero Rodríguez (ed.), Nobleza hispana, Nobleza cristiana: La Orden de San Juan (2 vol.; Madrid: Polifemo, 2009), vol. 2, 1413–44. Guazzelli, G.A., “Cesare Baronio and the Roman Catholic Vision of the Early Church”, in K. Van Liere/S. Ditchfield/H. Louthan (ed.), Sacred History: Uses of the Christian Past in the Renaissance World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) 52–71. Gutiérrez Medina, D., “El Gran Turco a la caza del halcón maltés: La Maltea, de Hipólito Sans: Valencia, 1582”, in P. García Martín (ed.), La péñola y el acero: La idea de Cruzada en la España del siglo de oro (Seville: S&C, 2004) 129–45.

When the Past Makes Saints

Herrero Muñoz, R., “La cruzada de la Reconquista y la reconquista de las Cruzadas: La Jerusalén conquistada, de Lope de Vega, Madrid, 1609”, in P. García Martín (ed.), La péñola y el acero: La idea de Cruzada en la España del siglo de oro (Seville: S&C, 2004) 147–69. Iorio, S., “La cappella Firrao nella chiesa di San Paolo Maggiore di Napoli: La committenza, gli artisti e le opere”, in D.A. D’Alessandro (ed.), Sant’Andrea Avellino e i Teatini nella Napoli del Viceregno spagnolo: Arte religione società (2 vol.; Naples: M. D’Auria, 2011–12), vol. 2 (2012), 289–426. Labatut, J.-P., Les noblesses européennes de la fin du XVe siècle à la fin du XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1978). Lavenia, V., Dio in uniforme: Cappellani, catechesi cattolica e soldati in età moderna (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2018). Loda, N., “L’Ordine di Malta: Eredità e prospettive per il nostro tempo”, Studi Melitensi 26 (2018) 191–225. Maffei, G.P., Degli Annali di Gregorio XIII (2 vol.; Rome: Girolamo Mainardi, 1742). Mallia-Milanes, V., “Emperor Charles V’s donation of Malta to the Knights of St John”, in Carlo V e Mercurino di Gattinara suo gran cancelliere: Convegno internazionale 9–11 giugno 2000, Malta Forte Sant’Angelo (Malta: Accademia Internazionale Melitense, 2001) 23–33. Monzecchi, O., Vita del b. Gherardo da Villamagna, frate servente de’ cav. di Malta, e religioso del Terz’ord. di S. Francesco (Florence: Giuseppe Manni, 1709). Mori Ubaldini, U., La Marina del Sovrano Militare Ordine di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme di Rodi e di Malta (Rome: Regionale Editrice, 1971). O’Malley, J.W., The First Jesuits (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). Pace Gravina, G., “Obsequium pauperum: Per una lettura istituzionale del carisma melitense”, in A. Cernigliaro (ed.), Il ‘privilegio’ dei ‘proprietari di nulla’: Identificazione e risposte nella società medievale e moderna: Convegno di Studi, Napoli 22–23 ottobre 2009 (Naples: Satura, 2010) 181–91. Parise, N., “Bosio, Antonio”, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani (100 vol.; Rome: Treccani, 1960–2020), vol.13 (1971), 257–9. Parker, G., Felipe II: La biografía definitiva (Barcelona: Planeta, 2013). Piccinelli, F., Ateneo dei letterati milanesi (Milan: F. Vigone, 1670). Po-chia Hsia, R., The World of Catholic Renewal 1540–1770 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2 2005). Puddu, R., “L’assedio di Malta e la cavalleria mediterranea”, Dimensioni e problemi della ricerca storica 2 (1995) 15–37. Ricardi Di Netro, T./Gentile, L.C., “Gentilhuomini Christiani e Religiosi Cavalieri”: Nove secoli dell’Ordine di Malta in Piemonte (Milan: Electa, 2000). Russo, F., Un Ordine, una città, una diocesi: La giurisdizione ecclesiastica nel principato monastico di Malta in età moderna (1523–1722) (Canterano: Aracne, 2017).

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Sans, H., La Maltea: En que se trata la famosa defensa de la Religión de Sant Ioan en la isla de Malta (Valencia: Casa de Ioan Navarro, 1582). Scarabelli, G., “Dieci anni dalla morte del Servo di Dio fra’ Andrew Bertie”, Studi Melitensi 26 (2018) 11–22. Sire, H.J.A., The Knights of Malta (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1994). Spagnoletti, A., “Per una introduzione alla storiografia sulla Lingua d’Italia dell’Ordine di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme in età moderna”, Studi Melitensi 10 (2002) 131–48. Spagnoletti, A., “La componente religiosa ed ecclesiastica negli uomini e nei beni della Sacra Religione Gerosolimitana”, in G. Greco (ed.), Il principe, la spada e l’altare (Pisa: ETS, 2014) 161–80. Spagnoletti, A., “Milizia e carità nella storia dei Cavalieri di Malta”, Studi Melitensi 26 (2018) 45–68. Tomer, A., “Il Sovrano Militare Ordine di Malta dalla crisi del 2016–2017 alla riforma costituzionale”, Stato, Chiese e pluralismo confessionale 13 (2018). Vann, T.M./Kagay, D.J., Hospitaller Piety and Crusader Propaganda: Guillaume Caoursin’s Description of the Ottoman Siege of Rodhes, 1480 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015). Vatin, N., Rhodes et l’Ordre de Saint-Jean-de-Jérusalem (Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2000). Verdura, G., Vita morte e miracoli di S. Ugone cavaliere gerosolimitano (Genoa: n.p., 1665). Vita di Santa Toscana cavata da molti, ed approvati autori tolta dalli scritti del r. P. Luigi Navarini chierico regolare (Verona: Domenico Carattoni, 1783). Voltaire, Annales de l’Empire depuis Charlemagne (1753–54) (Paris: V.e H. Perronneau, 1817). Zaccagnini, G., Ubaldesca, una santa laica nella Pisa dei secoli XII–XIII (Pisa: ETS, 1995). Zondadari, M.A., Breve e particolare istruzione del sacro ordine militare degli Ospitalari, detto oggidì volgarmente di Malta, e della diversa qualità di persone, e di gradi che lo compongono (Padua: Giuseppe Comino, 1724).

Graeme Murdock

Religion and Violence Geneva’s Just War

1.

Historiographical Contexts

The relationship between religion and violence continues to be a matter of considerable popular, political, and academic concern. Any number of voices have joined debates about how religious loyalty (often understood in Christian contexts to signify adherence to a set of beliefs, or active participation in rituals, or reflecting the socio-cultural identities of individuals and communities) relates to violent conduct (whether international wars, civil conflict, terrorism, communal violence, or interpersonal hostility). Much of this discussion has generated a good deal more heat than light. Some have asserted causal, or even essential, connections between religion and violence. Defenders of a particular form of Christian religion (or of Christianity or of religion in general) have highlighted the pacific character of religious beliefs and emphasised the prominence of believers as advocates for social justice and human rights. Some commentators are reluctant to engage in a generalised debate about the relationship between religion and violence, concerned about the lack of precision and clarity about the ways in which the concept of religion is often deployed. Other writers suggest that the most productive way to proceed is to focus in a detailed way on the specific contexts in which religion is alleged to have contributed to the causes or character of violent conflict. Debate about these issues in recent times has in part been fostered by concern about a suggested rise in religious violence. These arguments have focused on analysis of conflicts between states, civil wars, and the brutal campaigns undertaken by various groups of terrorists. Among the regions highlighted as providing a possible example of modern religious violence that relates to the divisions of the Reformation era is Northern Ireland. In The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence, Lloyd Steffen stated that “Protestants and Catholics were engaged in mutual terrorist actions against each other in Northern Ireland”.1 Mark Juergensmeyer in Terror in the Mind of God argued that on “both the Irish and Protestant sides, violence is related to the renewed role that religion has come to play in Northern Ireland’s public

1 L. Steffen, “Religion and violence in Christian traditions”, in M. Jerryson/M. Juergensmeyer/M. Kitts (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) 109–39, on p. 116.

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life”.2 However, William Cavanaugh in The Myth of Religious Violence argued that to make any analytical progress towards understanding the relationship between religion and violence a good deal more careful thought is required about precisely what is meant by the concept of religion. Cavanaugh argued that some conflicts are understood as religious in character only because religion is treated as a general aspect of culture. Cavanaugh suggested that “if something more specific is meant by religion, define religion, and drop all the examples, such as that of Northern Ireland, that do not fit the more specific paradigm”.3 Early modern historians have analysed the wide range of forms of violence witnessed during the Reformation era but have been infrequent participants in debates about the relationship between religion and violence in modern contexts. During a period marked by some of the worst violence to afflict Northern Ireland, in 1973 Natalie Zemon Davis provided an analysis of the relationship between ritual and violence that has proved of lasting significance. As Zemon Davis has explained, she was reflecting on recent episodes of violence as she analysed the massacres of the French wars of religion. Indeed, she argued that study of the relationship between religion and violence had been hindered because many historians who were themselves people of faith found that the “popular violence of their Calvinist and Catholic ancestors may have been an embarrassment (as is Belfast)”.4 Any sensitivities among historians about highlighting the role of religion in the conflicts of early modern Europe have certainly lessened in recent decades. Civil wars and international conflicts have been investigated to discern the role that religion played in violence both within states and between states. Historians have studied the violent attitudes and actions exhibited by clergy and ordinary people towards rival religious communities. The conduct of armies, prosecution of heretics, and motives of those who attacked clergy, ransacked churches, and destroyed sacred objects have all come under scrutiny.5

2 M. Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 3 2003), 36–43. 3 W.T. Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflicts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 33. 4 N. Zemon Davis, “The Rites of Violence: Religious Riot in Sixteenth-Century France”, Past & Present 59 (1973) 52–91, on p. 53; N. Zemon Davis/J. Estèbe, “Debate. The Rites of Violence: Religious Riot in Sixteenth-Century France”, Past & Present 67 (1975) 127–35; N. Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France: Eight Essays (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007); G. Murdock/P. Roberts/A. Spicer (ed.), Ritual and Violence: Natalie Zemon Davis and Early Modern France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 5 W. Palaver/H. Rudolph/D. Regensburger (ed.), The European Wars of Religion: An Interdisciplinary Reassessment of Sources, Interpretations, and Myths (London: Routledge, 2016); K. Repgen, “What is a ‘Religious War’?”, in E.I. Kouri/T. Scott (ed.), Politics and Society in Reformation Europe: Essays for Sir Geoffrey Elton on his Sixty-Fifth Birthday (London: St. Martin’s Press, 1987) 311–28; D. Crouzet,

Religion and Violence

Much of this analysis has highlighted the significance of contexts, assessed the changing place of religion in politics and society over time, and noted the instability of the categories of the secular and the religious. However, suggestions remain that there might be modern legacies of the violent divisions of the early modern period. In 2004 Diarmaid MacCulloch suggested that only faint echoes remain of the past violence between Christians. He argued that “religion is only a major issue in the politics of certain enclaves trapped in a particular understanding of their local history, such as Northern Ireland”.6 In 2005, Ulinka Rublack agreed that “the recent conflict in Northern Ireland shows that religious allegiance can still influence European politics today”.7 In 2007, Benjamin Kaplan commented that “obviously religious violence still occurs on a horrific scale as ongoing or recent conflicts in Northern Ireland, the Balkans, the Middle East, India, Indonesia and other parts of the world attest”.8 In 2015, Margaret C. Jacob considered that Northern Ireland had begun to gradually escape from “the fixity of religious hatred” thanks to the architects of a peace process who “embraced enlightened principles and renounced the bloody-mindedness of centuries”. However, Jacob issued a warning that “beneath a surface calm religious passions still simmer”.9 Such general assertions fail to convince without any analysis of the complex place of religious belief, religious rhetoric, and religious identity in the politics and society in Northern Ireland.

6 7 8 9

Les guerriers de Dieu: La violence au temps des troubles de religion (vers 1525–vers 1610) (2 vol.; Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 1990); M.P. Holt, “Putting Religion Back into the Wars of Religion”, French Historical Studies 18/2 (1993) 524–51; M.P. Holt, “Religion, Historical Method, and Historical Forces: A Rejoinder”, French Historical Studies 19/3 (1996) 863–73; P. Benedict, “The Dynamics of Protestant Militancy: France, 1555–1563”, in P. Benedict et al.(ed.), Reformation, Revolt and Civil War in France and the Netherlands, 1555–1585 (Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1999) 35–50, on pp. 35–44; J. Pollmann, “Countering the Reformation in France and the Netherlands: Clerical Leadership and Catholic Violence, 1560–1585”, Past & Present 190 (2006) 83–120; P. Roberts, “Contesting Sacred Space: Burial Disputes in Sixteenth-Century France”, in B. Gordon/P. Marshall (ed.), The Place of the Dead: Death and Remembrance in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) 131–48; E.W. Monter, Judging the French Reformation: Heresy Trials by Sixteenth-Century Parlements (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999); Brad S. Gregory, Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999); P. Benedict, Graphic History: The Wars, Massacres and Troubles of Tortorel and Perrissin (Geneva: Droz, 2007); S. Carroll, Blood and Violence in Early Modern France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). D. MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, 1490–1700 (London: Penguin Books, 2004), 703. U. Rublack, Reformation Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 199. B.J. Kaplan, Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2007), 5. M.C. Jacob, “Walking the Terrain of History with a Faulty Map”, Low Countries Historical Review 130/3 (2015) 72–8, on pp. 77–8.

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The suggestion that older and more violent ways of doing religion have somehow survived largely intact in certain parts of Europe likewise remains unproven.10 Another idea advanced in recent debates about the relation between religion and violence is that some religions or religious cultures have a greater capacity for violence than others. Were Calvinists for example particularly disruptive, militant, and violent children of the Reformation? Some Calvinists certainly took part in communal riots and attacked objects of traditional devotion in churches. The emergence of Reformed churches during the middle decades of the sixteenth century led to long and bloody conflicts in the French monarchy and the Habsburg Netherlands. However, there is no evidence that Calvinists had any greater enthusiasm for violence or more willingness to fight for their faith than those who belonged to other churches. While many Calvinists advertised the religious motives behind their political actions, neatly separating out religious concerns from other interests and ambitions also remains challenging. Reformed political cultures were also closely related to specific local circumstances and changed over time. Some Calvinists provided religious grounds to defend violent rebellions against their lawful (Catholic) monarchs while others offered unswerving obedience to (Reformed) magistrates as a clear duty required of all Christians.11 In considering the role of religion in the war declared by Reformed Geneva against the Catholic Duchy of Savoy in 1589, this chapter does not suggest any particularly militant capacity on the part of Calvinism or of Catholicism. We will not seek strictly to disaggregate what might be labelled as religious motives from other overlapping political and social concerns in understanding the causes and character of this conflict. Rather, we will focus on the importance of the context of Genevan society in considering this war over its disputed border with Savoy. The aim is not to demonstrate that late-sixteenth-century religion became more militant as it approached a contested frontier or in a borderland but rather to use this environment to assess the complex place of religion in early modern conflict. Political elites and local communities understood the potential for violence at borders and in borderlands where rival confessional states and communities were neighbours.

10 The best overview is provided by A.T.Q. Stewart, The Narrow Ground: Aspects of Ulster, 1609–1969 (London: Faber & Faber, 1977). 11 C. Kooi, “Calvinism and War”, in C. Gribben/G. Murdock (ed.), Cultures of Calvinism in Early Modern Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020) 173–87; M. van Gelderen, The Political Thought of the Dutch Revolt, 1555–1590 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); P.-A. Mellet, Les Traités monarchomaques: Confusion des temps, résistance armée et monarchie parfaite (1560–1600) (Geneva: Droz, 2007); C.M.N. Eire, War against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); L.P. Wandel, Voracious Idols and Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg, and Basel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

Religion and Violence

States attempted to maintain social peace in such contested spaces through diplomatic agreements and detailed regulatory regimes to manage competing religious rights. These efforts to deal with the consequences of religious divisions could lead to the development of peaceful pluralism. However, much of the violence and many of the wars of the era of Reformation took place in contested spaces and borderlands of various kinds. Studies of frontiers and borderlands have proved valuable in assessing the powers of governments and agency of local communities in religious life and a wide variety of other themes. Borders in early modern Europe were often rather porous. In some regions geographic features offered clarity about where borders lay but the intricacies of some frontiers were often best understood by local communities. Many border regions and borderlands were already complex environments prior to the impact of religious division. Some regions included different linguistic communities or ethno-linguistic communities who had long lived alongside one another with varying degrees of social integration. Conflict could break out between distinct groups with varied political interests and loyalties. However, the same areas could also provide spaces of polyglot exchange and peaceful cultural and social interactions. Some borderlands were liminal spaces in which similarities developed between communities on either side of a border that were distinctive from the cultures of heartlands and metropolitan centres. There were also lots of different sorts of frontier spaces and borderlands, including the rural hinterlands of urban communities. City walls in some places marked out distinct legal and institutional environments between town and countryside. However, neighbouring urban and rural communities remained mutually dependent and closely connected with each other. During the sixteenth century in a whole range of contexts across Europe new religious divisions overlapped with, and cut across, pre-existing ethno-linguistic communities, state borders, jurisdictional boundaries, and social divisions and linkages. The complex borders between Savoy and Geneva were not marked by any geographic features. The most obvious frontier was provided by the renovated walls that separated the city of Geneva from its rural hinterland. Francophone families with no social or cultural divisions from before the Reformation lived in the countryside around Geneva on either side of the border, with the distinction that those on the Genevan side of the border lived on land once owned by Catholic institutions.12

12 For a variety of perspectives on political authority, religious life, and borders, see M. Koller, Eine Gesellschaft im Wandel: Die osmanische Herrschaft in Ungarn im 17. Jahrhundert (1606–1683) (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2010); L. Scholz, Borders and Freedom of Movement in the Holy Roman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020); V. Soen et al. (ed.), Transregional Reformations: Crossing Borders in Early Modern Europe (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019); B.J. Kaplan, Cunegonde’s Kidnapping: A Story of Religious Conflict in the Age of Enlightenment (New Haven: Yale

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2.

Reformed Geneva

The war declared by Reformed Geneva on the Catholic Duchy of Savoy in 1589 might seem at one level to be easily categorised as a religious war or at least as a war in which religious identities and motives likely played a significant role. To consider how meaningful such a label might be and the ways in which religious institutions, personnel, and rhetoric contributed to the decision to declare war and how the war was fought first requires analysis of the place of the Reformed Church within Geneva. The Reformed Church held a monopoly over religious life within Geneva’s territory. All residents of the state were required to belong to the Reformed Church, to be baptised, to get married, and to be buried according to rites conducted by Reformed clergy. Reformed ministers were salaried employees of the Genevan state, appointed to their posts only following formal approval of the secular authorities.13 Geneva’s executive Small Council worked in close collaboration with the clergy. Councillors and clergy served together in an invasive bureaucratic institution set up in 1541 to implement Calvin’s vision of a well-ordered Reformed sacral community. The city’s consistory was staffed by pastors and councillors who served as elders. Together they oversaw a programme of moral and social discipline that attempted to enforce conformity to high standards of religious observance and moral conduct. Genevans were required to attend church services and were instructed by clergy and teachers with the objective that ordinary men and women should be able to demonstrate that they had some knowledge of the basic tenets of their faith. Those who failed to attend services or whose beliefs and observed behaviour were deemed to be outside the boundaries of what was acceptable for any Genevan were subjected to different forms of punishment including denial of access to the sacraments by the consistory. Evidence from the records of the weekly meetings of the consistory suggest that while the label Reformed is in many ways meaningful to characterise the identity of Genevans, the clergy and elders were frequently disappointed and frustrated by the limits of popular commitment to a life of piety and moral conduct.14 University Press, 2014); G. Murdock, “Geographies of the Protestant Reformation”, in U. Rublack (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Protestant Reformations (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2016) 105–23. 13 E.W. Monter, Calvin’s Geneva (New York: J. Wiley, 1967); W.G. Naphy, Calvin and the Consolidation of the Genevan Reformation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994); J. Balserak (ed.), A Companion to the Reformation in Geneva (Leiden: Brill, 2021); W.G. Naphy, “The Renovation of the Ministry in Calvin’s Geneva”, in A. Pettegree (ed.), The Reformation of the Parishes: The Ministry and the Reformation in Town and Country (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993) 113–52; E.A. McKee, The Pastoral Ministry and Worship in Calvin’s Geneva (Geneva: Droz, 2016). 14 J.R. Watt, The Consistory and Social Discipline in Calvin’s Geneva (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2020); R.M. Kingdon, Reforming Geneva: Discipline, Faith and Anger in Calvin’s Geneva

Religion and Violence

Geneva was both a key Reformed centre and a Reformed borderland. During the latter decades of the sixteenth century the villages and fields around the walled city became a contested space between Geneva and the Duchy of Savoy. Bitter polemic between the two sides involved some of the leading religious figures of the period. This region witnessed not only wars and a siege of the city but also years of skirmishes between the forces of Geneva and Savoy, economic blockades, kidnappings, murders (including of both Catholic and Reformed clergy), rape and pillage by troops and mercenaries, massacres of captured soldiers, and some episodes of popular violence. This repertoire of violence is in many ways comparable to that witnessed during the wars of religion in France but with the different context of a contest between rival states. The character of the border between Geneva and Savoy resulted from Geneva’s rebellion against the prince-bishop and ruling house of Savoy. Geneva’s territory extended beyond the city’s walls to include a mosaic of small exclaves and micro-territories of individual homes and plots of land. In 1536 Geneva’s council had declared its embrace of Reformed religion and asserted its right to control lands previously held by the bishop of Geneva, by the chapter of the Cathedral of St Pierre, and by the local priory of St Victor. The nascent state included lands immediately beyond the walls of the city on both banks of the Rhône. The council also claimed sovereignty over exclave villages including Genthod and Céligny on the north side of the Lake Geneva as well as the episcopal mandements of Peney on the right bank of the Rhône, and of Jussy, inland on the south side of the lake. Geneva also claimed control over dispersed properties that had belonged to the cathedral chapter and to the priory of St Victor including fields and cottages in villages and hamlets on all sides of the city.15 In early 1536 Bernese forces occupied the Savoyard lands encircling Geneva from the Pays de Gex to the Chablais. The Bernese authorities at first reassured the people living in these lands that they would be granted freedom of religious choice. However, Reformed religion was soon formally enforced on all the communities under Bernese control in the Pays de Gex, Ternier-Gaillard, and the Chablais. The Bernese accepted the claims made by the Genevan authorities to the lands once controlled by the city’s Catholic institutions but maintained that Bern had inherited all the rights previously held by the dukes of Savoy. Geneva and Bern

(Geneva: Droz, 2012); C.H. Parker/G. Starr-Lebeau (ed.), Judging Faith, Punishing Sin: Inquisitions and Consistories in the Early Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017); E.W. Monter, “The Consistory of Geneva, 1559–1569”, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 38 (1976) 467–84; M. Valeri, “Religion, Discipline, and the Economy in Calvin’s Geneva”, Sixteenth Century Journal 28/1 (1997) 123–42; J.R. Watt, “Women and the Consistory in Calvin’s Geneva”, Sixteenth Century Journal 24/2 (1993) 429–39; S.M. Manetsch, “Pastoral Care East of Eden: The Consistory of Geneva, 1568–1582”, Church History 75 (2006) 274–313. 15 E.W. Monter, Studies in Genevan government, 1536–1605 (Geneva: Droz, 1964).

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disputed the precise extent of the lands under their control and the character of their overlapping powers and entangled rights in the region. The Genevan authorities insisted that they had inherited rights from the pre-Reformation period to appoint ministers in some villages beyond their civil jurisdiction. In February 1544, Bern acknowledged Geneva’s right to appoint pastors both in these villages and in others where the Genevan council already claimed the right to collect payments. The two new neighbours, Geneva and Bern, established their different forms of Reformed religious practice on either side of these complex borders while Genevan ministers also served in several villages within Bernese territory. In subsequent decades there were some points of sharp division between Genevan and Bernese clergy that generated heated disputes. The Bernese authorities remained concerned that their authority was being undermined by Genevan influence over their Francophone subjects. Meanwhile the Genevan authorities were anxious that this fractured landscape of rival jurisdictions disrupted the consistory’s ability to maintain a programme of strict discipline in exclave communities and properties.16 In 1559 duke Emmanuel Philibert regained control of Savoyard lands that had been lost to French occupation in the 1530s. The duke also promoted Savoyard claims to the lands around Geneva still held by Bern. In a 1564 treaty that was implemented in 1567 Bern agreed to restore the Pays de Gex, Ternier-Gaillard, and the Chablais to Savoy. However, Bern and Savoy agreed that Reformed pastors would remain in their posts and that no Catholic priests would be granted access to these lands. The terms of this treaty meant that while the border now divided Geneva from the Duchy of Savoy, the two Reformed churches of Geneva and Bern continued to operate as before across the region. This situation led to a range of difficulties for all sides. From the perspective of the Genevan authorities, they were particularly concerned about churches where Geneva had rights to appoint pastors in villages that now fell under the civil authority of Savoy. The political backdrop remained unstable given Savoy’s desire both to restore Catholicism in the territories gained back from Bern and to recover control over Geneva. In 1579 Bern and France signed the treaty of Solothurn aiming to defend the existing balance of power in the region and to curb Savoy’s ambitions to conquer Geneva. The agreement suggested that in the event of a Savoyard attack, France would pay for Bernese soldiers to fight in defence of Geneva.17

16 M.W. Bruening, Calvinism’s First Battleground: Conflict and Reform in the Pays de Vaud, 1528–1559 (Dordrecht: Springer, 2005); B. Gordon, The Swiss Reformation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002); A.N. Burnett/E. Campi (ed.), A Companion to the Swiss Reformation (Leiden: Brill, 2016); T. Scott, The Swiss and their Neighbours, 1460–1560: Between Accommodation and Aggression (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). 17 R.M. Kingdon, Geneva and the Coming of the Wars of Religion in France, 1555–1563 (Geneva: Droz, 1956); R.M. Kingdon, Geneva and the Consolidation of the French Protestant Movement, 1564–1572:

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3.

A Just war?

In the summer of 1582 Geneva’s council asked the state’s Reformed clergy to set out their understanding of the legitimate use of arms by Christian magistrates. This request was in response to the rising threat from Savoy in the early months of that year with attacks on villages in Genevan territory, attempts to block access to the city, and in April a Savoyard force assembled in apparent preparation for an assault on the city. On 8 August 1582 the Venerable Company of Pastors, the representative body of Geneva’s clergy, sent a summary report to the council of advice on the conditions for a legitimate war. This report (“Sur la légitimité d’une guerre avec la Savoie”) was compiled following a series of meetings attended by clergy from Geneva’s urban and rural churches. The names of 20 pastors appeared at the end of the report which was written in the hand of minister Jean Pinault. Before analysing the contents of this report, some context is needed about the Genevan clergy who agreed to this text and about their relationship with the city council.18 Some of the clergy who were involved in discussions in 1582 about whether a war against Savoy could be considered legitimate were well versed in both international and domestic politics. Theodore Beza had long been deeply engaged in Huguenot politics and had developed an extensive network of correspondents and contacts with clergy and nobles in France, the Swiss lands, and elsewhere. This network garnered information and established connections that Beza attempted to use to advance Genevan interests and to try to influence decisions taken by the council. In 1581 Beza received news of apparent plots among Catholic powers to wipe out Calvinists in France and to restore Habsburg authority in the Netherlands. Beza believed that an attack on Geneva by Savoy might be the first stage of this international Catholic conspiracy to destroy Reformed churches across Europe.19 Beza and other senior ministers were in constant contact with the four syndics and councillors about domestic as well as international matters. Ministers and councillors acting as elders worked together on the consistory. The consistory imposed spiritual sanctions against those who appeared before them but could also refer those suspected of committing serious crimes for further investigation by the civil authorities. Working relations between the councillors and pastors were

A Contribution to the History of Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, and Calvinist Resistance Theory (Geneva: Droz, 1967); S.M. Manetsch, Theodore Beza and the Quest for Peace in France, 1572–1598 (Leiden: Brill, 2000). 18 The original text is in the Archives d’État de Genève, Pièces historiques 2052. A contemporary copy was included within the records of the Company of Pastors and appears in Registres de la Compagnie des Pasteurs de Genève (13 vol.; Geneva: Droz, 1964–2001), vol. 4, O. Labarthe/B. Lescaze (ed.), 1575–1582 (1974), 434–42 (hereafter RCP). 19 Manetsch, Theodore Beza, 120–1.

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often harmonious but could also prove fractious. The ministers held a good deal of autonomous and informal social power within Geneva. Ministers had regular opportunities to exercise their authority publicly, as councillors knew well, not least from the pulpits of the city’s churches. Pastors’ moral critique of life in the city frequently strayed from general exhortations to Genevans to mend their ways to pointed remarks about the failings of magistrates who were responsible for implementing laws and regulations against criminality and misconduct. Beza and other leading clergy also had social confidence gained from their family backgrounds, education, and professional status. Although clergy in this period were overwhelmingly not drawn from the ranks of traditional elite families within Geneva, many clergy who were from migrant families were closely connected with the leading clans of Genevan society.20 We have no surviving account of the meetings held between the ministers to discuss the question of the legitimacy of war against Savoy. However, some of the pastors listed as signatories to this report were certainly more influential than others in shaping its contents. In 1582 a group of senior ministers was very well established, some of whom had served the city for more than a decade and some for more than two decades. Led by Theodore Beza, this group of long-serving ministers (Jean Trembley, Jean Pinault, Charles Perrot, Jean Jaquemot, and Simon Goulart) all worked in the three urban churches of St Pierre, in the upper town; of the Madeleine, in the lower town; and of St Gervais in Geneva’s walled suburb on the right bank of the Rhône. These urban churches were not organised in a strict parish system although people were encouraged normally to attend their local church. The report was also agreed by professors at the Academy of Geneva (Isaac Casaubon who taught Greek, and Corneille Bertrand who taught Hebrew). The other ministers who subscribed to the conclusions of the company’s deliberations included less experienced ministers who worked in churches within Geneva’s walls as well as the city’s rural pastors (Antoine Chauve, Jean-Baptiste Rota, Antoine de La Faye, David Le Boîteux, Jean du Perril, Louis de La Maisonneuve, Abraham de La Maisonneuve, Etienne Gros, Paul Baduel, Léonard Constant, François Privé, and Honoré Blanchard). In theory all ministers participated as equals in meetings of the Company of Pastors. However, rural pastors were less well paid than their urban colleagues and subjected to irregular visitations undertaken by urban ministers and elders to check on their diligence and conduct. Younger ministers were generally first sent to rural posts and then aimed to be advanced to a position in one of the city’s urban churches. The perspective of rural clergy on the prospect of war with

20 On the clergy during this period, see the excellent study by S.M. Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors: Pastoral Care and the Emerging Reformed Church, 1536–1609 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

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Savoy was particularly significant since they were required to be resident in their villages and therefore lived on the frontline in the event of conflict.21 It seems highly likely that Theodore Beza’s voice as the company’s moderator was prominent if not dominant in discussions among the pastors. Some other ministers were from noble backgrounds including Jean Trembley and Charles Perrot, whose father had served in the Paris parlement. Many of the other ministers were born in France or were from French-born families, while pastors Le Boîteux and Chauve were from the Pays de Vaud and Jean-Baptiste Rotan was from the Grisons. One significant Genevan family was represented by the de La Maisonneuve family. Abraham was the son of a councillor who had also served as a syndic while Abraham’s mother was from the prominent Favre clan. There were strong social and family connections between many of the ministers. Ministers acted as godparents to the children of their colleagues and there were many marriages that connected clerical families. There were emerging clerical clans in Geneva, with fathers and sons and brothers serving as ministers during the latter decades of the sixteenth century from the Trembley, Perrot, Baduel, and Blanchard families. Charles Perrot was married to the daughter of minister Michel Cop, from an elite Parisian family. Antoine Chauve and Abraham de La Maisonneuve were married to two daughters of minister Raymond Chauvet, and Etienne Gros (the younger) was married to the daughter of David Le Boîteux. There were also other strong family connections between the ministers and elite Genevan families who served as syndics and councillors. Jean Trembley’s brothers were both councillors, while Jean du Perril was married to the daughter of a councillor and syndic. Abraham de La Maisonneuve’s older brother was a merchant who also became a councillor and then a syndic.22 The picture that emerges of the Genevan elite during the 1580s is of close connections among pastors and between the clergy and councillors both through formal collaboration and through social and family networks. However, on repeated occasions councillors expressed resentment and exasperation when pastors tried to meddle in all sorts of areas of life in the city. The ministers presented their employers with endless demands, not least for increases in their own salaries. We should also take care about forming the impression that Geneva’s clergy formed a united band of paragons of Reformed piety and virtue. Minister Honoré Blanchard married Marie, the daughter of minister Jean Pinault, in whose hand the advice was written about the legitimacy of a war against Savoy. However, Blanchard’s marriage quickly ended in a scandalous divorce in 1583. Marie discovered that her new husband 21 G. Murdock, “Religious life in rural Geneva”, in Balserak (ed.), A Companion to the Reformation, 231–53. 22 On social connections between the pastors during this period, see Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors, 98–113.

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was sexually impotent and had hidden his financial debts from the Pinault family at the time of their marriage. After investigations and the humiliation of physical examination of the couple, Marie was granted a divorce by the council and was given the right to remarry. Blanchard was excommunicated and deposed from the ministry as a liar.23 In 1583 the career of another pastor who signed this advice about war with Savoy fell apart. Louis de La Maisonneuve publicly reprimanded the congregation in his village following allegations of sexual impropriety at the manse between some local men and the minister’s domestic servant. This stern rebuke led to an unexpected response from some of de La Maisonneuve’s parishioners who could not stomach their pastor’s hypocrisy. Accusations soon reached the ears of the consistory that La Maisonneuve was guilty of sexual immorality with the same domestic servant as well as with another married woman in the village. On further investigation by the consistory, the pastor’s servant was discovered to be pregnant. La Maisonneuve was called to attend the consistory to answer the charges against him but refused to make an appearance and was deposed from the ministry. The consistory was suitably appalled that a minister from “such an honourable family” of the city would set such a dreadful example in his attitude and behaviour.24 We should also note that the ministers who discussed the legitimacy of war did not live in an isolated bubble of privilege, immune to the dangers of war and unaware of the trauma of conflict. The sons of pastors served in Geneva’s militia. Charles Perrot’s brother Denis had been a minister in Geneva before resigning his post in the wake of mental health difficulties. Denis returned to France where he was murdered amid the massacres of 1572. Other ministers, and especially those who worked in rural parishes, had firsthand experience of the personal risks of life near the border with Savoy or within Savoyard territory. Pastors who lived in villages under Savoyard civil control faced challenges from officials about their right to preach in their churches, and some episodes led to threats and violence. The role played by the ministers who provided this report in 1582 on the legitimacy of war against Savoy is difficult to characterise. They were certainly not subservient or tame mouthpieces of the state, merely providing some sort of theological gloss to bolster political decisions already taken by the council. On the other hand, the council was very probably in no way surprised by the content of the report provided by the ministers. While almost all the pastors were not born in Geneva neither were they a distinct group of immigrants disconnected from the mainstream of society in their adopted home. French-born ministers do not appear either as having been radicalised by the violence that they and their families and communities

23 RCP, vol. 5, O. Labarthe/M. Tripet (ed.), 1583–1588, (1976), 4–5, 7, 12, 15, 22, 28–9; R.M. Kingdon, Adultery and Divorce in Calvin’s Geneva (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995). 24 RCP, vol. 5, 22–3, 25.

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had suffered and thereby motivated to propel the Genevan council to war against a Catholic state. The pastors were embedded within Geneva’s elite and alive to the concerns of their communities. They saw the prospect of war with Savoy as a question of securing Geneva’s independence and also as one front in a wider confrontation between Reformed and Catholic powers. The Small Council as the executive authority within the Genevan state was under no obligation either to seek or to follow the advice of the Company of Pastors about the decision to go to war. Why did the syndics and councillors seek a formal, written opinion from the Company of Pastors about this prospect? It might be seen as indicating that Genevan policy was being decided by clergy or that any resultant conflict was greatly influenced by purely religious considerations, or that religion acted as an autonomous engine of conflict between Geneva and Savoy. However, in the context of the interlocking formal and informal relations between the ministers and councillors of the city, a more complex answer emerges. The council did not intend to subcontract decisions about their state to the clergy. The councillors and clergy had overlapping perspectives and interests in the face of the threat posed by the Duchy of Savoy to Geneva’s territorial sovereignty and to the Reformed Church. It seems very likely that the council was confident about the answer they were going to receive through prior conversations now lost to us between councillors and ministers. However, a formal process of consultation was of significance as the councillors were seen to have sought spiritual guidance, reassuring both for them and for concerned citizens and residents of the city. As with all well-organised consultation exercises, the outcome was consensus. There was a further potential advantage from the perspective of the council from this consultation. If things went wrong in any war that followed, the councillors might hope that the clergy would have to refrain from pointed public criticism of the decisions made by the civil authorities. In their 1582 report the ministers commended the council on seeking to be guided by the Bible and by their clergy in settling their consciences about the legitimacy of going to war with Savoy. The ministers pointed out that, by the grace of God, pure religion had been established in Geneva in a church that sought faithfully to undertake its responsibilities towards God, the state, and the people.25 The Company of Pastors first set out their view of the grounds upon which it could be considered legitimate to declare war. They then applied this reasoning to the circumstances in which Geneva found itself in 1582. The ministers wrote that no-one could deny the dreadful results of war both in terms of loss of life and

25 “La question que vous nous avez proposee est en somme, si vous pouvez et debvez, selon le debvoir d’un magistrat chrestien, user du faict des armes en l’estat auquel il plaist à Dieu que vous soyez reduits depuis quatre mois et plus”; RCP, vol. 4, 434.

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destruction of property as well as in the immoral conduct unleashed among soldiers. However, the clergy wrote that it would be wrong to conclude that no state should ever take up arms. The ministers suggested that the Bible clearly established the duty of magistrates to use force of arms against those who disrupted and threatened the peace of the community under their care. The pastors wrote of many examples in the Scriptures in support of this view. However, the ministers did not in fact cite or analyse any texts from the Bible that they had in mind.26 The pastors also did not quote what Calvin had written on the subject in support of their views. Calvin had provided an entirely conventional perspective about the “lawfulness of war” in the Institutes, arguing that princes could act to defend their subjects who had been committed by God to their guardianship. Calvin noted that there are no passages in the New Testament upon which to argue positively that war was lawful for Christians but no grounds either debarring magistrates from defending their communities.27 The Company of Pastors outlined their view that declaring war was just, fair, and necessary when it was called upon as a last resort and for the right reasons.28 This led the clergy to distinguish between offensive and defensive wars. The ministers stated that a call to arms that might properly be described as offensive was difficult to justify. The ministers argued that the clearest form of what could be categorised as a defensive warfare was in response to the manifest military aggression of an external power. However, covert aggression that threatened the security of the state and safety of the community might also, they concluded, be considered as an offensive attack. The clergy suggested that treasonous conspiracies, inspired by an external power, provided another example of this sort of covert aggression. This spoke directly to a series of plots uncovered that year involving Genevans who agreed to aid Savoy, with one plan devised to open the city gates to Savoyard troops. The ministers concluded that it was just for a state to wage war in response to both overt and covert aggression. The clergy added that a defensive war must also be

26 RCP, vol. 4, 434. 27 J. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. F.L. Battles (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1959), 4/20/11–12. H. Höpfl, The Christian Polity of John Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); M. Tuininga, Calvin’s Political Theology and the Public Engagement of the Church: Christ’s Two Kingdoms (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). 28 RCP, vol. 4, 434–5; On ideas about the law of war, see the text by Balthazar Ayala reflecting Habsburg perspectives on the conflict in the Netherlands; De jure et officiis bellicis et disciplina militarii (Douai: ex officina Joannis Bogardi, 1582); K.A. Parrow, From Defense to Resistance: Justification of Violence During the French Wars of Religion (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1993); J. Olsthoorn, “Grotius and the Early Modern Tradition”, in L. May (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of the Just War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018) 33–56; M. Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic books, 1977).

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prosecuted justly and not with a spirit of greed or of seeking vengeance against the aggressor.29 The Company of Pastors then applied these general principles directly to Geneva’s current context. The balance of the report supplied by the clergy dwelt more on political calculations facing the council rather than areas of the pastors’ more obvious competence. In the conclusion of their report the pastors indeed wrote that they hoped they had not exceeded the limits of their authority in their advice. The clergy recognised that the dukes of Savoy continued to claim to hold authority over the city and lands of Geneva. Geneva and Savoy had reached an agreement in 1570 that suggested the two sides would remain at peace for 25 years and both parties agreed during that period to seek arbitration over any disputes that arose. Despite this agreement, the clergy argued that the new, twenty-year-old, Duke Charles Emmanuel (who succeeded his father Emmanuel Philibert in 1580) had decided to place severe limitations on the movement of goods to and from the city. The Savoyards were also held responsible for pillage, extortion, destruction, and murders in the lands around Geneva. The report suggested that the company’s rural ministers could supply more details about Savoyard attacks on Genevan villages and hamlets including the damage caused to some churches. The farms, fields, and houses on scattered Genevan properties and exclaves around the city were, the ministers wrote, territory over which the council clearly held both civil and religious authority.30 The ministers concluded that the council, after it had tried every other available means of dissuading the duke of Savoy from continuing in this aggressive course of action against the city, could justly take up arms to defend Geneva. The clergy pointed out that the council had already shown great patience in the face of repeated provocations from Savoy. The ministers noted that the council had ordered special services of prayers and days of fasting to seek God’s help and had also made diplomatic representations to seek assistance from the Swiss and French.31 The clergy then proceeded to offer strategic advice about how to conduct any final negotiations with Savoy. The pastors proposed three points that the duke should be required to accept. First, to return to the agreed state of peaceful relations between the two states. Second, to agree to arbitration to determine appropriate compensation for

29 RCP, vol. 4, 435. 30 RCP, vol. 4, 436, 438. 31 “Nous ne pouvons dire aultre chose, sinon que nous louons Dieu de la grande patience qu’il vous a donnee, et concluons qu’après avoir essayé en vain tous moyens à vous possible, et qu’il vous est impossible de plus patienter sans vous ruiner vous-mesmes evidemment, la defence de ceux que Dieu vous a commis n’est pas seulement juste, mais aussi que la necessité vous y force et constraint”; RCP, vol. 4, 436.

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the damage and costs inflicted on Geneva through months of aggression by Savoyard forces. Third, detailed negotiations should be agreed by both sides to resolve the causes of disputes with Savoy and to bring greater security to Geneva in the future. If these points were refused, the clergy thought that the council was left with no option but to take up the “just and necessary defence” of Geneva by all available means.32 Finally, the pastors stressed that the magistrates had to address urgently standards of morality in Geneva to avoid rousing God’s anger against the city. The clergy pointed to the need to improve the ways in which laws were administered, and demanded action against sexual misconduct, gluttony, and idleness among other moral failings in the community. The ministers suggested that the council call a further day of public fasting and prayer. The pastors also recommended that the city establish strict ordinances to regulate the conduct of soldiers and advised the council to ensure that soldiers did not pillage or destroy any villages conquered in any future war.33 Concern in Geneva about an imminent Savoyard attack lessened thanks primarily to diplomatic pressure exerted on Savoy by France and Bern. While the danger posed by Savoy remained, the war sanctioned by the Company of Pastors did not take place in 1582. In 1584 Geneva agreed a vital new alliance with both Bern and Zurich, and the council and ministers continued to seek support from France. Beza received news about conspiracies against Geneva and a sense of heightened threat was strengthened in March 1585 with the marriage between Charles Emmanuel and the daughter of Philip II. In July 1585, acting on behalf of Henry III, Catherine de’ Medici, signed the Treaty of Nemours with the Catholic League. Beza believed that this treaty was directed not only against the rights of the Reformed Church in France but also against Geneva. Charles Emmanuel began a blockade around Geneva in the summer of 1586 both in the countryside around the city and on the lake, attempting to prevent the export of grain to the city and its rural territories. In the summer of 1587 an army of Swiss mercenaries gathered near Geneva to prepare to enter France to fight against the Catholic League. In a letter to Abraham Musculus at Bern, Beza advised that the chaplains in this army must maintain high standards of discipline otherwise they would suffer “the very harsh judgment of God”. By the end of 1587 this army had been defeated by the League’s forces and withdrew from France.34

32 RCP, vol. 4, 437–8. 33 RCP, vol. 4, 438. 34 Manetsch, Theodore Beza, 180–1.

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4.

Geneva at War

In response to the ongoing challenge posed to the security of the city by Charles Emmanuel, in early 1589 the council turned back to the question of whether to declare war on Savoy. Deciding that an opportune moment to attack Savoy had finally come and confident of receiving support from their ally Bern and from Henry III, who was then negotiating an alliance with Henry of Navarre against the League, Geneva declared war on Savoy in March 1589. Geneva’s forces were strengthened by Bernese troops and by a French army under Nicolas de Harlay. The council’s immediate aim was to quell the danger posed by Savoy and to acquire more territory in Geneva’s rural hinterland. The Genevan clergy were mobilised in support of this conflict and the war brought a strong sense of united purpose between the councillors and ministers. The Company of Pastors responded quickly to the request made by the council in March 1589 to provide the state’s armies with chaplains.35 New military Ordonnances required these chaplains to hold services of public prayers for the state’s soldiers twice a day. The ministers suggested that the council should also hold public fasts and special church services to pray for God’s blessing. However, the council was reluctant to agree for fear of causing undue alarm in the city, although they eventually agreed to a special day of fasting that was held at the beginning of May.36 In 1582 the Company of Pastors had recommended that the council draw up regulations for the state’s soldiers and they made specific suggestions that were included in new military Ordonnances issued at the beginning of April 1589.37 For example, the military Ordonnances forbade soldiers from playing games of chance with cards or dice. The Ordonnances set out severe punishment for soldiers found guilty of fornication and adultery. There were also prohibitions against swearing and blasphemy, with offenders required publicly to seek God’s forgiveness for their offences in front of their companies.38 The Ordonnances also reflected the expressed views of the clergy about how war should be conducted and strictly forbade any unauthorised seizure of goods in enemy territory. The Ordonnances insisted that all inhabitants of Savoy who did not carry arms were to be considered by Geneva’s forces as under the protection of the Genevan state. This concern for military discipline and the welfare of non-combatants was in part strategic, in part born

35 RCP, vol. 6, S. Citron/M.-C. Junod (ed.), 1589–1594 (1980), 7; L. Cramer, La Seigneurie de Geneve et la maison de Savoie de 1589 a 1593 (4 vol.; Geneva, 1950–8), vol. 4, A. Dufour, La guerre de 1589–1593 (1958). 36 RCP, vol. 6, 9, 11, 12. 37 Ordonnances et reglement sur la discipline militaire ([Geneva], 1589), re-issued in 1603. See also Ordonnances ecclésiastiques de l’église de Genève (Geneva, 1576). 38 Ordonnances, a2–a2v.

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of concerns about the consequences of immoral behaviour by soldiers, and also resulted from a sense of religious affinity with the Reformed (both Bernese and Genevan) villagers who were subjects of the duke of Savoy in the lands around Geneva.39 Geneva’s forces at first made significant progress in their campaign. During the spring of 1589 Geneva gained control over the Pays de Gex, seized the fort of Bonne, and occupied the town of Thonon in the Chablais. However, French forces left the conflict in May followed by the Bernese in the late summer. The treaty signed by Bern that ended their participation in the war allowed Catholic priests to enter the lands regained by Savoy from Bern in the 1560s. The war descended into stalemate between Geneva and Savoy with the Genevans launching raids from the city while Savoyard forces (bolstered by Spanish troops) attacked villages and re-captured some territory. The city’s ministers remained very exercised about the moral conduct of soldiers, repeatedly making a direct connection between their behaviour and the likely chances for success in the war. In April 1589 the ministers complained to the council about the activities of some soldiers who were believed to be responsible for plundering occupied territory and mistreating captured prisoners. The pastors had specific information (perhaps provided by a chaplain) about these incidents and provided names of soldiers who were accused of misconduct. In May the pastors complained that the council had still not acted on reports of pillage and misconduct by soldiers. The entire Company of Pastors went to remonstrate with the syndics in the most vehement terms that discipline must be maintained by Geneva’s troops.40 As the war began to turn against Geneva, further fast days were organised in the city. In late August 1589 Savoyard forces captured the fortress at Bonne. The entire garrison at the fortress of around 350 men was massacred and the garrison chaplain Guillaume Moigne was also reported killed. Among the dead were two sons of Jean du Perril, minister in the village of Vandoeuvres. Viewed from Geneva, this massacre confirmed the barbarism of Savoyard soldiers. However, the Company of Pastors also concluded that the sins of the people of Geneva were the cause of this disaster at Bonne. The ministers called for a day of prayer and repentance to assuage God’s wrath.41 As Savoy’s troops gained control of districts around Geneva, rural churches were damaged, services were disrupted, and ministers taken captive. On 30 September 1589 the Company of Pastors gathered rural ministers together for a special service to pray for their communities held in the Auditoire. By October 1589 around 40 ministers from the surrounding area (both Genevan39 “Tous les habitans de pays de l’ennemy qui ne porteront les armes seront pris en la sauvegarde de la Seigneurie”; Ordonnances, a4v. 40 “Advisé que tous les ministres de la ville iroyent devant eux le jour mesme pour leur remonstrer le plus vivement que faire se pourroit leur debvoir”; RCP, vol. 6, 9, 14. 41 RCP, vol. 6, 20–2.

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and Bernese-appointed clergy) had abandoned their parishes and sought refuge in Geneva.42 People living in villages on both sides of the border suffered the brunt of ongoing fighting. With encouragement from the Company of Pastors, Simon Goulart compiled a detailed account of the impact of fighting and listed in each village names of unarmed villagers who had been killed by Savoyard troops and provided information about how they died. Goulart, who had served as a chaplain during the war, suggested that pregnant women, nursing mothers, and infants were among those killed by Savoyard soldiers and that Savoy’s troops also “violated many girls and women”.43 What had gone wrong to lead to these military reverses for Geneva, to the advance of Catholic priests into the city’s hinterland, and to so much suffering for the people who lived in Geneva and especially those who lived in the rural borderlands between Geneva and Savoy? The clergy did not accept that their diagnosis of the legitimacy of the war had been incorrect. Rather, the Company of Pastors blamed the situation on moral disorder in the city and accused the council of permitting rampant blasphemy and theft to go unchecked.44 In December 1589 the ministers held special church services for the city’s soldiers but the pastors also complained yet again about the excesses committed by Genevan troops.45 In February 1590 the council asked the Company of Pastors for their view on whether “in good conscience” Genevan forces could “by right of war” take the animals and goods of subjects of the duke of Savoy if those people had not taken up arms against Geneva.46 It is again revealing that this inquiry was made by the council at all. The pastors advised that Geneva should act in accordance with what the Bible commanded in behaviour towards “our enemies”. Returning to arguments that the company had first developed in 1582, the ministers 42 RCP, vol. 6, 24–5. 43 S. Goulart, “Vrai recueil des horribles carnages perpétrés de froid sang par les troupes du Duc de Savoie à leurs première entrée, en 1589, tant du bailliage de Gex, que du mandement de Gaillard, ès environs de Geneve, sur les pauvres paysans et sujets dudit duc, ne portans armes, sans avoir égard a sexe, âge ou qualité des personnes” and “Recueil des horrible carnages et massacre commis par les gens de guerre du duc de Savoie, le 22 Avril 1590”, in S. Goulart, Mémoires de la Ligue, contenant les événemens les plus remarquables depuis 1576 jusqu’à la paix accordée entre le roi de France et le roi d’Espagne, en 1598 (6 vol., Amsterdam: Arkstee et Merkus, 1758 [first pub. 1598]), vol. 4, 703–13 and 713–7; this text appears in J. Gaberel, Histoire de l’Église de Genève depuis le commencement de la Réformation jusqu’en 1815 (3 vol.; Geneva: Cherbuliez, 1853–62), vol. 2 (1855), “Pièces justificatives”, 235–42. See also S. Goulart, “Journal de la guerre faite autour de Genève l’an 1590”, in A. Choisy (ed.), Mémoires et documents publiés par la Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Genève 36 (1938) 52–6. For another account of the war by minister Jean du Perril, see “Journal de la guerre de 1589 par Jean du Perril”, in A. Dufour (ed.), Mémoires et Documents publié par la Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Genève 38 (1952) 140–84. 44 RCP, vol. 6, 26. 45 RCP, vol. 6, 30–1. 46 RCP, vol. 6, 178–81.

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reassured the council that the conflict was a “just war” which they had been forced to undertake in response to the years of aggression by Savoy.47 Even so, the pastors argued that the way in which the war was prosecuted was vital both for the sake of maintaining standards of morality among soldiers and because of likely divine punishment should soldiers not respect the city’s Ordonnances. The ministers wrote that it would be inexcusable cruelty to mistreat the “poor peasants” on Savoyard land who were not responsible for the war. Geneva must interpret the right to go to war “in a Christian fashion” and with as much “moderation” as was possible and not respond to evil with evil if they wished to avoid divine judgement.48 The ministers also suggested that villagers on enemy land around the city must not be mistreated as they are of “the same religion as us”. The ministers added that these villagers were likely to be more favourable to Geneva than to their own duke. They suggested that if Geneva was besieged then the cooperation of these neighbouring communities could also prove vital if they proved willing to bring supplies into the town.49 In the summer of 1590 Beza delivered a sermon in a series on the passion and burial of Christ. In the twenty-first sermon in this series, Beza explored the meaning of the trial of Jesus and reflected on Christ’s response to attacks and false accusations. In the final part of this sermon Beza found an application of this passage in the circumstances in which Geneva found itself at war against a “powerful” and “cruel” enemy. If any of the councillors present to hear Beza were a little nervous as he turned to this application, they need not have worried. Beza delivered a call to the congregation to continue with courage in fighting the war against Savoy.50 Beza recognised all the difficulties that people were facing, not least due to the economic consequences of 16 months of conflict. However, Beza declared that no-one could be in any doubt that the war was “very just”, and that it had been undertaken only to defend the city following years of patiently enduring attacks and conspiracies. Beza encouraged the congregation that the city had resisted attacks in the past thanks to God’s sustaining hand. However, he warned the people to ponder the history of Israel and to amend their ways as they sought God’s intervention to defend their city. As Beza came towards the end of his address he appealed to the patriotism and faith of the congregation. Genevans should be inspired by how past

47 48 49 50

RCP, vol. 6, 178. RCP, vol. 6, 178–9. RCP, vol. 6, 179–80. T. Beza, Sermons sur l’histoire de la passion et sepulture de nostre Seigneur Jesus Christ, descrite par les quatre Evangelistes (Geneva, 1592), 571–82; R.M. Kingdon, “Beza’s political ideas as expressed in his sermons on the passion”, in I. Backus (ed.), Théodore de Bèze (1519–1605): Actes du Colloque de Genève, septembre 2005 (Geneva: Droz, 2007) 569–76.

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generations had successfully defended the liberty of their city.51 They should also understand that the state’s enemies aimed at the “extirpation of true religion, and of all princes, peoples and nations who profess” that religion. In a rousing conclusion, Beza encouraged his listeners to consider that if the Lord asked for “our” lives to be sacrificed for His glory, then how else could “we” wish to pass from this life to eternity than in a just cause fighting for both God and “our” country.52 The conflict dragged on with skirmishes between the two sides until a truce was finally agreed between Savoy and Geneva in August 1593, which was renewed through to the Peace of Vervins in 1598. With support from Charles Emmanuel, François de Sales and other Catholic missionaries began efforts during the 1590s to win converts from the Reformed towns and villages in lands within Savoy’s borders. Tensions remained in the borderlands of Geneva and Savoy. After the 1601 treaty of Lyon was agreed between Savoy and France, Charles Emmanuel instructed officials to assert the rights of the Catholic bishop of Geneva to ecclesiastical property around the city. There were incursions and episodes of violence from both sides. In Geneva, the clergy remained exercised about the threat posed by Savoy especially to rural churches. They also continued to lobby the council about the behaviour of Geneva’s soldiers. In April 1600 the ministers asked for a regulation to be introduced against duelling among soldiers, which they described as a “detestable thing against God and all reason”.53 Charles Emmanuel launched a failed bid to seize Geneva with a surprise attack in December 1602. Days later the pastors gained the council’s agreement to hold a fast to give thanks to God for the deliverance of the city from their “blaspheming enemies”. The ministers noted that this fast had been observed by the people of the city with great devotion.54 However, by early February 1603 the pastors complained yet again to the council about the conduct of Geneva’s soldiers. Genevan troops had entered the border village of Choulex within Savoyard territory (but which included some homes on Genevan land) looking to capture a mercenary captain. Failing to find their quarry, the Genevan soldiers rampaged through the village and murdered a Catholic priest. The Company of Pastors reprimanded councillors that Genevan troops had engaged in inexcusable “brigandage” and brought shame on

51 Beza, Sermons sur l’histoire de la passion, 572–6. 52 “Si le Seigneur demande nos vies en sacrifice pour sa gloire, quel plus grand heur pourrions-nous souhaitter que de passer de ceste vie en la vie eternelle, en si iuste defensive, pour la querelle du Seigneur et de nostre Patrie tout ensemble?”; Beza, Sermons sur l’histoire de la passion, 573, 580. 53 RCP, vol. 8, G. Cahier/M. Campagnolo (ed.), 1600–1603 (1986), 15. This issue had been raised at the 1594 national synod in France. The synod ordered anyone involved in duelling to be excommunicated from the church until they publicly recognised their offence. 54 RCP, vol. 8, 174–7

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the city. The council replied with evasion, although it recognised that the soldiers had abandoned expected standards of behaviour.55

5.

Conclusion

Geneva’s declaration of war against Savoy in 1589 had to be seen to be justified in the eyes of the councillors, pastors, and community in Geneva. For Geneva to fight a just war, it had to have just causes that corresponded to the causes for war that were commended in the Old Testament. This war was perceived by both councillors and clergy as a necessary defence of the city to maintain its liberty, a fight to maintain the state’s religion, and part of a greater battle for the cause of true religion everywhere. Rhetoric that articulated this sense of wider religious purpose was related to a sense of Geneva’s identity and role in the battle for the survival of Reformed religion. Religious and political goals were both distinct and inextricably bound together in the war, just as the city’s civil and religious elites were both distinct and inextricably bound together. This war was fought by a militia that included councillors’ sons and pastors’ sons. They fought to defend the security of Geneva, to secure territory that they perceived would aid the city’s ability to defend itself against blockades and attacks, in a war sanctioned by the clergy and supported by chaplains who served and died alongside the city’s forces. The war also had to be seen to be pursued in a just manner. This led to persistent though not consistently successful efforts to enforce a strict ethical code for soldiers in their personal conduct and in the way they treated enemy soldiers and non-combatants. Atrocities committed by Savoy’s forces were meticulously recorded and advertised. The entire Genevan community was encouraged to participate in public rituals of penitential piety and to adhere to the church’s moral code. When the war went badly, the pastors’ diagnosis was clear that it was a sign of divine displeasure and caused by the lack of trust in God and immorality of Geneva’s civil authorities, soldiers, and people. While labelling this war declared by Geneva against Savoy in 1589 as either a religious war or not a religious war may not be of any great analytical value, considering this conflict reveals a good deal about the complex relations between Geneva and her neighbours and about the place of Reformed religion, institutions, personnel, and rhetoric in late sixteenth-century Geneva.

55 RCP, vol. 8, 190–1.

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les plus remarquables depuis 1576 jusqu’à la paix accordée entre le roi de France et le roi d’Espagne, en 1598 (6 vol., Amsterdam: Arkstée et Merkus, 1758 [first pub. 1598]), vol. 4, 713–7. Goulart, S., “Journal de la guerre faite autour de Genève l’an 1590”, in A. Choisy (ed.), Mémoires et documents publiés par la Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Genève 36 (1938) 52–6. Gregory, B.S., Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). Holt, M.P., “Putting Religion Back into the Wars of Religion”, French Historical Studies 18/2 (1993) 524–51. Holt, M.P., “Religion, Historical Method, and Historical Forces: A Rejoinder”, French Historical Studies 19/3 (1996) 863–73. Höpfl, H., The Christian Polity of John Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). Jacob, M.C., “Walking the Terrain of History with a Faulty Map”, Low Countries Historical Review 130/3 (2015) 72–8. Juergensmeyer, M., Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 3 2003). Kaplan, B.J., Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2007). Kaplan, B.J., Cunegonde’s Kidnapping. A Story of Religious Conflict in the Age of Enlightenment (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014). Kingdon, R.M., Geneva and the Coming of the Wars of Religion in France, 1555–1563 (Geneva: Droz, 1956). Kingdon, R.M., Geneva and the Consolidation of the French Protestant Movement, 1564–1572: A Contribution to the History of Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, and Calvinist Resistance Theory (Geneva: Droz, 1967). Kingdon, R.M., Adultery and Divorce in Calvin’s Geneva (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995). Kingdon, R.M., “Beza’s political ideas as expressed in his sermons on the passion”, in I. Backus (ed.), Théodore de Bèze (1519–1605): Actes du Colloque de Genève, septembre 2005 (Geneva: Droz, 2007) 569–76. Kingdon, R.M., Reforming Geneva: Discipline, Faith and Anger in Calvin’s Geneva (Geneva: Droz, 2012). Koller, M., Eine Gesellschaft im Wandel: Die osmanische Herrschaft in Ungarn im 17. Jahrhundert (1606–1683) (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2010). Kooi, C., “Calvinism and War”, in C. Gribben/G. Murdock (ed.), Cultures of Calvinism in Early Modern Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020) 173–87. MacCulloch, D., Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, 1490–1700 (London: Penguin Books, 2004).

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Manetsch, S.M., Theodore Beza and the Quest for Peace in France, 1572–1598 (Leiden: Brill, 2000). Manetsch, S.M., “Pastoral Care East of Eden: The Consistory of Geneva, 1568–1582”, Church History 75 (2006) 274–313. Manetsch, S.M., Calvin’s Company of Pastors: Pastoral Care and the Emerging Reformed Church, 1536–1609 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). McKee, E.A., The Pastoral Ministry and Worship in Calvin’s Geneva (Geneva: Droz, 2016). Mellet, P.-A., Les Traités monarchomaques: Confusion des temps, résistance armée et monarchie parfaite (1560–1600) (Geneva: Droz, 2007). Monter, E.W., Studies in Genevan government, 1536–1605 (Geneva: Droz, 1964). Monter, E.W., Calvin’s Geneva (New York: J. Wiley, 1967). Monter, E.W., “The Consistory of Geneva, 1559–1569”, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 38 (1976) 467–84. Monter, E.W., Judging the French Reformation: Heresy Trials by Sixteenth-Century Parlements (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). Murdock, G./Roberts, P./Spicer, A. (ed.), Ritual and Violence: Natalie Zemon Davis and Early Modern France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Murdock, G., “Geographies of the Protestant Reformation”, in U. Rublack (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Protestant Reformations (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2016) 105–23. Murdock, G., “Religious life in rural Geneva”, in J. Balserak (ed.), A Companion to the Reformation in Geneva (Leiden: Brill, 2021) 231–53. Naphy, W.G., “The Renovation of the Ministry in Calvin’s Geneva”, in A. Pettegree (ed.), The Reformation of the Parishes: The Ministry and the Reformation in Town and Country (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993) 113–52. Naphy, W.G., Calvin and the Consolidation of the Genevan Reformation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994). Olsthoorn, J., “Grotius and the Early Modern Tradition”, in L. May (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of the Just War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018) 33–56. Ordonnances ecclésiastiques de l’église de Genève (Geneva, 1576). Ordonnances et reglement sur la discipline militaire ([Geneva], 1589). Palaver, W./Rudolph, H./Regensburger, D. (ed.), The European Wars of Religion: An Interdisciplinary Reassessment of Sources, Interpretations, and Myths (London: Routledge, 2016). Parker, C.H./G. Starr-Lebeau, G. (ed.), Judging Faith, Punishing Sin: Inquisitions and Consistories in the Early Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). Parrow, K.A., From Defense to Resistance: Justification of Violence During the French Wars of Religion (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1993). Pollmann, J., “Countering the Reformation in France and the Netherlands: Clerical Leadership and Catholic Violence, 1560–1585”, Past & Present 190 (2006) 83–120. Registres de la Compagnie des Pasteurs de Genève (13 vol.; Geneva: Droz, 1964–2001).

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Repgen, K., “What is a ‘Religious War’?”, in E.I. Kouri/T. Scott (ed.), Politics and Society in Reformation Europe: Essays for Sir Geoffrey Elton on his Sixty-Fifth Birthday (London: St. Martin’s Press, 1987) 311–28. Roberts, P., “Contesting Sacred Space: Burial Disputes in Sixteenth-Century France”, in B. Gordon/P. Marshall (ed.), The Place of the Dead: Death and Remembrance in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) 131–48. Rublack, U., Reformation Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Scholz, L., Borders and Freedom of Movement in the Holy Roman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). Scott, T., The Swiss and their Neighbours, 1460–1560: Between Accommodation and Aggression (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). Soen, V. et al. (ed.), Transregional Reformations: Crossing Borders in Early Modern Europe (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019). Steffen, L., “Religion and violence in Christian traditions”, in M. Jerryson/M. Juergensmeyer/ M. Kitts (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) 109–39. Stewart, A.T.Q., The Narrow Ground: Aspects of Ulster, 1609–1969 (London: Faber & Faber, 1977). Tuininga, M., Calvin’s Political Theology and the Public Engagement of the Church: Christ’s Two Kingdoms (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). Valeri, M., “Religion, Discipline, and the Economy in Calvin’s Geneva”, Sixteenth Century Journal 28/1 (1997) 123–42. van Gelderen, M., The Political Thought of the Dutch Revolt, 1555–1590 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Walzer, M., Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic books, 1977). Wandel, L.P., Voracious Idols and Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg, and Basel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Watt, J.R., “Women and the Consistory in Calvin’s Geneva”, Sixteenth Century Journal 24/2 (1993) 429–39. Watt, J.R., The Consistory and Social Discipline in Calvin’s Geneva (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2020). Zemon Davis, N., “The Rites of Violence: Religious Riot in Sixteenth-Century France”, Past & Present 59 (1973) 52–91. Zemon Davis, N./Estèbe, J., “Debate. The Rites of Violence: Religious Riot in SixteenthCentury France”, Past & Present 67 (1975) 127–35. Zemon Davis, N., Society and Culture in Early Modern France: Eight Essays (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007).

Johannes C. Wolfart

Time Under Siege The Chronicle Sources of the Swedish Siege of Lindau (1647)

1.

Approaches to Historical Siege Documents

What follows is an essay on the interpretation of historical sources. Three accounts of the siege of the South German imperial city of Lindau in the winter of 1647 will serve to illuminate documents produced under siege conditions: how to read them, and how not to read them. Certainly, consideration of this particular episode in the very last phase of the Thirty Years’ War is not intended as a contribution to the vast literature on that war, much less as an exercise in military history.1 Still, consideration of the Lindau sources in light of recent discussions in two subfields – religious studies and micro-history – could further stimulate critical conversation about the persistence of sieges in early modern and modern cultures. Therefore, this essay may be taken as a preliminary exercise in siege studies. For that reason, the discussion below will bring together some aspects of the Lindau sources, as well as the local historiography, with comparative examples from both early modern and modern sieges, as well as their scholarships. The particular aim here is the scrutiny of a pattern of treating certain siege documents as experientially immediate and epistemologically privileged insider or eyewitness accounts. In early modern representations of walled towns or cities under siege, the notion that insiders and outsiders were essentially distinct, that the insiders’ experience was fundamentally alien to the outsiders, was likely an extension of a commonplace conceit about urban space. Especially by the age of gunpowder, the walls of cities or towns served primarily symbolic functions related to socio-legal notions that set urban spaces aside via such practices as the famous “freedom of the city”. In actuality, the lines separating insiders from outsiders in a siege were rarely absolute. In today’s sieges, journalists frequently run blockades; these are likewise commonly suspended to grant humanitarian access. In the early modern siege of Lindau, too, goods, personnel, and – importantly – information entered and left the city throughout the weeks of the siege following the formal closing (Beschliessung) of the city (on which, more below). It is this symbolic dimension that persists in modern

1 For comprehensive account of the siege of Lindau framed as a regional military history, see O. Mayr, Die schwedische Belagerung der Reichsstadt Lindau 1647: Der Dreißigjährige Krieg am Bodensee und in Oberschwaben (Munich: Allitera Verlag, 2016).

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or contemporary attitudes towards sieges, including in scholarship on sieges. Thus, siege scholars still commonly employ the insider-outsider dichotomy as a basic structuring principle of their analyses.2 More than that, though, siege scholars also cast the experiences of besieged insiders as unique and, in some important sense, ineffable or unknowable to outsiders. That is, siege experience is commonly framed using concepts also found in scholarly accounts of religious experience.3 Indeed, some siege scholars explicitly present the experiences of the besieged in such “borrowed” terms, as religious or quasi-religious experience.4 In Lindau under siege, key practices rendered both space and time symbolically distinct from the ways in which Lindauers normally experienced each.5 Yet, scholars in the nascent field of siege studies might well avoid some of those meanders already executed by colleagues in religious studies.6 Thus, while the Lindau chronicles considered below were all penned by people who were present in Lindau during the siege, and who recorded some measure of their experience, they are not read here as insider accounts in any special sense. Rather, they are considered simply as documentation from inside a besieged city. This direct approach here is guided by Jeppe Jensen’s recent résumé of the insider-outsider debate in religious studies, which concludes that this framing presents nothing more than a “pseudo-problem”, albeit one enjoying a durable “mystique”.7 Insofar as the term insider appears in discussion below, it is not charged with analytical or explanatory purpose; it is present only as a matter of necessity, to facilitate description. Partly, the scepticism developed in this essay derives from critiques of the insideroutsider dichotomy as a basic structuring principle in religious studies. A further

2 For recent example, see R. Chrastil, The Siege of Strasbourg (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press, 2014), esp. ch. 2: “Insiders and Outsiders”. 3 On deeming things “religious experience”, see A. Taves, Religious Experience Reconsidered: A BuildingBlock Approach to the Study of Religion and Other Special Things (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009); for a survey, see R.H. Sharf, “Experience”, in M.C. Taylor (ed.), Critical Terms for Religious Studies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998) 94–116; for critical appraisal, see T. Fitzgerald, “Experience”, in W. Braun/R.T. McCutcheon (ed.), Guide to the Study of Religion (London: Cassell, 2000) 125–39. 4 “The adventure that unfolded … echoes the traditional heroic journey that mythologist Joseph Campbell tells us is common to cultures worldwide”; Chrastil, The Siege of Strasbourg, 189. 5 One very influential interpretation of such special time management is that of V. Turner, “Images of Anti-Temporality: An Essay in the Anthropology of Experience”, Harvard Theological Review 75 (1982) 243–65. On the development of normative time keeping in medieval and early modern Europe, compare G. Dohrn-van Rossum, History of the Hour: Clocks and Modern Temporal Orders (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). 6 For an overview, see R.T. McCutcheon (ed.), The Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion: A Reader (London: Continuum, 2005). 7 J.S. Jensen, “Revisiting the Insider-Outsider Debate: Dismantling a Pseudo-Problem in the Study of Religion”, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 23 (2011) 29–47.

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sceptical impulse derives, however, from micro-history. The micro-historical movement constitutes part of a general, recent expansion of the source base on which historians rely, along with much intensified discussions on the meaning one might reasonably attach to such sources.8 Significantly, then, the micro-historical movement has been not just about what happened in the past but, also, about how to think and write about what happened in the past. Such emphasis on the broader historiographical significance of micro-data recovered from the past distinguishes micro-history from other histories of deliberately limited scope (as opposed to limited scale), such as local history. That is, micro-historians do more than tell small, tall tales; they self-consciously seek to recover aspects of the past that have been otherwise lost.9 In doing so, however, micro-historians also undertake a certain measure of historiographical criticism, both implicit and explicit. Indeed, the micro-historian, already inclined to detect the obscure or make visible the hidden, may develop critique by illuminating an otherwise obscure premise or assumption in conventional historiography. That is, the micro-historian recovers not only certain “lost” data but seeks to uncover the reasons why they became lost in the first place. In the case of Lindau, therefore, a micro-historical approach serves both to recover aspects of that siege, and also asks why and how that siege has been both remembered and not remembered, subsequently. One effect of such considerations is to complicate widespread (i. e. not just for Lindau) treatments of the primary documents for sieges as “eyewitness accounts”.10 In the end, the “eyewitness” status accorded to some narrative documents, and emphasising the immediacy of experience, may in fact misrepresent both the textual and the experiential history of such sieges. Careful reconsideration of the Lindau siege documents – and, one suspects, many similar documents from other, comparable sieges – suggests that these are actually better placed within German (in this case) urban chronicle traditions. Finally, one may well wonder if the endurance of those two influential tropes – siege experience as quasi-religious and the privileged perspective of eyewitnesses – in scholarly readings of narrative siege documents is matched by actual, long-range 8 For an overview, see J. Wilkinson, “A Choice of Fictions: Historians, Memory, and Evidence”, PMLA 111 (1996) 80–92. According to Wilkinson, “A Choice of Fictions”, 90, “one unforeseen consequence of historians’ enlarged appetite for evidence has thus been to intensify debate about the foundational assumptions that allow historians to confer meaning on the past”. 9 For overview and examples, see E. Muir/G. Ruggiero (ed.), Microhistory and the Lost Peoples of Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991). 10 For the classic conception, see C. Kostick, The Social Structure of the First Crusade (Leiden: Brill, 2008), esp. ch. 1: “The Eyewitness”. Recently, Elizabeth Lapina has conceded, “although it is common to refer to them [chronicles] as ‘eyewitnesses’, the term is problematic”; see, E. Lapina, “Crusader Chronicles”, in A. Bale (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the Crusades (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 2019) 11–24.

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continuities in siege writing, continuities connecting early modern practices of siege writing, such as the chronicle, to modern or even contemporary siege writings, including contemporary siege journalism. This possibility, along with the status of such writing as integral to the active formation, as opposed to passive mediation, of siege experience will be revisited at the conclusion of this essay.

2.

Three Lindau Chronicles of the Siege of 1647

The imperial city of Lindau was besieged by a major contingent of the Swedish army for 61 days, from the end of December 1646 to the end of February 1647, when the siege was lifted without either capitulation or capture. Though the town was small, its location on an island just off the north-eastern shore of Lake Constance made it a difficult objective for a besieging army, which had to prepare to cross water or traverse mudflats (depending on lake levels) well within range of defending gunners. At the time of the siege, Lindau’s walls contained some 3,000 civilian inhabitants, as well as 800 garrisoned imperial troops. This siege-time population of close to 4,000 was likely considerably inflated by the presence of refugees from Lindau’s mainland territories, as well as from elsewhere in the war-harried countryside.11 Still, several inhabitants of this one small town wrote dedicated accounts of the siege from within the city’s walls. At least three independent accounts, the basis for the following discussion, have survived. Our first example is the work of the city secretary who kept the Lindau council minutes for this period. Since it was Lindau practice to begin a new minute book in January, and since the siege also started at the New Year (or close enough), the volume for 1647 actually opens with about 50 half-folio sides of chronicle-style siege recording, with some emphasis on basic administration. Still, the balance of factual detail and narrative account is much the same as in conventional city chronicles or in occasional chronicles of notable events, both of which commonly emerged from city scribal circles.12 Indeed, the likely author of this siege account was the city scribe Hans Heinrich Fels the younger who, along with his father and

11 These figures are based on a house-to-house count in preparation for the siege and conducted by the city’s eight guilds, who were also the basic unit of the city’s civic life in peacetime. Mayr, Die schwedische Belagerung, 231. 12 For well-known examples, see the Bernese chronicle penned by the city secretary Diebold Schilling, see (accessed 1 July 2021); the author of the famous chronicle of the Council of Constance, Ulrich Richental, was likely the son of the Constance city secretary Johannes Richental. E. Heyck, “Richental, Ulrich von”, in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 28 (1889) 433–5, available at (accessed 1 July 2021).

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predecessor in office, Hans Heinrich Fels the elder, also kept a local war chronicle (Kriegschronik) covering the years 1618–49.13 Like council minutes, most bona fide chronicles of this period were considered valuable and sensitive documents – closely guarded, never published and rarely, if ever, consulted directly by outsiders. Our second example is exactly that: a chronicle account composed during the siege by the Lindau Bürgermeister and chronicler Calixt Hünlin. It has never been published and exists only in a manuscript now held in the Lindau city archive.14 By comparison, our third example, the work of the Lindau lawyer Jacob Heider, has an illuminating publication history. Heider’s text first appeared in print in 1669 under the heading “Running Account of the City of Lindau’s Besiegement” (“Verlauf der Statt Lindaw Belägerung“). However, this publication, as part of Gabriel Furtenbach’s “Up-country trial and tribulation chronicle” (“Oberländische Jammerund Straff Chronic“) also included the first of several descriptions of the text’s mode of production, characterisations which have shaped scholarly interpretation to this day. In addition to noting Heider’s authorship, Furtenbach stated that Heider had related faithfully “what had happened from day to day”; that Heider had noted events “as he had seen them and been present”; and that his notations had been “communicated by good hand” (i. e., in an autograph).15 Thus, when Heider’s account was published in a modern edition in 1868, the editor Gustav Reinwald gave it the title “Dr J. Heider’s Diary (Tagebuch) … ” thereby making a definitive genre determination out of Furtenbach’s much looser characterisation.16 In an introductory essay, Reinwald further cast Heider’s work as the account of an “eyewitness” (Augenzeuge), so again making a firm determination from Furtenbach’s allusion 13 The original MS of this chronicle is lost, but manuscript copies exist both in Lindau and in the Bavarian State Library in Munich, whose copy, Cgm 5690, is digitised. Since the present essay is concerned with siege documents in particular, this chronicle of the whole of the Thirty Years’ War will not here be considered further. 14 Hünlin’s work comprises two volumes, identified as Lit (Literalien) 21 and Lit 22. Both volumes are in the same hand but Lit 21, which covers the years 1641–8, is mis-identified on the spine as Bertlin’sche Chronik (Johann Bertlin was city secretary until 1615, and likewise kept a chronicle; by the time of the siege, Bertlin was long dead). Pencil notes by modern researchers, including Peter Eitel, confirm the author of Lit 21 as Calixt Hünlin. Otto Mayr’s recent work has, unfortunately, added further confusion by citing Hünlin’s work as Lit 25 (actually the number of an altogether different work, the Annales Lindavienses by the brothers Neukomm, completed in 1626); Mayr, Die schwedische Belagerung, 295. 15 “Dises ist also die Ganze Beschreibung Löbl. der Heyl. Röm: Reichs-Statt Lindau Belägerung/und was sich von Tag zu Tag zugetragen hat/welches alles Fideliter von dem Herrn Doct: Jacob Heydern Seel./u. Syndico daselbsten als der es gesehen und darbei gewesen Notirt, und mir von gueter Hand communiciert worden”. 16 G. Reinwald, “Dr. J. Heider’s Tagebuch über den Verlauf der Belagerung Lindau’s durch die Schweden”, Schriften des Vereins für die Geschichte des Bodensees und seiner Umgebung 1 (1868) 74–107.

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to that ne plus ultra of Herodotean historical source criticism, and anticipating a course of interpretation still commonly followed in the historiography of the Thirty Years’ War.17

3.

But Do They Have to Be “Siege Chronicles”? The Question of Genre

In this case, the question of genre is more than a matter of taxonomy, it is a historical datum itself. Germans of that time sometimes used vernacular forms of classical genre names to describe their writing, signalling an awareness of formal conventions. For example, by labelling his chronicle Zeytregister the peasant cobbler Hans Heberle from Neenstetten near Ulm knowingly advertised his work as a “time registry/account book”.18 Furthermore, because genre likely mattered to those Lindauers who experienced the siege, one could consider genre as integral to the siege itself. Such genre-sensitivity accords well with what Amy Houston has recently observed in her work on sixteenth-century French siege narratives. According to Houston, because the experience of siege was widespread in France at the time, such narratives, and the cultural expectations they entailed, actually became part of what determined the course of sieges, especially towards the end of the century.19 Close examination of the works of Heider, Hünlin and Fels shows each using form and genre conventions effectively to articulate the siege as distinct from non-siege conditions. Formal markers of the German chronicle tradition characterised all three works, even if Heider called his work a “running account” (Verlauf ), Hünlin titled his volume Lindau “histories” (Geschichten), and Fels was officially writing council minutes. Thus, for example, Hünlin’s volume was tabbed by year, and annual entries were structured in the conventional way, moving from periodic data (e. g. commodity prices) through to unique events (e. g. the escape of a madman from the municipal Spital, or a monstrous birth). Heider prefaced his work with a lurid

17 Reinwald, “Dr. J. Heider’s Tagebuch”, 75. 18 Hans Heberle’s Zeytregister is excerpted in several recent English document collections. See, for example, T. Helfferich (ed.), The Thirty Years War: A Documentary History (Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 2009); G. Mortimer, Eyewitness Accounts of the Thirty Years War, 1618–1648 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002); and German Historical Institute (ed.), German History in Documents and Images (10 vols.; Washington DC, 2003–19), vol. 1, T.A. Brady Jr/E.Y. Glebe (ed.), From the Reformation to the Thirty Years War (1500–1648) (2003), available at (accessed 6 July 2021). It is also discussed in S. Haude, “The Experience of War”, in O. Asbach/P. Schröder (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to the Thirty Years’ War (Farnham/ Burlington: Ashgate, 2014) 257–68. 19 A. Houston, “The Faithful City Defended and Delivered: Cultural Narratives of Siege Warfare in France, 1553–1591”, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte/Archive for Reformation History 107 (2016) 83–106.

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epigraphic verse, a pseudo-classical or humanist convention found in other Lindau chronicles of that time.20 Moreover, Furtenbach’s inclusion of the Heider text in his “trial-and-tribulation chronicle” (Jammer- und Straff Chronic) constitutes a near-contemporary genre ascription or confirmation. Lastly, Fels the younger was also co-author of a designated Kriegschronik. There are historical reasons extraneous to the Lindau chronicles why scholars should not simply classify these in anticipation of the emergence of genres like the modern diary (i. e., teleologically), or in trans-historical terms, as eyewitness accounts or ego-documents. Taken together, scholarship on German chronicles and on early modern siege warfare – for example, the handbook essay on late medieval German chronicles by the late Francis Robin Houssemayne Du Boulay and Geoffrey Parker’s likewise classic The Military Revolution – suggest that the Lindau siege accounts were part of a broader chronicle-writing phenomenon, an early modern German response to a particular moment in the histories of both writing culture and the culture of warfare. Du Boulay identified seven main motives for chronicle writing by urban administrative and social elites, one of which was to report on feuds and wars against external foes.21 While some towns kept dedicated “feud books” (Fehdebücher),22 elsewhere the general chronicle spawned a specialised subgenre dedicated to war. According to Du Boulay: “If town warfare was a constant ingredient of the [German] chronicles, the specific war diary was often itself a kind of specialised chronicle”.23 Over the course of the long sixteenth century, chronicle content concerning war shifted emphasis away from feuding and “castle-breaking” (Schleifung) and towards siege, in accordance with the shift in military practice described by Geoffrey Parker (and others).24 Thus, by the seventeenth century the German war-diary chronicles described by Du Boulay had become specialised siege chronicles. One more point on early modern German warfare warrants attention here, one which suggest that Lindauers’ siege chronicling experience should not be considered

20 For example, the Neukomm brothers’ Annales Lindavienses. StAL, Lit 25. 21 F.R.H. Du Boulay, “The German Town Chroniclers”, in R.H.C. Davis/J.M. Wallace-Hadrill (ed.), The Writing of History in the Middle Ages: Essays presented to Richard William Southern (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981) 445–69, on p. 449. 22 Du Boulay, “The German Town Chroniclers”, 454. Du Boulay cites the examples of Cologne, Neuss, Soest and Lüneburg. 23 Du Boulay, “The German Town Chroniclers”, 453. 24 Geoffrey Parker’s arguments for the dominance of siege practices are well known. Still, a key quotation from one historical observer is well worth repeating here (Parker himself quotes it twice). In 1670 the Irish peer Roger Boyle wrote: “Battells do not now decide national quarrels … as formerly. For we make war more like foxes than like lions; and you will have twenty sieges for one battell”; cited in G. Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 16 and 167.

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exceptional. The second half of the long sixteenth century is conventionally cast as “the age of religious warfare”. Indeed, Parker estimated that “in the sixteenth century there were less than ten years of complete peace; in the seventeenth there were only four”.25 Therefore, somewhere in Europe people were always waging war, which is to say experiencing siege, both from the inside and the outside. Certainly, for Germany in the Thirty Years’ War, the statement is true: somewhere someone was always experiencing siege. Or, put another way, all soldiers and most inhabitants of towns or cities would have experienced siege at some point in their lives. This also accords well with Houston’s observations that “their frequency established sieges as a shared cultural referent for French men and women”.26 Nevertheless, scholars still tend to treat sieges as extraordinary events, apart from the course of normal history. There are multiple reasons for this perception, but at least one of them inheres in the practices undertaken by “insiders” themselves during a siege, including writing of siege chronicles as quasi-narrative records of a time-out-of-time.

4.

Lindau Siege Chronicle Contents: Time Accounted and Discounted

Certainly, the Lindau siege chronicles attest to some of the more lurid aspects of early modern siege warfare, and some incidents – the particularly unlikely carom of a cannon shot, or the misadventure of a “priest’s cook” during a nocturnal bombardment, etc. – were narrated with evident relish. Here, as in the French siege accounts examined by Houston, such incidents were commonly framed as divine providence. Given that the atmosphere of the Thirty Years’ War was religiously charged; and given that Lindau was uneasily bi- or even tri-confessional (de facto if not de jure), it is possible to tease much religion out of these chronicles (it is also possible to read religion into them). However, the chronicles also contain comparatively more sober accounts of the terrible cost of the siege – in the enumerations of projectiles large or small that either hit or missed their marks, or in the naming and numbering of the dead and wounded. The communication of such statistics is integrated, however, into narrative relations and moral-providential reasoning such that their presence, let alone their significance, is not always obvious. Even the starkest enumeration of casualties was shaped by very particular narrative considerations, rendering their precise meaning obscure to the modern reader.27 For example, Heider related the peculiar statistic that in the period from 16 January to 18 February, apart from 25 Parker, The Military Revolution, 1. 26 Houston, “Cultural Narratives”, 84. 27 This may account for Otto Mayr’s mistaken conclusion that the Lindau chronicles supply only anecdotal and no statistical accounts; “Anekdotische Berichte … liefern die Chroniken in Menge und Vielfalt, aber keine Statistiken”; Mayr, Die schwedische Belagerung, 87.

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all the other people who died, there were six people who died whose ages added together amounted to 487 years. He then went on to name the six and give their individual ages at time of death. One of the names belonged to his father.28 Clearly, whatever else was going on here, time itself was an important measure, aspect, or property. Indeed, the story of the reckoning of time in Lindau under siege is generally rich and compelling. On the one hand, all three chroniclers were very precise in their time notations: certain events (e. g. enemy bombardments or sniper exchanges) were noted not just by the hour, but sometimes by the partial hour, or precise time of day (e. g., just after sunrise or first thing in the morning). Otherwise, the narratives were also structured day-by-day. Thus, the Lindau siege chronicles do display some aspects of a daybook or diarium (as per Reinwald’s classification); but just as many or more aspects of an horarium or book of hours – albeit for a very different kind of enclosed community. On the other hand, and in striking contrast to this very practical, precise and even intimate sense of time, stands the fact that public timekeeping was apparently suspended in Lindau during the siege. According to the council minute book, on Friday 1 January the council ordered local preachers to remind the commoners to attend sermons and worship services at the usual times, a reminder necessary because the preceding night “the ringing [of the bell] and striking [of the hours] had been cancelled by the Commandant, due to the enemy threat”.29 Apparently, the suspension lasted for the duration of the siege, itself rendered chronologically discrete by Fels’s use of textual markers, such as “during this time”, “in this hard time”, and so forth. According to Otto Mayr, the suspension of public time marking, which included silencing the church bells, the chiming of clocks and the night watch’s hourly call, served the instrumental military purpose of minimising the besiegers’ insight into events within what Mayr termed “the fortress”.30 But Lindau was not a fortress per se; though under siege, it was still a city. Indeed, a broader view of the suspension of public time in a city under siege is suggested by Gerhard Dohrn-van Rossum’s work on the complexities of early modern European timekeeping. By the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War normal time-reckoning was linked to public time-keeping and civic order in even the smallest south German urban communities. Thus, early modern German townsfolk had come to imbue public timekeeping with a symbolic significance not unlike the meaning they attached to their city walls. Indeed, Dohrn-van Rossum credits none other than the Emperor Charles V with 28 Reinwald, “Dr. J. Heider’s Tagebuch”, 101. 29 “Das Leüten und schlagen vonn dem Herr Commandanten, umb der Feindß gefahr willen, abgestellt worden”; StAL Ratsprotokolle 1627, 1. 30 “Um dem Feind möglichst wenig Einblick in das Innenleben der Festung zu geben”; Mayr, Die schwedische Belagerung, 240.

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the observations that a well governed city would be known by its gates, timekeeping and offspring: portae, pulsus, pueri.31 Thus, with the normal operation of civil government suspended under siege, the Lindauers not only closed the town gate (and, indeed, demolished the bridge that led from the mainland to the gate), but also sent their youth abroad and, significantly, suspended public time keeping! Hünlin’s chronicle actually frames the suspension of normal public time at the onset of siege as part of a deliberate process of separating both siege time and space from “normal conditions”. His manuscript represents the parallel processes of spatial and temporal isolation by both graphic and narrative means. Thus, the account opens with a device in which key topographical and chronological data were actually set in parallel columns. Narratively, Hünlin described a course of preparation as follows: as final provisioning and fortifications/tactical demolitions were being completed, burgher children, including his grandson, were sent to stay with relatives in Zurich. Next, the bridge to the mainland was completely severed along with – to great public lament – the pipeline supplying fresh water. Finally, he noted: “On 30 December the city was completely locked down”.32 Then, however, he added: “Thus the Commandant also completely abolished the ringing of bells and striking [of the hours]”.33 In a very neat symmetry, Hünlin’s chronicle marked the end of the siege with likewise parallel descriptions of both renewed ringing of the bells and of wood-cutting in preparation for restoration of the demolished bridge.34 Heider did not specify when or how public timekeeping was suspended, but he did recount how it was restored. On the day the siege ended, the Lindauers went out into the besiegers’ trenches and batteries and destroyed these, taking all useful material left behind by the enemy; further, they surveyed dead livestock on the estates of the city hospital (Spital) and elsewhere. Finally, after describing extensive territorial disarray, including confusion of basic personal identities and jurisdictions,35 Heider noted: “This day one re-set the clocks and let them run and strike again”.36 Thus, while territory was and would remain disordered for a very long while yet, at the lifting of the siege ordered time was – symbolically and emphatically – restored.

31 32 33 34 35

Dohrn-van Rossum, History of the Hour, 155. “Den 30 Christmonat Heüt wurde die Statt alhie ganz beschlossen”; StAL Lit 21, 55. “So hatte auch herr Commandant daß gloggen leüten und schlagn ganz abgeschafft”; StAL Lit 21, 55. StAL Lit 21, 77. Heider relates how a citizen party, on the mainland to inspect their estates, instead captured four enemies and led them to Ravensburg for ransom, where it turned out that two of the captives were actually soldiers on their own side. 36 “Disen Tag hat man die Uhren wider gericht, gehen und schlagen lassen”; Reinwald, “Dr. J. Heider’s Tagebuch”, 106.

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Turning briefly to material considerations: during the siege time, like space, was subject to expropriation by the Lindau’s joint civil and military government. In principle, the civil authorities, represented by the mayor (Bürgermeister) and council (Rat), continued to exercise authority, albeit subject to the supreme executive authority of the garrison commander. In practical terms, however, many quotidian functions of civil administration were no longer carried out at all during the siege. For example, the council minutes record that citizens convicted of misdemeanours during the siege had their sentences suspended until after the siege. At one level, this made practical sense, since all able individuals would be available for defensive duties, rather than languishing in jail. At another level, however, it also meant that the authorities did not have to allocate valuable public time to private individuals and their problems. Conversely, throughout the siege the council apparently exercised an expanded authority over personal time. For example, individuals were commonly fined for turning up late (and/or inebriated) to perform civil defence duties. Most tellingly, however, expropriated time could be restored – notionally, at least – after the siege, along with other expropriated materiel, including land. Thus, council minutes recorded individuals petitioning for restitution of ground removed from their properties for earthwork fortifications. After the siege, such lost ground was replaced, and the action recorded. Accompanying post-siege calculations of property damages with interest can thus be understood as a kind of restitution of time, since such interest payments represented compensation for both lost value and lost time.

5.

The Importance of Being Chronicled: Sieges and Historical Memory

Sieges are terrible, destructive and traumatic. The siege of Lindau in the first two months of the bitter winter of 1647 was too. In a population of residents, refugees and garrisoned defenders numbering about 4,000, confined to an area of slightly more than 50 hectares (about half a square kilometre), casualties were probably in the hundreds.37 Following weeks of bombardment with both heavy and incendiary ordnance, as well as assaults on key fortifications with sapper mines, the damage to infrastructure was likewise considerable. Hunger and disease each took their toll, too. Today, the lifting of the siege and the effective end of the Thirty Years’ War in Lindau is celebrated locally with an annual Kinderfest of cannonades, militarystyle drummers, commemorative church services, public addresses, games, and 37 There is no extant post-siege census or consolidated casualty report to match the pre-siege count of citizens. My casualty estimate is based on notations distributed throughout the chronicle sources. Hünlin’s estimate of 600 deaths, recorded at the end of the siege, may not be too high. StAL Lit 21, 73.

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distributions of special delicacies and treats to all schoolchildren. Thus, although elsewhere the siege of Lindau is hardly known at all, locally this siege now plays something of the same role played by better known historic sieges, as a focal event in the collective memory/identity of a community.38 When I mentioned my interest in the Lindau siege to colleagues, several immediately invoked the historic sieges of Masada and Leningrad as comparative examples. Such responses contrasted sharply, however, with the reticence of other acquaintances possessing first-hand knowledge of sieges, in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s or in Syria since 2011. On reflection, the clear divergence between some colleagues’ eagerness to invoke “classic” siege exemplars, and the reserve of others who were actually in a position to draw on personal experience, may be significant. In considering the best-known case of siege and sack in the Thirty Years’ War, that of Magdeburg (1632), Hans Medick has recently observed that there is a point at which some sieges transcend contemporary experience to acquire meaning as historical events. Medick points out that the passage of time is not necessarily a factor in such transformations; they took place in the discourse of the same people who had experienced – and survived – the siege of Magdeburg and its horrific aftermath. What Medick terms the comparative “historicisation” of the Magdeburg experience took place immediately following events themselves, even while a nascent press was also sensationalising the tragedy of Magdeburg.39 Still, this does not mean that many other sieges or siege experiences were not also documented and are not also, therefore, a matter of historical record. It is likely, however, that the vast majority of past sieges – those which are not considered historic in Medick’s sense – were documented in records that now present special challenges of detection and classification (with the latter sometimes precluding the former). Those who experienced the siege of Lindau wrote about it in accordance with a well-developed local chronicle tradition. In this way, the Lindau materials conform closely to other materials from Southern Germany in the time of the Thirty Years’ War. Many of them were deliberately cast as chronicles, such as Hans Heberle’s Zeytregister, mentioned above. Yet, despite the fact that Heberle himself identified his work using an explicit German rendering of a well-known genre label, recently scholars have characterised his text both as an “eyewitness personal account” or

38 Immediately following the siege, thanksgiving services were organised in Lindau churches. The evolution of an annual civic commemoration from these and other religious observances occurred over the course of more than a century. H. Stauder, “Die Einführung regelmäßiger Schulpredigten in Lindau: Ein Beitrag zu den Anfängen des Lindauer Kinderfestes”, in Jahrbuch des Landkreises Lindau 2005 (Bergatreute: Eppe Verlag, 2005) 130–47. 39 H. Medick, “Historical Event and Contemporary Experience: The Capture and Destruction of Magdeburg in 1631”, History Workshop Journal 52 (2001) 23–48.

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as a “diary”.40 Such secondary labelling actually obscures the importance of the chronicle as an account of time for both the recording of siege experience, as well as for the structuring of that experience itself. At this point, the summary significance of emphasising the chronicle as a genre is twofold. First, the chronicle, though considered an historiographical form, is generally only a quasi-narrative or even non-narrative (i. e. “one blessed thing after another”). This means that chronicle writing was probably less affected by the suspension under siege of the normal reckoning of time than would be modern narrative historiography. Speculatively, one might consider chronicle writing as a time-reckoning method itself, a practice actually encouraged by the sudden removal of public clock time. Second, chronicles were not personal accounts. This view diverges from Geoff Mortimer’s assertion that such accounts, “written for private purposes rather than for the authorities, and not (with a few exceptions) intended for publication, provide a direct link with individual experience and perception of the Thirty Years’ War”.41 In actuality, due to their form, content, and complex authorship, chronicles defy a simple dichotomous classification as either public or private documents. For example, each one of the Lindau chroniclers was a public office holder who was writing off the clock (in more senses than one). Thus, their work as siege chroniclers was not public. Moreover, their chronicle accounts of siege were conceived as and remained (with one exception) manuscript documents, fundamentally different from the accounts printed contemporaneously or immediately following some sieges. The latter were clearly published – and in that sense, public – for very particular markets, especially the nascent and booming market in media news. Lurid, sensationalist accounts of sieges had gained in popularity over the course of the “long sixteenth century”.42 On the other hand, though the Lindau siege chronicles were handwritten (one was printed, but decades after the siege), and there is no evidence that the chroniclers had any plans for print publication, their work was also clearly not private in the sense of personal or secret, in the sense commonly applied, say, to private diaries. That is, chronicles were conceived to communicate with some sort of audience, albeit an unspecified or generic one, probably posterity. Certainly, such texts are devoid of a self-reflexive attitude, interior conversation,

40 Mortimer, Eyewitness Accounts; Helfferich, The Thirty Years War, esp. ix. 41 Mortimer, Eyewitness Accounts, 15. 42 Models for communicating siege fame/notoriety of the sort attached to Magdeburg (1632) likely included widespread representations of the Ottoman Siege of Malta (1565). For instance, one single pamphlet account of the siege appeared in 16 editions within a year – in Italian, German, French, Dutch, and Latin. A. Ganado/J. Schirò, “An Unknown, Possibly Unique, 1565 Great Siege Map of Malta”, in M. Camilleri (ed.), Besieged: Malta 1565 (2 vol.; Valletta: Malta Libraries and Heritage Malta, 2015), vol. 2, 187–203, on p. 193 and appendix 1.

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or psychological disclosure. That is, siege chronicles are also not easily aggregated to that category of recent invention and investigation commonly called the “egodocument”. Here, then, we have one reason why siege chronicles from the Thirty Years’ War seem scarce, especially in relation to the volume of chronicle writing overall, and the widespread nature of siege in that war: such documents fall between source indexes produced in several phases of lively historiography, including recently. Thus, a register of ego-documents from the Thirty Years’ War compiled by Benigna von Krusenstjern describes 232 such documents from all over Germany, from Saarbrücken to Königsberg and Flensburg to Maienfeld. Yet, according to her summaries, very few of these documents mention sieges at all. Only six (less than three per cent) pertain directly to the siege of a town or city – and two of these relate to one city, Überlingen.43 Given the frequency of sieges in the Thirty Years’ War, this is surprising. As an aside: curiously, no Lindau chronicles appear in the register, despite the fact that one was actually printed (twice – in the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries); a designated war chronicle has long been held in a major state manuscript collection;44 and a survey of Lindau chronicle sources was published in the early twentieth century.45 An expanded search of Krusenstjern’s document descriptions to include accounts of quasi-sieges and sacks of towns or monastic institutions (i. e. where no effective or prolonged resistance was mounted), yields 25, still only a fraction of her sample total (and seven of the 25 pertain to one event, the infamous sack of Magdeburg). In sum, siege chronicles fall outside the range of the interest recently developed for ego-documents, a neglect only partially reinforcing the attitude towards chronicles already developed in much older historiographies. Since the nineteenth century, historians of early modern institutions have preferred administrative documents, while cultural historians have focused on printed textual materials; sustained interest in later medieval and early modern chronicles has generally been limited to those produced for major urban centres.46

43 B. von Krusenstjern, Selbstzeugnisse der Zeit des Dreißigjährigen Krieges: Beschreibendes Verzeichnis (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1997). Mortimer appears to rely heavily on this register. 44 See above, note 13. 45 F. Joetze, Chroniken der Stadt Lindau: Programm des Königlichen Maximilians-Gymnasiums für das Schuljahr 1904/1905 (Munich: Straub, 1905). 46 For example, the massive publication project Chroniken der Deutschen Städte, begun in 1862 and completed in 1968, only covers the three largest (Augsburg, Nuremberg, Strasbourg) of the approximately 80 south German imperial cities; the chronological cut-off is the sixteenth century.

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6.

Siege Time Versus Historical Time

While certain formulaic representations of the harrying of the German countryside by troops – texts produced and consumed, presumably, largely by urban audiences – are quite common, urban siege narratives, especially from the besieged point of view, are not. There are good reasons why, for sieges in particular, documents tending towards psychological disclosure are uncommon in developed narrative historiography. Psychologically engaged accounts of siege are probably rare because traumatic personal suffering defies expression. Furthermore, for contemporary situations it is sometimes held that siege histories are subject to both psychological as well as political denial and repression.47 Certainly, early modern German historiography was also politically selective. Yet, as the Lindau examples suggest, there may be a further significant reason why insiders, siege stories are rarely related, either on their own or as part of larger historical narratives: a kind of alienation of siege experience from the crucial orientation axis of normal or common historical time. Again, one is drawn towards very broad comparisons to help account for an aspect of the Lindau material. For example, the specialist siege journalist Janine Di Giovanni related in her accounts of the siege of Sarajevo (and other sieges in that conflict, from 1992 to 1994) a fellow insider’s experience: “Locked away here, you have no sense of time, of reality”.48 Rachel Chrastil, in recounting the experience of the librarian Frédéric Piton in the siege of Strasbourg (1870), describes something remarkably similar: “Confined within the city walls, … he was trapped in the realities of the present”.49 The diary of Vera Sergeevna Kostrovitskaia, a blokadnitsy during the siege of Leningrad (1941–4) related: “We don’t live by the calendar. We become aware of days and dates only by means of small square paper [ration] coupons”.50 For Kostrovitskaia, temporal disorientation accompanied extreme suffering from cold and starvation. In Chrastil’s efforts to understand Piton, alienation from normal time was matched by alienation from normal space. For Di Giovanni, however, atemporality itself was fundamental to the siege experience. Even while other technologies of normality – she emphasised bakery and newspaper operations – were maintained under the

47 This, for example, is the implication of the final report on sieges in Syria issued by the Dutch-based organisation Siege Watch in 2019, and entitled: “Out of Sight, Out of Mind: The Aftermath of Syria’s Siege”, available at (accessed 2 July 2021). 48 J. Di Giovanni, The Quick and the Dead: Under Siege in Sarajevo (London: Phoenix Paperback, 1995), 77. 49 Chrastil, The Siege of Strasbourg, 40. 50 C. Simmons/N. Perlina, Writing the Siege of Leningrad: Women’s Diaries, Memoirs and Documentary Prose (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002), 48.

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most challenging conditions, mechanical time keeping was not. Indeed, it appears as if the opposite was true, and that clock-time was deliberately neglected or suspended under the siege. Thus, Di Giovanni poignantly observed how both a church clock, as well as a clock in a newspaper office, were each displayed in a permanently arrested condition.51 Her experience, and the key to understanding such experience of such siege, she indicated in the title of one chapter of her book: “Time Stopped”.52 Something remarkably similar happened in Lindau in the winter of 1647. Since the chronicle form is essentially time-focused, the operation of special siege-time is particularly well documented here. Public time keeping was suspended exactly as confinement within the city walls became the “new normal”. These alterations to both normal time and normal space seem to have had cultural reasons above and beyond military necessity. As already mentioned, Lindau’s “lockdown” (Beschliessung) was never absolute, and civilians regularly ran the blockade, especially to and from Switzerland, across Lake Constance. Similarly, the suspension of normal time seems to have had symbolic meaning as well as a tactical function (if indeed it had any of the latter). This would accord well with what Rachel Chrastil has observed was still the case at the time of the siege of Strasbourg in the late nineteenth century, namely: that there was a strict formalism to the military dimension of a siege, and that the procedures followed by military commanders on all sides, entailed “highly ritualised customs and conventions”.53 In this way, Chrastil’s differentiation of “insider” and “outsider” experience of siege identifies a difference founded in the cultural dispositions of both besiegers and besieged. By contrast, Richard Bidlack, in his foreword to the volume of writings from the siege of Leningrad, claims a special epistemological status for insider accounts as “independent eyewitnesses”, utterly apart from both the accounts of communist party and NKVD organs as well as, of course, the Germans (and their Finnish and Italian collaborators). Interestingly, Simmons refers to these writers as “chroniclers” as well as “witnesses”.54

7.

The Trouble with “Eyewitness Accounts”

Simmons’ reference brings us to the scholarly classification of siege sources, including the Lindau chronicles, as “eyewitness accounts”. Partly, the following discussion responds to a marked tradition in Lindau historiography, including in Otto Mayr’s recent monograph. In considering sources produced in Lindau during the siege, Mayr simply amplifies the assessments of nineteenth-century historians of 51 52 53 54

Di Giovanni, The Quick and the Dead, 40, 58. Di Giovanni, The Quick and the Dead, 114–47. Chrastil, The Siege of Strasbourg, 42; also 57. Simmons/Perlina, Writing the Siege of Leningrad, xvii, 14, 17.

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Lindau, themselves echoing early modern statements: all of them extended a quasiHerodotean standard to all descriptive sources for the siege of Lindau. Accordingly, for Mayr each of the Lindau siege chronicles was the work of a separate “eyewitness” (Augenzeuge).55 Yet, as Mayr thus lays claim to a privileged perspective on the past, he also closes off important avenues of source-critical investigation in relation to siege history in general. Mayr is not just treading the path of local Lindau historiography, however, but joining other modern siege scholars in seeking access to alien experience via eyewitness sources. Thus, in addition to the example of Kostick’s or Bidlack’s assessments of medieval and modern examples (above), a recent essay by Joan Abela does much the same thing for the early modern situation. Abela explores notarial documents produced during the Turkish siege of Malta in 1565, especially deeds or inter vivos property transfers called donato causa mortis – as well as legal instruments to rescind the latter in the case of survival.56 Abela shows that these documents contain information very different from what was represented in heroic military reports or in countless broadsheets and pamphlets about the siege, both of which excited contemporary European audiences. For Abela, these notarial documents captured the realities and textures of getting on with everyday life under the most trying and horrific conditions. Yet, in characterising such documents as “eyewitness accounts”57 of the siege, Abela departs from her expertise in historical legal and notarial practise and ends up joining the established general trend instead. The notion that the Thirty Years’ War was likewise recorded by eyewitnesses has been established in modern German historiography since the 1960s, most notably by Hans Jessen.58 The concept has been promoted also, however, in recent English-language scholarship on the Thirty Years’ War. Mortimer, for one, has made extensive use of the “eyewitness” in articles, as well as in a monograph on the subject.59 Neither Jessen nor Mortimer are uncritical in their use. Yet, ultimately, both retreat to the least complicated notion of eyewitness documents as accounts offering direct access to past experiences. Mortimer, in particular, addresses von Krusenstjern’s work on ego-documents, for which the German term is Selbstzeugnis 55 Mayr, Die schwedische Belagerung, 258. 56 J. Abela, “The Great Siege of 1565: Untold Stories of Daily Life”, in Camilleri (ed.), Besieged: Malta 1565, vol. 2, 97–115. 57 Abela, “The Great Siege of 1565”, 97. 58 H. Jessen (ed.), Der Dreißigjährige Krieg in Augenzeugenberichten (Düsseldorf: Karl Rauch Verlag, 1963); after this volume Jessen went on to edit further volumes of such “eyewitness accounts” including one on the revolution of 1848–9, published in 1976. 59 G. Mortimer, “Models of Writing in Eyewitness Personal Accounts of the Thirty Years War”, Daphnis 29 (2000) 609–47; Mortimer, Eyewitness Accounts; see also the review by Charlotte Woodford in The Modern Language Review 99 (2004) 239–40, which lauds Mortimer’s approach to “eyewitness accounts” as both historical sources and literary texts.

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(literally, self-witness) and attempts to reconcile that notion with eyewitness, by means of the conjoining term “eyewitness personal accounts”. To be sure, Mortimer also observes that such accounts reflect various genre conventions, conceding that “they [eyewitness personal accounts], too, present problems of interpretation, as probably imperfect representations of the author’s not necessarily accurate perception”. Yet, at the same time, he claims that such documents “provide a direct link with individual experience and perception of the Thirty Years’ War”.60 In sum, Mayr’s evaluation of the Lindau chronicles is far from unique in its ascription of Herodotean eyewitness status to historical siege sources. To some extent, the persistence of the eyewitness as the critical source ne plus ultra derives from academic subcultures observing particular historiographical conventions. Other fields accord eyewitnesses a very different evidentiary status. In forensic psychology, for example, mounting evidence for erroneous legal judgments based on eyewitness testimonies have led scholars to question, more or less systematically, whether all eyewitness testimony is equally reliable.61 Legal scholars, drawing on emerging fields such as cognitive science and neuropsychology, suggest that eyewitness testimonies are inevitably shaped by many factors, including cultural expectations. Some go so far as to argue that eyewitness testimony should be assumed, as a matter of principle, to be of very low reliability, thereby reversing the conventional wisdom of the historical disciplines.62 Indeed, historians continue to deploy the idea of the reliable eyewitness to classify documents possessing a wide range of characteristics and qualities. For example, two prominent Canadian historians have recently produced a series of document collections for Canadian history which, much like those edited by Jessen for Germany in the 1960s and 1970s, present all primary documents as “eyewitness accounts”.63 To be sure, some historians of the Thirty Years’ War have explored the complexities of experiential narration without recourse to the eyewitness.64 Still others historicise the basic concept of the eyewitness itself. For example, recent work by Andrea Frisch has demonstrated that early modern Europeans had their own

60 Mortimer, Eyewitness Accounts, 3, 15. 61 For example, see M.P. Toglia et al. (ed.), The Elderly Eyewitness in Court (New York: Psychology Press, 2014); J. Pozzulo, The Young Eyewitness: How Well Do Children and Adolescents Describe and Identify Perpetrators? (Washington DC: American Psychological Association, 2017). 62 The literature on problems with eyewitness testimonies in court is vast. For a brief introduction, see J.S. Rakoff/E.F. Loftus, “The Intractability of Inaccurate Eyewitness Identification”, Daedalus 147/4 (2018) 90–8. 63 J.L. Granatstein/N. Hillmer (ed.), First Drafts: Eyewitness Accounts from Canada’s Past (Toronto: Thomas Allen, 2002), esp. 3. Two subsequent volumes of documents edited by the same authors are sub-titled Eyewitness Accounts from Canada’s Military History (2004) and Eyewitness Accounts of the Canadian Immigrant Experience (2006). 64 For an overview of recent source-critical scholarship, see Haude, “The Experience of War”.

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particular notions of eye-witnessing that were much more complex than a simple Herodotean model.65 Indeed, it seems that while early modern Europeans generally did hold eyewitness testimony in high esteem, they did not consider all eyewitness testimony to be such in the same sense. Key to Frisch’s argument is the distinction of what she calls the “ethical eyewitness”, whose reliability was understood to inhere in some quality related to social status or common value, and the “epistemic eyewitness”, whose reliability was entirely independent of social status or common values. According to Frisch, early modern France in particular – her data includes comparative examples from English and Spanish but not German sources – was in a transitional moment in which both “ethical” and “epistemic” modes could operate side-by-side. Moreover, Frisch observes that any adherence to, or maintenance of, the Herodotean tradition was the preserve of a very small Latinate elite; the vast majority of early modern Europeans, though they thought and wrote a great deal about eyewitnesses, did not have Herodotus in mind as they did so. Instead, they relied heavily on vernacular traditions of folk law, which in turn informed not only relations of law, but also likely determined basic business practices in the many small urban communities of artisans and traders that dotted Europe, including in Southwest Germany.

8.

Some Further Data from Lindau

Evidence from Lindau in the long sixteenth century is remarkably consonant with Frisch’s findings. In the records of Lindau’s lower courts which adjudicated minor commercial and other interpersonal disputes, the testimony of eyewitnesses played a significant role. These records begin in the 1520s, at which point it was already common practice for the court to hear witnesses. Thus, a typical case would be documented in a procedural narrative, as follows: “After accusation, response, statement and rebuttal, and hearing of people, it is recognised as right”.66 Moreover those who were called as witnesses were apparently deemed suitable due to a combination of their social status (i. e., as “ethical” witnesses) and by their actual presence at key events (i. e., as “epistemic” witnesses). For example, in 1527 the court scribe – not a professional officer, but a rotating member of the citizen-staffed court – recorded that a man named Loy “requested to hear those who were present”

65 A. Frisch, The Invention of the Eyewitness: Witnessing and Testimony in Early Modern France (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). 66 “Nach Clag antwurt Red und widerred und verherung der Leut is tzu Recht Erkhent”; StAL AI, 1 Gerichtsprotocoll de Anno 1527 in 1532. According to the Lindau archivist Heiner Stauder, the Lindau lower court records have never been catalogued; the bound volumes are not paginated; personal communication 21 May 2019.

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at a particular event; Hans Buchschor “stated that he had been present”.67 Later that year, in a case involving the sale of a cow subsequently deemed defective by the purchaser, both parties called five witnesses each to ascertain whether the cow had been afflicted before the sale and whether a refund was thus warranted; an almost identical case involved the sale of a blind horse. Significantly, in the case of the lame cow, individual witnesses were not only identified by name and family relation, but also explicitly named as witnesses (using the noun Zeugen) and also recorded as witnessing (using the verb zeugen). Moreover, some witnesses apparently clarified whether they had actually seen the cow falling down, or whether they had been present at some point in the transaction but had not actually seen the cow falling down. In other words, in early modern Lindau eyewitness was an indigenous forensic concept, at least as far as local lower court practice (similar to Frisch’s folk law) was concerned. Is it therefore reasonable to consider other, non-forensic narratives penned by early modern Lindauers as eyewitness accounts? At the very least, one might argue, to do so would not impose an alien or anachronistic category on these texts. Yet, in other respects, the blanket ascription of eyewitness status to all contemporary accounts of events is historically imprecise and misleading, especially since early modern Lindauers attached particular meanings to terms like “[spoken] testimony” (Sage or Verherung); “witness” (Zeuge); “[written] testimonial” (Hanntgeschrifft – which were commonly heard as witnesses in court). Other terms indicate, further, that Lindauers reflected on the limitations of legal process involving eyewitnesses. For example, eyewitness statements were disputed in both their ethical and/or epistemic quality, in which case they were deemed libellous (femlich); and if insufficient or conflicting testimonies made a clear judgment impossible, a mediated settlement (Tedung) was called for.68 As Frisch argues, “the figure of the eyewitness is a historical construct rather than a philosophical abstraction” – and in Lindau, as in France, England, and Spain, the historical construction of the eyewitness was well underway precisely at the time when the city was besieged, and that siege was recorded. Yet, in this transitional period, eye-witnessing had not yet evolved into what Frisch calls “a monologic discourse of first-person experiential knowledge”.69 Moreover, it seems clear that such modern concepts as described in the Lindau lower court records (of the terms mentioned above, only Tedung is archaic and not commonplace in modern German) coexisted with more medieval modes of attestation, such as chronicle writing. Such dual diversity of both witnessing and 67 “Begert die so darbej gewesen zuhern”. “Hans Buchschor sagt er sey darbej gsin”; StAL AI, 1 Gerichtsprotocoll de Anno 1527 in 1532. 68 StAL AI, 1 Gerichtsprotocoll de Anno 1527 in 1532; all of these terms are given as found in the Gerichtsprotokolle. 69 Frisch, The Invention of the Eyewitness, 12.

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writing practices required keen attention to the constraints and expectations of genre, frameworks which, as argued above, helped to shape the actual experiences of the siege.

9.

Conclusion

Thus, in sum, the ascription of special epistemic status to early modern siege chronicles, whether as privileged insider experiences or as uniquely qualified eyewitness accounts, is at best meaningless; at worst it is a fundamental historiographical mistake. In the end such claims cannot establish any superior reliability or epistemological privilege for these texts. Nor can they be said to be grasping native early modern practice using modern scholarly concepts. For the Lindau siege chronicles, at least, such claims actually subvert any appreciation of how these documents were culturally shaped records of subjective experience. The subjectivity of the Lindau siege chronicles is not only very different from the supposed objectivity of eyewitnesses, but also different from other contemporary subjectivities, especially in other genres of siege representation. All three chroniclers were in Lindau for the whole siege. They all framed their experience in accordance with certain cultural expectations, including expectations about how to chronicle a siege from within a siege. Ultimately, this matters because the widespread assumption that the siege experience was one determined by spatial confinement, a notion commonly related via insider and outsider metaphors, cannot register those cultural constraints placed on normal temporality under siege. Yet, the latter certainly found expression in early modern Lindauers’ siege chronicles. Finally, it seems likely that in the era of the Thirty Years’ War other German townsfolk likewise produced such siege chronicles, the location and indexing of which remains to be done. A further task for future scholarship is a clear articulation of links between chronicle writing and news reporting, both of which evolved rapidly in the urban culture of Germany in the Thirty Years’ War. Famously, this otherwise catastrophic time and place gave enormous impetus to the development of modern journalism. Less well understood is the way in which early modern German periodicals – called Zeitungen, after all – embodied momentous developments in European cultures of both space and time.70 The scholarly tendency has been to differentiate (modern) journalism from (medieval/early modern) chronicle writing on formal grounds, even where these once inhabited the same time and space. Still, the similarities

70 For a suggestive statement, see J. Weber, “The Early German Newspaper: A Medium of Contemporaneity”, in B. Dooley (ed.), The Dissemination of News and the Emergence of Contemporaneity in Early Modern Europe (Farnham: Ashgate Press, 2010) 69–79.

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between how early modern Lindau chroniclers processed time under siege, and the way in which a modern siege journalist like Janine Di Giovanni handled it, are more than just tantalising. They remind us that, in key regards, the early modern and the modern exist on a continuum. Sieges happened and still happen; siege survivors still have to process their experiences. In this respect, at least, progress is an illusion.

Bibliography Abela, J., “The Great Siege of 1565: Untold Stories of Daily Life”, in M. Camilleri (ed.), Besieged: Malta 1565 (2 vol.; Valletta: Malta Libraries and Heritage Malta, 2015), vol. 2, 97–115. Chrastil, R., The Siege of Strasbourg (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press, 2014). Di Giovanni, J., The Quick and the Dead: Under Siege in Sarajevo (London: Phoenix Paperback, 1995). Dohrn-van Rossum, G., History of the Hour: Clocks and Modern Temporal Orders (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Du Boulay, F.R.H., “The German Town Chroniclers”, in R.H.C. Davis/J.M. Wallace-Hadrill (ed.), The Writing of History in the Middle Ages: Essays presented to Richard William Southern (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981) 445–69. Fitzgerald, T., “Experience”, in W. Braun/R.T. McCutcheon (ed.), Guide to the Study of Religion (London: Cassell, 2000) 125–39. Frisch, A., The Invention of the Eyewitness: Witnessing and Testimony in Early Modern France (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). Ganado, A./Schirò, J., “An Unknown, Possibly Unique, 1565 Great Siege Map of Malta”, in M. Camilleri (ed.), Besieged: Malta 1565 (2 vol.; Valletta: Malta Libraries and Heritage Malta, 2015), vol. 2, 187–203. German Historical Institute (ed.), German History in Documents and Images (10 vols.; Washington DC, 2003–19), vol. 1, T.A. Brady Jr/E.Y. Glebe (ed.), From the Reformation to the Thirty Years War (1500–1648) (2003). Granatstein, J.L./Hillmer, N. (ed.), First Drafts: Eyewitness Accounts from Canada’s Past (Toronto: Thomas Allen, 2002). Haude, S., “The Experience of War”, in O. Asbach/P. Schröder (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to the Thirty Years’ War (Farnham/Burlington: Ashgate, 2014) 257–68. Helfferich, T. (ed.), The Thirty Years War: A Documentary History (Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 2009). Heyck, E., “Richental, Ulrich von”, in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 28 (1889) 433–5.

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Houston, A., “The Faithful City Defended and Delivered: Cultural Narratives of Siege Warfare in France, 1553–1591”, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte/Archive for Reformation History 107 (2016) 83–106. Jensen, J.S., “Revisiting the Insider-Outsider Debate: Dismantling a Pseudo-Problem in the Study of Religion”, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 23 (2011) 29–47. Jessen, H. (ed.), Der Dreißigjährige Krieg in Augenzeugenberichten (Düsseldorf: Karl Rauch Verlag, 1963). Joetze, F., Chroniken der Stadt Lindau: Programm des Königlichen Maximilians-Gymnasiums für das Schuljahr 1904/1905 (Munich: Straub, 1905). Kostick, C., The Social Structure of the First Crusade (Leiden: Brill, 2008). Lapina, E., “Crusader Chronicles”, in A. Bale (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the Crusades (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 2019) 11–24. Mayr, O., Die schwedische Belagerung der Reichsstadt Lindau 1647: Der Dreißigjährige Krieg am Bodensee und in Oberschwaben (Munich: Allitera Verlag, 2016). McCutcheon, R.T. (ed.), The Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion: A Reader (London: Continuum, 2005). Medick, H., “Historical Event and Contemporary Experience: The Capture and Destruction of Magdeburg in 1631”, History Workshop Journal 52 (2001) 23–48. Mortimer, G., “Models of Writing in Eyewitness Personal Accounts of the Thirty Years War”, Daphnis 29 (2000) 609–47. Mortimer, G., Eyewitness Accounts of the Thirty Years War, 1618–1648 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002). Muir, E./Ruggiero, G. (ed.), Microhistory and the Lost Peoples of Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991). Parker, G., The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Pozzulo, J., The Young Eyewitness: How Well Do Children and Adolescents Describe and Identify Perpetrators? (Washington DC: American Psychological Association, 2017). Rakoff, J.S./Loftus, E.F., “The Intractability of Inaccurate Eyewitness Identification”, Daedalus 147/4 (2018) 90–8. Reinwald, G., “Dr. J. Heider’s Tagebuch über den Verlauf der Belagerung Lindau’s durch die Schweden”, Schriften des Vereins für die Geschichte des Bodensees und seiner Umgebung 1 (1868) 74–107. Sharf, R.H., “Experience”, in M.C. Taylor (ed.), Critical Terms for Religious Studies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998) 94–116. Simmons, C./Perlina, N., Writing the Siege of Leningrad: Women’s Diaries, Memoirs and Documentary Prose (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002). Stauder, H., “Die Einführung regelmäßiger Schulpredigten in Lindau: Ein Beitrag zu den Anfängen des Lindauer Kinderfestes”, Jahrbuch des Landkreises Lindau 2005 (Bergatreute: Eppe Verlag, 2005) 130–47.

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Taves, A., Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building-Block Approach to the Study of Religion and Other Special Things (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009). Toglia, M.P. et al. (ed.), The Elderly Eyewitness in Court (New York: Psychology Press, 2014). Turner, V., “Images of Anti-Temporality: An Essay in the Anthropology of Experience”, Harvard Theological Review 75 (1982) 243–65. von Krusenstjern, B., Selbstzeugnisse der Zeit des Dreißigjährigen Krieges: Beschreibendes Verzeichnis (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1997). Weber, J., “The Early German Newspaper: A Medium of Contemporaneity”, in B. Dooley (ed.), The Dissemination of News and the Emergence of Contemporaneity in Early Modern Europe (Farnham: Ashgate Press, 2010) 69–79. Wilkinson, J., “A Choice of Fictions: Historians, Memory, and Evidence”, PMLA 111 (1996) 80–92.

Volker Arnke

Preservation of Religious Peace through Law The Peace of Westphalia (1648), the Capitulatio Perpetua (1650) and the Jesuit Conflict in the Bi-Confessional Prince-Bishopric of Osnabrück

1.

Introduction

This article focuses on religious conflicts in the period after the Peace of Westphalia of 1648. It therefore seems to be slightly marginal to this volume’s topic, which primarily concentrates on the sixteenth century as the main era of religious conflicts in Europe. Moreover, for a long time 1648 has been regarded as a point that marked the end to religious conflicts in Europe. However, recent research has shown that even after 1648 religion and confessional conflicts were still factors in the relations among the European monarchies and republics1 as well as within the multi-confessional Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.2 Researchers such as Jürgen Luh, Frank Kleinehagenbrock and Alexander Weber have proved that within the empire – especially in places where inhabitants of different confessions lived closely together – religiously connoted conflicts still emerged after 1648, but in contrast to the times before the Peace of Westphalia, after 1648 a further military escalation was prevented in the Holy Roman Empire although not every confessional conflict was sustainably resolved.3 A fundamental basis for this development was the renewed religious peace of 1648 which included the rule of the normative year of 1624.4 The latter not only settled the dispersion of the confessions in the Holy Roman Empire as had been

1 See D. Onnekink, “The Perplexities of Peace: Dutch Foreign Policy and the Religious Dimension of International Relations around 1700”, in I. Schmidt-Voges et al. (ed.), Pax perpetua: Neuere Forschungen zum Frieden in der Frühen Neuzeit (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2010) 329–48. 2 See F. Kleinehagenbrock, “Die Wahrnehmung und Deutung des Westfälischen Friedens durch Untertanen der Reichsstände”, in Schmidt-Voges et al. (ed.), Pax perpetua, 177–93, on p. 179. 3 See J. Luh, Unheiliges Römisches Reich: Der konfessionelle Gegensatz 1648 bis 1806 (Potsdam: Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, 1995), F. Kleinehagenbrock, “Die Erhaltung des Religionsfriedens: Konfessionelle Konflikte und ihre Beilegung im Alten Reich nach 1648”, Historisches Jahrbuch 126 (2006) 135–56, A. Weber, Konfessionelle Konflikte nach dem Westfälischen Frieden: Die Religionsbeschwerden der katholischen Kirche des Herzogtums Kleve im 18. Jahrhundert (Hamburg: Kovač, 2013). 4 See R.-P. Fuchs, Ein “Medium zum Frieden”: Die Normaljahrsregel und die Beendigung des Dreißigjährigen Kriegs (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2010).

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the case on 1 January 1624 but it was also a highly applicable law.5 Referring to the normative year, actors of confessional conflicts could apply to a court6 or seek political support at the Imperial Diet, where two confessionally divided corpora dealt with questions of religion.7 Hence the two possibilities of juridical mechanisms, on the one hand, and political mechanisms, on the other, which were employed to maintain the religious peace within the empire, helped to prevent further military escalations after 1648. Therefore, they proved effective conflict-resolving tools. In order to demonstrate in detail how these mechanisms – amongst others – worked and maintained the peace, this paper will examine a confessional conflict. This conflict occurred in a rather exceptional territory of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, the Prince-Bishopric of Osnabrück. There, Catholics and Lutherans lived in the same city and in the same territory together, which marked a particularly rare phenomenon in the Holy Roman Empire at those times. Further examples of this rare phenomenon of multi-confessional populations existing in one place could be found in a few imperial cities such as Augsburg,8 Biberach, Dinkelsbühl, Ravensburg9 or the Duchy of Kleve.10 To make the bi-confessional status of Osnabrück even more exceptional, from 1648 the ecclesiastical principality distinguished itself through the special arrangement of the successio alternativa (alternating succession).11 This rule determined the prince-bishopric as a reign in which a Catholic and a Protestant prince permanently took turns in ruling. In order to prevent confessional conflicts and to

5 P. Milton, “The Early Eighteenth-Century German Confessional Crisis: The Juridification of Religious Conflict in the Reconfessionalized Politics of the Holy Roman Empire”, Central European History 49 (2016) 39–68. 6 See Kleinehagenbrock, “Die Erhaltung des Religionsfriedens”. 7 See A. Kalipke, “Verfahren – Macht – Entscheidung: Die Behandlung konfessioneller Streitigkeiten durch das Corpus Evangelicorum im 18. Jahrhundert aus verfahrensgeschichtlicher Perspektive”, in B. Stolberg-Rilinger/A. Krischer (ed.), Herstellung und Darstellung von Entscheidungen: Verfahren, Verwalten und Verhandeln in der Vormoderne (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2010) 475–517 and A. Kalipke, “‘Weitläuffigkeiten’ und ‘Bedencklichkeiten’: Die Behandlung konfessioneller Konflikte am Corpus Evangelicorum”, Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 35/3 (2008) 405–47. 8 See E. François, Die unsichtbare Grenze: Protestanten und Katholiken in Augsburg 1648–1806 (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1991). 9 See P. Warmbrunn, Zwei Konfessionen in einer Stadt: Das Zusammenleben von Katholiken und Protestanten in den paritätischen Reichsstädten Augsburg, Biberach, Ravensburg und Dinkelsbühl von 1548 bis 1648 (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1983). 10 See Weber, Konfessionelle Konflikte. 11 See M.A. Steinert, Die alternative Sukzession im Hochstift Osnabrück: Bischofswechsel und das Herrschaftsrecht des Hauses Braunschweig-Lüneburg in Osnabrück 1648–1802 (Osnabrück: Verein für Geschichte und Landeskunde von Osnabrück, 2003) and M.F. Feldkamp, “Zur Bedeutung der ‘successio alternativa’ im Hochstift Osnabrück während des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts”, Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte 130 (1994) 75–110.

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preserve the confessional status of the people an Osnabrück-specific treaty – the Capitulatio perpetua osnabrugensis (Osnabrück perpetual capitulation) of 1650 – was set up in addition to the Peace of Westphalia.12 This codified the basic confessional conditions. Nevertheless, confessional conflicts still occurred in Osnabrück in the subsequent 150 years after the Peace of Westphalia due to the alternating reign and the coexistence of two confessions in the same territory.13 In the following, some of this confessional dissent will be examined in order to answer the question as to what extent the fundamental religious laws of the Peace of Westphalia and Osnabrück’s perpetual capitulation contributed to the preservation of religious peace. In other words, the article is a case study of the implementation of the 1648 and 1650 religious guidelines in practice. Since the prince-bishopric of Osnabrück had a very specific constitution, which was quite exceptional compared to the other territories of the Holy Roman Empire, the second chapter presents the prince-bishopric’s post-1648 constitutional and bi-confessional structure. Thirdly, some confessional conflicts, which occurred in Osnabrück after 1648 will be mentioned, one of which will be highlighted for a closer analysis. The focus is on the early eighteenth century, when a larger confessional crisis shook the Holy Roman Empire as a whole, which also sets the framework of the Osnabrück conflicts at this specific time. Finally, the fourth chapter will emphasise the political and judicial measures that helped to deescalate the confessional conflicts and to maintain both the Peace of Westphalia and the religious peace therein.

12 See W. Seegrün/G. Steinwascher (ed.), 350 Jahre Capitulatio perpetua Osnabrugensis (1650–2000): Entstehung, Folgen, Text (Osnabrück: Verein für Geschichte und Landeskunde von Osnabrück, 2000). 13 See V. Arnke, “Konfession und Politik: Die Dynastiepolitik des Hauses Braunschweig-Lüneburg und das Hochstift Osnabrück 1716–1760”, in S. Tauss/U. Winzer (ed.), Miteinander leben?: Reformation und Konfession im Fürstbistum Osnabrück 1500 bis 1700 (Münster: Waxmann, 2017) 111–26; V. Arnke, “Konfessionskonflikt, Machtpolitik und Verfassung: Der Streit um das Konsistorialäquivalent im Fürstbistum Osnabrück nach 1648/50”, in V. Arnke/H. Schepers (ed.), “Zu wißen und kundt sey hiemit...”: Neue Erkenntnisse zur Osnabrücker Landes- und Stadtgeschichte aus studentischen Forschungen (Osnabrück: Verein für Geschichte und Landeskunde von Osnabrück, 2014) 11–45; V. Arnke, “‘Aus demb friede in newe unruhe’: Der Osnabrücker Jesuitenstreit nach dem Westfälischen Frieden aus der Sicht des Stadtrats und Ernst Augusts II.”, Osnabrücker Mitteilungen 113 (2008) 77–109; D. Freist, Glaube – Liebe – Zwietracht: Religiös-konfessionell gemischte Ehen in der Frühen Neuzeit (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter 2017); D. Freist,“Crossing Religious Borders: The Experience of Religious Difference and its Impact on Mixed Marriages in Eighteenth-Century Germany”, in C.S. Dixon/D. Freist/M. Greengrass (ed.), Living with Religious Diversity in Early Modern Europe (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009) 203–24; Kleinehagenbrock, “Die Erhaltung des Religionsfriedens”; R.G. Asch, “Osnabrück zwischen Westfälischem Frieden und Siebenjährigem Krieg, 1648–1763”, in G. Steinwascher (ed.), Geschichte der Stadt Osnabrück (Belm bei Osnabrück: Meinders & Elstermann, 2006) 229–66, on p. 253.

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2.

A Holy Roman Empire Compressed: The Religious and Constitutional Special Case of Osnabrück

The prince-bishopric of Osnabrück has become an interesting research subject for the topic of confessional conflicts after 1648 and their solutions due to its religious and constitutional peculiarities. In a certain way, these peculiarities formed a microcosm of the Holy Roman Empire, or – one may say – a compressed empire. This compressed empire refers both to confessional status of the Osnabrück people and to the constitution of the Osnabrück territory. The confessional plurality, which was represented at the macro level of the empire through its federal structure of predominantly homogeneous confessional territories, was represented at the microlevel by a bi-confessional population within the territory and the city of Osnabrück. In addition, the constitutional law of the Capitulatio perpetua osnabrugensis created a small-scale religious peace that implemented the imperial religious peace and at the same time specified it for the Osnabrück prince-bishopric. Referring to this, the German historian Anton Schindling once called the prince-bishopric a “model case for the rule of confessional parity” and “for the implementation of the [1648] imperial religious guidelines”.14 2.1 The First Peculiarity of Osnabrück: The successio alternativa The Peace of Westphalia, which was partly negotiated in Osnabrück (1643–8), became significant not only for the Holy Roman Empire as a whole, but also and specifically for the city of the negotiations itself. The Peace of Westphalia – in greater detail Article XIII, paragraphs 1–8 of the Instrumentum Pacis Osnabrugensis – settled the so-called successio alternativa. This rule determined the prince-bishopric of Osnabrück as a reign that alternated between a Catholic and a Protestant princebishop. The Protestant prince had to be a member of the Guelph dynasty, more precisely, of the House of Brunswick-Calenberg or Hanover. The implementation of the successio alternativa was a compromise reached during the Westphalian peace negotiations, when neither the Protestant House of Hanover nor the Catholic prince-bishop of Osnabrück, Franz Wilhelm von Wartenberg, could fully gain their political aims. The Protestant House of Guelph had attempted to obtain the secularisation of diverse prince-bishoprics in the north western part of the Holy

14 “Musterfall für das Prinzip der konfessionellen Parität”; “Musterfall für die Anwendung der reichsrechtlichen Friedensgrundsätze”; A. Schindling, “Westfälischer Frieden und Altes Reich. Zur reichspolitischen Stellung Osnabrücks in der Frühen Neuzeit”, Osnabrücker Mitteilungen 90 (1985) 97–120, on p. 98 (the English translation is the author’s).

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Roman Empire, while the Catholic bishop wanted to preserve his former territories as an ecclesiastical Catholic territory.15 After lengthy negotiations, the compromise of the successio alternativa for the prince-bishopric of Osnabrück was the result. The successio alternativa withstood several attempts from either the Catholic or the Protestant side to be changed or even overthrown.16 In fact, the Protestant house of Hanover tried to achieve the secularisation of the prince-bishopric after 1648.17 A major attempt was initiated by King George III of Great Britain, who was also the head of the House of Hanover, during the Seven Years’ War (1756–63).18 Apart from this well-known episode, hitherto only an insufficient number of studies have been carried out concerning the ambitions to secularise the prince-bishopric of Osnabrück after 1648. The successio alternativa, however, remained as a fundamental rule until 1802 when the princebishopric was dissolved. Until then, six bishops had reigned: three Catholics and three Lutherans. 2.2 The Second Peculiarity of the Osnabrück Constitution: The Bi-Confessional Structure In addition to the rules of the Peace of Westphalia, a specific fundamental law was adopted in Osnabrück in 1650. It was called Capitulatio perpetua osnabrugensis (perpetual electoral capitulation) and it established the status of the two confessions, Catholic and Lutheran, not only in the city but also throughout the entire prince-bishopric. This law referred to 1624 as the normative year for the restitution of confessional status within the Holy Roman Empire as it was codified in the Peace of Westphalia.19 For the city and territory of Osnabrück, which had not been able to establish a confessionally homogeneous population in the era of the Reformation and the confessionalisation,20 the implementation of the normative year meant

15 Steinert, Die alternative Sukzession, 9–21. 16 Steinert, Die alternative Sukzession, 240. 17 See Arnke, “Konfession und Politik”; G. Steinwascher, “Die konfessionellen Folgen des Westfälischen Friedens für das Fürstbistum Osnabrück”, in Seegrün/Steinwascher (ed.), 350 Jahre Capitulatio perpetua Osnabrugensis, 31–55, on p. 33; H. Schmidt, “Konversion und Säkularisation als politische Waffe am Ausgang des konfessionellen Zeitalters: Neue Quellen zur Politik des Herzogs Ernst August von Hannover am Vorabend des Friedens von Nymwegen”, Francia 5 (1977) 183–230. 18 Steinert, Die alternative Sukzession, 233f. 19 Instrumentum Pacis Osnabrugensis, Article V, paragraphs 25–6, available at (accessed 30 June 2021). 20 S. Westphal, “Konfessionelle Indifferenz oder politische Strategie?: Die Osnabrücker Fürstbischöfe in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts”, in Tauss/Winzer (ed.), Miteinander leben?, 99–110.

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preserving the bi-confessional structure through defining the local religious dispersion. The aim of this codification was to exclude the risk of future confessional conflicts as far as possible. According to the perpetual capitulation, two of the city’s four main churches, St Peter’s Cathedral and the Collegiate Church of St John, were Catholic, while the two others, St Mary’s Church and St Catherine’s Church, were Lutheran. The vast majority of the town’s inhabitants were Lutherans, as was every member of the town council. The two main Catholic churches and the surrounding so-called Freiheiten (cathedral closes), which had existed since the middle ages, marked the Catholic centres of the city. The Freiheiten were areas which were exempt from the town’s taxes and stood outside its jurisdiction. They also appeared as “large Catholic islands in Osnabrück”.21 In the whole prince-bishopric of Osnabrück, there were altogether 45 Kirchspiele – meaning parishes or ecclesiastical districts. In the perpetual capitulation of 1650, referring to the confessional dispersion of 1624 (normative year), 28 of those were declared Catholic, seventeen Lutheran and eight confessionally mixed – the so-called Simultaneen.22 In the latter, there lived not only inhabitants of both confessions simultaneously in the same district, but also both confessions had their own church, or at least their own services in a shared church. An example of that is St George’s Church in the parish of Badbergen, where even the baptismal font was in bi-confessional use. Here, the Catholic baptismal water was separated from that of the Lutherans. When a leak in the baptismal font occurred in 1772, the Catholic archdeacon immediately gave the order to prevent the waters from mixing while having it repaired.23 Moreover, the declaration of some parishes in the Capitulatio perpetua was somehow problematic owing to the fact that the confessional distribution of the population there had changed since 1624. Dagmar Freist offers an example of this in her study of confessionally mixed marriages in the district of Ankum, which was situated within the Osnabrück territory.24 In 1651, 342 Catholics, 217 Lutherans and 207 inhabitants with no distinct confession25

21 “große katholische Inseln in Osnabrück”; G. Steinwascher, “Von der Reformation zum Westfälischen Frieden”, in Steinwascher (ed.), Geschichte, 161–228, on p. 176. (the English translation is the author’s). 22 W. Seegrün, “In Münster und Nürnberg: Die Verteilung der Konfessionen im Fürstentum Osnabrück 1648/50”, in Seegrün/Steinwascher (ed.), 350 Jahre Capitulatio perpetua Osnabrugensis, 1–30. 23 B. Hagemann, “Das geteilte Becken. Die St. Georgs-Kirche in Badbergen im Zeitalter der Konfessionalisierung” (2004), available at (accessed 30 june 2021). 24 See Freist, Glaube – Liebe – Zwietracht and Freist, “Crossing Religious Borders”. 25 The figure of 207 inhabitants with no distinct religion shows a form of “religious syncretism” which was “widespread … in everyday religious practices and customs”; Freist, “Crossing Religious Borders”, 205; see also A. Holzem, Religion und Lebensformen: Katholische Konfessionalisierung im Sendgericht des Fürstbistums Münster, 1570–1800 (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2000).

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happened to live there. Ankum, however, was declared Catholic in accordance with the rules of the Peace of Westphalia, specifically with the normative year of 1624. Only one church – a Catholic one – was permitted to be in use and, therefore, the non-Catholic inhabitants had to attend the Catholic service.26 Other important fundaments of the prince-bishopric’s bi-confessional structure were the three territorial estates, which were part of the political power in the territory.27 The estates also happened to have different confessional forms. The first estate, the cathedral chapter, was mainly Catholic, while the second estate the Ritterschaft (knighthood) was predominantly Lutheran. The third estate, the cities, clearly dominated by the city of Osnabrück, was mainly Lutheran, too. The three territorial estates were often involved in the confessional conflicts that took place in the 150 years following the Peace of Westphalia. The fact that no serious physical conflict arose between the Osnabrück Catholics and Protestants after 1648 seems to be a proof of the existence of a certain kind of peaceful cohabitation. But since a detailed study of all the aspects of the Osnabrück religious politics and everyday life is still lacking, it is hard to say what the actual picture of the bi-confessional cohabitation in detail was like. Nevertheless, it seems to be likely that Dagmar Freist’s view of the everyday religious life in the parish of Ankum could also be applicable to the entire prince-bishopric: “There was the acceptance and daily experience of religious co-existence and there was the underlying competition between the different religious groups which became evident in conversion politics, recriminations, grievances, and in the ‘confessional demarcation’ of private and public space”.28 Altogether, one could state that the religious and constitutional special case of Osnabrück created two things at the same time: on the one hand, a peaceful cohabitation, but on the other, it created confessional conflicts aroused by its biconfessional structure as well as by the constant change of reign between a Protestant and a Catholic prince-bishop from 1648 to 1802. Regarding this, it seems important to ask how the confessional conflicts were dealt with and how further physical escalation was prevented. In order to answer these questions, one also has to ask how the conflicts, which were often caused on a micro-level of everyday life, were linked to the macro-level of politics and to matters of political interest. This connection will be highlighted in the following examples.

26 Freist, “Crossing Religious Borders”, 211. 27 R. Renger, Landesherr und Landstände im Hochstift Osnabrück in der Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts: Untersuchungen zur Institutionengeschichte des Ständestaates im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968). 28 Freist, “Crossing Religious Borders”, 223; see also Freist, Glaube – Liebe – Zwietracht.

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3.

The Case of the Osnabrück Jesuits

After confessional dissents had already increased in Osnabrück in the early 1700s29 a peak was reached under the reign of the Protestant prince-bishop Ernest Augustus from 1715 to 1728. These conflicts were connected to two political and confessional backgrounds. On the one hand, the dynastic policy of the Protestant House of Hanover endeavoured to gain as much long-lasting influence as possible over the prince-bishopric. Therefore, the Guelphs were eager to improve the status of the Lutheran confession. The establishment of a permanent Legationsrat (legation council) in the eighteenth century played an important role in this process. Its main task was to support the Protestants in the prince-bishopric and to forward religious complaints to the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg. The basic goal, however, was to maintain and expand the dynasty’s right to rule over the prince-bishopric.30 Eventually, the house of Hanover became the sole ruler of Osnabrück when the prince-bishopric was dissolved in August 1802. On the other hand, the Osnabrück conflicts were linked to a serious confessional crisis of the Holy Roman Empire in the early eighteenth century.31 Already threatened by several conversions of former Protestant princes to Catholicism – for example, the Elector of Saxony who converted in order to become king of Poland in 1697 – a number of Protestant imperial estates were alarmed by events in the Palatinate in 1719. After having imposed several restrictions on Protestant rights in the years from 1717 to 1719, the Catholic Elector Palatine Charles III Philip aggravated the confessional dissent when he banned the Reformed Heidelberg catechism and banned the Protestants from using the Heiliggeist church in Heidelberg in 1719. These actions, which were certainly against the normative year of 1624 of the Westphalian peace treaty, caused great outrage amongst the Protestant imperial estates such as Hanover and Prussia. Furthermore, the corpus evangelicorum of the Imperial Diet was involved in this case. The latter consisted of the Protestant imperial estates and represented their confessional interests:32 hence, in the case of the crisis, the corpus evangelicorum had to defend the rights of threatened Protestants.

29 Among other incidents, a dispute about their publications occurred between the Jesuit Heinrich Cohlendahl and the Protestant preacher Johann Gerhard Meuschen, see Asch, “Osnabrück zwischen Westfälischem Frieden und Siebenjährigem Krieg”, 245f. 30 See Arnke, “Konfession und Politik”. 31 See Milton, “The Early Eighteenth-Century German Confessional Crisis” and G. Haug-Moritz, “Kaisertum und Parität. Reichspolitik und Konfessionen nach dem Westfälischen Frieden”, Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 19/4 (1992) 445–82. 32 See Kalipke, “‘Weitläuffigkeiten’ und ‘Bedencklichkeiten’” and Kalipke, “Verfahren – Macht – Entscheidung”.

Preservation of Religious Peace through Law

Confessional conflicts that occurred under Ernest Augustus’s reign in Osnabrück were: first – concerning Catholic orders in the prince-bishopric – the expulsion of the Osnabrück Jesuits and the reduction in the number of the Dominicans; second, the closure of a “newly” (meaning after the normative year of 1624, precisely in 1644) founded Franciscan monastery in the small city of Wiedenbrück; third, the removal of the public Catholic service in the Marienstätte monastery in the city of Osnabrück, and fourth, the limitation of the Catholic archdeacon’s jurisdiction which competed with the jurisdiction of the Lutheran ecclesiastical consistory.33 These cases were partly not new and had had their own long history ever since the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia – or even longer. In every case, Ernest Augustus opposed the Osnabrück Catholic cathedral chapter, the first territorial estate. Moreover, he had to oppose the Catholic Elector of Cologne, who had a responsibility for the Catholic inhabitants of Osnabrück in times of a Protestant prince’s reign.34 The case of the Osnabrück Jesuits in 1720 is of particular interest for this article’s main question because it reached the topmost political and judicial imperial institutions at a time when the confessional crisis within the empire reached its height in any case. As far as this is concerned, it is not surprising that the judges of the Imperial Aulic Council considered the probable expulsion of the Catholic order to be a highly dangerous act for the whole empire since a serious confessional crisis already existed, as is further described below. In order to understand the events of 1720 in Osnabrück better, the following briefly outlines the history of the Osnabrück Jesuit dispute. Firstly, the Catholic prince-bishop Eitel Friedrich von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen introduced members of the Jesuit order, who in general played a crucial part in the Catholic CounterReformation. His successor, Franz Wilhelm von Wartenberg, who had been educated by the Jesuit order himself, started a widespread process of re-Catholicisation in the city and territory of Osnabrück in 1628, shortly after the city had been occupied by forces of the Catholic League. Wartenberg expelled Lutheran priests, prohibited Protestant services, and replaced all the members of the Lutheran dominated town council with Catholics. He also strongly supported the Osnabrück Jesuits, who acted in a profoundly missionary manner when they ran the main Catholic school in Osnabrück – the Carolinum35 – while the Lutheran Ratsschule was shut down in 1628. Furthermore, the Jesuits were in charge of the seminary founded in 1628. The Jesuits’ commitment at the Carolinum-school and Wartenberg’s support for the Order finally led to the foundation of a university in 1632. At 33 Arnke, Konfession und Politik, 118f. 34 Steinert, Die alternative Sukzession, 42–4. 35 M.F. Feldkamp, “Die Jesuiten am Gymnasium Carolinum in Osnabrück”, in R. Unnerstall/H. Mannigel (ed.), Gymnasium Carolinum 804–2004 (Osnabrück: Fromm, 2004) 33–64.

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this point, it seemed that Wartenberg’s and the Jesuits’ efforts had created a centre of Catholicism in the north-west of the Holy Roman Empire, but when the city of Osnabrück was occupied by the Swedish Protestant forces in 1633, all the measures taken in its re-Catholicisation were overturned.36 Against this backdrop it seems obvious, that the Jesuit order was regarded by the Osnabrück Protestants as a great threat to their religion. Not surprisingly, in the negotiations of the Westphalian Peace Congress (1643–9) and in those in Nuremberg (1649–50), the Lutheran Osnabrück town council tried to ensure by law that there would never again be a presence of the Jesuit order in Osnabrück.37 While attempting this, the town council was backed by the Protestant house of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Both argued that the newly set rule of the normative year of 1624 prohibited a further presence of the Catholic order in Osnabrück since a Jesuit establishment had not been founded in the town before April 1625.38 Although they were able to prevent an immediate resettlement of the Jesuits in Osnabrück not long after the reinstatement of Franz Wilhelm von Wartenberg as Osnabrück prince-bishop in 1650, in March 1651 he requested two members of the Jesuit order to serve in Osnabrück.39 When these two Jesuits were sighted in the city at the end of October 1652, the Protestant town council feared that Wartenberg was resuming his course of re-Catholicisation, so the members of the city council protested officially against their appearance and sought support from the Lutheran House of Brunswick-Lüneburg, which was regarded as a protector of the Osnabrück Protestants in times of a Catholic prince’s reign. The town council asked for the “strongest protection” (“kräfftigsten schutzes”)40 from Ernest Augustus, elector of Hanover, who was the designated successor to Franz Wilhelm von Wartenberg,41 in order to have the Jesuits driven from their city. Yet when Ernest Augustus finally became prince-bishop in Osnabrück in 1662, he did not expel the Jesuits due to his ulterior political aim to become the ninth elector of the Holy Roman Empire. The expulsion of a Catholic order would have been regarded as an affront to the Catholic Emperor and could have been an obstacle

36 V. Seresse, “Der Versuch zur Rekatholisierung Osnabrücks 1628–1633 nach der Chronik des Rudolf von Bellinckhausen: Konversion und konfessionelle Identität zur Zeit des Dreißigjährigen Krieges”, Osnabrücker Mitteilungen 110 (2005) 99–118, on pp. 105–8. 37 G. Steinwascher, Osnabrück und der Westfälische Frieden: Die Geschichte der Verhandlungsstadt 1641–1650 (Osnabrück: Verein für Geschichte und Landeskunde von Osnabrück 2000), 285–88. 38 Arnke, “‘Aus demb friede in newe unruhe’”, 77f. 39 M.F. Feldkamp, “Die Jesuiten am Gymnasium”, 40. 40 Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv – Standort Osnabrück (NLA OS) Rep 110 I, No. 535, 3. 41 H. Schwenke, Der Regierungsantritt des ersten evangelischen Bischofs im Stift Osnabrück, Ernst August I., 1661–1663 (Emsdetten: Lechte, 1932).

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to his attaining his aim to become an elector.42 This change in Ernest Augustus’s policy was a great disappointment to the town council, and in point of fact, despite all the further protests of the town council against the Jesuits, in 1668 Ernest Augustus even legally acknowledged them.43 After the city council had lost its most important political supporter, it mostly came to terms with the fact that there was a Jesuit settlement in Osnabrück. Nevertheless, the councillors never recognised its legitimacy.44 The conflict only flared up again when Ernest Augustus, son and namesake of the elector of Hanover, sought to expel the Jesuits from Osnabrück in 1720. First, on 25 June, he had two Jesuits, named Gaudentius Berg and Friederich Gronefeld, summoned to his privy council.45 There, the two Jesuits were asked to legitimise their presence in Osnabrück adequately, as the councils had so far not been able to discover that the Order had already been established before 1624.46 In the following days, the Jesuits informed the bishop that the cathedral chapter would represent them in the matter.47 Thus, the cathedral chapter send a letter to Ernest Augustus and argued that the presence of the Jesuits in no way affected the rule of the religious status anni 1624. The chapter brought forward the argument, that there had already been Jesuits in the city before 1624. What is more, according to the cathedral chapter, the fathers were not forbidden persons because their presence was justified within the borders of the Domsfreiheit (cathedral close). Finally, the cathedral

42 In fact, for his promotion to an elector Ernest Augustus had at times considered converting to Catholicism, see Schmidt, “Konversion und Säkularisation”, 196f. 43 Feldkamp, “Die Jesuiten am Gymnasium”, 43. 44 Arnke, “‘Aus demb friede in newe unruhe’”, 97–100. 45 Members of the Dominicans, Franciscans and other Catholic clerics were also summoned in June and July 1720, see Arnke, “Konfession und Politik”, 117–19 and W. Seegrün, “Osnabrück und die Dominikaner”, Osnabrücker Mitteilungen 116 (2011) 81–101, on p. 95. 46 “man bißher noch nicht finden können / daß gedachter Orden der Jesuiten in Anno 1624. allhier in der Stadt oder dem Stifft Oßnabrück etabliret gewesen wäre; … dafern sie / Jesuiter / etwas mit gnugsamen Grund beyzubringen haben / und dadurch vorgemeldten ihren hiesigen Aufenthalt gnugsam zu justificiren vermeinen möchten /. Ihre Königl. Hoheit solches in denen nähesten 8 Tägen von ihnen gewärtigen wolten”; Abdruck authentischer Uhrkunden und gründlicher Nachrichten, was es mit denen Jesuitern zu Oßnabrück vor eine eigentliche Bewandnuß habe, Regensburg (henceforth AaU 1720), no. XX, 25 June 1720. 47 AaU 1720, no. XXI. This new confrontation between the cathedral chapter and the bishop was in line with a number of other dissents that already existed. These were also carried out by the Cathedral Chapter and prince-bishop Ernest Augustus as well as by the chapter and the two other predominantly Lutheran territorial estates, the knighthood and the cities; see F. Lodtmann, “Des Domkapitels Streitigkeiten mit Ernst August II., Ritterschaft und den Städten”, Osnabrücker Mitteilungen 10 (1875) 201–44.

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chapter referred to the letter of 30 September 1668, in which Ernest Augustus had legitimised the Jesuits’ presence in Osnabrück.48 In his answer of 4 July 1720 Ernest Augustus argued that his father’s letter of legitimisation was merely an act of grace and had no judicial consequences, and that the rule of the normative year was nonetheless effective. Since in his and his councils’ views there still was no proof of a presence of the Jesuit order in Osnabrück on 1 January 1624, the cathedral chapter and the fathers had to find further evidence to justify their presence or the Jesuits would have to leave the city.49

4.

Conflict De-Escalation through Political, Diplomatic and Judicial Mechanisms for Maintaining the Peace

Both the cathedral chapter and the Jesuits endeavoured to obtain legal and political assistance in mid-July 1720. The cathedral chapter wrote a formal legal appeal and the Jesuits sent two petitions (memoriale)50 to the Catholic emperor Charles VI. At the Vienna court, the case was dealt with by the imperial Aulic Council, which prepared a report in which the imperial council expressed its opinion.51 In this report, the members of the council argued that an expulsion of the Jesuits could not be lawful since the Catholic order had been established in Osnabrück

48 “Anlangend den sonsten offt erwehnten P. P. Societatis gethanen Vortrag/ sehen wir nicht/ wasgestalten diesertwegen Status Anni 1624. könne hervorgezogen werden/ da gedachte Patres auf uns käntlich zugehörigem Grund und Boden/ in Immunitate nostra, auf unsern Pfarrhof … jetzo wohnen/ also hervorzuziehen ohnnöthig seyn dörffte/ daß sowohl Anno 1597. und in folgenden Jahren/ … einige con der Societät sowohl inn= als ausserhalb der Stadt Osnabrück bey denen Pfarren ihre Functiones abgesondert und zusammen verrichtet/ … [Die Jesuiten sind] keine verbottene Personen oder Leuthe/ in nostra Immunitate käntlich wohnen und/ … diesertwegen alle Freyheit von Bürgerlichen Lasten und Praestationen genossen haben/ auch dabey von Eu. Königl. Hoheiten Herrn Vattern Churfürstl. Durchleucht glorreichen Gedächtnüß … am 30. Septembr. 1668. kräfftigst geschützet seyn”; AaU 1720, no. XXII, 3 July 1720. 49 “Was aber die ermeldte Jesuiter selsbt betrifft/ wollen Wir ihnen/ ob sie zu etwa vermeinter Justificirung ihres hierseyns ausser dem von euch angeführten etwas mehrers beybringen können/ zum Uberfluß annoch eine vierzehentägige Frist einräumen und von ihnen gewärtigen/ um so dann dasjenige zu verfügen / was nach deutlicher Maaßgebung des Instrumenti Pacis und der perpetuirlichen Capitulation die Nothdurfft erfordert; … was von weiland Unsers Herrn Vaters Gnaden (wiewohl bey damahliger der Jesuiten sehr geringer Anzahl) aus blosser gnädigsten Connivenz und ausser aller Schuldigkeit etwa geschehen seyn mag/ dem Westphälischen Frieden=Schluß/ hiesiger immerwährender Capitulation und dem darinn zum Fundament gesetzten statui anni 1624. eben so wenig hat praejudiciret oder derogiret werden wollen/”; AaU 1720, no. XXIII, 4 July 1720. 50 See AaU 1720, no. XXV and AaU 1720, no. XXVII; XXIX. 51 Österreichisches Staatsarchiv/Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv (henceforth: AT-OeStA/HHStA) RHR Judicialia Vota 25–8.

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for over 60 years. During that time even another Lutheran prince-bishop – Ernest Augustus – had once tolerated the Jesuits establishment in the city in 1668.52 In the opinion of the Aulic Council, expelling a Catholic order justified by the imperial court would be extremely dangerous for the political situation throughout the Holy Roman Empire. The imperial council feared that such an act might escalate the serious confessional crisis in the empire which already existed at the time.53 It seems obvious that, according to the members of the council, the expulsion of the Osnabrück Jesuits would have potentially led to a further escalation of this crisis. The opinion of the Imperial Aulic Council led to a decision by Emperor Charles VI. He justified the establishment of the Jesuits in Osnabrück with a decree and ordered Ernest Augustus not to exclude them but to place them under his princely protection.54 The latter did not accept the Emperor’s decision and rejected both the imperial edict and the legal appellation of the cathedral chapter.55 Instead, Ernest Augustus sought support from the Reichstag (Imperial Diet), more specifically from the corpus evangelicorum,56 which represented the Protestant affairs in religious matters

52 “dabey von sechtzig Jahren her geschützet und weiland Dr. Lbd. Vatters Lbd. / als Ersterm Bischoffen A.C., wieder die Stadt allda in contradictorio, als Professores der Carolinischen Schulen und als Prediger in der Dom=Kirchen/ von allen Oneribus immerhin frey= und loßgesprochen worden/”; AaU 1720, no. XXXI., 26 July 1720. 53 “Gehorsambster ReichsHoffRath hat diesem nachdencklichen Vorfall in gehörige berathschlagung gezogen, und im gefolg von solcher wichtigkeit befunden, daß selbiger zu Ew: Kay: May: unmittelbahren allerhöchsten einsicht und entschließung zu mahlen bey der auff dem verzug stehender gefahr unverweilt allerunterthänigst zu bringen seye; Indeme ohnschwehr zu ermessen, was für zerrütt= und schädliche unordnung es an mehrern orths im Römischen Reich nach sich ziehen würde; Wann Ein erst nach dem so genannten Anno Regulativo 1624. mit gutem wissen und willen der jederweiligen Landsfürsten eingeführter geistlicher orden nach so vieljährigem besitz allein aus dem nichtigen vorwandt willkührig außgeschafft werden könte, daß selbiger in bem. jahr 1624 an dieß= od. jenem orth nit eingeführet gewesen”; AT-OeStA/HHStA RHR Judicialia Vota 25–8, 4v–5r. Regarding the confessional crisis, see Milton, “The Early Eighteenth-Century German Confessional Crisis”. 54 “Wollen dahero Dieselbe [Ernst August II.] hiemit Reichs=Vätterlich erinnert haben / von solchem Beginnen allerdings abzustehen / und ermelte Patres bey ihrer mehr dann sechzigjährigen Possession nicht nur unbeeindruckt zu lassen / sondern vielmehr nach dem ruhmwürdigen Vortritt obmehrgedachter weyland Dero Vatters Lbd. allen rechtlichen Lands=Fürstl. Schutz andegeyen zu lassen / allenfalls auch / wann gegen Unsere bessere Zuversicht etwa schon was thätliches hierunter verhänget worden wäre / solches alsofort wieder ab= und in vorigen Stand zu stellen”; AaU 1720, no. XXI., 26 July 1720. 55 AaU 1720, no. XXVI; XXXII. 56 In August 1720, Ernest Augustus and his councilors were in contact with the corpus evangelicorum about the Jesuits as can be seen in the correspondence of that time. E. g. NLA OS Rep 100, 340b, No. 23, 143f.

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at the imperial level.57 After much effort, printed papers were published for the Imperial Diet on behalf of Ernest Augustus. They dealt with the Protestant religious grievances in the prince-bishopric in general58 and with the Osnabrück Jesuits in particular.59 The subtitle of the latter publication “Was es mit den Jesuitern zu Oßnabrück vor eine eigentliche Bewandnüß habe”, which means “The truth about the Osnabrück Jesuits”,60 underlines its intent. It was a clear rejection of the Emperor’s decision in this case. With the Abdruck Authentischer Uhrkunden, Ernest Augustus wanted to show that he and the corpus evangelicorum did not agree with the imperial decree, according to which the prince bishop was not to interfere with the Jesuits and had to protect them. Although Ernest Augustus rejected Emperor Charles’s decision and asked for support from the corpus evangelicorum, the imperial decree remained. Even the support of the Prussian king, Frederick William, for Ernest Augustus, which was expressed in a letter of October 1720,61 did not lead to any change. The question of the Jesuits’ expulsion from Osnabrück did not reappear until June 1725. At that time, the Osnabrück city council complained about an incident that occurred in the city on 8 June 1725 when a clash between some Jesuit students and the city guard occurred.62 The Osnabrück city council wrote a letter to the prince-bishop Ernest Augustus about this event and referred to the Tumult of Thorn.63 There had been violence between Protestants and Jesuit students in this Polish city, and the Jesuit college had even been stormed in June 1724. As a result, fourteen Protestant authorities were sentenced to death and the rights of Protestants in the city restricted.64 The tumult and its consequences for the Protestants in Thorn caused an outcry among the Protestant powers and the Protestant population of 57 See Kalipke, “‘Weitläuffigkeiten’ und ‘Bedencklichkeiten’” and Kalipke, “Verfahren – Macht – Entscheidung”. 58 Memoriale (1720), An Das Hochlöbliche CORPUS EVANGLICORUM, Von der Hochfürstlich Oßnabrückischen Gesandtschaft / Die Entgegen=Handlungen und Contraventionen wieder die perpetuirliche Capitulation betreffend, Regensburg. 59 See AaU 1720. 60 AaU 1720. 61 NLA OS Rep 100, 340b, No. 23, 162. 62 “die jesuiter Studenten [haben] die Schildtwache an der Cancelley mitt … Thaten und Wordten gewalthätig attaquiret, den Stadt und Burgfrieden dadurch gestöret”; NLA OS Rep 100, 340b, No. 23, 166–8, quotation on p. 167. 63 “Es ist, leider!, weldtkündig, in waß … bluhtvergiessen die unglückliche Stadt Thoren in Praüssen, durch der jesuiter Studenten … gestürtzet”; NLA OS Rep 100, 340b, No. 23, 166. 64 “It was further stipulated that half of the city council’s members would henceforth have to be Catholic, and the last remaining Lutheran church was to be handed over to the Catholics”; P. Milton, “Debates on Intervention against Religious Persecution in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: European Reactions to the Tumult of Thorn, 1724–1726”, European History Quarterly 47/3 (2017) 405–36, on p. 409.

Preservation of Religious Peace through Law

Europe.65 Against this background, it is not surprising that the city council once again asked for the Jesuits to be banned after the incident in June 1725. Ernest Augustus’s privy council passed the city’s concerns on to an upcoming conference in Hanover with members of the Guelph House.66 This conference was primarily set up to deal with other disputes between the Osnabrück cathedral chapter and the prince-bishop. The commission, which also met in Osnabrück in 1726, took up the question of the expulsion of the Jesuits, but did not come to any conclusion. Not every member of the Brunswick-Lüneburg House supported the request for the Jesuits to be expelled. The privy council of the Wolfenbüttel line, for example, wrote in October 1725 that a strong backlash could be expected from the emperor and other Catholic princes if the Jesuits were banned from Osnabrück. According to the privy council, this would be particularly disadvantageous when set against the background of the current Protestant crisis. The council also argued that calling for the Jesuits to be expelled would make it difficult to reach agreements on the other issues that existed between Ernest August and the Osabrück cathedral chapter.67 Although Ernest Augustus and his advisors, together with the Osnabrück city council, still endeavoured to drive the Jesuits out in 1726,68 the Catholic order remained in the city. The end of the conference in August 1726,69 and not least the death of Ernest Augustus in August 1728, led to the end of the attempts to expel the Jesuits from Osnabrück. What may also have helped to ease the Jesuit conflict was the height of the empire’s confessional crisis, which had occurred in 1720, several years before. In addition, the pan-European excitement surrounding the tumult of Thorn had subsided after 1726, which may also have had an effect on the events in Osnabrück.

65 Milton, “Debates on Intervention”. 66 NLA OS Rep 100, 340b, No. 23, 172f; 179f. 67 “Immittelst seynd mit denen Herren Wir gleichfalls der Meynung, daß da in facto daran daran kein zweiffel, daß die Jesuiten in Ao. regulativo 1624 zu Oßnabrück nicht gewesen, dieselbe denen rechten nach von solchem Orth eliminiret werden konnen. Ob aber ebend itzt, da das Evangelische Weesen in besondere Crisi stehet derselben Ausschaffung zu bewerckstelligen, und mit thätlicher Execution zu verfahren, mpßen zu derer Herrn reifferer Überlegung Wir verstellen seyn laßen, und seynd des ohnvorgreifflichen dafürhaltens, daß da zu besorgen stehet, daß durch dergleichen Verfügung der Käyserl. Hoff sowohl als die mächtigern Cathol. Stände in große Bewegung gesetzet, und das durchl. gesambt-Hause mit deren Vorsprache sehr fatigiret, auch sonst allerhand inconvenientien selbigend zu gezogen werden dörfften, man damit eben nicht zu eilen habe, und zwar und sowiel mehr, weilen nicht zu glauben, daß die Cathol. Clerisey in Oßnabrück durch dergleichen Bedrohungen zu equitablern Sentiments in denen übrigen streitigen puncten sich werde disponiren laßen”; 25 October 1725, NLA OS Rep 110 II No. 633, 152f. 68 NLA OS Dep. 3b IV Nr. 63, 79; NLA OS Dep. 3b IV Nr. 64, 9v. 69 NLA OS Dep. 3b IV Nr. 63, 105r.

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In the end, it should be emphasised that the emperor’s decree of July 1720 had a decisive influence on the course of the Jesuit conflict in Osnabrück. In fact, the imperial decree laid a permanent foundation for the Jesuits’ establishment in Osnabrück, although it was not accepted by Ernest Augustus and the city council. The latter had too little political influence to be able to counter the imperial decision by taking action. However, this was not the only reason why a further escalation of the conflict was prevented. The established political and juridical conflict-resolution mechanisms, which were employed by both parties in the conflict, also helped to maintain the Peace of Westphalia in the city and territory of Osnabrück.

5.

Conclusion

Focussing on the special case of the prince-bishopric of Osnabrück has been an interesting approach to the analysis of confessional conflicts after 1648. Reasons for this are its exceptional bi-confessional structure as well as its specific constitution, which can be described as a condensed imperial situation. The bi-confessional structure could, on the one hand, be considered a testimony of a co-habitation that was to a certain extent peaceful, but, on the other hand, it also provoked confessional conflicts. One such conflict was the case of the Osnabrück Jesuits, which culminated in the 1720s and has been examined in detail in this article. As in every other confessional conflict after 1624, the normative year of the Peace of Westphalia had a major effect on this case. Following this ruling, the confessional status in nearly every territory and city in the Holy Roman Empire should have been as it had been on 1 January 1624. Since an establishment of the Jesuit order was first established under the reign of the Catholic prince-bishop Franz Wilhelm von Wartenberg in April 1625 in Osnabrück, from 1652 the Lutheran city council continually argued that – according to the normative year – the Jesuits had to leave the city. The Protestant prince-bishop Ernest Augustus of the house of Guelph argued in the same terms in the 1720s. In conclusion, four main results have to be pointed out. First of all, it must be noted that both conflicting parties strived to maintain peace in the long term. In their arguments, both referred to the Peace of Westphalia, to the rule of the normative year of 1624 within it and to the perpetual capitulation of Osnabrück. This shows, that the Peace of Westphalia and the Capitulatio perpetua osnabrugensis were widely accepted and applicable laws. From the point of view of Ernest Augustus and the Osnabrück city council, the Jesuits had to be expelled from Osnabrück in order to implement the ruling of the normative year verbatim. In their eyes, this step would strengthen the validity of the Peace of Westphalia. The Catholic party, on the other side, aimed to preserve the status quo, thereby leaving the Jesuits

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in Osnabrück in order to prevent a further escalation in the confessional dissent there. Moreover, they endeavoured to prevent the expulsion of the Catholic Jesuits’ Order because it might ignite an escalation in the severe confessional crisis that was already taking place in the empire and in other parts of Europe at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Secondly, both sides obtained legal expert opinions and took legal action against each other by, for example, appealing to the Osnabrück cathedral chapter. Political action was closely connected to this, as is clear from the Jesuits’ requests for help from the imperial court in Vienna or for support from the corpus evangelicorum by Ernest Augustus. Such measures were common in confessional conflicts during this period. This demonstrates that imperial institutions, such as the Imperial Diet and the Imperial Aulic Council, were clearly accepted and often used as peacekeeping facilities. Furthermore, the attempt to settle the conflict with the help of a commission including members of the house of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1725/26, which ultimately went back to an imperial commission in 1722/23,70 appears to be a common tool in such cases. Thirdly, the lines of argument on both sides were also typical for the time. For the most part, the Protestants oriented themselves towards the normative year of 1624, while the Catholics brought other rights to the foreground.71 In Osnabrück, customary law was ultimately decisive for the argumentation of the Imperial Aulic Council. It assessed the duration of the Jesuit establishment as more important than the verbatim implementation of the normative year of 1624. Moreover, compromises in confessional conflicts were often found through political institutions, especially within the corpus evangelicorum.72 In the case of the Osnabrück Jesuits, however, no compromise was found. The imperial decree of July 1720, which stated that Ernest Augustus had to accept the Jesuits’ establishment in the city, was rejected by the latter and the city council. However, the Jesuits were able to remain in Osnabrück until the decree was dissolved in 1773.73 The fourth and final aspect is a peculiarity of the Osnabrück constitution that contributed significantly to the fact that there was no further escalation in the conflict with the Jesuits there: the rule of the successio alternativa ensured that after the death of Ernest Augustus, a Catholic would become prince-bishop of Osnabrück again, and he, needless to say, would no longer be interested in the expulsion of

70 By imperial order, a commission was set up by the Imperial Aulic Council to settle the numerous conflicts in Osnabrück between the cathedral chapter and Ernest Augustus as well as the knighthood and the cities. The prince of East Frisia and the Elector of Trier were intended as mediators in these commissions (see Lodtmann, “Des Domkapitels”, 25 and NLA OS Dep 3b IV No. 62, 42v–60, 101). 71 Kleinehagenbrock, “Die Erhaltung des Religionsfriedens”, 148. 72 Kleinehagenbrock, “Die Erhaltung des Religionsfriedens”, 154–6. 73 Arnke, “‘Aus demb friede in newe unruhe’”, 109.

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the Jesuits. As far as this aspect is concerned, for Osnabrück a strategy of delaying and sitting the crisis out can be identified as another important mechanism for the de-escalation of a confessional conflict. Even though the confessional conflict concerning the Osnabrück Jesuits was clearly not resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, the measures undertaken helped to maintain peace and the more or less peaceful cohabitation of the people. By using the tools of conflict resolution, the potential for a further escalation of the conflict was guided through political and legal channels. This prevented a violent conflict from occurring. Moreover, it also prevented the effect of a further escalation of the severe confessional crisis of the Holy Roman Empire in the early eighteenth century. Bearing this in mind, the preservation of the somehow peaceful cohabitation in Osnabrück seems to gain even greater significance.

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Neuere Forschungen zum Frieden in der Frühen Neuzeit (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2010) 329–48. Renger, R., Landesherr und Landstände im Hochstift Osnabrück in der Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts: Untersuchungen zur Institutionengeschichte des Ständestaates im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968). Schindling, A., “Westfälischer Frieden und Altes Reich: Zur reichspolitischen Stellung Osnabrücks in der Frühen Neuzeit”, Osnabrücker Mitteilungen 90 (1985) 97–120. Schmidt, H., “Konversion und Säkularisation als politische Waffe am Ausgang des konfessionellen Zeitalters: Neue Quellen zur Politik des Herzogs Ernst August von Hannover am Vorabend des Friedens von Nymwegen”, Francia 5 (1977) 183–230. Schwenke, H., Der Regierungsantritt des ersten evangelischen Bischofs im Stift Osnabrück, Ernst August I., 1661–1663 (Emsdetten: Lechte, 1932). Seegrün, W./Steinwascher, G. (ed.), 350 Jahre Capitulatio perpetua Osnabrugensis (1650–2000): Entstehung, Folgen, Text (Osnabrück: Verein für Geschichte und Landeskunde von Osnabrück, 2000). Seegrün, W., “In Münster und Nürnberg: Die Verteilung der Konfessionen im Fürstentum Osnabrück 1648/50”, in W. Seegrün/G. Steinwascher (ed.), 350 Jahre Capitulatio perpetua Osnabrugensis (1650–2000): Entstehung, Folgen, Text (Osnabrück: Verein für Geschichte und Landeskunde von Osnabrück, 2000) 1–30. Seegrün, W., “Osnabrück und die Dominikaner”, Osnabrücker Mitteilungen 116 (2011) 81–101. Seresse, V., “Der Versuch zur Rekatholisierung Osnabrücks 1628–1633 nach der Chronik des Rudolf von Bellinckhausen: Konversion und konfessionelle Identität zur Zeit des Dreißigjährigen Krieges”, Osnabrücker Mitteilungen 110 (2005) 99–118. Steinert, M.A., Die alternative Sukzession im Hochstift Osnabrück: Bischofswechsel und das Herrschaftsrecht des Hauses Braunschweig-Lüneburg in Osnabrück 1648–1802 (Osnabrück: Verein für Geschichte und Landeskunde von Osnabrück, 2003). Steinwascher, G., “Die konfessionellen Folgen des Westfälischen Friedens für das Fürstbistum Osnabrück”, in W. Seegrün/G. Steinwascher (ed.), 350 Jahre Capitulatio perpetua Osnabrugensis (1650–2000): Entstehung, Folgen, Text (Osnabrück: Verein für Geschichte und Landeskunde von Osnabrück, 2000) 31–55. Steinwascher, G., Osnabrück und der Westfälische Frieden: Die Geschichte der Verhandlungsstadt 1641–1650 (Osnabrück: Verein für Geschichte und Landeskunde von Osnabrück 2000). Steinwascher, G., “Von der Reformation zum Westfälischen Frieden”, in G. Steinwascher (ed.), Geschichte der Stadt Osnabrück (Belm bei Osnabrück: Meinders & Elstermann, 2006) 161–228. Warmbrunn, P., Zwei Konfessionen in einer Stadt: Das Zusammenleben von Katholiken und Protestanten in den paritätischen Reichsstädten Augsburg, Biberach, Ravensburg und Dinkelsbühl von 1548 bis 1648 (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1983).

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Weber, A., Konfessionelle Konflikte nach dem Westfälischen Frieden: Die Religionsbeschwerden der katholischen Kirche des Herzogtums Kleve im 18. Jahrhundert (Hamburg: Kovač, 2013). Westphal, S., “Konfessionelle Indifferenz oder politische Strategie?: Die Osnabrücker Fürstbischöfe in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts”, in S. Tauss/U. Winzer (ed.), Miteinander leben?: Reformation und Konfession im Fürstbistum Osnabrück 1500 bis 1700 (Münster: Waxmann, 2017) 99–110. Westphal, S., “Frieden durch Ignorieren: Die Frage der Rijswijker Religionsklausel im Vorfeld der Friedensverhandlungen von Baden”, in H. Duchhardt/M. Espenhorst (ed.), Utrecht Rastatt - Baden 1712–1714: Ein europäisches Friedenswerk am Ende des Zeitalters Ludwigs XIV. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013) 167–83.

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Afterword

In Sebastian Castellio’s Conseil à la France désolée (1562) – a work that has attracted much less scholarly attention than Castellio’s writings about the persecution of heresy, among which the De haereticis an sint persequendi1 – the issue of religious persecution as the root cause of war is thoroughly addressed. The contemporary events which preceded, and in turn inspired, this long pamphlet were all fraught with blood and violence – not to the mention palpable tensions and the uncertainties that they generated – including the spectacular deaths of Henry II and the young Francis II, the failure of the conspiracy of Amboise and the massacres that it led to, and the slaughter of Reformed believers at Vassy, which opened the hostilities of the first civil war in France. Although Castellio never called the war that rapidly unfolded before him a “war of religion” or a “religious war”, religion still was – in a certain manner – at the heart of the matter. Indeed, the main cause Castellio identified behind what he called the desolation of France was the “forcement des consciences” (“coercion of consciences”). One of the major points Castellio considered in his masterpiece was the risk that the war he was witnessing could turn into a perpetual war. Naturally, he was adamant that this jeopardy had to be avoided at all costs. Using medical vocabulary – which characterises the Conseil throughout – the author argued that any grave illness must not last for too long, lest it become fatal for the patient. Likewise, the ongoing war had to cease as soon as possible; otherwise, France itself would have been destroyed.2 Castellio was and is well known for his rhetorical adroitness; consequently, one might expect that his allusion to the obliteration of the kingdom was purely theoretical and functional to the strength of his argument. However, the very lines preceding this medical similitude suggest that the Conseil’s allegorical personification of France – which spoke on behalf of the author and addressed its speech to both camps at war – took this matter very seriously. Indeed, Castellio argued,

1 A notable exception to this lack of attention in the tradition is the recently-published critical edition of S. Castellio, Conseil à la France désolée, ed. F. Alazard et al. (Geneva: Droz, 2017), from which all quotes from the Conseil are taken. Translations, unless otherwise stated, are the author’s. 2 “tout ainsi qu’une extreme maladie ne peut en un homme longuement durer qu’elle ne garisse, ou emmeine le malade: ainsi vostre guerre, ce me semble, ne peut estre perpetuelle, ains faut ou qu’elle finisse, ou que la France soit destruitte”; Castellio, Conseil à la France désolée, 50.

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the current war is not just like other wars customarily are, but it is an unyielding war, leaning towards the total annihilation of the adverse party: as we see through your own published declarations, both sides [of the divide] have promised and assured that they will apply themselves to it until the last coin in their purses and the last drop of their blood.3

But why were both sides of the divide so single-mindedly fighting against each other? This was not simple to determine, even for a learned and perspicacious eyewitness such as Sebastian Castellio. Nevertheless, he was convinced that the fundamental characteristic of the current war – the one which placed it outside the domain of known wars – was the sheer amount of violence and determination with which both sides of the divide confronted one another. But they were doing so as a reaction to, or against, what the author perceived as the heart and soul of the current conflict, namely, the coercion of consciences, or rather, more precisely, the justification (both political and theological) of such coercion. Indeed, Castellio alluded to those who taught that “the office of princes and lords of [high] justice is to kill heretics: and that if they fail to do so, they go against God, and they will be punished for that [failure]”. This, the allegory of France argued, was the “main cause of these carnages and butcheries that are made nowadays for the cause of religion”.4 Both the authors and editors of this volume seem to agree with Olivier Christin’s caveat against scholarly anxieties regarding any perceived necessity to precisely define “a certain number of criteria, both objective and subjective, the former founded upon the nature of the conflicts and their observable forms, and the latter upon the representations, motivations, and justifications provided by their actors, in an effort to distinguish, among the incessant wars of the early modern era, those which should be qualified as true ‘wars of religion’”.5 Yet, although an effort not to spring such analytical traps has to be consciously and carefully made, it certainly

3 “vostre guerre n’est pas comme sont communement les autres, ains est une guerre obstinée & tendante à la toutale destruction de l’adverse partie: veu que tant l’une part que l’autre (comme nous voyons par vos protestacions publiées) ont promis & asseuré qu’ilz y employeront iusques au dernier denier de leur bource, & a la derniere goutte de leur sang”; Castellio, Conseil à la France désolée, 49. 4 “ie voy icy un empeschement, lequel il faut oster s’il est possible: c’est quil en y a qui enseignent & ont enseigné, tant par parolles que par livres, que l’office des princes & seigneurs de iustice est de faire mourir les heretiques: & que s’ils ne le font, ils sont contre Dieu, & en seront punis. Cest enseignement est la principale cause de ces charnages & boucheries qui se font auiourdhuy pour la religion”; Castellio, Conseil à la France désolée, 59–60. 5 “Appartient-il à l’historien de définir un certain nombre de critères, objectifs et subjectifs, fondés les uns sur la nature des conflits et leurs formes observables, les autres sur les représentations, les motivations et les justifications de leurs acteurs, pour distinguer parmi les guerres incessantes de l’époque moderne celles qui devraient être qualifiées de véritables ‘guerres de religion’?”; O. Christin, “Introduction”, in V. Castagnet/O. Christin/N. Ghermani (ed.), Les affrontements religieux en Europe

Afterword

falls upon the historian – albeit with no pretence whatsoever to provide exhaustive bibliographical references for the manifold themes addressed by the contributors to the present volume – to assess the way in which the character and significance of at least some of the armed conflicts of the long sixteenth century manifested themselves in relation to what has been fruitfully labelled “fait religieux”.6 In a context such as sixteenth-century and early seventeenth-century Europe, deeply characterised by the acceleration (as Reinhart Koselleck would have called it) prompted by many transnational and interconnected religious crises in the broader framework of what have been defined as the “waning of the Renaissance”7 and the “Reformation(s)”,8 it is not an easy task to understand – from a historical point of view – the exact implications of how, and how radically, the semantics of terminology connected to religion underwent processes of change, nor whether or how this influenced the ways in which war was waged and theorised. These processes were prompted by, and in turn entailed, the emergence of a range of new actors in the religious sphere of decisions. For instance, the civil magistrates of the free cities subject to the Holy Roman Empire or the main cities and cantons of the Helvetic Confederation proclaimed themselves – outspokenly or otherwise – the ultimate decision-makers of the confessional allegiances of such territories. At the same time, they somewhat became conditores legum ecclesiasticarum, as they abolished Canon law in the lands under their jurisdiction. They usually replaced Canon law with ecclesiastical ordinances of a different nature and scope, but all shared the unspoken or explicit principle that the town magistrates, when not the direct authors of such pieces of legislation, were ultimately responsible for their approval and implementation. As Volker Arnke’s essay on the bi-confessional princebishopric of Osnabrück shows, this was not limited to the context of the imperial free cities governed by city councils, nor indeed to the sixteenth century. This longue durée process of continuous adaptation and experimentation of the religious composition of conflicts in the political sphere went well beyond the momentous date of the Peace of Westphalia and involved the very concept of sovereignty. From a more prosaic point of view, this process entailed complex political and juridical mechanisms – such as the peculiar successio alternativa that was implemented in Osnabrück9 – which aimed at preserving peace, de-escalating religious conflicts, and preventing open warfare from exploding once again.

6 7 8 9

du début du XVIe au milieu du XVIIe siècle (Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2008) 10–17, on p. 10. J. Delumeau (ed.), Le fait religieux (Paris: Fayard, 1993). W.J. Bouwsma, The Waning of the Renaissance, 1550–1640 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000). U. Rublack (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Protestant Reformations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017). See Volker Arnke’s essay in this volume.

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Old and new actors on the religious stage had to reinterpret and deal with old tensions and pressures connected to space in general, and to sacred space in particular. The scholarship on the French wars of religion, among other topics, has gone as far as to define the battle over space as the “most crucial battle”10 of such a dramatic period and has emphasised the importance of the allotment of religious space for worship in the broader framework of what has been called the “struggle for recognition”11 of the organised religious minorities of the early modern period. In this sense, there is much to learn from Angela De Benedictis’s essay, and not only from the point of view of the political and juridical theories behind the issues of war, rebellion, and resistance in the early modern period. It also helps us bear in mind the strong religious connotations of civic space – and the equally important civic significance of religious space – in the decades immediately before and after the Reformation.12 In turn, the perceived disruption and pollution of the purity of the civic corpus Christianorum and of the sacral community – defined spatially and symbolically as well as protected physically by city walls – brought forth by the Reformation invited forms of religious violence (an exceedingly complex subject which has been widely and well researched).13 On the other hand, however, they also forced European states and peoples to rethink completely, or at least apply to the contemporary situation in creative manners, the old notion of tolerantia. As Jakub Koryl states in his essay, “tolerance could be neither a self-sufficient nor

10 See by way of example P. Roberts, “The Most Crucial Battle of the Wars of Religion?: The Conflict over Sites for Reformed Worship in Sixteenth-Century France”, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 89 (1998) 247–67; J. Foa, “An Unequal Apportionment: The Conflict over Space between Protestants and Catholics at the Beginning of the Wars of Religion”, French History 20 (2006) 369–86. 11 N.M. Sutherland, The Huguenot Struggle for Recognition (London: Yale University Press, 1980). 12 See Angela De Benedictis’s essay in this volume. 13 On religious violence in the context of the French wars of religion, D. Crouzet, Les guerriers de Dieu: La violence au temps des troubles de religion (vers 1525 – vers 1610) (Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 1990) is still fundamental. Other important works on the issue of religious violence in general include, but are not limited to, M. Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000); J. Teehan, In the Name of God: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Ethics and Violence (London: Blackwell, 2010); W.T. Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); C. Selengut, Sacred Fury: Understanding Religious Violence (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003); M. Gaddis, There Is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ: Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); H. Avalos, Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2005); S. Clarke, The Justification of Religious Violence (Chichester: Wiley and Sons, 2014); H.A. Garcia, Alpha God: The Psychology of Religious Violence and Oppression (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015); J. Sacks, Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence (London: Hachette, 2015); M. Jerryson/M. Juergensmeyer/M. Kitts (ed.), Violence and the World’s Religious Traditions: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

Afterword

desired objective of the inter-confessional agenda”, and it was “stigmatised as the last resort, chosen when all others had failed”.14 Indeed, as the vibrant season of early irenicism15 and its attempts to reconcile and reunite the body of the Christian West in the first half of the sixteenth century faded away (although its intellectual and theological legacy survived well into the seventeenth century), tolerance was an haphazard and not always consistent solution put in place by political rulers in an effort to resolve religious issues through pragmatic approaches directed precisely at issues where the theologians had failed to recompose the unity of Christendom through concord and theological compromise. Intellectual debates over tolerance mirrored, and in turn influenced, scholastic debates over holy war and just war, as Ian Campbell’s contribution – shedding new light upon a little-trodden field in the Anglophone scholarly community – shows. Such an intellectual culture, in which “most authoritative early modern Christian theologians” – both Roman Catholic and Protestant, although by no means all of them – “rejected holy war, in the sense of a war fought by secular princes for evangelisation or other supernatural reasons”,16 certainly shaped the mentalities of high-status and privileged social groups, which drank at its wellsprings in the halls of the European universities. In the Reformed camp, scholastics affirmed that the spiritual struggle against the Antichrist had nothing to do with the mundane, earthly concept of warfare, and eschatology could never be used as a justification for war, or at the very least for war between Christian armies. But there is, of course, more to the intellectual and purely academic debates over the issues of just and holy war. As Fabrizio D’Avenia shows in his chapter, the medieval roots of the justification of crusade-like warfare against infidels saw a momentous revival in the heroic self-representation of the Order of Malta in the printed propaganda it produced for its own intended audiences. Indeed, the triumphant accounts of the military prowess of the knights of the Order, both before and after Lepanto, was usually imbued with the profound piety shown by these “Christian soldiers”, true interpreters and standard-bearers of Tridentine Roman Catholic renewal in the Mediterranean area and beyond.17 This matched the “favourable interpretation of the reality of war” in several hagiographic publications about the origins of the Order and “constituted a pre-condition for the success of any crusading venture”.18

14 See Jakub Koryl’s essay in this volume. 15 On irenicism and concord, see by way of example M. Turchetti, Concordia o tolleranza?: François Baudouin (1520–1573) e i moyenneurs (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 1984); D.G. Nugent, Ecumenism in the Age of the Reformation: The Colloquy of Poissy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974); L. Racaut/A. Ryrie (ed.), Moderate Voices in the European Reformation (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). 16 See Ian Campbell’s essay in this volume. 17 See Fabrizio D’Avenia’s essay in this volume. 18 See Fabrizio D’Avenia’s essay in this volume.

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A comprehensive account of the evolution of the “Christian soldier” in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the context of the wars of religion and of European warfare in general largely exceeds the scope and ambition of this short conclusion. Suffice to say – borrowing suggestions from Vincenzo Lavenia’s recent and fruitful research on this subject – the so-called military revolution of the sixteenth century, with its slow but ultimately successful attempt to build permanent and professional armies for Europe’s nascent nation-states, saw the simultaneous rise of a disciplinary and missionary project aimed at soldiers, which entailed, among other things, the drafting and publication of catechisms for a military audience as well as the creation of the first stable chaplaincies within armies.19 The authors and editors of this volume all seem to recognise, explicitly or implicitly, that there is still a sizeable dimension of religious violence in the early modern era which no contemporary debate could easily justify or even fully explain, and which is linked to its ritual aspect. Although a long time has elapsed since the publication of Natalie Zemon Davis’s study on “The Rites of Violence”,20 her ground-breaking essay, as well as her further studies, still have much to teach modern scholarship in the field of the history of religious violence and religious war in the early modern period and beyond. Rituality is a dimension of early modern religious violence (and by extension of religious war) which is not always easy to grasp for humans living in the Western, secularised, and sceptical “palliative societies”21 of the twenty-first century which sometimes seem to consider such rituality as a plastic representation of the last embers of a pre-modern, superstitious “enchanted Europe”.22 In this regard, Graeme Murdock’s essay is particularly significant as it seeks to show that “much of the violence and many of the wars of the era of Reformation took place in contested spaces and borderlands of various kinds”.23 Not only does this insight on a significant case study reinforce the point we stressed earlier about the significance of space in the conflicts we are analysing, but it shows how the just war rhetoric and classic repertoire of arguments in its favour were not devoid of ambiguities and that they took a very particular and circumstantial shape in the context of the 1589 Genevan-Savoyard conflict. It is

19 V. Lavenia, Dio in uniforme: Cappellani, catechesi cattolica e soldati in età moderna (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2018). 20 N. Zemon Davis, “The Rites of Violence: Religious Riot in Sixteenth-Century France”, Past & Present 59 (1973) 51–91. Zemon Davis’s intellectual legacy has been appraised in, among other places, G. Murdock/P. Roberts/A. Spicer (ed.), Ritual and Violence: Natalie Zemon Davis and Early Modern France, Past & Present, Supplement 7 (2012). 21 B.-C. Han, Palliativgesellschaft: Schmerz heute (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2020). 22 E. Cameron, Enchanted Europe: Superstition, Reason, and Religion, 1250–1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). 23 See Graeme Murdock’s essay in this volume.

Afterword

not irrelevant to stress once again the rituality connected to such violent events, including a war between neighbouring states with opposed religious allegiances. Indeed, the Genevan community “was encouraged to participate in public rituals of penitential piety and to adhere to the church’s moral code. When the war went badly, the pastors’ diagnosis was clear that it was a sign of divine displeasure and caused by the lack of trust in God and the immorality of Geneva’s civil authorities, soldiers, and people”.24 Murdock’s essay also alerts us to the massive, city-countryside divide, which is a constant characteristic of early modern times. Studies on the history of religious war, peace, and religion in general have consistently stressed this disparity in terms of differences in the availability of sources and of the necessity of separate theoretical frameworks for analysis. Not incidentally, the framing of the Reformation as an urban event has been long exploited as a fruitful, analytical angle, while studies on religious change in the countryside have had a more limited scope and impact.25 But there is virtually no better example, in the years of the early Reformation, than the Peasants’ War – covered by Thomas Müller’s chapter – to show how the interconnections between city and countryside were very strong, not merely in commercial and political terms, but also in the manner in which their different cultural and religious environments merged together. Indeed, they sometimes exploded into “radicalised” forms of political-religious violence which took the shape of major popular uprisings against the oppression of the privileged social groups. As Müller argues in the section of his contribution dealing with scholarly desiderata, it should be stressed that not all rural villages during the Peasants’ War agreed to join the rebellion, and most imperial territories remained “completely untouched” by these traumatic events. At the same time, evidence shows that “[b]efore erupting in public, [uprisings] were all preceded by planning … [within] a time window in the agrarian calendar”. If we weigh these considerations against the fact that the “induction of new members [of such circles] followed ritualised, late-medieval patterns”, such as oaths, “confirmed initially … by repeating five times Our Father and Hail Mary on bended knee, and later calling on the Word of God”,26 it is once again clear how the ritual dimension of violence in the early modern period had strong religious features and tapped into the religious sphere as well as into the late-medieval piety tradition, reinterpreted it when and as needed by the religious leaders of the Reformation to adapt to changed circumstances and new confessional requirements. This is also the case for cultural requirements, as Rebecca Giselbrecht’s essay illuminates for us regarding the evolving character of 24 See Graeme Murdock’s essay in this volume. 25 The classic B. Moeller, Reichsstadt und Reformation (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1962) should at least be a point of reference. 26 See Thomas Müller’s essay in this volume.

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gender expectations when dealing with the matters discussed in this volume. Indeed, as the “virtuous female soul remained a central motif in literature and philosophy from ancient times”, it is evident that “women’s participation in public life and war are easily overlooked when viewed through the default lens of preconceived gender role stereotypes”. In addition to successfully challenging such stereotypes and offering a nuanced picture of “genderised” representations of heroics in warfare, in her chapter, Giselbrecht has the merit of drawing the reader’s attention to another key factor of the religious aspects often connected to war in the early modern era, namely, the tribulation of exile and the search of a spiritual and physical refuge from persecution. Exile is so much a constitutive part of the religious experience of the women and men who lived in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that it is perhaps hardly even possible to disentangle said religious experience from the hardships of exile.27 Needless to say, warfare and the experience of war in and of itself is ineludibly a subject that ought to have its own space in this discussion. With the overall fall into oblivion of old-school diplomatic history and the increasing hyper-specialisation of military history, it could be argued – here we borrow relevant vocabulary from an almost legendary academic quarrel over the places of religion and history in scholarly debate on the wars of religion28 – that it is about time to put war back into the history of the wars of religion. The essay authored by Johannes Wolfart and included in this volume does exactly that, using siege chronicles of the Swedish siege of Lindau (1647) as a unique prism to analyse the lived experience of siege warfare. It is most striking to note that “public timekeeping was apparently suspended in Lindau during the siege”,29 a condition which certainly contributed to place the experience of warfare outside ‘ordinary’ time. However, this did not coincide with the abandonment of attendance to “sermons and worship services at the usual times”. Wolfart’s contribution also alerts us to a fundamental issue connected with the wars of religion of the long sixteenth century, namely, the memory of the wars. Indeed, the lifting of the Lindau siege is nowadays celebrated locally with several

27 Among the various significant contributions on these key subjects, see R. Vosloo, “The Displaced Calvin: ‘Refugee Reality’ as a Lens to Re-Examine Calvin’s Life, Theology and Legacy”, Religion and Theology 16 (2009) 35–52 and N. Terpstra, Religious Refugees in the Early Modern World: An Alternative History of the Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 28 We refer here to the well-known quarrel between Henry Heller and Mack P. Holt on the pages of French Historical Studies. See M.P. Holt, “Putting Religion Back into the Wars of Religion”, French Historical Studies 18 (1993) 524–51; H. Heller, “Putting History Back into the Wars of Religion: A Reply to Mack P. Holt”, French Historical Studies 19 (1996) 853–61; M.P. Holt, “Religion, Historical Method, and Historical Forces: A Rejoinder”, French Historical Studies 19 (1996) 863–73; and the reply to both scholars authored by S. Rosa/D. van Kley, “Religion and the Historical Discipline: A Reply to Mack Holt and Henry Heller”, in French Historical Studies 21 (1998) 611–29. 29 See Johannes Wolfart’s essay in this volume.

Afterword

festive activities and has become, locally speaking, “a focal event in the collective memory/identity of a community”.30 Lastly, a reflection is due upon the crucial issue raised by Mark Greengrass in his contribution, which is the problem of trust vis-à-vis the wars of religion. In a context of turmoil and of inordinate change, “[i]deology fostered the forces of persuasion, propaganda, and misinformation, but it also nurtured the wellsprings of distrust and dissent”.31 As an “existential dilemma in the post-Reformation”, the issue of trust also bears much significance in the discussion of other related problems, including the variety of practices of religious dis/simulation which emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, their justification, and their manifold implications both in the religious and the political sphere.32 In an effort to escape persecution, exile, and martyrdom – inevitable features of religious hatred, Sebastian Castellio would have argued, that derive from the coercion of consciences – many of Europe’s Christian faithful engaged in chameleon-like behaviours and dis/simulation strategies. Indeed, “the reality of religious pluralism, sanctioned or not by royal edict, magnified the issues of trust, ones that the confessionalisation narrative of the processes of the Reformation occludes”.33 One might wonder how the religious factor comes into play in the context of the unexpected invasion of Ukraine at the hands of Russia in early 2022 – warfare is still ongoing at the time of the writing of this afterword – and how religious tensions connected to inner fractures in the Orthodox world contribute to exacerbating the conflict. It is apparent that the rhetoric of ‘spiritual war’ used by some religious leaders in such a terrible conflict, as well as the ideology fuelling such rhetoric,34

30 See Johannes Wolfart’s essay in this volume. 31 See to Mark Greengrass’ essay in this volume. Concerning ideology and the wars of religion, it is important to refer to D.R. Kelley, The Beginning of Ideology: Consciousness and Society in the French Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 32 On the complex subject of religious dis/simulation, see among others É. Boillet/L. Felici (ed.), Dis/ simulazione e tolleranza religiosa nello spazio urbano dell’Europa moderna (Turin: Claudiana, 2021); J.-P. Cavaillé, Dis/simulations: Religion, politique et morale au XVIIe siècle (Paris: Champion, 2002); J.R. Snyder, Dissimulation and the Culture of Secrecy in Early Modern Europe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009). 33 See Mark Greengrass’ essay in this volume. 34 See for instance Kirill I’s sermon of 6 March 2022 in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, available at (accessed 17 June 2022). A particular passage has to be underlined in terms of the construction of its rhetoric (rather than in terms of its contents): “Восемь лет идут попытки уничтожить то, что существует на Донбассе. А на Донбассе существует неприятие, принципиальное неприятие так называемых ценностей, которые сегодня предлагаются теми, кто претендует на мировую власть. Сегодня есть такой тест на лояльность этой власти, некий пропуск в тот «счастливый» мир, мир избыточного потребления, мир видимой «свободы». А знаете, что это за тест? Тест очень простой и одновременно ужасный — это гей-парад. Требования ко многим провести гей-парад и яв-

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ominously reminds us of the ideological weaponry deployed by religious leaders in the age of the European wars of religion to rally one side of the divide against the other, with a doggedness so skilfully captured in Sebastian’s Castellio’s Conseil à la France désolée. Certainly, trust between nations and between peoples – after a season of peace on European soil – has now been shattered by this unanticipated event, and the world awaiting us will have crossed a major watershed moment whose implications and consequences are not a matter for the historian to clarify or analyse, although they certainly show that religion is still a major force in the global arena. Borrowing the wording chosen by a recently-founded Routledge book series: “Religion matters”; moreover, “the significance of religion in global issues”, including war and peace, must not be downplayed or underestimated, now more than ever.

ляются тестом на лояльность тому самому могущественному миру; и мы знаем, что если люди или страны отвергают эти требования, то они не входят в тот мир, они становятся для него чужими” (“For eight years there have been attempts to destroy what exists in Donbass. And in Donbass there is a rejection, a fundamental rejection of the so-called values that are offered today by those who claim world power. Today there is a test of loyalty to this power, a certain pass to the ‘happy’ world, the world of excessive consumption, the world of apparent ‘freedom’. Do you know what this test is? The test is very simple and at the same time terrible: it is the Gay Pride parade. The demand for many to have a gay pride parade is a test of loyalty to that very powerful world; and we know that if people or countries reject these demands, they are not part of that world, they become strangers to it”). I am grateful to Dr Marianna Napolitano (Fondazione per le scienze religiose) for making this text available to me jand translating it into English.

Name Index

A Abela, Joan 231 Adam, Thomas 122–3, 133 Adlischwyler, Anna 150–4, 162 Adlischwyler, Hans 150 Adorno, Theodor W. 109 Adrian VI (Adriaan Florensz Boeyens), pope 45 Alazard, Florence 261 Alberigo, Giuseppe 12 Alexander IV (Rinaldo di Jenne), pope 176 Allemann, Daniel 78 Alsted, Johann Heinrich 83 Alter, Willi 118 Amoretti, Guido 57 Amyot, Jacques 30 Andersson, Christiane 148 Anne of Austria 183 Appiano, Catarina 161 Ariew, Roger 71 Armitage, David 28, 73 Arnke, Volker 14–15, 239, 241, 243, 246–9, 255, 263 Arrighi, Bartolomeo 59 Asa of Judah, king 24 Asbach, Olaf 220 Asch, Ronald G. 241, 246 Augustine of Hippo, saint 23, 73 Augustus, Roman emperor 8 Aureola of Luzern 163 Avalos, Hector 264 Ayala, Balthazar 8, 202 Ayers, Michael 72 Aznar Martínez, Daniel 173

B Backus, Irena 156–8, 208 Baduel, Paul 198 Baguenault De Puchesse, Gustave 34 Bainton, Roland H. 8, 74–5, 158 Balbi, Francesco 170 Bale, Anthony 217 Balserak, Jon 194, 199 Baron, Bonaventure 80 Baronio, Cesare 175 Barquero Goñi, Carlos 178 Bartolus of Saxoferrato 8, 47 Basse, Michael 125 Bateza, Anthony M. 121 Battles, Ford L. 202 Bauer, Leonhard 16 Baumann, Franz Ludwig 130 Baxter, Carol 27 Bebel, August 126 Becanus, Martin 23 Becciu, Giovanni Angelo 167 Beck, Friedrich 127 Becker, Michael 83–5 Bejczy, István 97 Bellarmine, Robert 77 Belò, Lucia 161 Benedict, Philip 191 Benigno, Francesco 65 Bensing, Manfred 129 Benz, Daimler 131 Berenger, Raymond 179 Bernard, Mathilde 29 Bernegger, Matthias 83 Bertlin, Johann 219 Bertrand, Corneille 198 Besier, Gerhard 102

272

Name Index

Besold, Christoph 83 Beyer, Michael 121 Beza, Theodore 197–9, 204, 208–9 Bidlack, Richard 230–1 Bietenholz, Peter G. 105 Billacois, François 32 Bischoff, Georges 118 Bitterli, Daniel 12 Blair, Ann M. 20 Blanchard, Honoré 198–200 Blanshei, Sarah R. 43–5 Blickle, Peter 117–8, 120, 123 Bloch, Marc 16, 33 Boccaccio, Giovanni 145 Bocer, Heinrich 83 Boerio, Davide 65 Boillet, Élise 269 Bonazzi, Francesco 173 Borromeo Arese, Carlo 61 Bosio, Antonio 175 Bosio, Giacomo 170–2, 174–5, 179 Boulnois, Olivier 80 Bounyn, Gabriel 20 Bouwsma, William J. 263 Boyle, Roger 221 Brady, Thomas A. Jr 220 Braghi, Gianmarco 261 Brancati, Lorenzo 80 Brant, Sebastian 101 Bräuer, Siegfried 119 Braun, Willi 216 Brett, Annabel S. 72–3 Breyvogel, Bernd 123 Brissard, Jacques 34 Brockliss, Laurence W.B. 71–2 Brockman, Eric 183 Broggio, Paolo 79 Brogini, Anne 170, 172 Bruening, Michael W. 196 Brunet, Gustave 35 Brunfels, Otto 169

Brunner, Otto 102 Brunnschweiler, Thomas 149, 151 Brutus, Marcus Junius 155 Bucanus, Gulielmus 83, 85 Bucer, Martin 159 Buchschor, Hans 234 Bullinger, Anna see Adlischwyler, Anna Bullinger, Elizabeth 156 Bullinger, Heinrich 141, 143, 150–6, 160–1 Bumiller, Casimir 117 Buono, Alessandro 173 Burke, Peter 64–5, 179–80 Burkhardt, Johannes 15 Burnett, Amy N. 196 Büsser, Fritz 150–2, 160 Bußmann, Klaus 9 Butterworth, Emily 21 Buttigieg, Emanuel 170, 176–7 C Caesar, Gaius Julius 86 Cahier, Gabriella 209 Calafat, Guillaume 19 Calfhill, James 157 Calvin, John 24–6, 74–5, 83, 143, 159, 160, 162, 194, 202 Cameron, Euan 266 Camilleri, Maroma 181, 227, 231 Campagnolo, Matteo 209 Campbell, Ian 67, 82, 85, 265 Campbell, Joseph 216 Campi, Emidio 150, 196 Canefri, Ugo 178–9 Canella, Tessa 11 Capito, Wolfgang 159 Carroll, Stuart 32, 191 Casaubon, Isaac 198 Castagnet, Véronique 262 Castellio, Sebastian 99–100, 261–2, 269–70

Name Index

Castro, Manuel 80 Catherine de’ Medici 204 Cavagliati di Valmacca, Teseo 172–3 Cavaillé, Jean-Pierre 269 Cavanaugh, William T. 190, 264 Cavarzere, Marco 73 Cernigliaro, Aurelio 168 Champollion, Aimé 35 Chanet, Jean-François 12 Chappell, Julie A. 160 Charles Emmanuel I 203–5, 290 Charles Emmanuel II 55 Charles III Philip 246 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor 42, 64–5, 80–1, 223 Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor 250–2 Chauve, Antoine 198–9 Chauvet, Raymond 199 Chmaj, Ludwik 106 Choisy, Albert 207 Chrastil, Rachel 216, 229–30 Christin, Olivier 22, 26, 262 Citron, Sabine 205 Ciuccarelli, Cecilia 45–6 Civale, Gianclaudio 167, 174 Clark, Stuart 22 Clarke, Steve 264 Clascar del Valles, Pablo 173 Clemens IV (Gui Foucois), pope 176 Clemens VII (Giulio de’ Medici), pope 45, 179 Coffey, John 85 Cohen, Elizabeth 148 Cohlendahl, Heinrich 246 Collatinus, Lucius Tarquinius 155 Comenius, John Amos 105 Congar, Yves-Marie-Joseph 12 Constant, Léonard 109 Conze, Werner 102 Cop, Michel 199 Cordero, Giovanni Battista Andrea 54–6

Cornish, Paul 80 Cortese 46 Coster, Will 175 Cramer, Lucien 205 Crell, Johann 106–7 Crouzet, Denis 7, 29, 190, 264 Croxton, Derek 15 Cummings, Brian 110 Curione d’Asso, Domenico M. 17, 172–184 D d’Alembert, Jean-Baptiste Le Rond 103 D’Alessandro, Domenico A. 173 D’Aubigné, Agrippa 28–9 D’Avenia, Fabrizio 16–17, 167, 171, 178, 265 da San Vincenzo, Gabriele 56 Dainese, Davide 7, 10–11, 14–15 Dal Pozzo, Bartolomeo 172–3, 175 Dalberg-Acton, John Emerich Edward (Lord Acton) 73 Dalla Torre del Tempio di Sanguinetto, Giacomo 167 Daneau, Lambert 83, 85 Dauber, Noah 73 Davico, Rosalba 54–5 Davies, Norman 103 Davis, Ralph H.C. 221 de Antonellis, Gianandrea 169 de Azpilcuelta, Martín 21 De Benedictis, Angela 11, 15–16, 41–6, 48, 51, 53–4, 57, 66, 264 de Bourdeille, Pierre 31–2 de Bunes Ibarra, Miguel Ángel 174 de Bure, Idelette 159 De Caro, Gaspare 170 de Castro, Alfonso 80–1 de Coligny, Gaspard 32 de Condé, Louis 33 de Coninck, Giles 80–1

273

274

Name Index

de Dompmartin, Catherine 156–7 de Félice, Paul 85 de Harlay, Nicholas 205 de Heredia, Juan Fernàndez 179 de Jussie, Jean 162 de L’Estoile, Pierre 35 de La Boëtie, Etienne 30 de La Faye, Antoine 198 de La Maisonneuve, Abraham 198–9 de La Maisonneuve, Louis 198, 200 de La Tour D’Auvergne, Henri Louis 34 de Louviers, Charles 32 de Lubac, Henri 75, 79 De Lugo, Juan 80 de Méré, Jean Poltrot 31 de Molina, Luis 76–9 de Montaigne, Michel 11, 26, 28–31, 110–11 de Montmorency, Anne 30 de Montmorency-Damville, Henri 33–4 de Niemeritz, Christopher 107 De Palma, Luigi M. 170, 175–6 de Prado, Juan 180 de Ridder-Symoens, Hilde 72 de Sales, François 209 de Santistevan Ossorio, Diego 170 de Soto, Domingo 21 de Vaudrey, Artus 32 de Vega, Lope 171 Debbagi Baranova, Tatian 33 Decock, Wim 25 del Monte, Innocenzo 45 del Podio, Raimon 176 Delumeau, Jean 263 Dempf, Alois 9 Denis, Nicola 134 Dentière, Marie 162 Denzinger, Heinrich 106 Desan, Philippe 29 Deutsch, Niklaus Manuel 148 Di Giovanni, Janine 229–30, 236

Diderot, Denis 103 Diefendorf, Barbara 26 Diemer, Kurt 117 Dierauer, Johannes 146–7 Ditchfield, Simon 175 Dittes, James E. 23 Dixon, C. Scott 73, 241 Dohrn-van Rossum, Gerhard 216, 223–4 Donati, Claudio 173, 176 Dooley, Brendan 235 Dröse, Astrid 101 Du Boulay, Francis R.H. 221 du Perril, Jean 198–9, 206–7 Duchhardt, Heinz 26 Dufour, Alain 205, 207 Duprat, Anne 31 Durkheim, Émile 16 Dury, John 105 E Ebejer, Matthias 167, 179–81 Eguiluz, Antonio 81 Eire, Carlos M.N. 22, 192 Eitel, Peter 219 Eliade, Mircea 16 Eliav-Feldon, Miriam 25, 28 Elizabeth I, queen of England 145 Elizabeth of Bourbon, queen of Spain 183 Elliott, John H. 184 Elshtain, Jean Bethke 143–6, 164 Emmanuel Philibert 173, 196, 203 Engels, Friedrich 126 Erasmus of Rotterdam 21, 94, 96–8, 106, 109, 154 Erdélyi, Gabriella 41–2 Ernest Augustus, duke of York and Albany 246–7, 249–55 Ernest Augustus, elector of Hanover 248–51 Estèbe, Janine 190 Euler, Carrie 160

Name Index

Exuperantius, saint 141 Eydinger, Ulrike 129 F Fabri, Filippo 80 Fehlmann, Meret 146 Feingold, Mordechai 71–2 Feldkamp, Michael F. 240, 247–9 Felici, Lucia 269 Felix, saint 141, 154 Fels, Hans Heinrich (the elder) 219 Fels, Hans Heinrich (the younger) 218, 220–1, 223 Fenner, Dudley 83 Ferdinand I Gonzaga 59 Ferdinand II Gonzaga 57–9 Ferdinand II of Aragon 64 Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor 84 Fernández, Manuel F. 178 Festing, Matthew 167 Fiala, Andrew 73–5 Figgis, John N. 73, 75 Filomarino, Ascanio 64 Fioravanti, Maurizio 54 Firrao, Cesaro 173 Fitzgerald, Timothy 216 Fleischauer, Alexander 128 Florio, John 28 Foa, Jeremie 27, 33, 264 Focher, Juan 81–2 Fontaine, Jacques 169 Fontenay, Michel 170 Forlivesi, Marco 71, 79 Formiga, Federica 170 Forrest, Ian 23 Foucault, Michel 101 Francis (Jorge Mario Bergoglio), pope 167 Francis II, king of France 261 Francis Xavier, saint 78 François, duke of Guise 30 François, Etienne 132, 240

Frederick of Aragon, king of Naples 65 Frederick William I, king of Prussia 252 Freeman, Arthur 169 Freist, Dagmar 241, 244–5 Frevert, Ute 19 Frisch, Andrea 232–4 Fuchs, Franz 118 Fuchs, Ralf-Peter 239 Fukuyama, Francis 19 G Gaberel, Jean 207 Gäbler, Ulrich 151 Gadamer, Hans-Georg 95 Gaddis, Michael 264 Gaismair, Michael 120 Ganado, Albert 227 Garber, Daniel 72 García Hernán, David 181 García Martín, Pedro 171 Garcia, Hector A. 264 Garnett, Henry 22 Geiger, Max 158 Geis, Peter 122 Gentile, Guido 11 Gentile, Luisa C. 173 Gentile, Marco 42 Gentili, Alberico 25, 76, 83–4 Georg III, Truchsess von Waldburg 118 George III, king of Great Britain 243 Gheller, Viola 11 Ghermani, Naima 262 Gillespie, Alex 22 Giordani, Francesco 50–1 Giovanni da Legnano 16, 46–8, 53, 66 Giraffi, Alessandro 64–5 Girgensohn, Dieter 46 Giselbrecht, Rebecca 12–13, 141, 151, 160–61, 267–8 Glaettli, Karl W. 141 Glebe, Ellen Y. 220

275

276

Name Index

Gobbi, Antonio 61–3, 66 Godechot, Jacques 170 Goertz, Hans-Jürgen 119 Goldberg, Jonathan 99 Göldlin of Luzern, Dorothea 163 Gordon, Bruce 142, 150, 191, 196 Gotthard, Axel 15 Goulart, Simon 198, 207 Graf, Urs 148 Granatstein, Jack L. 232 Grassi, Giovanni 55 Greco, Gaetano 171 Greengrass, Mark 9–11, 19, 29, 241, 269 Gregory XI (Pierre Roger de Beaufort), pope 46, 179 Gregory XIII (Ugo Boncompagni), pope 48–51, 175 Gregory, Brad S. 191 Greiling, Werner 118–21, 126–8 Grell, Ole P. 103 Gribben, Crawford 192 Grillmeier, Alois 12 Grisko, Michael 128 Gros, Etienne 198–9 Grotius, Hugo 8, 14, 73, 75–6, 87 Guazzelli, Giuseppe A. 175 Guidobaldo II Della Rovere 48–51 Guinnane, Timothy W. 19 Gutiérrez Medina, David 170 H Häberlein, Mark 20 Hagemann, Benjamin 244 Haggenmüller, Martina 118 Halbwachs, Maurice 16 Halphen, Eugène 35 Hamberger, Klaus 16 Hamilton, Tom 35 Hamilton-Bleakley, Holly 73 Han, Byung-Chul 266 Hanlon, Gregory 28

Hardin, Russel 19 Hasberg, Wolfgang 130 Hasselhoff, Görge K. 123, 125 Hattler, Claus 16 Haude, Sigrun 220, 232 Haug-Moritz, Gabriele 246 Head, Randolph C. 12 Heberle, Hans 220, 226 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 144, 164 Heidenreich, Benjamin 120 Heider, Jacob 219–22, 224 Heinemann, Gustav W. 130 Helfferich, Tryntje 220, 227 Heller, Henry 268 Henning, Eckart 127 Henry II, king of France 261 Henry III, king of France 33–5, 204–5 Henry IV, king of France (Henry of Navarre) 29, 33, 205 Herodotus 233 Herrero Muñoz, Roberto 171 Herzig, Tamar 25, 28 Hess, Salomon 150 Heyck, Eduard 218 Hickey, Anthony 80 Hilles, Anna 160 Hillmer, Normal 232 Himmighöfer, Traudel 85 Hobbes, Thomas 14, 73, 75–6, 87 Hockerts, Hans G. 85 Hoffmann, Hans-Joachim 129 Hofheinz, Marco 75 Holenstein, André 12 Holland, Thomas E. 46 Holt, Mack P. 7, 191, 268 Holzem, Andreas 244 Hooper, Anne 160 Hooper, John 160 Hooper, Rachel 160 Hoornbeeck, Johannes 83, 105, 202 Höpfl, Harro 77, 202

Name Index

Horkheimer, Max 109 Hosking, Geoffrey 22 Housley, Norman 74, 77 Houston, Amy 220, 222 Howell, James 64–5 Hoyer, Siegfried 119, 129 Hugon, Alain 65 Hünlin, Calixt 219–20, 224–25 Hurtado De Mendoza, Pedro 78, 80–1 I Iglesias Rodríguez, Juan José 178 Ignatius of Loyola, saint 60, 176 Iordanou, Ioanna 21 Iorio, Sabrina 173 J Jacob, Margaret C. 191 Jaisson, M. 16 James I, king of England and Scotland 77 Jaquemot, Jean 198 Jehoahaz II, King of Judah 25 Jelsma, Auke 161 Jensen, Jeppe S. 216 Jerryson, Michael 189, 264 Jessen, Hans 231–2 Joetze, Franz 228 John Duns Scotus 13, 71, 79–82, 87 John the Baptist, saint 176, 182 John the Evangelist, saint 86 Johns, Adrian 20 Johnson, James T. 14 Jonscher, Reinhard 130 Jouanna, Arlette 33 Jud, Leo 152 Juergensmeyer, Mark 189–90, 264 Julius II (Giuliano della Rovere), pope 43–5, 66 Julius III (Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte), pope 45, 48 Junius, Franciscus 104–5

Junod, Marie-Claude Jurt, Hans 163 Jütte, Daniel 20

205

K Kagay, Donald J. 169 Kaiser, Wolfgang 28 Kalipke, Andreas 240, 246, 252 Kampmann, Campann 15 Kaplan, Benjamin J. 191, 193 Kaufmann, Thomas 126 Keckermann, Bartholomäus 83, 85 Keller, Ludwig 158 Kelley, Donald R. 269 Kelsay, John 14 Khalfa, Jean 101 Kiessling, Rolf 130, 132 Kingdon, Robert M. 194, 196, 200, 208 Kingsbury, Benedict 84 Kirill I of Moscow, patriarch 269 Kitts, Margo 189, 264 Klaassen, Walter 120 Klaus, Carrie F. 162 Kleinehagenbrock, Frank 239–41, 255 Kobelt-Groch, Marion 162–3 Kobuch, Manfred 127 Köhler, Christopher 121 Koller, Markus 193 Kontler, László 19 Kooi, Christine 192 Korolko, Mirosław 103–4 Koryl, Jakub 10–11, 93, 264–5 Koselleck, Reinhart 95–6, 102, 108, 263 Kostick, Conor 217, 231 Kostrovitskaia, Vera S. 229 Kouri, Erkki I. 190 Kramer, Kaley A. 160 Kreis, Georg 146 Krischer, André 240 Krünes, Alexander 118 Kuhn, Elmar L. 117–18

277

278

Name Index

Kühne, Hartmut 128–9 Kümin, Beat 73 Kupisch, Karl 129–30 Kuyper, Abraham 105 L Labarthe, Olivier 197, 200 Labatut, Jean-Pierre 169 Lalanne, Ludovic 32 Lantschner, Patrick 42, 46, 66 Lanzinner, Maximilian 15 Lapina, Elizabeth 217 Latius, Carolus 77 Laube, Adolf 133 Lavenia, Vincenzo 17, 25, 171, 266 Le Boîteux, David 198–9 Le Bras, Gabriel 16 Lecercle, François 28 Le Clerc, Jean 98–9 Leclerc, Joseph 96 Lefebvre, Henri 16 Legendre, Liger 34 Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor 58 Lescaze, Bernard 197 Lestringant, Frank 29 Levi, Anthony H.T. 109 Lindner, Gerd 129 Locher, Gottfried 148–9 Locke, John 11, 14, 73, 75–6, 87, 106–9 Loda, Natale 168 Lodtmann, Friedrich 249, 255 Loftus, Elizabeth F. 232 Lombard, Peter 72 Lombardi, Giorgio 54, 57 Long, Pamela O. 21 Longo, Mario 79 Louis XIII, king of France 184 Louthan, Howard 175 Lubieniecki, Stanislaus 100–1 Luh, Jürgen 239 Luhmann, Niklas 19

Luhn, Rolf 132 Luther, Martin 23–4, 74, 83, 94–7, 99, 121, 124–8, 130, 133–4 Lutz, Samuel 149, 151 Lynn II, John A. 142–3 M Macculloch, Diarmaid 191 Maciuszko, Janusz T. 101 Maffei, Giovanni Pietro 175 Malatesta, Lamberto 51 Malcom, Noel 84 Mallia-Milanes, Victor 169 Mandry, Julia 120 Manetsch, Scott M. 195, 197–9, 204 Mannigel, Holger 247 Mao Zedong 127 Marcocci, Giuseppe 77–8 Marguerite of Navarre 31, 145 Marie Jeanne Baptiste of Savoy-Nemours, 55 Marková, Ivana 22 Marmursztejn, Elsa, 81 Marocchi, Massimo 58–9, 61 Marquardt, Frederick D. 123 Marshall, John 107 Marshall, Peter 191 Martin, Susannah J. 155 Martinat, Monica 28 Martínez, García 178–9 Masaniello 65 Massabò Ricci, Isabella 11 Mastri, Bartolomeo 80 Maximillian I of Bavaria 84 May, Larry 202 Mayr, Otto 215, 218–9, 222–3, 230–2 Mccutcheon, Russell T. 216 Mckee, Elsie Anne 154, 194 Mclachlan, H. John 107 Mcmahan, Jeff 73 Meccati, Gerardo 179

Name Index

Medick, Hans 226 Meinecke, Friedrich 10 Melanchthon, Philip 83–4 Mellet, Paul-Alexis 33, 192 Melon Jiménez, Miguel Á. 11 Mendo, Andreas 77 Mentzer, Raymond 27 Mercati, Paolo 59 Merenda, Catherine 157 Merz, Heinrich 145, 149 Meuschen, Johann Gerhard 246 Meyer, Junker Johannes 148 Meyer, Thomas 25 Micheli, Giuseppe 79 Milani, Giuliano 43 Miller, Clarence H. 98 Miller, Douglas 118–19 Milligan, Gerry 145 Milton, John 99 Milton, Patrick 240, 246, 251–3 Misztal, Barbara 19 Moeller, Bernd 267 Moigne, Guillaume 206 Monfasani, John 110 Monserrat, Melchior 180 Monter, E. William 191, 194–5 Monterenzi, Annibale 46 Montuori, Mario 107 Monzecchi, Ottaviano 179 Mori Ubaldini, Ubaldo 173 Morisi Guerra, Anna 8 Mortimer, Geoff 220, 227–8, 231–2 Moss, Ann 96 Moxham, Noah 65 Mühling, Christian 8 Muir, Edward 217 Muldrew, Craig 20 Müller, Hans-Joachim 105 Müller, Roland 126 Müller, Thomas T. 12–13, 117–21, 124, 126–8, 131, 267

Müntzer, Thomas 119, 126–9, 133–4 Muralto, Barbara 161 Murdock, Graeme 10–11, 189–90, 192, 194, 199, 266–7 Murner, Thomas 101 Musi, Aurelio 65 Muthu, Sankar 25 Myconius, Friedrich 120 Myconius, Oswald 163 N Naphy, William G. 194 Napolitano, Marianna 270 Naschert, Guido 101 Newlands, Carole E. 155 Nubola, Cecilia 54 Nugent, Donald G. 265 O O’Banion, Patrick 77 O’Malley, John W. 176 Oecolampadius, Johannes Oka, Hiroto 117 Olsthoorn, Johan 202 Onnekink, David 239 Orgel, Stephen 99 Oschema, Klaus 27 Ovid 155

149, 158–9

P Pabel, Hilmar M. 110 Pace Gravina, Giacomo 168 Palaver, Wolfgang 190 Palffy, general 59 Pallavicini, Tommaso 55 Palmer Wandel, Lee 162–3 Paltroni, Severo 51–3 Papin, Philippe 35 Paracelsus 152 Paradin, Claude 21 Pareus, David 83–7, 105

279

280

Name Index

Parise, Nicola 175 Parker, Charles H. 195 Parker, Geoffrey 174, 221–2 Parkhurst, John 160 Parkhurst, Margaret 160 Parrow, Kathleen A. 202 Paul the Apostle, saint 21, 25, 85 Pérez García, Rafael M. 178 Perlina, Nina 229–30 Perrot, Charles 198–200 Perrot, Denis 200 Pestalozzi, Carl 151–3 Pettegree, Andrew 20, 194 Philip II, king of Spain and Portugal 80, 173, 204 Philip IV, king of Spain and Portugal 183 Piccinelli, Filippo 172 Pinault, Jean 197–9 Pinault, Marie 199 Piron, Sylvain 80 Piton, Frédéric 229 Pius II (Piccolomini, Enea Silvio Bartolomeo), pope 180 Pius V (Antonio Ghislieri), pope 171, 174 Pius XII (Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli), pope 105 Plutarch 21, 145 Po-Chia Hsia, Ronnie 175, 180 Pollmann, Judith 191 Pozzulo, Joanna 232 Preti, Mattia 180 Privé, François 198 Prodi, Paolo 25, 34, 88 Przypkowski, Samuel 99–100, 106–7 Puddu, Raffaele 170–1, 182–3 Punch, John 80, 82–3 Purcell, Maureen 74 Q Quaglioni, Diego 47, 54, 63

R Racaut, Luc 266 Rademaker, Cornelius S.M. 98 Radice, Betty 109 Rakoff, Jed. S. 232 Rau, Johannes 131 Rau, Zbigniew 103 Rauscher, Peter 131 Raviola, Blythe A. 11 Raymond, Joad 65 Rebes, Marcin 101 Reeves, Margaret 148 Regensburger, Dietmar 190 Regula, saint 141, 154 Reich, Emil 103 Reinhardt, Nicole 14 Reinhart, Anna 148–50, 152, 156, 162 Reinwald, Gustav 219–20, 223–4 Rembold, Luca 169 Renger, Reinhard 245 Repgen, Konrad 190 Reusner, Elias 83 Ricardi Di Netro, Tomaso 173 Richental, Johannes 218 Richental, Ulrich 218 Rindlisbacher, Sarah 12 Rivero Rodríguez, Manuel 171, 173–4 Roberts, Penny 27–8, 190–1, 264, 266 Robinson, Hastings 160 Robinson-Hammerstein, Helga 72 Rohrschneider, Michael 15 Rosa, Susan 268 Rosenblatt, Wibrandis 158–9 Rosso, Claudio 11 Rotan, Jean-Baptiste 199 Routhier, Gilles 12 Rublack, Ulinka 20, 191, 194, 263 Rückert, Peter 123 Rudolf, Hans-Ulrich 118 Rudolph, Harriet 190 Ruegg, Walter 72

Name Index

Ruffini, Francesco 96 Ruggeri, Giuseppe 58, 60 Ruggiero, Guido 217 Rummel, Erika 97, 154 Rüpke, Jörg 16 Russell, Frederick 14 Russo, Francesco 177 Rutherford, Samuel 84 Ryrie, Alec 265 S Sacks, Jonathan 264 Safley, Thomas M. 20, 27 Sánchez Marcos, Fernando 173 Sänger, Johanna 128 Sans, Hippolitò 170–1 Sbriccoli, Mario 54 Scarabelli, Giuseppe 168 Scaramuzzi, Diomede 79 Scattola, Merio 11 Schepers, Heinrich 241 Scheunemann, Jan 127–8, 131–2 Scheutz, Martin 131 Schillebeeckx, Edward 105–6 Schilling, Diebold 218 Schilling, Heinz 9 Schindling, Anton 126, 242 Schirmer, Uwe 118–21, 126–8 Schirò, Joseph 227 Schlichting, Jonas 106 Schloms, Antje 119 Schmauder, Andreas 123 Schmidt, Hans 243, 249 Schmidt-Voges, Inken 239 Schmitt, Charles B. 72 Scholz, Luca 193 Schreiner, Klaus 102 Schröder, Peter 220 Schuler, Gervasius 151, 153 Schulze, Hagen 132 Schütz Zell, Katharina 154

Schwarze, Andreas 128 Schwenke, Heinrich 248 Scoriggio, Lazzaro 173 Scott, Tom 190, 196 Screech, Michael A. 111 Scribner, Bob 103 Seegrün, Wolfgang 241, 243–4, 249 Selengut, Charles 264 Seresse, Volker 248 Serjeantson, Richard 73, 85 Sextus Tarquinius 155 Sharf, Robert H. 216 Siegmund II of Lupfingen 117 Simler, Josias 156–7 Simmons, Cynthia 229–30 Sire, Henry J.A. 169, 179–80, 182–3 Skinner, Quentin 75, 78 Slater, Julia 145–6 Sluhovsky, Moshe 24 Smith, Jonathan Z. 16 Sneider, Matthew T. 43–4 Snyder, Jon R. 269 Soderini, Francesco 44 Soen, Violet 193 Sommerville, Johann P. 78 Somos, Mark 19 Southwell, Robert 18 Spagnoletti, Angelantonio 171–2, 178 Spartacus 129 Spicer, Andrew 175, 190, 266 Stadler, Elisabeth 150 Staemmler, Friedrich 128 Stalin, Joseph 127 Stanek, Łukasz 16 Starr-Lebeau, Gretchen 195 Stauder, Heiner 226, 233 Steffen, Lloyd 189 Steinauer, Jean 12 Steinert, Mark Alexander 240, 243, 247 Steinmetz, Max 129 Steinwascher, Gerd 241, 243–4, 248

281

282

Name Index

Stella, Aldo 120 Stengel, Friedemann 134 Stewart, Anthony T.Q. 192 Stewart, Michael A. 107 Stiller, Heinz 133 Stolberg-Rilinger, Barbara 240 Stordeur, John 159 Straumann, Benjamin 14, 84 Struck, Wolf-Heino 118 Stupperich, Robert 98 Suárez, Francisco 74–8 Swinne, Axel H. 105 T T’Serclaes, Anne see Hooper, Anne Taccini, Ubaldesca 179 Taplin, Mark 161 Tarquin the Proud, king of Rome 155 Tasso, Torquato 171 Tauss, Susanne 241, 243 Taves, Ann 216 Taylor, Mark C. 216 Tazbir, Janus 104 Teehan, John 264 Tell, William 147 Terpstra, Nicholas 44–5, 268 Theobald, Christoph 12 Thireau, Jean-Louis 20 Thomas Aquinas, saint 54, 66, 72, 78–9, 82 Thompson, Craig R. 94, 97 Tilly, Charles 19 Toglia, Michael P. 232 Togliatti, Palmiro 127 Tomasi, Silvano Maria 167 Tomer, Alberto 167 Tortarolo, Edoardo 12 Tosato-Rigo, Danièle 12 Toscana de’ Crescenzi, saint 179 Tracy, James D. 110 Tracz-Tryniecki, Marek 103 Trapman, Johannes 21

Trembley, Jean 198–9 Trinkaus, Charles 98 Tripet, Micheline 200 Trivellato, Francesca 19 Tübke, Werner 129 Tuck, Richard 25, 72, 76, 78, 83, 87 Tuininga, Matthew 202 Tully, James 73 Turchetti, Mario 265 Turner, Victor 216 Tutino, Stefania 22, 78 U Ugolini, Filippo 51 Ulbricht, Walter 127 Unnerstall, Rolf 247 V Vadian, Joachim 149 Valadesius, Didacus 81 Valeri, Mark 195 Valla, Lorenzo 93–4, 96 Valle, Gabriele 59 van Asselt, Willem J. 72 van Gelderen, Martin 192 van Houdt, Toon 21 van Kley, Dale 268 Van Liere, Katherine 175 Van Nuffelen, Peter 11 Van Ruymbeke, Bertrand 27 Vann, Theresa M. 169 Varallo, Franca 11 Vázquez, Mateo 174 Veit, Patrice 26 Verdura, Giambattista 178 Verhaart, Floris 85 Vermigli, Peter Martyr 83, 85, 156–7 Vernon, Richard 107 Victor Amadeus II 57 Villari, Rosario 64–5 Villey, Pierre 26

Name Index

Villiger, Verena 12 Vives, Juan Luis 94, 96 Voetius, Gisbertus 83, 85 Vogler, Günter 118–19 Völker, Karl 96 Voltaire (Fraçois-Marie Arouet) 11, 108–10, 170 von Berlichingen, Götz 120 von Boeselager, Albrecht F. 167 von Erlach, Georg 12 Von Gesau, Leo Alting 106 von Greyerz, Kaspar 180 von Harnack, Adolf 8 von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Eitel F. 247 von Krusenstjern, Benigna 228, 231 von Mayenburg, David 123, 125 von Polansdorf, Amandus P. 83 von Wartenberg, Franz Wilhelm 242, 247–8, 254 von Zimmern, Katharina 151 Vosloo, Robert 268 Vötsch, Jochen 126 Vuillard, Éric 134 W Wadding, Luke 80, 82 Wagner, Ulrich 118 Walzer, Michael 73, 202 Wanegffelen, Thierry 26 Warmbrunn, Paul 240 Waswo, Richard 96 Watt, Jeffrey R. 194–5 Wattenberg, Diedrich 119 Weber, Alexander 239, 240 Weber, Johannes 235 Weber, Max 16 Weiler, Antonius G. 12, 98

Weiß, Ulmann 126 Wengerscius, Andreas 105 Westphal, Siegrid 243 Whelan, Ruth 27 White, Graham 96 White, Hayden 12 Wilkinson, James 217 Windler, Christian 12 Winter, Jürgen 131 Winzer, Ulrich 241, 243 Wolf, Friedrich 128 Wolfart, Johannes C. 12–13, 215, 268–9 Woodford, Charlotte 231 Würgler, Andreas 54, 131 Y Yamaguchi-Fasting, Kai

117

Z Zaccagnini, Gabriele 179 Zagorin, Perez 22 Zampeschi, Brunoro 51–2 Zarri, Gabriella 45 Zell, Matthias 154 Zemon Davis, Natalie 7, 190, 266 Zepper, Wilhelm 83 Zeumer, Karl 102 Ziegler, Hannes 19 Zimmermann, Wilhelm 126 Zondadari, Marco A. 178 Zsindely, Endre 151 Züglin zu Meersburg, Johann 149 Żurawski vel Grajewski, Przemysław 103 Zurfluh, Anselm 13 Zwicker, Daniel 105 Zwingli, Anna see Reinhart, Anna Zwingli, Huldrych 83, 124, 141, 143, 148–52, 158, 163

283