The Rise of French Protestantism

But we are not talking about the heat caused by anthropogenic climate change. We're talking about the heat of dudes getting burned at the stake for heresy in the sixteenth century because we are on part two of the French wars of religion. This is of course a seven part series , so this is a long term project, but for continuity's sake, I figured, you know, bring every back to where we were when we left off last time discussing Francis , the dangers of drinking cold water after playing tennis, things along those lines. Very excited for men to be excoriated with pale tongues of fire that will eventually speak the words no surrender . Yeah, exactly this. All of this basically,, what is happening here will echo in eternity or if not eternity at least in Northern Ireland. This will cause Northern Ireland to be a thing. In a way, we should hate the French more. Yes, yes. I'm way ahead of most people on that one to be fair , but I have my grandfather to thank for that. So continuing in our historical exploration. Henri II succeeded Francois I in fifteen forty seven after his father died at the age of forty eight, complaining about the heavy burden of the French crown. Henri II had been the spare initially, becoming Dauphin after only the death of his elder brother Francis from too much tennis in fifteen thirty six Too much water also, too much cold water, too much cold, too anything that we take for granted, opening up the tap and getting cold water would kill an entire French lineage . Now, some people might consider this a just payoff of fate. After Henri's father sent him as a hostage to Spain between the ages of six and ten, where he and his brother were apparently treated quite sternly, and then his father married him off at fourteen and chose to personally observe the performance of his son on his wedding night. When we left off , France's dynasty was beginning to look secure, but the foreign wars would not go away, and they remained an expensive stain on the French state. One of the newly opened avenues helping cause issues for Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was the Lutheran Reformation in Germany. And though a Gallican Catholic and a committed most Christian king, Henri had no qualms about taking advantage of the rise of Protestantism in the Holy Roman Empire that gave Charles headaches. This was also the French king who initiated France's lasting relationship with the Ottomans during the fifteen thirties, angling for an anti Habsburg alliance. Being most Christian at home didn't preclude using heretics abroad. Inevitably, the Reformation did begin to spill over into France. Before Luther, there had been others interested in Catholic renewal or revivalism, their many strands being a natural consequence of earlier Renaissance ideas. These scholarly Catholic interests might include any combination of humanism, spiritualism, inner devotion, mysticism, religious studies, criticism, and interest in the Old Testament. People like Erasmus and Jacques Lefev in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century were somewhat reformist and heterodox without being reformers. Again, religion was seen more in the sense of belonging to an adherence with the wider community rather than a specific set of practices , though some ideas could, of course, be here . I'm loving the idea of, you know, oh I'm Christian at home, I'm Muslim abroad. So when I go to Turkey to get my veneers done, the dentist is just like making me say the Shahada while I'm taking laughing gas. Wait, your doctor, the doctors aren't supposed to make you do that . Yeah, what doctor are you going to, Tom? just They they just see your potential as white white converts to Islamic shows other people the dean. So you know , this is the current situation of living in Northwest London where at two AM there's just screams around the area because someone has scored a gold during the World Cup. Yeah, we're in that case fireworks. I mean, I remember the click hole headline of like horrifying ISIS has spent three million dollars trying to recruit Elvis Costello. And I'm just imagining a light energy version of that like, you know, not ISIS but rather like the Omaha like Machal Department has spent a similar amount trying to recruit Thomas Omani because they're like this he could he could be a sheik who's more powerful than anyone else My name to Thomas O. Mohamedy . In fifteen twenty one, the Sorbonne, which, like Oxford and Cambridge, was at the time home of France's chief religious scholars before its transformation into a famous university declared Lutheran ideas to be heresy. This was bad news for Gallican revivalists. Their Mau circle group was charged with heresy in fifteen twenty three and broken up for good by the Sorbonne and the judges of Parliam theent de Per ry in fifteen twenty five. Some of these new French scholars gave up their ideals of spiritual renewal for good in order to stay in accord with the Gallican and wider Catholic Church. Others, particularly the younger radicals, fled into exile, becoming proto Protestants. Proto punk, cool, proto Protestantism, not cool . Proto Protestant punk sounds like something terrible that exists in like upstate mission. Actually, I have an example of what it would be. It would be bands like head east before Petra and like seventies Christian rock became a thing. I can't even be mad about this because I serve this right up. But I'm dead serious that genuinely like there was a sort of vaguely proto Christian rock before there was actual Christian rock. So it is a thing. Proto Protestant Dickie Pop, I am a Protestant and I die and I die. There's beauty in the Protestant breakdown . Oh my god. I don't know Protestant priest is just like at the altar covered in peanut butter . Ah, yes, I see you also wear your sacraments. It world's the's first dog religion . I'm just thinking of Bangagong except as the Protestant version. It's just bread, it's just wine . Deal with it . Sorry the Sabalia Protestant T Rex . It's a whole fucking different can of worms, isn't it? It's just a modestly dressed T Rex doing heroin. Yeah, exactly Mark Mark Bolin. Mark Bol in with less fly clothes. Wait, wait, wait, Protestant junior this is this implies a sober and modest Lou Barlow, Andor J Maskes, all right . Maybe that, maybe the split to form Sebado is basically the schism. It's the same thing as you know Sebado was the reformation of Catholic dinosaur junior Hey, listen, Lou Bar low did write the lyrics. It's all a matter of soul and fire, which is the description of schism between Catholicism and Protestantism. So, you know, look, maybe maybe there are schisms everywhere with those for with eyes to see them. So the ideas and studies and discussions held by these thinkers and scholars were linked to Lutheranism and eventual Protestantism in that they drew from the same intellectual wells. But clearly Er,asmus was not a prot oto Prestant before Luther or Calvin. The compulsion to want to renew from within was not identical to the call for reform , even if it had to come from without the Catholic community. For many of the younger French thinkers being declared to be heretical had the consequences of focusing their minds on reform from without. Ironically, Francois I had long been a patron of humanism. He founded the collage de France in fifteen seventeen and invited Erasmus to lead it, though Erasmus declined. He forbade the Sworbun from declaring the works of Erasmus and Lafev to be heather heresy during fifteen twenty three and twenty four. His sister, Marguerite Van Goulem, later to be the Queen of Navarre from fifteen twenty seven , another important detail to remember later, was also a humanist writer and thinker, and a friend of the Mau Circle. She offered many of them shelter and jobs after their forced breakup in fifteen twenty five. French Protestantism began to spread as the fifteen twenties gave way to the fifteen thirties. Most of the agitation and preaching was organized from exile, particularly Geneva. However, it was a French Protestant resident of the Swiss city of Nechatelle who would be the first in France to really up the an te, scandalizing Gallican society up to and including Francois himself. Antoine Marquet arranged for large placards to be displayed around the cities of Northern France on the eighteenth of october fifteen thirty four. These placards were played strategically so that French urbanites would have to pass them on their way to mass, and they contained a fire and brimstone polemic against the Catholic practice of mass. One was supposedly even nailed to the door of the king's bed chamber, the Francois wasn't actually there. The Placards read, I call on heaven and earth to bear witness to the truth against this pompous and proud papal mass by which the world, unless God soon provides a remedy, is being and will be completely destroyed, and in which our Lord is so outrageously blasphemed and the people seduced and blinded. This can no longer be tolerated. Through this wretched mass almost everyone is being led into public idolatry, for it is falsely claimed that Jesus Christ is bodily present in the bread and wine. Not only is this not taught by holy scripture and our faith, it is clean contrary to that teaching. Those wretched sacrificers of the priesthood claim that once they have whispered or spoken over the bread and wine these disappear, and that through transubstantiation, such as their fondness for long and inflated words, Jesus Christ is concealed within the accidents of the bread and wine. This is the doctrine of devils and contrary to scripture. I ask these fat monks where they have found this fine word transubstantiation . St. Paul, Saint Matthew, Saint Mark, Saint Luke, and the ancient Fathers never speak thus. When they write of the L Sastupper, they refer quite simply only to bread and wine. Who then will tolerate such charlatans, pests, and false antichrists, as enemies of God and holy writ, let them be rejected and utterly detested? How fucking big were these placards? What the fuck? We found the world's first leftist meme creator. They're fucker. That's what I was about to say. I literally I add in the script here, to which I can only say average leftistft is meme