Urban encounters and the religious divide: Catholic-Protestant coexistence in Saumur, France, 1589–1665

Description

As historians of early modern Europe shift their gaze from episodes of religious violence to expressions of religious tolerance, the mechanics of coexistence in everyday life—how men and women of different confessional allegiances managed to live and worship peacefully in close proximity—have become a focus of research. This dissertation contributes to the scholarship on early modern religious tolerance by examining relations between Catholics and Protestants in the French city of Saumur in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The social and economic structures of urban life provided the context for coexistence, and the citizens of Saumur shared a commitment to the same civic ideals, if not the same religious beliefs. Saumur had fleeting associations with Reformed Protestantism in the sixteenth century, but a permanent Huguenot community did not develop until 1589, when Philippe Duplessis-Mornay was named governor. A devout Huguenot as well as an advocate of religious peace, Duplessis-Mornay made Saumur a vibrant center of Protestant activity in western France, building a temple and establishing an Academy that attracted scholars from across Calvinist Europe. Catholic citizens, unwilling to concede the city's confessional identity, invited Counter-Reformation religious orders into the city to check the advance of Protestantism. Wary of the potential for violence, Duplessis-Mornay exhorted townspeople to join together to preserve public order. The city's defense, the administration of justice, the obligation to act as a good neighbor—these dimensions of civic culture applied to Catholics and Huguenots equally and did not demand uniformity of belief. This dissertation also considers what religious coexistence looked like in the everyday lives of Saumur's inhabitants. Notarial documents from the city show Catholics and Protestants interacting in their neighborhoods and at city assemblies and guild meetings. Inter-faith relations also had an economic dimension, and townspeople regularly crossed confessional boundaries to lend and borrow money and for commercial and real estate transactions. Catholics and Huguenots remained sensitive to religious differences, however, and decisions regarding marriage and apprenticeship were made with an eye toward confessional compatibility. Urban society fostered coexistence in daily life, but Saumur's Catholic and Protestant inhabitants were vigilant in preserving religious unity within their households.