Scandal in the Parish: Priests and Parishioners Behaving Badly in Eighteenth-Century France by Karen E. Carter (review)

Recent years have seen the publication of almost enough history books about badly behaved members of the Catholic Church to constitute a trend. Craig A. Monson's 2010 Nuns Behaving Badly: Tales of Music, Magic, Art, and Arson in the Convents of Italy came with a tabloid-style cover, just to reinforce the point, while Hubert Wolf's 2015 The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio: The True Story of a Convent in Scandal was packed with tales so scandalous as to stretch the boundaries of credibility. Publishers have no doubt seen in alliteration-laced titles about naughty nuns and prurient priests an opportunity to entice more readers, but such works perhaps also reflect a growing recognition that the clerical abuses exposed in recent decades are part of a longer culture of dubious conduct hidden within institutionalized religion.

Karen E. Carter's Scandal in the Parish brings us more bad behavior, this time from parishioners as well as priests (nuns make only an occasional appearance here). Scandal, Carter explains, was "a term both parishioners and clergy used as a sort of shorthand when talking about broken relationships and public disturbances of the peace" (5). In the court records upon which this book is based, the misdemeanors of priests included drunkenness, affairs, and failure to say Mass at the appointed times. But this is not a book about scandal as much as it is about the aftermath of the Catholic Reformation. The Council of Trent (1545–63) decreed change, but how effectively were its changes implemented and sustained over subsequent centuries? And how was its culture of renewal and reform experienced by those it targeted?

The book is number eighty-four in McGill-Queen's University Press's second series of Studies in the History of Religion, a series with a strong representation of works on France amidst its studies in Canadian religious history. Priests in eighteenth-century France have been the subject of renewed historical attention in recent years, with books by Joseph F. Byrnes, E. Claire Cage and Xavier Maréchaux continuing the earlier work of scholars like Bernard Plongeron and Timothy Tackett. Carter's investigation is centered on the archdioceses of Reims and Besançon and her innovation—by focusing on the relationship between priests and parishioners—is to provide new and important evidence about the substantial role Catholicism continued to play in daily life in France in the century of the lumières. Carter joins a growing number of scholars whose careful archival work further contests the old idea of a steadily secularizing eighteenth century, reminding us that "France was still primarily populated by rural peasants who continued to care about religion in profound ways" (5).

The opening story of a chicken, a mischievous pupil, and a parish priest illustrates Carter's skill at dissecting the fascinating and often bizarre evidence she has uncovered. In 1770, the many misdeeds of Nicolas Hyacinthe Vernier, curé of the parish of Mareuil-sur-Ay, saw a case brought before the court system of the French Catholic Church, known as the officialité. Its ninety-five witness statements, which record the voices of ordinary rural parishioners, provide unparalleled insight into parish politics and religious practice in rural France. Affairs with young women, eccentric, and sometimes violent behavior, and neglect of basic duties were just some of the complaints made about Vernier. Yet, despite a long list of transgressions, Vernier was permitted to remain curé of the parish.

We discover the reason why in the next chapter. Carter ingeniously tips the story on its head to imply that in this case, as with many of the others she examines, parishioners could be just as much at fault as their priest. Vernier had an explanation at the ready for almost every charge brought against him as he defended himself against his "enemies" and grumbled about village conspiracies. Like other priests, he...