The French Reformed Churches
One research project that occupied much of my attention between 2006 and 2012 led deep into the internal history of the French Reformed churches during their early years, when these initially outlawed assemblies built a shared set of institutions and defined their common practices amid the rapidly changing political situation between 1557 and 1563. Carried out in collaboration with Nicolas Fornerod and funded by the Swiss national research fund (FNS), this project involved the preparation of an annotated edition of the earliest provincial synods and other documents (a corpus of 32 in all): L’organisation et l’action des églises réformées de France, 1557-1563: Synodes provinciaux et autres documents (Geneva: Droz, 2012). Our collaboration also yielded a number of related articles reconstructing aspects of the collective action and personnel of the churches in these years. In addition to the products of this collaboration, this section also lists several single-authored articles focused on the Reformed churches of the later sixteenth century, some covering the full sweep of the years up to the Edict of Nantes.
Several considerations led to the joint editorial project. The chance encounter with a manuscript copy of the acts of provincial synods held in Normandy in 1560 and 1561 alerted me to how much the records of these assemblies revealed about the situation and issues facing the first French Reformed churches during these years. Writing Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed made me aware that the institutions worked out through trial and error in France were of wider significance as a model for other Reformed churches and for the theologians who subsequently defined and defended presbyterian ecclesiology. Ultimately, the documents collected revealed a great deal not only about the churches’ institutions, worship, and discipline as these first took shape, but also about the political strategies pursued through the emerging network of synods and deputies to improve their legal standing.
Related Publications
“Les vicissitudes des églises réformées de France jusqu’en 1598” in M. Grandjean and B. Roussel, eds. Coexister dans l’intolérance: L’Edit de Nantes (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1998), p. 53-73.
(Co-authored with Nicolas Fornerod), “Les 2150 ‘églises’ réformées de France de 1561-1562,” Revue Historique 311 (2009), 529-560.
(Co-edited with Nicolas Fornerod), L’organisation et l’action des églises réformées de France, 1557-1563: Synodes provinciaux et autres documents, Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance no. 504, Archives des Églises Réformées de France no. 3 (Geneva: Droz, 2012).
(Co-authored with Nicolas Fornerod), “Les députés des Églises réformées à la cour en 1561-1562, Revue Historique 315 (2013), 289-332. Modified English translation “Qui étaient les députés? An Unknown Group of Protestant Leaders on the Eve of the First War of Religion,” in Barbara Diefendorf ed., Social Relations, Politics, and Power in Early Modern France: Robert Descimon and the Historian’s Craft (Kirksville: Truman State University Press, 2016), p. 158-183.
(Co-authored with Nicolas Fornerod), “Faut-il excommunier sur-le-champ les iconoclastes et ceux qui refusent de payer les dîmes? Un ‘brevet’ synodal inconnu de 1561,” Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme Français 159 (2013), 297-312.
“Pouvoir ecclésiastique et pouvoir séculier dans les villes sous domination protestante pendant la première guerre de religion” in Philippe Chareyre and Guy Astoul eds., Le protestantisme et la cité (Montauban: Société Montalbanaise d’Etude et de Recherche sur le Protestantisme, 2013), p. 13-28.
“Refugee Centers and Exile Churches in the French Reformation” in P. Benedict, S. Seidel Menchi and A. Tallon eds., La Réforme en France et en Italie. Contacts, comparaisons et contrastes (Rome: Publications de l’École française de Rome, 2013), p. 535-552.
“French Protestants in the Service of the Crown, 1554-1612” in Gerlinde Huber-Rebenich ed., Jacques Bongars (1554-1612). Gelehrter und Diplomat im Zeitalter des Konfessionalismus (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), p. 1-18.
(Co-authored with Nicolas Fornerod), “Conflict and Dissidence within the Early French Reformed Churches” in Maria-Cristina Pitassi and Daniela Solfaroli-Camillocci eds., Crossing Traditions: Essays on the Reformation and Intellectual History in Honour of Irena Backus (Leiden: Brill, 2018), p. 15-32.
“The Lesser Nobility and the French Reformation”, in Wolfgang Breul and Kurt Andermann eds., Ritterschaft und Reformation (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2019), p. 333-354.
Season of Conspiracy: Calvin, the French Reformed Churches, and Protestant Plotting in the Reign of Francis II (1559-60) Transactions of the American Philosophical Society Vol. 108, Part 5 (Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society Press, 2020).
(Co-authored with Nicolas Fornerod), “La brève mais aventureuse carrière de pasteur de Pierre de Campaigne, dit Villeroche” in Caroline Callard, Tatiana Debbagi Baranova and Nicolas Le Roux eds., Un tragique XVIe siècle. Mélanges offerts à Denis Crouzet (Ceyzérieu: Champ Vallon, 2022), p. 207-217.
“Aux origines du système ecclésiastique réformé: modèles, fondements et influence” and “Une stratégie de conquête (1559-1562),” chs. 1 and 2 of La France huguenote. Histoire institutionnelle d’une minorité religieuse (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle) eds. Philippe Chareyre and Hugues Daussy (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2024). Note: the version of chapter 2 provided here contains only my original text and illustrations. It omits illustrations and accompanying text inserted during the editorial process without my prior approval.
Philip Benedict 