Book chapter
Fashioning Reformed Identity in Early Modern France
Confessionalization in Europe, 1555–1700: Essays in Honor and Memory of Bodo Nischan, pp.243-255
Aldershot
2004
Abstract
Though a near total lack of cooperation between the Reformed movement and the monarchical state in France militated against confessionalization as scholars have commonly characterized the process,1 the French Reformed Churches worked tirelessly to inculcate a strong sense of confessional identity among the faithful. To this end, the local church and its consistory operated much as counterparts in Geneva, the Netherlands, Scotland, various Swiss city states, and some German principalities. The pastors, elders and deacons, who assembled for the weekly consistory meetings, promoted regular attendance at worship and catechism, disciplined sinners of most every hue and stripe, supervised the details of poor relief, and generally sought to fashion a Protestant religious culture. Ironically, while French Protestants’ status as a religious minority with ever diminishing political influence worked against confessionalization in the usual sense, it did contribute forcefully to the construction of a distinctly Protestant religious identity.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Fashioning Reformed Identity in Early Modern France
- Creators
- Raymond A Mentzer - University of Iowa, History
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Publication Details
- Confessionalization in Europe, 1555–1700: Essays in Honor and Memory of Bodo Nischan, pp.243-255
- Publisher
- Aldershot; Ashgate
- Number of pages
- 400
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 2004
- Academic Unit
- Classics and Religious Studies; History
- Record Identifier
- 9984281455602771
Metrics
17 Record Views