In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Registres du Consistoire de Genève au temps de Calvin: Tome III (1547-1548)
  • William Monter
Registres du Consistoire de Genève au temps de Calvin:Tome III (1547–1548). Edited by Thomas A. Lambert and Isabella M.Watt , under the direction of Robert Kingdon . [Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance, No CCCLXXXVII.] (Geneva: Librairie Droz. 2004. Pp. xxiii, 311.)

Unlike the previous volume (see ante[July, 2004], pp. 550-551), this covers a relatively "normal" year with by now relatively standard procedures. As the introduction notes, fornication and quarrels with kin and neighbors now constituted the bulk of its business, with "religious" matters roughly half as frequent as either other category. Nevertheless, it still confronted some stubborn local papistes(pp. 7, 34, 35, 73-74, 80, 90, 98, 110, 132, 201); one of them (p. 107) came from as far away as Bavaria. Another called this institution "only a barbollerie" implying something resembling today's television family courtrooms. The Consistory also had a few "enemies on the left"; although the most famous, Jacques Gruet (executed in 1547), never appears here because his was a criminal trial, one finds an Anabaptist tailor from Lyon, who was banished together with his apprentice so quickly that we never learn his last name (pp. 177, 180-181). Calvin's Consistory also remained a marriage court. It even advised one divorce, which was duly granted, after a local peasant woman had a bastard [End Page 791]child with her married cousin (pp. 254ff.); she was remarried within two years (p. 279 n. 69). However, they refused other requests (e.g., p. 76), including one coming from a nobleman from Normandy (pp. 141, 143).

The last detail reminds us that Geneva's most significant political and social development in 1547 was the first sizable influx of religious refugees from France. Predictably, much of the business of a Consistory animated by Calvin and his all-French pastoral colleagues revolved around them. French-bashing insults pepper its records (pp. 21, 31, 34, 39, 58, 63f., 72f., 93, 126, 157ff., 182, 237, 273). They include personal threats against Calvin (p. 155); in September, he reported that letters from Lyon and Burgundy warned that the Enfants de Genèvehad offered 500 écusto kill him (p. 184). Perhaps more interesting is that by the winter of 1547-1548, refugees from France "on account of the Gospel" begin turning up as defendants before the Consistory, rather than plaintiffs reporting threats. A woman insulted the ministers (p. 255f.); a few men were suspected of sexual misconduct (p. 259), insulting speech in church (p. 274), or of fleeing from an unwanted wife (p. 279). Illustrations of Calvin's (and St. Augustine's) doctrine of original sin?

William Monter
Northwestern University (Emeritus)

pdf

Share