15: Montaigne and his World

The New Learning, Reform and War in France

Ambroise Dubois (attrib), Apollo and Daphne

Major trends in the world of letters in 16th c France

 

  • religous reformation
  • political disorder: wars of religion
  • spread of humanist movement

Montaigne as our example

  •         To what degree do the Essays relate to current events?
  •         To what degree do they reflect the spread of the new learning?

    French Reforms and Reformation

     Protestants:   John Calvin  (1509-64)

  •   Paris (university): “Affair of the Placards 1534
  •   1536 Basel then Geneva
  •     Institutes  first ed. 1536, last 1559

Calvinist reform:

Swiss cities, Rhineland, France, England, Scotland

 

lyons

a Huguenot church in Lyon
Jean Perrissin, Le Temple de Paradis, v. 1565. ©Bibliothèque de Genève, exposé au MIR, Genève

      Catholic Reform: first centered in Italy

       Council of Trent: called 1542   met 1545-62

  •  first sessions doctrine
  • later: centralized control  standards
  • reformed Mass, role of bishops, training of clergy
  • 1564 and after: implementation, negotiation with rulers

Politics: Two half centuries

First half century: wars with Italy, strengthening monarchy

Second half of century: succession struggles, civil strife

 Francis I (king 1515-47)

  •      patron of new learning
  •      Anti-Protestant responses:
    •      1534 expelled Calvinists
    •       1545 Attacks on Waldensians

  Succeeded by son Henry II (king 1547-59)

   Succeeded by son Francis II (minor, 14) (king 1559-60) married Mary Stuart (Mary Queen of Scots)

 Succeeded by brother Charles IX (minor, 10) (king 1560-74)

Factions:

  • Protestant (Montmorency, Bourbon
  •  Catholic (Guise)

    1562 violence: Huguenots killed on orders of  duke of Guise

     1572 violence: August wedding between Charles’ sister Margaret of Valois and Henry of Navarre (future Henry IV)

        Fear of plot: Huguenot  leader Admiral Gaspard de Coligny killed; massacre of Huguenots (August 24, St. Bartholomew’s Day)

1562  1562
 

st barts

 1572

   Henry III (king 1574-89) brother of Charles

  War of 3 Henries

  •    Henry III  has Henry Duke of Guise assassinated for plot
  •    Henry III assassinated
  •    Henry III’s heir and ally:   Henry of Navarre (Bourbon, Protestant)
  •    Henry of Navarre converts: Henry IV (king 1589-1610)

    Edict of Nantes 1598 (revoked 1685)

Confessional Map of Europe ca 1600

A confessional map ca 1630

Confessional maps and some issues about them: Graeme Murdock

 

Spread of Humanist movement:

Church

Universities

  • Foreign students at Italian universities who returned home
  • faculty appointments at Paris, other French universities
  • all faculties
  • theology: Biblical scholarship, Greek and Hebrew studies

Courts

Ex: Francis I

Royal Library and its librarian:  Guillaume Budé, ca. 1536 (portrait by Jean Clouet)  Bude

 

Collège royal 1530

Robert Estienne: Editio Regia (Greek New Testament with critical apparatus 1550)

Fontainebleau

Michel de Montaigne (1533-92)

      humanist education: classical latin

      1571 retires to study and write; began Essays, first set published 1580

       1581-85 mayor of Bordeaux

Clouet: Charles IX as boy king

a page of Montaigne’s notes editing Essays