Fathers, Pastors and Kings

Visions of episcopacy in seventeenth-century France

Alison Forrestal

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780719069765
• eBook ISBN: 9781847796158
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Conservatism & Liberalism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Fathers, pastors and kings explores how conceptions of episcopacy (government of a church by bishops) shaped the identity of the bishops of France in the wake of the reforming Council of Trent (1545-63).

1
Catholic renewal and episcopal traditions in the sixteenth century

In the eyes of its Catholic contemporaries in the early 1560s, the French episcopate must have appeared to be in an enviable position. A highly influential role in the formulation of the Council of Trent’s reform programme left its mark for posterity in the shape of the final decrees and earned its members the respect of the entire Catholic church, an impression not lessened by the fact that the French delegation had only been present at the Council’s final sessions (1562–63). At the Council, the bishops had been led by the charismatic and widely renowned Cardinal Charles de Lorraine, archbishop of Reims and advisor to the French monarchy, who returned to France well satisfied with the outcome of his negotiations on behalf of the French church and crown.¹ This impression of episcopal dynamism and confidence was also fed by the fact that throughout their sojourn at Trent, the French delegates had displayed such signs of enthusiasm for Catholic reform that it seemed very likely they would soon become models of Tridentine leadership for bishops throughout Europe.

In reality, these expectations were not fulfilled. Most historians, as well as those contemporaries best placed to assess their bishops, present a very different picture of the post-Tridentine episcopate in France. Both contemporaries and historians have frequently drawn attention to abuses within the episcopate, predictably focusing on the exploits of infamous individuals within its ranks, such as those who converted to protestantism or who lived particularly scandalous lives. Perhaps this is inevitable, for as one leading historian of the ancien régime church has remarked, ‘Just as the Devil has the best tunes, so the affairs of the world provide the historian with better evidence than fervour and devotion.’² Yet this preoccupation with vice and abuse means that historians have judged the episcopate to be a highly worldly body, controlled by the crown and powerful aristocratic families, who used bishoprics as pawns in their political games: the classic example cited is the ‘turbulent ambition’ of Charles de Lorraine.³ This overwhelmingly negative view is perhaps understandable in view of the frequently uncomplimentary opinions expressed by contemporaries on the state of the episcopate and in view of the notoriety of prominent individual prelates, such as Jean de Monluc of Valence, royal diplomat, member of the Conseil d’État and alleged heretic.⁴ The abbot of Cîteaux famously complained at the 1579 Assembly, and he has often since been quoted by historians, that the king was in the process of gradually losing control of nominations since most of the benefices were in the hands of the leading noble families, ‘who regarded them as hereditary’.⁵

Even allowing for some exaggeration and imbalance in the citing of episcopal inadequacies and for the subjective nature of much of the source material, there is no doubt that by the final decade of the sixteenth century the French episcopate was in a state of considerable disarray and that the criticisms of contemporaries and the judgements of historians do have a reasonable basis in fact. Despite its promising start, the late sixteenth-century episcopate failed to live up to the expectations which it and others held for its future. Indeed, it was not French bishops who assumed the mantle of leadership within the late sixteenth-century church. Instead, prelates outside France acted as the vanguards of episcopally led reform, and it was to these figures that the French had to look for guidance and encouragement in any efforts to implement Trent’s decrees within their dioceses. Yet how did the episcopate reach this state of affairs in the wake of its triumph at Trent? It was partly due to the fact that, just as the delegates returned to France, the country plunged into the wars of religion (1562–98) which were to cripple it for virtually the remainder of the century. Additionally, the episcopate itself was burdened with several institutional abuses that made the implementation of reforms extremely difficult for even the most dedicated of prelates.

In the first place, research has pointed to the geographical dislocation and economic difficulties caused by the wars of religion and to the resulting difficulties for bishops in fulfilling the functions of their office.⁶ In 1594, Cardinal de Joyeuse complained that two of the eight dioceses in Toulouse province still remained under the ‘heretic curse’.⁷ Huguenot occupation of episcopal lands and temporalities was accompanied by the potentially even more fundamental danger of the Calvinist threat to the very existence of the episcopal office itself, for the reformed faith denied that bishops were necessary at all. Its menace assumed ominous proportions when bishops themselves succumbed to heresy, and either abandoned their dioceses or were excommunicated by Rome. In fact, French protestantism succeeded in winning a number of high-profile prelates to its cause, about twelve in all, and seven bishops were condemned for heresy by Rome in 1566.⁸ Some conversions and resignations were rather spectacular, attracting significant public attention both within and outside France, and included the notorious and tragic dilemma of Antonio Caracciolo, bishop of Troyes, who unsuccessfully tried to persuade both Geneva and his disapproving flock that he could remain a bishop while acting as pastor of the local Calvinist, rather than Catholic, church!⁹

Certainly, demoralised bishops were not themselves slow to blame the wars and the Huguenots for their failure to operate within their dioceses, complaining of protestant aggression towards their persons and property and of economic destitution which, to quote another bishop of Troyes, Claude Bauffremont, resulted in diocesan ‘losses and almost infinite ruin’.¹⁰ Yet this was not the only reason for episcopal dishevelment. For its contemporary critics, the episcopate’s innate flaws cut much deeper. While conceding that the wars were at least partly to blame for the inadequacies of the episcopate, they also lambasted what they believed to be the worldly nature of the office by the late sixteenth century. They agreed that a major contributor to this worldliness was the Concordat of Bologna, the agreement between François I and Leo X in 1516 which officially dispensed with the episcopal elections prescribed under the terms of the 1438 Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, and reserved episcopal nomination to the French monarch, subject to papal confirmation.¹¹ Indeed, calls for the abolition of the Concordat and a return to episcopal elections by chapters would continue right through the succeeding century, though to no avail and with a consequent increasing sense of formalism. Still, complaints about the Concordat did have a basis in fact, since the system allowed successive kings to use episcopal appointments as rewards for service or as means to secure and preserve order within provinces.

It is not difficult to find cases to illustrate this tendency: a substantial number of French dioceses were granted to Italian bishops during the decades subsequent to the Concordat’s introduction. Members of prominent Italian families who had supported the French crown during its struggle with the Habsburgs for control of Italy were granted bishoprics, as were a number of pro-French curial figures. Italian names, such as Farnese and Ridolfi, crop up regularly among episcopal appointees through the sixteenth century.¹² Although this particular use of episcopal benefices declined under Henri IV at the turn of the century, he too did offer some appointments in reward for political services and loyalties. Overall, it appears that the reign of the first Bourbon monarch brought some stability to the French episcopate, with relatively few transfers occurring between bishoprics, but his pragmatic approach to appointments still contributed to the continued fragmentation of the episcopate. Like his predecessors, he viewed diocesan sees as valuable elements of his political patronage and he was prepared to use them in negotiations aimed at stabilising the realm. Increasingly, after 1593, as the political tide turned in his favour, he offered benefices in return for loyalty to his newly established reign. Renaud de Beaune, archbishop of Bourges, was granted a transfer to the far wealthier see of Sens, in reward for his sustained support of the new king through the 1590s.¹³ Among others, rewards were made to the future cardinal Jacques Du Perron, René de Daillon du Lude and René Benoist, who received the sees of Evreux, Bayeux and Troyes respectively in return for their allegiance to the Bourbon cause.¹⁴

The tendency of the crown to view bishoprics as means of promoting order and rewarding loyalty was accompanied and encouraged by, indeed relied on, the compliance of its most prominent subjects. In fact, the more the crown used appointments as rewards, the more likely its subjects were to see them purely in this light and to react accordingly. Actually, as the research of Michel Péronnet and others demonstrates, the crown was, in several areas, completely dependent on local support in its choice of candidates and it was often the wishes of local magnates which determined appointments.¹⁵ Prominent families regarded bishoprics as their lineal property to be exploited to retain their status and power, an assumption which was maintained into the seventeenth century, despite a new emphasis on episcopal responsibility and fitness for office. Virtual hereditary tenure went hand in hand with pluralism and simony, as just cursory examination of the records of episcopal appointments shows. The Gondi clan provided Paris with four successive bishops and archbishops between 1568 and 1661, concluding its extended dominance with the disgraced Cardinal de Retz.¹⁶ Among other seventeenth-century prelates who owed their seats to this state of affairs were Philibert Du Sault, who succeeded his uncle to Dax in 1623, and Henri de Sourdis of Bordeaux, successor to his brother in 1628.¹⁷ Pierre III and Henri de Villars were successively archbishops of Vienne in the south-east of France between 1626 and 1693, Pierre III having initially succeeded Jérome de Villars as incumbent of the diocese. In fact, this particular family perfectly illustrates the strong claim to hierarchical appointments among the nobility of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, since it provided between 1561 and 1693 no fewer than eight bishops within the French church, to the dioceses of Mirepoix, Agen and Vienne.¹⁸

This presumption had led to what was by then the common practice of holding bishoprics en confidence.¹⁹ Henri IV selected a significant number of commoners as prelates: from one hundred and thirty bishops appointed between 1594 and 1610, thirty-six were members of the third estate.²⁰ While this might appear to suggest a move away from confidence and control of bishoprics by leading aristocratic houses, this was not the case in actuality, since a considerable number of these bishops were dependants of noble families, chosen by them in order to ensure their continued control of the bishopric until a time when a family member was of age to be named prelate. As part of its efforts to highlight ecclesiastical abuses within the French church, the 1579 Assembly identified eight dioceses then thought to be under such arrangements, some of which were controlled by leading ecclesiastics like Cardinal de Birague, Charles de Bourbon and Renaud de Beaune. A decade later, the figure may have been as high as sixteen.²¹ Many of these interim bishops were members of religious orders or chapters or diocesan administrators and thus experienced in ecclesiastical affairs. Yet the fact remains that the practice of confidence was an institutional abuse which allowed aristocratic control of church temporalities and a secular view of the episcopal office to be maintained.

It is fair to say that the status of bishops was in this period lower than at any other time during the ancien régime. However, this assessment relates to just one aspect of the episcopal office as it was understood at this point, the secular or political facet of episcopacy, and it is this negative and spicy feature that has generally received most attention from historians. A ha...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Map of French dioceses
• Introduction
• 1 Catholic renewal and episcopal traditions in the sixteenth century
• 2 The most perfect state: French clerical reformers and episcopal status
• 3 Lower clergy versus bishops
• 4 Ecclesiastical monarchy or monarchies?
• 5 An uneasy alliance
• 6 Manuals and hagiography: mirrors of French ideals?
• Conclusion
• Appendix: chronology of principal events
• Bibliography
• Index