Des cruautés honteuses ?
The violence committed by the Reformed during the Wars of Religion contradicts the victim narrative of the Huguenot past constructed by Protestant historians from the 1830s to the 1960s. This article aims to understand how the heirs of the Reformation who write the history of their community during...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | fra |
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Laboratoire de Recherche Historique Rhône-Alpes (LARHRA UMR 5190)
2023-04-01
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| Series: | Chrétiens et Sociétés |
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| Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/chretienssocietes/9489 |
| Summary: | The violence committed by the Reformed during the Wars of Religion contradicts the victim narrative of the Huguenot past constructed by Protestant historians from the 1830s to the 1960s. This article aims to understand how the heirs of the Reformation who write the history of their community during this period deal with the potentially shameful cruelties of their fathers. Based mainly on 26 works on the history of Christianity and Protestantism, this investigation examines, in particular, accounts of Huguenot iconoclasm, the violence perpetrated by the Baron des Adrets, the assassination of the Duke of Guise by Jean Poltrot de Méré and the massacre of Catholics in Nîmes in 1567 (la Michelade). Protestant historians, who frequently express their feelings about the past, widely condemn the excesses of their coreligionists during the 16th-century civil and religious unrest. However, in the sources consulted, only the pastor François Puaux highlights his shame about iconoclasm and la Michelade. This original stance can probably be explained both by the author’s vibrant style and by his concern to make his denunciation of the ferocity of the « papists » convincing. In general, historians report the actions of their predecessors by trying to maintain the victim tone of the Huguenot epic : they underline the extenuating circumstances that make it possible to understand the violence of the Calvinists, present the Baron des Adrets and Poltrot de Méré as special cases that do not bring the Reformation into disrepute, and try to clear the Protestant theologians and leaders. |
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| ISSN: | 2267-7143 1965-0809 |