Between Pulpit and Reformation: The “Confessions” of François Lambert

As François Lambert (1486/87-1530) experimented with religious identity in his passage from the Franciscan Observance to Lutheran Reform, he presents a valuable witness to the processes of identity formation and self-understanding in a period of religious turmoil that was still open to many different solutions. From 1522 to 1530 his choices led him from Avignon to Genève, Lausanne, Bern, Zurich, Basel, Wittenberg, Metz, Strasbourg, Marburg, in a life marked by projects of reform and moments of fear, illusions and delusions, success and failure. Lambert wrote a type of autobiography of this itinerary, which is traceable from his first work composed in Wittenberg until the very last letter that he wrote a few days before his death. Moreover, his non-linear religious journey forced him to come to terms with his previous identity as Franciscan, as friar, as preacher.

The existing literature on François Lambert already traces the major details of his life and writings.¹ Here, by means of what I suggest calling the “confessions” of Lambert, I would like to investigate the way in which he recounted his experiences, tried to give them unity and meaning, and built his own identity.² Apart from his radical conversion, this article examines whether it is possible to detect elements of continuity with his previous commitment to the Franciscan Observant religious life.

Rethinking Twenty Years of Franciscan Life (1502-1522)

The first pamphlet that Lambert published after converting to Lutheranism is a capital text for understanding how François Lambert depicted his own life and for seeing the image of himself that he wanted to outline. In fact, the Rationes propter quas minoritarum conversationem habitumque reiecit presented Lambert’s reasons for leaving the Franciscan life. In 1523, a few months after his arrival in Wittenberg, Lambert wrote two texts for the anti-Franciscan campaign that Luther promoted with the support of many former friars.³ Beside the autobiographic account in the Rationes, Lambert also published a critical commentary on the Franciscan Rule, which was highly influenced by Luther’s De votis monasticis iudicium.⁴ Hence, it seems probable that Luther’s text was also the model for Lambert’s Rationes. As a preface to his De votis monasticis, Luther wrote an autobiographic letter addressed to his father. In this letter, he not only recounted the famous episode of his vow during the storm, but he also recalled that his father opposed his decision to become a monk. His father was skeptical of this choice and used the fourth commandment as an argument against the son’s decision (“Et non etiam (dicebas) audisti tu parentibus esse obediendum?”). When looking back to that episode, Luther recounted that this was the voice of God announcing a truth that he did not want to hear at that point of his life.⁵

Following Luther’s example, Lambert recounts his own experiences, beginning with his attraction to the Observant friars because of their humble behavior, their bare feet, and particularly their abilities in preaching. While Luther had a father who warned him, the puer tenellus Lambert was a fatherless adolescent and did not have anyone to warn him about the deception of these “wolves in sheep’s clothing” (Matthew 7.5).⁶ Lambert’s desire to draw a parallel with Luther reminds us – in the case we need it – that Lambert’s account is always a militant, tendentious discourse. Indeed, he presented a “mythology” of himself. However, since we are looking for precisely this point of view – the self-understanding – Lambert’s rhetoric only increases our interest in his confessions.

Lambert’s account recounts that the Franciscans used a twofold vocational propaganda: on the one hand, they praised the religious life in their preaching (which evidently the adolescent Lambert heard regularly); on the other hand, in their private conversations with him, they not only presented him the holiness of the Franciscan life, but they also spoke of a possible career through studying (de studiorum opportunitate). One can note that, consciously or not, Lambert repeated arguments that had already been...