The French Wars of Religion were a long and bloody affair. Between 1562 and the signing of the Edict of Nantes in 1598, the conflict devasted the country with moments of extreme violence, laying waste to many regions and severely impeding France’s economy. The opposition between Catholics and Protestants divided famillies, split cities into rival factions, and led to widespread distrust. The result was a series of pitched battles and military campaigns, but it is the implication of civilians in many of the most bloody episodes that has left the deepest imprint on the shared memory of this period.
Massacres of people of the opposing faith rapidly became a recurring facet of the wars. Far from being well-organised affairs led by the military, they generally involved killing frenzies that implicated all levels of society. Catholic preachers were particularly guilty of whipping up crowds with fire-brand sermons, sometimes playing on eschatological fear. This reached a paroxysm with the Saint-Batholomew’s day massacres of 1572, an event that continues to fascinate historians.1

Such religious fervour and violence was not to the taste of all French people and many avoided engaging with either faction.3 The civil strife created lasting problems for local gouvernement, as well as preventing normal economic exchanges and complicating social interaction. For a place like Rouen, open to foreign trade with both Catholic and Protestant countries, it created underlying tensions and had a profound impact on its activities.
As a rich and populous centre, Rouen was targeted by members of both faiths. At the outbreak of the conflict, the Calvinists seized control of the city – as they did in a number of strategic centres, such as Lyon. Their success was, however, short lived and, after a month-long siege, the Catholic majority took back control. Thereafter, the city remained true to the traditional religion and many of its inhabitants viewed Protestants with suspicion and often hostility.4

Despite such a hostile climate, the promulgation of a series of edicts of pacification over the following years ensured that Rouen remained a relatively safe place for Protestants. That many continued to live and practice their faith was a well-known fact. The city’s notaries entered exchanges into the official registers that documented some of their activity, including the buying and selling of Calvinist books from Geneva – books that were supposed to be banned. Local booksellers even published Protestant editions locally, something that also appears to have been broadly tolerated.5
It is remarkable that the registers of the tabellionage held by the notaries never comment on current affairs and, at most, include oblique references in documents to explain why payments were late or goods were lost. They also happily indicated the Calvinist faith of protagonists when this was relevant to proceedings. When Jacques du Fay registered his will in 1568, the notaries faithfully indicated that he wished to leave a hundred sous to the poor of the Protestant religion, a disposition that does not seem to have been seen as problematic.6

However, in 1572, the climate changed. The extent and gruesome nature of the violence of the St Bartholomew’s day massacre in Paris on 24 August echoed around the kingdom. The very next day, the Protestants of the city of Orléans fell prey to the same type of exactions. A few days later, other Loire valley towns such as Saumur and Angers saw similar killing frenzies. Far from being an isolated event, it became clear that the Paris massacre encouraged copy-cat violence in other cities in what the nineteenth-century historian Jules Michelet later characterised as the Saint-Bartholomew massacre season.7
Rouen did not escape the ‘season’. On 17 September 1572, the city succumbed in turn to the fury of religious persecution. The massacre lasted for four days and claimed the lives of several hundred people.8 The impact on the Protestant community that survived was profound: many fled, others converted, to the obvious glee of most of the Catholics of the city.

It is in this context that, around three weeks later, a merchant of the city, Guillaume Duval, hurried to the local notaries with a series of reputable witnesses. Duval does not make clear his reasons for seeking to register an official document. The text simply indicates that it was to be used as the applicant would deem appropriate, but the nature of the act leaves little doubt as to the underlying reasons.
The document is structured to ressemble a certificate of faith. Three well-respected figures of the Catholic elite – two local members of the clergy, the parish priests of Saint Vincent and Saint Eloy of Rouen, and a local burgher – vouched for Duval. They bore witness to the fact that he lived as a good Catholic within the rules of the faith and they had no reason to believe that he had adhered in any way to the new religion.
They further swore that during the previous four years he had resided in the parish of Saint Vincent and that they could attest to the fact that he had consistently attended the local church. Furthermore, he had taken holy communion along with the other local members of the faith. In other words, they could certify that he was, by in all intents and purposes, a good Catholic.

Why did Duval feel the need to have this document drawn up when the massacres had already taken place? Did he have a heretical past or associations he was suddenly worried about in the context of persistent instability? The truth is that without further documents, it is impossible to know. What we can tell is that, as a merchant, he instinctively went to the notaries to register the text… though this would probably have been of little help in the mayhem associated with the violence of the French wars of religion.
Perhaps a clue is to be found in the less dramatic aspects that accompanied the 1572 season. When physical damage was not inflicted on the Protestants, these were often replaced with financial or material exactions. It was estimated by a contemporary that some 2,5 million écus worth of assets were seized in Paris alone as part of the St Bartholomew events.9 Escaping such extorsions could be the difference between prosperity and ruin, and might well explain why Duval thought it expedient to get the law on his side – a prosaic but nevertheless excellent reason to have the document drawn up!

The original document, dated 11 October 1572 , is to be found in the Archives Départementales de la Seine-Maritime in Rouen under pressmark 2E1/897. Here is a transcription of the document:
« Furent presens discretes personnes maistre Pierre Fontayne, prebstre curé de l’eglise paroissiale de Saint Vincent de Rouen, Francoys Amontons, prebstre curé de l’église St Elloy deudit Rouen et Vincent de Gournay, bourgeoys demeurant en la parroisse St Vincent dudit Rouen.
Lesquelz de leur bon gré et vollunté ont dict et attesté pour verité qu’ils congnoissoient et congnoissent la personne de Guillaume Duval, marchand demourant en la parroisse Sainct Vincent de Rouen et qu’il est homme bien vivant selon les constitutions de nostre mere saincte eglise catholicque appostolicque et romaine et qu’ilz n’ont aucune congnoissance qu’il ayt esté aderant à ceulx de la nouvelle oppinion quelz se dient de l’église pretendue reformée et le disoient savoir lesdits attestans pour ce que depuys quatre ans et plus ledit Duval est resident et demourant en ladite paroisse et l’ont veu assister contynuellement au service dyvyn de la passoisse et recepvoir ses sacrementz comme les autres parroissiens catholicques de ladite eglise.
De laquelle presente attestation, ledit Duval, present, a requis lettre pour luy valloir et servir comme apartiendra »
- See, for instance, Jérémie Foa, Tous ceux qui tombent : visages et massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy (Paris: la Découverte, 2021). [↩]
- On this series see Philip Benedict, Graphic History : The Wars, Massacres and Troubles of Tortorel and Perrissin (Geneva: Droz, 2007). [↩]
- Thierry Wanegffelen, Ni Rome, ni Genève. Des fidèles entre deux chaires en France au XVIe siècle (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1997). [↩]
- Philip Benedict, Rouen During the Wars of Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 102-104 [↩]
- Malcolm Walsby, ‘The Protestant Book Trade in Rouen during the First Years of the Wars of Religion‘, in Arthur der Weduwen and Malcolm Walsby (eds), Reformation, Communication and the Book in Early Modern Europe. Essays in Honour of Andrew Pettegree (Leiden: Brill, 2022), pp. 250-265. [↩]
- ‘Item je donne cent soux pour les paovres de la religion reformée’, Will of Jacques du Fay, 3 July 1568, Archives Départementales de la Seine-Maritime, 2E1/887. [↩]
- ‘La Saint- Barthélemy n’est pas une journée, c’est une saison’: Jules Michelet, Guerres de religion (Paris: Louis Hachette, 1856), p. 476. The expression was also used as part of the title of Janine Estèbe-Garrisson, Tocsin pour un massacre, la saison des Saint-Barthélemy (Paris: le Centurion, 1968). [↩]
- How many is unclear, see Benedict, Rouen During the Wars of Religion, op. cit., p. 128. [↩]
- Janine Estèbe-Garrisson, Tocsin pour un massacre, op. cit., p. 136. [↩]













































