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Protestantism Rouen

The dangers of being identified as a Protestant in 1572

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

The massacre of Tours in July 1562, engraving by Jacques Tortorel and Jean-Jacques Perrissin, ca 1570,2 Bibliothèque nationale de France, Estampes et photographie, Rés. fol-QB-201 (5).

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

Illustration showing the siege of Rouen from De tristibus Galliae carmen, in quatuor libros, ca 1577, Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon, Ms 156 f. 89, partially digitised by the IHRT.

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

Device of the Rouen printer and bookseller Abel Clémence, from La vie et doctrine de David George, Holandois, Rouen: Abel Clémence, 1566, USTC 16529, Société de l’histoire du protestantisme français, André 1180, digitised by Gallica.

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.

Detail of the engraving Effigies Gasparis de Coligna, Jost Amman, 1573, British Museum, R,6.45.

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.

Stained-glass window from St Vincent of Rouen (now in St Joan of Arc), where Duval went to church, representing heresy and truth. Jean and Engrand Le Prince, 1522.

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!

Grain stolen from barn during a massacre in Sens in 1562. Detail of an engraving by Frans Hogenberg in Cologne, ca 1565-1573. Rijksmuseum, RP-P-2009-759.

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 »


  1. See, for instance, Jérémie Foa, Tous ceux qui tombent : visages et massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy (Paris: la Découverte, 2021). []
  2. On this series see Philip Benedict, Graphic History : The Wars, Massacres and Troubles of Tortorel and Perrissin (Geneva: Droz, 2007). []
  3. Thierry Wanegffelen, Ni Rome, ni Genève. Des fidèles entre deux chaires en France au XVIe siècle (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1997). []
  4. Philip Benedict, Rouen During the Wars of Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 102-104 []
  5. 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. []
  6. ‘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. []
  7. ‘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). []
  8. How many is unclear, see Benedict, Rouen During the Wars of Religion, op. cit., p. 128. []
  9. Janine Estèbe-Garrisson, Tocsin pour un massacre, op. cit., p. 136. []
Categories
Clothes Commerce Rouen

Ostrich wool and fraudulent practices

Fraud was a major concern for merchants and private buyers alike throughout the mediaeval and early modern eras. With no overarching national or international bodies to check on the conformity of products to expected standards, it fell to local authorities to police such matters. Maintaining the accepted weights and measures was of particular importance and these were often made available to all by providing gauges often carved in stone. These indicated size or volume and to facilitate use, these standards were often placed in or next to churches that were close to marketplaces and fairs.

Late-mediaeval hollowed out stone for measuring volume in front of the church of Saint-Cirq-Lapopie and the fifteenth-century standard for mâconnais tiles in the church of Notre-Dame of Cluny.

However, such measures were often insufficient. In the Renaissance, fraud took on many guises and could be difficult to identify. There are well-documented instances that involved the falsification of papers, replicating coins with base metals, or imitating the producer’s mark in order to sell at a higher price.1 Fraudsters in such cases were playing for particularly high stakes. The punishment for such crimes was generally death.2

More often than not, however, fraudulent practices were of a less spectacular nature. Everyday commerce in the sixteenth century was littered with cases of sellers offering wares that were either inferior in quality or intentionally misrepresented.3 Unscrupulous merchants sought to maximise their profits with, then as today, buyers always on the lookout for good deals. This gave swindlers a chance to con naïve customers with attractive, but flawed, products.

The anthropomorphised figure of Fraud holding fishing rods that entice men to make mistakes, as the fool beneath her hands over his wealth. Detail of an engraving by Dirck Volckertsz. Coornhert after a design by Willem Thibaut (Antwerp: Hieronymus Cock, second half of 16th c.) Rijksmuseum, RP-P-BI-6555X.

This was true when goods were sold retail, but it was also the case when they were sold wholesale. In a commercial system that depended heavily on intermediaries to ship goods across countries and continents, there was a whole string of people trying to benefit from the sale of the same merchandise as it moved from its place of production to its point of retail.4 An instance of wholesale fraud detected in Rouen in the second half of the sixteenth century shows us how these were detected, confirmed and reported.

In the late Autumn of 1571, a local merchant, Jean Lequesne, became convinced that he had been sold some poor-quality goods. Lequesne was described as an ‘espicier’, literally a spice-seller, though in practice they often had a wider brief – Cotgrave in his 1611 dictionary also translates the term as ‘grocer’ or ‘drug-seller’.5 Certainly, it was a well-respected trade. He had, he thought, been sold a bad consignment of what was characterised as ‘ostrich wool’.

Engraving of an ostrich and putti by the anonymous ‘Master of the Die’, after Raphael, (Rome: Antoine Lafréry, mid 16th century), British Museum, V,5.164.

Ostriches were well-known in Renaissance Europe. Their natural habitat in Africa was described by travellers and, more importantly for most people, their eggs and feathers were collected as precious items by the richest members of society and had been for centuries.6  In the mid-fourteenth century, no lesser figure than Edward Plantagenet, the Black prince, had chosen ‘sable, three ostrich feathers with scrolls argent’ as a heraldic device for his ‘shield for peace’ which was included on his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral. The feathers followed trans-Saharan camel routes through Africa before being shipped over to Europe, becoming increasingly plentiful in the sixteenth century.7

Contemporaries were well-aware, therefore, that ostriches were unable to furnish what would rightly be considered wool. In reality, it was meant to be ostrich down taken from the neck, belly, and under the wings of the bird, if the article of the Encyclopédie is to be believed. It would have been a subsidiary product of lesser value than the eggs and feathers that were destined for a more luxury use – even if increasing supply made them available at lower prices during the early modern period.  

Hat with ostrich feathers, detail of an engraving by Lucas van Leyden, ca 1520, Rijksmuseum, RP-P-OB-1773

That Lequesne was involved in the commerce of ostrich wool is interesting: it suggests that the intermediary merchants could have been the same as those who imported the spices that where his stock-in-trade. That he thought that he might have been duped into acquiring low quality goods suggests that he dealt in them enough to detect problems. He confronted his provider, another Rouen merchant named Pierre Jouenne. As their disagreement continued after some initial exchanges, Jouenne called on some colleagues to settle the debate: two hatmakers were asked to check independently the quality of the wool.

Their involvement in this case was related to one of the main uses of such material. To make the felt of hats, hatmakers around Rouen were known to use ostrich wool right into the eighteenth century, though they seem to have often substituted goat or camel hair, or employed weaving techniques to imitate ostrich.8 This variety has led to some scholarly debate, with some authors suggesting that ostrich wool was in fact never worked into the fabric of hats.9 But our document does suggest they were using it: they were called in as expert witnesses over and above merchants of other trades. Local knowledge in hat-making was particular strong, as is suggested by the proximity of town of Caudebec-en-Caux, a few miles west down the Seine, which was so famous for its output that felt hats became known as ‘Caudebecs’.

Stain-glass window representing a procession in Caudebec, ca 1520, attributed to Arnold van Nijmegen, Church of Notre-Dame de Caudebec-en-Caux.

In any case, the hatters went to Lequesne’s home where they were led into a ground floor room where he kept a half-bale of ostrich wool that he had acquired from Jouenne. After checking the quality of its contents, the concluded that it did not meet expected standards, described as neither ‘loyal nor merchant’ to use contemporary wording. They explained that a number of the strands were foul and rotten and no longer usable. They further identified the presence of what they termed ‘moyelle’, probably a form of the word ‘moelle’, that referred to pith found in the core of some plants with hollow stalks. This had been mixed into the duvet, filling out the ostrich wool with cheap produce to con the unwary buyer.

Once this verdict pronounced, they were then led to another house, this time on the street of Beautiful Women (‘rue des belles femmes’) in an adjacent parish, to inspect a similar half-bale from the same consignment sold by Jouenne. There, they reached the same conclusions: the goods were in poor condition and strands of cheap wool had been interspersed to increase both weight and volume. In other words, in both cases, the merchant had been swindled and had unknowingly bought sullied products.

‘La rue au [sic] belles femmes’ in Jacques Le Lieur’s Le cours de la Fontaine de Yonville, (1526), digitised for Rotomagus.

One of the goals of the inspection of these bales was to pacify the situation and, having declared their findings, they sought a solution to compensate the injured party. They estimated that the financial prejudice represented the considerable sum of 25 livres tournois for the first half bale – at a rate of 5 livres per hundred local pounds-mass (the equivalent of around 51,65 kg), whilst for the second half bale, that was in an even poorer state, this compensation rose to 6 livres per hundred pounds-mass. In other words, the process resulted in a substantial refund, a settlement that satisfied Lequesne.

Jouenne, on the other hand, found himself seriously out of pocket. Such a large repayment must have wiped out any profit he might have made from selling on the half-bales. It was Jouenne and not Lequesne who requested that the notaries register officially the result of the inspection. This allowed him in turn to pursue the wholesaler who had provided the goods in the first place. The name of the culprit? He is identified as ‘Adrien Bourmense’, a merchant from the Low Countries. This is undoubtedly a Gallicised form of the Dutch name Adriaan Bormans, a name which appears to be connected to Amsterdam.10

Signatures of Jouenne, the wholesale merchant, as well as Le Maistre and de Planes, the hatters.

Such international connections were far beyond the jurisdiction of Normandy’s courts, highlighting a heavy reliance on trust in the development of trade networks. While Jouenne may have sought (and perhaps even secured) compensation from Bormans, the case illustrates that, in the Renaissance, importing high-value goods like ostrich wool involved taking considerable risks.

The original document, dated 12 November 1571, is to be found in the Archives Départementales de la Seine-Maritime in Rouen under pressmark 2E1/893. Here is a transcription of the document:

« Nous Guillaume de Plasnes et Mathieu Le Maistre, aucuns maistres du mestier de chapellier en ceste ville de Rouen, certiffions à tous qu’il apartiendra que ce jourdhuy lundy xii me jour de novembre mil v c soixante et unze à la requeste et presence de sire Pierres Jouenne, marchant demeurant audit Rouen, nous sommes transportez en la maison de Jehan Lequesne, marchant espicier demeurant en ceste dite ville pour veoir et visiter certaine balle de layne d’autruche quy estoit discordable entre eulx pour raison que ledit Lequesne disoyt n’est loyalle ne marchande.

Et estans en une salle basse de ladite maison nous a esté monstrée une demye balle de layne d’autruche que ledit Jouenne avoit vendue audit Lequesne et dont ledit Le Quesne et Jouenne sont demeurez d’accord et ayant quelle layne veu et visité avons trouvé qu’elle n’estoit conforme l’une à l’aultre et y en avoit de viciage et pourrye et en grand nombre de locquestz quy seroient laynes qui avoient esté ramassez ensemble

Et par semblable y avoit de la moyelle meslée parmy ladite layne, en quoy y auroit grand interest et neanmoins pour metre d’accord lesdites parties avons lymitté et moderé ledit interest de ladite layne à la somme de vingt cinq livres tournois quy seront cent solz ou envyron pour chacun cent d’autant que ladite balle peult poyser cinq cens ou envyron.

Et oultre ledit Jouenne nous a faict transporter en une salle assize en la rue des Belles femmes parroisse Saint Andrieu auquel dict avoir veu une aultre demye balle de layne d’autruche que ledit Jouenne disoyt luy avoir esté envoyé de part un nommé Adrien Bourmense, marchant flamen, laquelle avons trouvé fort vicieuse et qu’il y avoit de la layne qui n’est bonne ne loyalle ains meslée en partye de pourye et aultre partye en locquestz et fort grosse layne et à noz advis et consciences qu’il y a dommaige et intherest de six livres et plus pour chacun cent poysant de ladite layne pour le present.

Et tout ce que dessus certiffions estre vray dont ledit Jouenne nous a requis la presente que avons signée de noz saings cy mis l’an et jour dessusdits. »


  1. See, for instance, the exhibition ‘Faux et faussaires du Moyen âge à nos jours’, currently at the Archives Nationales in Paris and the accompanying catalogue. []
  2. See, in particular, the different cases discussed in Olivier Poncet (ed.), Juger le faux : Moyen âge, Temps modernes (Paris, École nationale des chartes, 2011). []
  3. See the essays in Philip Lavender and Matilda Amundsen Bergström (eds), Faking It! The Performance of Forgery in Late Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Leiden: Brill, 2023). []
  4. This system is described for the sale of books in Malcolm Walsby, Le commerce du livre imprimé dans la France de la Renaissance (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2025) pp. 99-138. []
  5. Randle Cotgrave, A Dictionarie of the French and English tongues (London: Adam Islip, 1611) STC 5830, Lliijr. []
  6. For a short history of ostrich feathers in Europe, see Una Roman D’Elia, Raphael’s Ostrich (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015), pp. 13-33. []
  7. See Ulinka Rublack, ‘Befeathering the European: The Matter of Feathers in the Material Renaissance’, The American Historical Review, CXXVI (2021), pp. 19-53, especially pp. 24-26 & 42-43. []
  8. Rublack, op. cit., p. 34. []
  9. In Jean-Antoine Nollet, L’art de faire les chapeaux (Paris: s.n., 1765), the author suggests that was goat (p. 5), though the early work by Jacques Savary des Bruslons, Dictionnaire universel du commerce (Paris: Jacques Estienne, 1723), asserts it was ostrich (vol. 1, col. 203) – something repeated in the Encyclopédie. Georges Dubosc in a short article ‘Les ‘Caudebecs’ de Caudebec’, Journal de Rouen (3 juillet 1922) pp. 1-5 said that he identified camel hairs (see Zanola, Maria Teresa ‘Le feutre, du Caudebec au Borsalino: hommage au Chapeau’, in Marco Modenesi, Maria Benedetta Collini, and Francesca Paraboschi (eds), « La grâce de montrer son âme dans le vêtement » Scrivere di tessuti, abiti, accessori. Studi in onore di Liana Nissim (Milano: Ledizioni: 2015), pp. 433-447. []
  10. See, for instance, the marriage of an Adriaan Bormans on 25 October 1608 recorded in the Amsterdam City Archives. []
Categories
Insults Lawsuit Thiers

Insults and reconciliation in 16th-century Auvergne

Thiers in the sixteenth century was a small but bustling commercial town in the large mountainous region known as the Massif Central. Michel de Montaigne, who briefly visited the city on his way back from Italy in 1581, described it as ‘a very mercantile town, well built and populated’, noting that ‘they mainly trade in paper and are renowned for their knives and playing cards’.1 The inhabitants enjoyed a certain prosperity and Thiers’s paper and knives were sold throughout France and beyond.2

‘La Ville et Chasteau de Tihert’: a view of Thiers in 1460 from a copy drawn by Louis Boudan in the 17th century, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Estampes et photographie, EST VA-63 (7). Digitised by Gallica.

Of course, such success in no way prevented wrangling or disputes, but whatever the disagreement, things had to be done in a seemly fashion. Insults were generally seen as a possible prelude to violence, and in some cases led to homicides.3 As such, they were taken seriously and could easily lead to legal proceedings. This was particularly true at a time when a person’s good name was important both in terms of local social standing, but also in trade – it was common for potential commercial partners to check on an individual’s reputation before a transaction.

In 1576, a case came to light in Thiers that showed just how quickly an insult could result in a lawsuit. It opposed two women, Catherine de Chazaulx – carefully described as an ‘honneste femme’ – and Anna Rivyere. Both were married and seemingly well-established members of local society, but an exchange between Anna Rivyere and Catherine de Chazaulx’s husband, Jehan de Peregrosse, degenerated into name calling. Anna did not hold back and was said to have told him that he was ‘a cuckold horn-wearer, for your wife is a whore’.

The insults as reported in the settlement of 1576, Archives départementales du Puy-de-Dôme, 5 E 6 / 514.

Such words evidently could not be left unchallenged, though it is interesting that the case was not brought forward by the husband – who was directly insulted too – but by his wife, who was not actually present when the exchange took place. We do not know what sparked the outburst, but in her deposition, Rivyere, who denied having uttered those words, did say that whatever invectives she might have used were not entirely unprovoked. They would have been responses to similar phrases that Peregrosse had flung her way. In other words, they had both engaged in some verbal mudslinging – but with the word ‘whore’, Rivyere had gone too far.

She had also made the mistake of insulting the virtue of another woman, which seems to be particularly problematic: fewer cases involving men would appear to have reached the courts in the early modern period.4 In any case, once the altercation over, she clearly regretted the whole episode – especially when she was summoned by the local courts to explain herself… with Chazaulx demanding that her honour be restored, with the usual references to expenses, damages, and interest.

An altercation between a man and a woman in the 16th century: Discordia, a print engraved by Crispijn van de Passe in Cologne from a design by Maerten de Vos, 1589, Rijksmuseum, KOG-ZG-1-19-22.

Despite the way the affair escalated quickly to become a legal matter, it had a peaceful resolution. The document that relates the case is, in fact, an agreement between the different parties. Rivyere denied the allegations and declared that Chazauld was a ‘woman of virtue and honour’, and promised to reiterate this assertion officially. She also undertook to pay her expenses and whatever was required to close the case. In return, Chazauld agreed to drop all charges.

The exchange ended in symbolic fashion. As a sign of renewed friendship, they accepted to give each other their hand. The case was closed, undoubtedly much to the relief of all those concerned. The document is suggestive of how much tension these altercations caused. The pressures that led to the desescalation are hinted at in the agreement that explains that the resolution sought to nurture goodwill and friendship between parties. They were, it discloses, close neighbours, and some of their relatives and friends were present when the text was drawn up and had probably played an important role in avoiding a full-blown lawsuit. In a time of religious strife and uncertainty, there was little to be gained by creating further discord and conflict.5

Of the folly of unnecessary litigation that requires bags of ‘Shamelessness’, ‘Patience’ and ‘Money’… an allegory from a series of engravings by Hendrick Goltzius, published by Maarten Spiegel in 1597, Rijksmuseum, RP-P-1886-A-10438.

The original document, dated 2 June 1576, is to be found in the Archives Départementales du Puy-de-Dôme in Clermont-Ferrand under pressmark 5 E 6 / 514. Here is a transcription of the document:

« Comme proces fut meu et pandant par devant monsieur le chastellain de Thiers ou son lieutenant entre honneste femme Catherine de Chazaulx, femme à Jehan de Peregrosse, demanderece en action, injures et reparation d’honneur contre Anna Rivyere, femme à Abraham de Fontenilhes, deffenderece.

Auquel proces ladite demanderece auroit dict ou pretandue dire que ladite deffanderece, en l’absance de ladite demanderece, en parlant audit de Peregrosse l’auroit injuriée de telles injures ou semblables: « Tu es un cocu, cornard, car ta femme est une putain ».

Et sur ce auroit conclud à reparacion et à amandes honnorables et profitables, comme tout ce est pourté et resulté par ledit proces. Et de la part de ladite deffanderece par deffance auroit desnys ladite demande mesmes d’avoyr dict lesdites injures et, synon aulcunes injures elle auroit dictes, synon ce auroit esté en se renaughant d’aultres injures que ledit de Peregrosse dysoit à ladite deffenderece, et non pour panser les injures, icelle dite demanderece offrant soubz lesdites desnegations dire et declairer en jugement tenyr ladite demanderece estre femme de bien et d’honneur et d’aultre quallité qui n’est proposé par ledite demande de ladite demanderece.

Et tant procedde que lesdites parties estoient en voye d’entrer en grant invollution de proces. Pour obvyer auquel, et aux docteux jugementz qui s’en pourroit ensuivre, nourrir pays et amytié entre les parties qui sont proches voysins, moyennant aulcuns leurs parentz et amys sur ce assamblés, d’une part et d’aultre, lesdites partyes ont accordé et transigé de leursdits proces et s’en sont faict les quictances qui s’ensuivent :

Assavoir que lesdites de Chavault, demanderece, et ladite Anna Rivyere, deffenderece, comparantz en leurs personnes chacune d’elles en son dudit de leur bon gré, etc, moyennant ce que ladite Rivyere deffenderece a declairé à ladite de Chazaulx, ad ce presente en la presence des notaires et tesmoingtz cy apres nommés, qu’elle soubz sesdites desnegations tenoit ladite de Chazaulx pour femme de bien et d’honneur et non de la quallité supposé par sadite demanderece, et promis fayre semblable declaration judiciellement à icelle dite demanderece jeudi prochain, heure de la tenue des causes, et de ladite declaration en bailher acte à ladite demanderece à ses despens et se mettre de payer le droict de clavis.

Moyennant ce, ladite de Chazaulx a quicté ladite Rivyere desdites injures a elle dictes par ladite Rivyere, soit en son absence ou presance, et de tous despens, dommaiges, et interestz que pour raison desdites injures et proces elle pourroit pretandre contre ladite Rivyere.

Et en signe d’amytyé se sont données et bailhés la main, l’une à l’aultre, et consanctent estre mises hors de court et de proces en la manyere de soubz les convencions pourtés cy dessus sans aultres despens, dommaiges et interestz car ainsi etc promis etc…

Faict à Thiers, presens maistre Francois de Saignes et Hugues Cartallyer, lesquelles partyes ont declairé ne scavoyr signer, et lesdits tesmoigngtz ont signé suivant l’ordonnance royal, le segond jour de juing mil v c soixante seze. »


  1. “fort marchande, bien bâtie et peuplée. Ils font principalemant trafiq de papier, et sont renomés d’ouvrages de couteaus et cartes à jouer”, Michel de Montaigne, Journal de voyage, edited by Louis Lautrey (Paris: Hachette, 1906), p. 497. []
  2. François de Belleforest in his Cosmographie universelle de tout le monde (Paris: Nicolas Chesneau, 1575) simply comments that Thiers was a ‘ville riche’ – col. 236. []
  3. Insults were the most significant cause that can be linked to homicide in the late Middle Ages: See Claude Gauvard, « De grace especial ». Crime, État et société en France à la fin du Moyen Âge (Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, 1991), p. 715. []
  4. Certainly, cases between women have attracted more studies, see Christophe Regina, ‘L’injure-culture. L’art de médire et « d’instruire » autrui à Marseille au XVIIIe siècle’, in Jacques Guilhaumou, Karine Lambert and Anne Montenach (eds), Genre Révolution Transgression: études offertes à Martine Lapied (Aix-en-Provence: Presses universitaires de Provence, 2015), p. 227-238 § 7. []
  5. For some similar issues in the seventeenth-century France, see the analysis by Jean-Marc Moriceau in his Nicolas Delacour. Le pouvoir au village au coeur du XVIIe siècle (Paris: Tallandier, 2025), in particular ‘violence et accommodement au village’ and ‘l’honneur avant tout’ in chapter 23. []
Categories
Verdun Witchcraft

An accusation of witchcraft in late 16th-century France

Cases of witchcraft have not only generated a lot of general interest but have also been the subject of much debate between historians. Numerous books and articles deal with questions such as: why the early modern period saw a marked increase in the number of accusations? Why were they mainly concentrated in certains parts of Europe? Or, indeed: Who was involved in the trials?1

Despite all this interest, it is still possible to find relatively unknown cases in the archives. For instance, the accusations concocted at the end of the sixteenth century in the small parish of Moirey, a village situated a few kilometers to the north of Verdun in eastern France, seems to have hitherto escaped analysis. This is perhaps because we have very little information on the case: the documentation seems to be limited to two short testimonies, both dutifully copied out by local officials in 1596.2

The village of Moirey and nearby Flabas just to the north of Verdun – as shown in the Cassini map of 1760, Bibliothèque nationale de France, GE FF-18595, map n° 110, digitised by Gallica.

The main testimony is that of a young woman called Jeannette Anthoine. At the time of the accusations, she was 19 years old and the daughter of a local farmer. Via her mother, she was also the niece of the village priest, Michel Joly, a man of some social standing since he is referred to with the title ‘messire’, normally reserved for members of the nobility.3 The case against the ‘witch’ hinges principally on her description of events. But from the very start of her witness account we see how unequal they were in local society. The accused was far more vulnerable and exposed to allegations of wrong-doing than the accuser.

Whereas Jeannette Anthoine was well-established in Moirey, the ‘witch’ was a recent arrival. Also called Jeannette, she had moved to the village only a year earlier from nearby Flabas. The manner in which she was described emphasises her social precarity. She is the only person in the text who is not given a surname, but instead she is known by the sobriquet ‘la pintante’. This was probably a reference to drunkedness, like ‘pintard’ (a drinker of too many pints), and can be found in contemporary texts.4 Certainly, she had a very poor reputation. The accuser stated that it was common knowledge that she was a ‘ginosse et sorciere’, which could be translated as a hag and a witch.

Witches on the sabbath. Detail of an engraving by Jacques II de Gheyn, ca 1608 – 1612, Rijksmuseum RP-P-1882-A-6180

The events related by Jeannette Anthoine are to be seen in this light. She recounted how she was in her garden when she heard a loud noise coming from her uncle’s house nearby. She immediately went to investigate and found that it came from a bedroom that could only be accessed via a staircase. The door of the room was locked and the accuser stated that she had to call out three times before being answered. The accused stated that she was locked in – though without explaining how this had happened, if she had used the steps and entered via the door, as she alledged.

Unable to exit normally, she had to be helped. The testimony then makes reference to the fact that she had stripped and what she had stripped from had been left in the middle of the kitchen. What is meant is unclear: the sentence is ambiguous and could mean that Jeannette ‘la pintante’ had stripped or was stripped… in any case, she refused to answer any questions as to why she was alone in the house. Instead, she made Jeannette Anthoine promise to keep the whole event secret.

Detail from Hans Baldung Grien’s engraving ‘The Witches’ Sabbath’, 1510, British Museum 1895,0122.230.

None of this was particularly witch-like or required any magic. However, this changed after Jeannette Anthoine went back on her promise and told her mother, Catherine, what had happened. She then informed her brother and Jeannette ‘la pintante’ was confronted. A row ensued after which Jeannette Anthoine suddenly fell ill. Her arms and legs hurt and, despite there being no trace of what was making her so poorly, she was bed-ridden for a month. Along with her mother, she became convinced that she was the victim of witchcraft. So Catherine confronted la pintante, threatening her with a beating by one of her sons if she did not relent. Miraculously, her daughter got better a couple of days later – further proof in their eyes that there had been foul play.

The second testimony is even less convincing. This time a 25-years-old local farmer, Justin Poinselet, was asked for proof. He confirmed la pintante‘s bad reputation, stating that many believed that she was hiding from something and that she was on-the-run having escaped prison elsewhere. However, he had precious little evidence. He told the story of an ox that suddenly fell ill and died. He admitted that he had no reasons for incurring the wrath of the alledged witch, and that, despite what people said, he had no idea if she had used witchcraft against his cattle.

The start of the depositions, as preserved in the archives in Bar-le-Duc.

The whole episode is very revealing. The case seems to have stopped there: the second testimony was clearly unhelpful and no further information seems to have been sought. What stands out is the vulnerability of the accused. She clearly did not fit in, and might well have been looking to steal from Joly’s house. Her status as an outsider is underlined by a revealing detail. Twice the scribe was forced to cross out the name of la pintante, mistakenly identified as ‘Margueritte’. It shows just how little they knew about her. The third and final time, the error was not corrected. Such carelessness was symbolic of her isolation, and hopefully was not a portend of the fate that befell her.


The original document, dated 19 and 20 December 1596, is to be found in the Archives Départementales de la Meuse in Bar-le-Duc under pressmark 11 F 62. Here is a transcription of the document:

« Du dixneufiesme jour de Decembre 1596, par devant nous Didier Lavignon, prevost de Merles,

Jeannette, fille de Thomas Antoine, laboureur demeurant à Moirey, agée de dixneuf ans ou environ jurée et examinée,

A dict et deposé qu’elle cognoist Jeannette femme de Jacques Harty pour estre venue … de Flabas à Moirey des y a environ demy depuis lequel temps elle a tousjours ouy dire à ung chacun dudit lieu et est le bruyt commun tel que ladite Jeannette communement appellée la Pintante est ginosse et sorciere, et que peu auparavant la Saint Remy derniere passée elle estant au jardin elle ayant entendu ung grand bruyct en la maison de Messire Michel Joly, vicaire audit Moirey, son oncle, elle s’y en alla et trouva ladicte Jeannette enfermée en une chambre haulte de ladite maison contre la porte de laquelle la deposante appella par trois fois avant que ladite Margueritte Jeannette voulut respondre et en fin elle parla à ladite deposante et dist qu’elle estoit enfermée dedans la chambre, la porte de laquelle elle ne pouvoit ouvrir et disoit avoir entré parmy les degrez et l’en vint sortir pourquoy faire elle s’estoit depouyllée et estoit la despouylle d’icelle emmy la cuysine de la maison et estant interrogée ce quelle alloit chercher ainsy seulle en ladite maison, elle ne luy voulut dire et sortirent ensemble, priant la deposante tenir le faict secret.

Neantmoins elle le dist à Catherine Joly, sa mere, qui le feit declarer audit messire Michel Joly et a ceste occasion Fremine, servante, audit messire Michel se querellerent ensemble et ladite Jeannette. Advint que trois ou quatre jours apres la deposante fut saisie d’ung mal aux bras et jambes et fut detenue malade en la maison environ ung moys et ne voyct l’on rien en son mal et estoit chose incognue – occasion qu’elle et sa mere entrerent en opinion que ladite Jeannette l’avoit ensorcelée, en despit de ce qu’elle l’avoit accusée d’avoir esté en la maison dudit Messire Michel Joly contre ce qu’il luy avoit prié comme dict est. Advint que ladite Catherine, sa mere, ayant esté trouver ladite Jeannette et luy dict qu’elle avoit faicte malade, elle quy depose, et qu’il falloit qu’elle la guerist aultrement qu’elle la feroit battre par l’ung de ses filz ainsy que sadite mere luy a dict. Et deux jours apres elle revint à convalessance. Autre chose n’a dict.

Du xx e jour de decembre 1596, par devant nous, G. de Virlis, D. Lavignon, presant.

Justin Poinselet, laboureur demeurant à Moirey, agé de vingt cincq ans ou environ, juré et examiné,

A dict et deposé avoir cognoissance de Margueritte Jeannette dicte la Pintante, prisonniere, depuis ung an qu’elle alla en demeurance audit Moirey, durant laquelle elle se cachoit et n’ausoit se monstrer parce qu’on luy imposoit qu’elle estoit sorciere et qu’elle estoit evadée des prisons parce aussy que ceulx de Flabas la menassoient de prendre et qu’environ la Saint Jean, il eut un beuf mort ayant esté malade sept ou huict jours. Ne scet s’il a esté encorcelé, mais aulcuns disoient en le voyant qu’il estoit ensorcelé. N’a heu querelle avec ladite Margueritte, et ne scet sy elle l’a ensorcelée, qu’est ce qu’il a dict. »


  1. For an overview, see Brian P. Levack (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). []
  2. The figure present in both cases, Didier Lavignon, was also closely connected to the cathedral of Verdun were he received an emolument from 1592 until his death in 1623: Nicolas-Narcisse Robinet, Pouillé du Diocèse de Verdun, volume 1 (Verdun: Charles Laurent, 1888) p. 119. []
  3. He went on to become the main priest of the nearby parish of Samogneux and died in 1613, ibidem, p. 439. []
  4. See Guillaume du Vair, De l’eloquence françoise (Paris: Abel L’Angelier, 1595), USTC 54243, f. 178v: ‘la nuict vous habilliez ceux qui se mettoient de la confrayrie de Bachus, pintant et yvrongnant avec eux’. []
Categories
Food Germany Low Countries Rouen Shipping

The European market for cheese in the Renaissance

Normandy is famous for its cheese. Whether it be for renowned cheeses such as Neufchâtel, Livarot and Pont l’évêque, with their protected status, or the ubiquitous Camembert, the region is celebrated for the produce of its dairies. With some 400,000 tons a year, its output is the highest of any French region and it is today an important part of Normandy’s identity. Yet, like in much of France, its history is still in great part shrouded in numerous myths and legends.1

Cheese, bread and wine – detail of Homme au verre de vin, mid 15th century, Louvre Museum, RF 1585.

The production of cheese was already an important industry for the region in the Renaissance, but this did not mean that the merchants of sixteenth-century Rouen were not interested in the wholesale trade of different cheeses made elsewhere. The city’s well-established role as a provider of goods to Paris meant that produce from all over France transited through the city. In 1584, the archival registers record, for instance, that it was in Rouen that Claude Lenfant – intriguingly described as a fruitmonger – organised the purchase of cheese from Auvergne to sell in Paris. Auvergne offered something which Normandy could not: highly-prised blue cheeses.2

To source the cheese, Lenfant sent one of his employees, a certain François Calvarin, ‘to the cities of Monferrant and Clermont in the Auvergne region’ in order ‘to buy cheese from the said Auvergne region’ for a value that was capped at the impressive sum of 333 1/3 écus (the equivalent of 1000 livres tournois).3 Though this might seem ambitious, it was, in fact, only part of the story. Later documents show that merchants were ready to go far further afield to satisfy the contemporary craving for cheese.

Plan of the city of Clermont in Auvergne as depicted in François de Belleforest’s Cosmographie universelle (Paris: Nicolas Chesneau, 1575) USTC 1435, map inserted between col. 226 and 227, digitised by Gallica.

Two entries into the registers made in 1600 show that the trade in cheese was an international business. Both involve a Flemish merchant who signed his name Jacques Schack. A resident of Rouen, he maintained strong commercial ties to the Low Countries. In January 1600, he signed a contract which involved three other Flemish merchants temporarily based in city: Jérôme Laoust, on the one hand, and Jeroen Adriaensen and Derek Coey on the other (the names were very garbled in the original French – as is shown below in the transcriptions).

The contract set out that Adriaensen and Coey were to purvey no fewer than 36,000 cheeses. When they were delivered to him in Rouen, he undertook to send 6,000 of these to Laoust. Laoust had requested that the sale be registered in writing, presumably to satisfy retail cheesemongers. The exchange shows the importance of Flemish merchants in the movement of goods and the role of Schack as an intermediary – but also the impatience of the cheesemongers.

The signature of Jacques Schack taken from a document of 9 May 1600, Archives départementales de Seine-Maritime, 2E1/653.

The main reason for his involvement was that the cheese came from much further afield and required a good international network. A second document drawn up in May 1600 gives us more details about the transactions involved. This time, we learn that the 36,000 cheeses were not at all local: they came from Hamburg in Germany where they had been sourced by Adriaensen and Coey. The text specifies that the produce originated from a place written down as “Aidee” that was fifteen to sixteen leagues from Hamburg.

The German name of the place involved is hard to identify. The most probable is that the notary tried to transcribe “Heide” in French, a location situated to the north of Hamburg in Schleswig-Holstein. The area was already famed for its milk and cheese in the sixteenth century. Undoubtedly, the cheese was put into barrels and loaded onto one of the ships that regularly sailed between Hamburg and Rouen in this period.

A street cheese-seller in the first half of the seventeenth century. Engraving by Jacques Honervogt (Paris), ca 1640, BnF, Estampes, Rés. QB 201 (33) Fol., digitised by Gallica.

The cheese involved this time was probably neither the soft Norman cheeses nor the blue cheese from Auvergne, but the traditional north German hard cheese (Hartkäse). This type of cheese would have been easier to transport and had a long lifespan. Once they were offloaded, Schack was to send parts of the shipment to different merchants inland.

The second document tells us how six barrels of the cheese were to be put onto a cart in order to be transported to a merchant named Gerard Desorez in Valenciennes, over 200 kilometres away. Further consignments were to be sent to other sellers in Tournai and Amiens. The ship thus took the cheese further west than necessary, illustrating the importance of Rouen as a commercial hub.

Selling of cheeses on a market. Detail of Ecce homo, Master of the Brunswick Monogram, ca 1530, Rijksmuseum SK-A-1603

Taken together, the documents demonstrate that in the late sixteenth century there was already a vibrant European market for cheese. It shows that those who could afford it could enjoy a variety of cheeses and were not simply limited to regional produce. This was clearly much appreciated in France, as is also shown by other sources. It is telling that when the French-born Antwerp printer and bookseller Christophe Plantin sent consignments of books or letters to Paris, he often slipped in some local cheese…4

Fruit, bread, and cheese, Floris Claesz. van Dijck, ca 1615, Rijksmuseum SK-A-4821

The original documents, dated 5 January and 6 May 1600, are to be found in the registers of the notaries of Rouen at the Archives Départementales of the Seine-Maritime under pressmark 2E1/653. Here is a transcription of the main part of the agreement:

5 January: « Fut present le sieur Jacques Sacq marchand flament a present demeurant en ceste ville de Rouen lequel de son bon gré a dit et declaré, juré et affermé par les foy et serment de son corps que du nombre de trente six milles de fourmage que luy durroient d’estre venduz et livrez par Jhotheroen Adriensson et Dericq Coey, aussy marchand flamens, demeurant ce ceste dite ville de Rouen. Il en a vendue et livré au sieur Jherosme Laoust aussy marchandz flamens estant de present demeurant audit lieu de Rouen le nombre de six millers dudit fourmage dont et de laquelle declaration ledit Laoust ce present a requis lettre pour luy servir et valloir qu’il apartiendra

6 May: « Fut present le sieur Jacques Sacq marchand flamen demeurant en ceste ville de Rouen, lequel de son bon gré a dit et declaré que, le xiije d’avril dernier, il feist charger par charroy le nombre de six tonneaux de formage d’Aidee lesquelz il avoit consignez à Gerard Desorez demeurant à Vallenctiennes par ordre de Jacques Doré, demeurant en la ville d’Amiens pour en faire la vente au nom de luy Sacq et dudit Doré.

Estant lesdites six tonneaux de formage du nombre de trente six milles dudit formage d’Aidee qui luy auroit dit estre venduz par Jheron Andersson et Diricq Coy, marchandz à Hambourg, qui auroient esté iceulx formages achaptez audit lieu d’Aidee à quinze à saize lieux de la ville de Hambourg aiant faict pareil envoy dedits formages à Gregoire du Pont demeurant audit Vallentiennes et à Loys Ragez demeurant à Tournays et audit Dorez en la ville d’Amiens pour pour envoyer en tel lieu qu’il adviendra à reste juré et tesmoigné pour verité par Pierre de Labosquielle et Nicollas de Lasne, marchandz bourgeoys de Rouen. »


  1. See the article by Alban Gautier: ‘Charlemagne, le brie et le roquefort’, Kentron, (35) 2019, 167-182, available online []
  2. When the facetious author Étienne Tabourot wanted to mock a character who had been robbed by a servant from Auvergne, he described how he threw away the cheese from the region that could have reminded him of the theft: Étienne Tabourot, Les bigarrures du seigneur des Accords. Quatriesme livre (Paris: Jean Richer, 1585), USTC 89537, f. 105v-106r. []
  3. ‘soy transporter au pais d’Auvergne, villes de Monferrant et Clermont, et ausdits lieux ou l’un d’iceulx faire achapt de formages dudit pais d’Auvergne et de telles personnes que bon semblera audit Calvarin jusques à la somme de trois cens trente trois escus sol et ung tiers d’escu’. The two places named now form a single city, Clermont-Ferrand. Entry for 1 March 1584, Archives départementales de Seine-Maritime, 2E1/548. []
  4. See, for instance, the entry of 11 October 1576, which details that Christophe Plantin added ‘Ung formage pour Magdaleine Plantin’ (his daughter) to a barrel sent to Paris. Plantin-Moretus Museum, Antwerp, Journal for 1576, f. 162 []
Categories
Food Lyon Rouen

The first chestnuts of the season

Rouen was a transit point for goods from all over the world. As we have shown, the port played a vital role as a gateway to Paris for many agricultural products, such as lemons and oranges from Spain, barrels of wine from Bordeaux, or sugar and pepper from much further afield. But the city was an important outlet for the retail sale of goods in its own right. With a population of over 60,000 inhabitants at the end of the sixteenth century, it was a major European city bustling with activity.1

Undoubtedly, part of the shipments primarily meant for Paris or the rest of the kingdom of France were actually sold on in Rouen to local sellers, but it would be a mistake to think that goods only travelled in one direction, from Rouen onwards. The river Seine allowed merchants based in the capital to export produce wholesale to Norman retailers. A contract signed in 1599 allows us to glimpse the importance of this market, as well as some of the commercial practices of the time. The product in question is most seasonal: chestnuts.

Two contemporary representations of chestnuts: the first is a woodcut from Sebastian Münster’s, Cosmographia, probably a Basel edition, from circa 1544-1552 (British Museum, 1982,U.2539) and the second its a copper engraving by Crispijn de Passe after Jacques Le Moyne circa 1593-1603 (British Museum, 1952,0117.14.212).

Chestnuts were much prized in sixteenth-century France. In his very influential treatise on agronomy, L’agriculture et maison rustique, the medical doctor, erstwhile printer and botanist, Charles Estienne underlined their perceived qualities. He wrote that ‘An infinite number of people live on nothing else but this fruit, which is eaten boiled, sometimes roasted, sometimes as bread, or boiled with milk, or as cooked flour of another kind’.2

Though chestnut trees could grow throughout France, the species was particularly developped in the southern regions. For places such as Rouen, this meant importing from fairly distant forests. But, unlike for goods that came from the Atlantic regions, Normandy was not particularly well situated. As a result, goods were generally not ferried directly, but went via intermediaries – merchants based in other cities and, in particular in Paris.

The church and parish of St Eustache in Paris, from the Olivier Truchet and Gemain Hoyau map, circa 1550, Basel University Library, UBH Kartenslg AA 124.

The contract of 1599 shows how this was done. A fruit seller of Rouen, Pierre Sentier, undertook to buy two half barrels full of chestnuts from the Parisian merchant Hugues Tauves (he signed his name ‘Thoves’). Tauves was based in the parish of St Eustache, in the immediate vicinity of the quarter of the Halles, the main merchant market place. He was clearly playing the role of wholeseller, an intermediary between production and retail.

The chestnuts were described as coming from Lyon – though, of course, this meant they came from that region rather than the city itself. These were considered to be of the highest quality. Charles Estienne wrote: ‘The most beautiful chestnuts, the best grown, and the most pleasant of all, are those cultivated in the Lyon region, which are called marrons de Lyon‘.3 The cost was substantial: 54 gold écus – suggesting that the chestnuts were something of a luxury. Certainly, it seems unlikely that they would be sold by street sellers.

Chestnut seller in Rome, engraving by Francesco Villamena, printed in Italy circa 1576 – 1624, Rijksmuseum RP-P-OB-38.381.

The document gives us an indication of why the price was so high. The contract contained a clause with a hefty penalty. It indicates that the consignment must be delivered as soon as the merchant was able to source a sufficient quantity of chestnuts. Should other merchants propose chestnuts for sale in Rouen before the delivery of the two half barrels, 10 ecus would be deducted from the price.

In other words, part of the high cost of the barrels was due to the fact that Sentier wanted to be the first fruit-seller to offer them for sale in the city. Being able to inaugurate the chestnut season was clearly a commercial coup – worth investing extra money – and emphasises just how much chestnuts were appreciated in the sixteenth century.

Enjoying roast chestnuts, from a manuscript copy of Ibn Butlan, Tacuinum sanitatis, Germany, 15th century, BnF Latin 9333, digitised by Gallica.

The original document, dated 15 July 1599, is to be found in the registers of the notaries of Rouen at the Archives Départementales of the Seine-Maritime under pressmark 2E1/648. Here is a transcription of the main part of the agreement:

« Fut present Hugues Tauves, marchand demeurant en la ville de Paris, parroisse Sainct Eustace, lequel de son bon gré confesse avoir vendu par ces presentes à Pierre Sentier marchand fruictier demeurant en la parroisse Sainct Jehan de Rouen, present, ce acceptant, c’est assavoir deux demys tonneaux plains de marrons de Lyon, bons, loyaulx et marchandz, que ledit vendeur sera tenue et a promis rendre et livrer en ceste ville de Rouen et sur les quays dechargé à ses propres coustz et despens et des premiers qui viendront dudict lieu de Lyon en tonneau en cestedicte ville de Rouen.

Ceste vendue faicte moyennant la somme de cinquante quatre escus d’or sol pour lesdits deux demys tonneaux de marrons que icelluy Sentier sera tenu et a promis payer comptant en ceste dicte ville de Rouen à ses despens audict vendeur six sepmaines aprez la livraison faicte desdits deux demys tonneaux de marrons.

Et sy a esté accordé par ledit Tauves en cas qu’il arrivast d’aultres marchandises desdits marrons en ceste dicte ville de Rouen en tonneau ou demy tonneau premier, que ceulx cy dessus par luy vendue audict Sentier par quelques autres personnes que ce soit, en cedict cas, l’ung a promis deduite sur la prix dudict marché dix escus sol dont les dites partyes contractantes sont demeurez d’accord et contens par devant lesdits tabellions. »

  1. Jean-Pierre Bardet, Rouen aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, les mutations d’un espace social (Paris, SEDES, 1983), p. 34. []
  2. “Une infinité de peuple ne vit d’autre chose que de ce fruict, le mange ores bouilli, ores rosti, une autre fois en pain, tantost en bouillie avec le laict, tantost en farine cuitte en autre sorte”, Charles Estienne, L’agriculture et maison rustique (Lyon, pour Jacques du Puys, 1578) USTC 60412, f. 198r. []
  3. “La chastaigne plus belle, mieux nourrie, et plus plaisante de toutes, est celle qui croist au païs Lionnois que l’on appelle Marrons de Lyon”: Charles Estienne, op. cit., f. 198v. []
Categories
Adultery Montauban Protestantism

Bad behaviour in Protestant Montauban

Calvinist consistory records offer fascinating insights into Protestant Renaissance society. They were instituted to educate, guide and, when necessary, punish the members of a church. Formed by local elders and deacons, they were responsible for maintaining religious discipline.1 This led them to record and grapple with a wide variety of issues that ranged from the use of bad language to domestic violence or participating in Catholic rituals.2

Many of these registers have been analysed by historians and some have been published – not least the earliest records relating to the decisions of the consistory of Geneva during Calvin’s lifetime.3 However, despite their interesting content, many are still only accessible in manuscript form and require palaeographical skills to be fully appreciated. This is notably the case of one of the most significant French Protestant churches of south-western France: Montauban.

The city of Montauban during the siege of 1621. Engraving by the workshop of Frans Hogenberg and printed in Cologne. Copy digitised by the Rijksmuseum, RP-P-OB-78.785-379.

Situated on the Tarn river, Montauban gradually rose in prominence during the Middle Ages, becoming an important economic centre and an episcopal see in the fourteenth century. However, with the rise of religious discord in the the 1530s and 1540s, the city became one of the early centres of the French Reformation in the South West.4 With the start of the Wars of Religion, the Calvinist church tightened its grip on the city and sought to regulate the lives of its 12,000 inhabitants through the creation of a consistory.

The earliest registers of the consistory seem to have been lost, but their deliberations for the final years of the sixteenth century survive and have been preserved in the local archives. They depict many mundane aspects of city life, with the inevitable group of blasphemers, drunkards, and less-than-committed Calvinists – all of whom are suitably reprimanded. Meeting a least once a week, the consistory took its role seriously, as befitted a city which was also known for publishing serious works of religious controversy.5

An example of late 16th-century Protestant controversy: Michel Bérauld, Brieve et claire defense de la vocation des ministres de l’Evangile contre la replique de Messire Jacques Davy, Evesque d’Evreux (Montauban, Denis Haultin, 1598), USTC 16802, copy digitised by Gallica.

Among the many cases described in the register, one stands out. It seems to have all the makings of the sort of truculent tale that the more facetious sixteenth-century French authors enjoyed retelling in their books. It involved an inhabitant of the city called Jean del Peyrou, – someone of whom we know little, but who seems to have been a somewhat disreputable figure – and his wife, Anne de Feutrie.

The case was first mentionned on 9 December 1598, when the consistory noted that Jean had accused his wife of committing adultery. He initially did so without attending in person: he owed so much money that it was said that he dared not leave his house for fear of being confronted by his creditors. So the elders decided to send two from their midst to determine the truth of the matter – and in the meantime, as a precaution, not to give Anne the ‘méreau’, the token that would have allowed her to go to church.6

The communion token of the Reformed Church of Montauban, preserved in the Musée du Désert.

The following week, they returned and told a fuller tale. Jean del Peyrou had left the city on 2 August, presumably to avoid his creditors and had not returned to Montauban. But when he visited his mother-in-law at her farm, she informed him that his wife was pregnant. Stunned, he responded that the child could not be the result of his own work and so he resolved to go home. There he found that his wife was indeed with child and had taken in a lodger, a student named Le Saige.

Jean put two and two together and presumed that (despite his name that can be translated as “The Well-Behaved”) Le Saige was to blame. So to test out his theory – and the conduct and actions of his wife – he decided to hide in the house, behind one of the beds. There, he saw the student and his wife lunch together and, being alone, they kissed. But this was not proof enough for the unhappy husband who remained in his hiding place until the evening.

Hiding behind the bed to catch out your wife – though in this case it is the philanderer who is the fool… Detail of an engraving by Heinrich Wirrich, late sixteenth century, copy digitised by the British Museum, 1868,0612.1556.

Le Saige went to his college to follow the afternoon’s lectures, but in the evening he dined once more with Anne. This time, they twice sent away the servant girl to fetch more oysters and, in her absence, after having ‘thrown out some water’, things heated up. The student dropped his trousers and Anne rested against the bed, lifting up the front of her dress. Le Saige pressed up against her.

Things had gone far enough. The husband emerged from his hiding place behind the bed, seizing their heads. Brandishing a piece of wood, he yelled at the student: “Are these the commandments that you normally read from the pulpit? You are depraved!” – or at least that is what he admitted to saying when he was questionned. He also asserted that he did them no other harm. The commotion brought two neighbours to the house and Le Saige fled the scene…

Wearing the horns of a cuckold, engraving by Crispijn van de Passe following Jacques Bellange, ca 1600, digitised by the Rijksmuseum, RP-P-1986-62.

The response of the consistory to this tale of adultery suggests that such events were not that uncommon. They carefully checked the deposition of Del Peyrou’s mother-in-law, confirmed that Le Saige had left clandestinely and simply concluded that in such circumstances Anne de Feutrie would not be allowed to take part in holy communion until further notice… A mild end to such a dramatic story.

The account is preserved in the register of acts and deliberations of the consistory of Montauban for the years 1595-1598 in the departemental archives of Tarn-et-Garonne at pressmark I 1. Here is a full transcription of the entry:

« Messieurs Peyreille et Barrau rendant raison de la charge à eulx donnée de parler avec Jean del Peyrou touchant l’adultere dont y a subcon avoir esté comis par Anne de Feutrie, sa famme, avec Le Saige, escolier.

Ont dict ledit Peyrou leur avoir dict et affirmé qu’il s’en alla de ceste ville le second d’aoust dernier et estant revenu despuis peu de jours en sa, treuva sa belle mere à la metherie de la Cardayre, laquelle luy dict que sa famme estoict enseinte.

De quoy estant estonné, il respondict que ce n’estoict pas de ses œuvres et estant entré en ceste ville et ayant veu sadite famme ensaincte et que Le Saige, escolier, estoict logé en la maison de sa mere, voleust eprover les deportementz et actions tant de sadite femme que dudit Le Saige et se cacha au derriere d’ung lict de ladite maison.

Ou estans, veid que sadite famme et ledit Le Saige dejeunerent eux seulz ensemble et pendant leur dejeuner, veid que ledit Le Saige la baisa et apres ce, ledit Le Saige s’en seroict sorty de la maison disant qu’il alloict au college et renvinct seur l’heure de digner et tant luy que sadite famme dignerent ensemble pendant lequel digner envoyerent querir des huistres par deux fois par une fille qui estoict dans ladite maison.

À l’absence de laquelle apres avoir disné, sadite famme alla jetter de l’eau et apres ledit Le Saige avalla ses chausses et sa famme se mit contre le lict et ayant levé le devant de sa robbe l’ung estant contre l’autre. Il sortit du dernier dudit lict et les princt tous deux par la teste et dict audict Saige tenant lors ledit Peyrou ung tracquet en main « sont se les commandementz de Dieu que tu lis ordinairement en chaire ? Tu es un paillard ! » Et ne luy fict poinct autre mal.

S’en estant sa famme sortie de la maison en laquelle survint la famme de Boigion et sa fille apres l’arrivée desquelles, ledict Saige s’en alla. Arresté attendu le dire dudit Del Peyrou et les conjectures qu’on en peult receuillir, joinct la deposition de la mere dudit Del Peyrou et l’absence clandestine dudit Le Saige, que ladite Anne de Feutrie, famme dudit Del Peyrou, ne sera poinct receue à la participation de la saincte Cene du seigneur. »

  1. On their creation and development see Glenn S. Sunshine, Reforming French Protestantism. The Development of Huguenot Ecclesiastical Institutions, 1557-1572 (Kirksville: Truman State University Press, 2003), p. 120-142. []
  2. See in particular the work of Raymond A. Mentzer, notably his Sin and the Calvinists. Morals Control and the Consistory in the Reformed Tradition (Kirksville: Sixteenth century journal, 1994) and his inventory of surviving records: Les registres des consistoires des Eglises réformées de France, XVIe-XVIIe siècles : un inventaire (Geneva: Droz, 2014). []
  3. Robert M. Kingdon, Thomas A. Lambert, and Isabella M. Watt (eds), Registers of the Consistory of Geneva in the Time of Calvin. Volume 1: 1542-1544 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000). []
  4. See Philip Conner, Huguenot Heartland. Montauban and Southern French Calvinism during the Wars of Religion (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002). []
  5. The city’s desire to develop its Protestant publishing activity was not always successful, see the case of Louis Rabier: Malcolm Walsby, ‘Printer Mobility in Sixteenth-Century France’ in Benito Rial Costas (ed.) Print Culture and Provincial Cities in Early Modern Europe : A Contribution to the History of Printing and the Book Trade in Small European and Spanish Cities (Leiden: Brill, 2012) 249-268, at p. 257-260. []
  6. On the Protestant méreau see Henri Gelin, Le méreau dans les églises réformées de Francen et plus particulièrement dans celles du Poitou (Saint-Maixent: C. Reversé, 1891), which reproduces the Montauban token. []
Categories
Books Chaumont Education Langres Letter Paris

Rebuking a lazy student in Renaissance Paris

Sixteenth-century private letters rarely survive. They were read, sometimes shared, and often discarded. This is particularly true for letters written by ordinary people. Contemporaries might have thought it interesting to keep missives sent by well-known correspondants such as Erasmus, but everyday letters by relatives or friends have generally not survived. If this is true of the final version of the texts that were sent, it is even more the case of drafts that were, by their very nature, meant to be ephemeral.

When such documents have survived, it is often in unexpected places. This is the case for one such draft, preserved at the end of a printed book. The text looks to have been directly written on the final flyleaf of a volume containing two works printed in Paris in 1543. The draft owes its survival to the miserely nature of its author: Renaissance paper, made from rags, was an expensive commodity in the sixteenth century. In printed editions, the cost of the paper outweighed all of the other necessary investments, including the salaries of those who were employed in the workshop.

Draft letter on the final stuck down flyleaf of volume FA 8-D1-5 o, Bibliothèque municipale de Chaumont.

Beyond the fact of its survival, what makes this draft interesting is the content of the text. Hastily written in a rather poor hand, there is no indication of either the author or the person to whom it was sent. But the story it tells makes it very clear that it was sent by someone living in provincial France to a friend who was studying in one of the most prestigious centres of learning in sixteenth-century Europe: Paris.

The letter starts by telling us that it belongs to a wider correspondance and Paris is at the heart of the exchange. The author thanks his correspondant for his letters in which he is invited to join him in Paris. Clearly, the Parisian student knows how to sell the city he is living in. The author exclaims: “I was almost convinced to take a horse and immediately come to Paris. And, to tell you the truth, ever since then I have spent my time thinking of that city”.

The student quarter on the left bank of the Seine in the middle of the sixteenth century, as depicted Olivier Truchet and Gemain Hoyau, Universitätsbibliothek Basel, UBH Kartenslg AA 124, digitised by E-rara.

Paris is described in the most laudatory terms, but not just because of the buildings… it is an extraordinary centre of learning. He has “so much desire to come not only for the beauty of the said city (that is, nevertheless, no small thing), but also because of the abundance of all types of books that are to be found there, and the numerous scholars, that are two great helps for those who study and wish to attain knowledge”.

Despite all this, the author turns down the offer. He is preoccupied with “his affairs” though he wishes that they were at the “bottom of the sea” so that he would be free to also enjoy his friends company – so much so that he resorts to Latin to emphasise his feelings: “ut tecum vivere possum non dubitarem quantumuis magnum mare travicere” – to live with you, I would not hesitate to cross any great sea. Perhaps, this is a clever reference to the arms of Paris that feature a ship and the motto “Fluctuat nec mergitur” – rocked [by the waves], but unsunk.

The symbol of Paris, as used by the company of publishers known as La compagnie de la grand’ navire and used from 1582.

But the tone sours as the letter enters its second half. It seems that, in between, the author has received news from other quarters and it does not paint his correspondant in best of lights. He says that he has heard that the latter was not studying all too seriously. With perhaps some dramatic exageration, he claims that, as he sees himself as his brother, “this infuriated me so that I could no longer move from my bed”. He continues in much same vein: “I almost die of fury”.

Such laziness is all the more frustrating because his correspondant is gifted. “Nature has given you as good a mind as is possible”, “fortune has given you sufficient riches as well as friends” and “you have time enough”. The message is clear: “it is but your laziness that prevents you from succeeding”. The end of the document is damaged, but enough remains to understand that he even invokes the student’s father and mother in order to jolt his friend out of complacency.

Not the most assiduous students.. A detail of a school scene by Pieter Bruegel, engraved by Pieter van den Heyden and printed in Antwerp in 1557 by Hieronymus Cock, Rijksmuseum, RP-P-1883-A-7221.

Was the letter ever sent? It is impossible to know. We can, however, hasard a good guess at the author’s identity and understand perhaps why he was so furious. Though the draft does not name the author, the book has two ex-libris indications. One is by François Defrittes, a canon of Chaumont between 1599-1621.1 This is clearly not his hand. It ressembles far more that of a previous owner, a certain “Jacobus de Courtet”. This sixteenth-century possessor can be identified as Jacques Courtet, a priest and canon of Langres active in the 1570s.2

Courtet must have owned the book shortly after its publication in the 1540s and annotated the first flyleaves with short aphorisms taken from well-known classical authors. He thus copied out of one of Propertius’s elegies “Omnes humanos sanat medicina dolores, Solus amor morbi non amat artificem.” – Medicine cures all human pain; love alone wants no healer. Propertius was widely used by schools as a way of learning Latin – and was also published in Paris in the same year as the two other editions in the volume.3 The two lines were often emphasised by contemporary readers.

Copy of Catullus. Tibullus. Propertius printed in Paris by Simon de Colines in 1543, USTC 140793, digitised by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, A.lat.a. 93.

Courtet was undoubtedly at this time himself a student. The two editions in the volume were works by Cicero generally also used when studying. Their in-quarto format was employed by publishers in order to leave significant space for annotation during lessons. They are themselves of great interest: printed by François Gryphius, they are what bibliographers call unica – the sole surviving copies of otherwise lost editions.4

He probably studied in Langres, where he was later a canon, as this was an important ecclesiastical centre and the seat of a bishopric situated some 35 km to the south of Chaumont. The town housed a well-known college,5 and one of the first rectors was proud to publish a panegyric in 1531 that emphasised the splendour and learning of the city.6 But though Langres was no cultural backwater, this context undoubtedly explains Courtet’s ire. Unable to go himself to study in Paris, to hear that his friend was idle must have been galling, especially as his letter shows just how much he enjoyed books and acquiring knowledge.

Detail of a fresco by Vincenzo Foopa known as The Young Cicero Reading,c. 1464, today in the Wallace Collection, London, P538.

The draft letter is preserved in a volume kept in the ‘Silos’, the Municipal Library of Chaumont at the pressmark FA 8-D1-5 o. Here is a transcription of the surviving text – I have provided a rapid translation into modern English underneath.

« J’ay recu tes lettres par lesquelles tu me conceille que je vienne à Paris pour estudier, vraydieu qu’elle sont elegantes et playnes de doulceur et condition o que tu me descrips au vif an icelles la ville de Paris est emplement tu refere les grandes commodités d’icelle.

Certes, incontinent que je les eu leues, il ne s’en falloit guere que je ne pringnes ung cheval et m’en viens incontinent à Paris et pour te dire la verite depuis ce temps là je n’ay fayict que y penser de celle ville là et m’est tourjours advis que je y suys et tant ay desir de y venir non seulement pour la beaulté d’icelle ville (ce que toutefoys ne est pas petite chouse) mays aussy pour la abundance de toutes sortes de livres qui sont là et pour la multitude des gens scavans qui sont deuls grands aydes à ceuls qui estudient pour parvenir à scavoyr.

Je vouldroys que les affayres que j’ay qui me empechent de aller à Paris et de recevoyr ung sy grand fruict fussent au fond de la mer. Car non seulement il me privent d’ung sy grand fruict mays aussy de la compagnie sy delectable et de laquelle il me fache grandement de estre privé. Car ut tecum vivere possum non dubitarem quantumuis magnum mare travicere.

Dernierement que je ouy dire que tu feroys mal ton debvoyr de estudier, je prings si grand facherie an mon esperit que depuis je n’ay bojay du lict car j’ay esté tourjours celuy qui a aultant aymé ton profit de ton avencement auls estudes que ton propre frere maintenant que je ouy dire que tu es si lache et si remis je meurs quasi de facherie comment est cela de toy estre la l’expectation de tes parens et amys qui de brief te pansoint avoir de pardescu bien doctriné.

Et m’erigeray si tu estoys d’ung tel esperit que tu refusse [d’ecouter ?] de je n’auroys cause de me fascher mays plustout te conseilleroys que tu te [libères ?] de icelles mays je scay bien que ta nature t’a ballé aussi bon esperit que il est poussible de fortune t’a ballé richesse à suffisance et amys.

Tu as du temps asses mays il n’y a que ta paresse qui te en garde de parvenir, se que je te dictz, je le te dictz amyeblement. Use des dons que tu as de nature affin que ont ne [accuse] point ta paresse que tu ne soys parvenu à scavoyr et sy [ceci] ne te esmeu point je considere que tu mettras ton pere et ta mere … que il en pourriont mourir si tant t’entetes a estre[ainsi et] recompanser le temps que tu as peu [prendre]. »

« I have received your letters in which you suggest that I come to Paris to study. By god, they are elegant and full of gentleness and what you tell me so vividly of Paris tells of the great commodities to be found there. Certainly, as soon as I had read them, I was almost convinced to take a horse and immediately come to Paris. And, to tell you the truth, ever since then I have spent my time thinking of that city.

And I believe that I am there, and have so much desire to come not only for the beauty of the said city (that is, nevertheless, no small thing), but also because of the abundance of all types of books that are to be found there, and the numerous scholars, that are two great helps for those who study and wish to attain knowledge.

I would that my affairs that prevent me from going to Paris and from receiving such great profits, should lie at the bottom of the sea. For not only do they deprive me of those great profits, but also of such delightful company that I am very angry to thus deprived. For to live with you, I would not hesitate to cross a great sea.

Recently, I have heard that you neglect to study properly and this infuriated me so that I could no longer move from my bed, for I have ever been one who loved the benefits of the advancement of your study as much as if I were your brother.

Now that I hear that you are so cowardly and remiss that I almost die of fury. How can you be thus when your kin and friends think that you are well educated and I would oppose you if you were of a state of mind to refuse [to listen] I would not have cause to get angry but would counsel you that you [stop], but I know that nature has given you as good a mind as is possible, that fortune has given you sufficient riches as well as friends. You have time enough.

It is but your laziness that prevents you from succeeding. And I say this amiably: use the gifts that nature has bestowed on you so that your laziness does not prevent you from reaching knowledge. And if this does not move you, then think of your father and your mother and that they [should] be rewarded for the time that you have [spent].

  1. Léon Godard, Histoire et tableau de l’église St-Jean-Baptiste de Chaumont (Chaumont: Charles Cavaniol, 1848), p. 194. []
  2. See the register compiled between 1571 and 1575 in the Archives départementales de Haute-Marne, 2 G 14. []
  3. Catullus. Tibullus. Propertius (Paris, Simon de Colines, 1543), USTC 140793. []
  4. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Rhetoricorum ad C. Herennium libri quatuor and De inventione et arte rhetorica lib. II, both printed in Paris by François Gryphius in 1543. []
  5. Louis-Emmanuel Marcel, Le cardinal de Givry, évêque de Langres (1529-1561) ([S.l.], published by the author, 1926) I, 266-270. []
  6. Jean Thomassin, Panegyricus de civitate Lingonum, Paris: Chrestien Wechel, 1531, USTC 203472. []
Categories
Clocks Clothes Music Rennes

Clothing the city trumpeter in Renaissance Rennes

One of the most high profile roles in French towns during the Renaissance was that of town trumpeter. Most early modern cities had their own official trumpeter, paid for by the local authorities whose job it was to sound his trumpet before the town crier shared the latest news and laws. In sixteenth-century Rennes, this meant going to all the main crossroads in turn. An ordinance of 1598 explained that the text should be read out:

at the crossroads of the great end of Cohuë, la Cherbonnerie, la Cisne, les Carmes, Toussaincts and other places and locations accustomed to make proclamations, about the hour of midday of the said day, in great congregation of people to see and hear it done, after the sound of the trumpet sounded by Michel Coquart, ordinary trumpeter in the said Rennes. 1

It was an important duty: many people relied on oral transmission of information and would listen out for the sound of the trumpet. In many ways, trumpeters represented secular authority and most of them were proud to be associated with their instrument. Michel Coquart, mentionned in the above document, went so far as to sketch his trumpet under his signature on official documents.

Coquart’s signature in the archives of the Estates of Brittany in 1597
(Archives départementales d’Ille-et-Vilaine, C 2902).

This representative role was also taken very seriously by the towns who took care to furnish their trumpeters with decent garb. For instance, in Amiens, it was stipulated that he was to receive no less than five ells of cloth (around five metres’ worth).2 In Rennes, in order to lend extra weight to the trumpeter, the local municipality went one step further. The city accounts for 1528 enable to reconstruct how one of Coquart’s predecessors, Jean Hoyart, was dressed and performed his duty.

The archives describe how he was to be given a long-skirted jacket (a saie) made of cloth with an escutcheon emblasoned with the arms of the town of Rennes on one of the sleeves. The coat of arms of Rennes seems to be the same in 1528 as when it was officialised in the seventeenth century: pally of six argent and sable on a chief argent five ermine-spots sable, as is shown (with only 4 ermine-spots) on the accounts register of that year:

Title page of the accounts held by Pierre Cohier and Pierre Boullanger for the town of Rennes in 1528 (Archives municipales de Rennes, CC 140).

His coat was meant to mirror the argent and sable of the coat of arms: the main cloth chosen was black, but is was adorned white bands that reproduced the paly of the lower part of the blason. The trumpet was decorated in similar fashion. A hanging banner – that also replicated the arms of the city – was added to the instrument itself. The accounts stipulated that this was made of ‘taffeta’, defined by Palsgrave in 1530 as being ‘a maner of sylke’.3 The cloth of the banner was surrounded by a fringe of silk and the blason encased in a knotted cord, the emblem of the ducal house of Montfort4

The impression of splendour was further enhanced by the work of embroiderers who added to the escutcheon extra needlework of silver and gold – something that was also added to the jacket’s collar. The work was costly and the municipality paid out over 45 livres for the coat and the banner. The result must have been impressive. Jacques Cellier’s drawing gives us some idea of what this might have looked like:

A trumpeter on horseback, drawn by Jacques Cellier, ca 1583, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Fonds Français 9152, digitised by Gallica.

The 45 livres that the local authorities spent on his jacket meant that the trumpeter wore clothes that were worth as much as his annual basic salary. This is particularly striking when one considers that his wages covered other roles he had agreed to undertake. He was also officially in charge of ensuring that the town walls were kept clean of filth (‘immondicitez’), and of keeping the main clock in working order.5

This role of clock warden was of some importance, and generally carried out by a trained clockmaker. Hoyart was paid on various occasions for ringing the clock bell – often on joyous occasions. Thus, in 1530, he received 30 sous for having rung the bell for a whole hour to celebrate the return of the sons of Francis I, Henry (the future king Henry II) and his elder brother Francis, duke of Brittany, who had been held in captivity in Spain for four years whilst the French king sought to avoid his obligations…6

The clock’s importance to the city is shown in the representation of Rennes in 1543. The tower stands prominently and it is possible to make out both the clock face and the bell in the open belfry above:

Rennes’s clock, as painted in 1543 in the Course of the Vilaine from Redon to Rennes (Bibliothèque nationale de France, GE EE 146 Rés, digitised by Gallica).

The investment made by the municipal authorities in a jacket emblasoned with the town’s coat of arms was thus doubly justified!

The section of the accounts of the city for 1528 that refers to the trumpetters clothes is kept in Rennes’s Municipal Archives at the pressmark CC 139 f. 37r. Here is a transcription of the relevant passage:

« Aultres mises faictes par lesdits miseurs susdits par vertu d’un garent et commandement de messieurs de ladite ville dabté le lundi unziesme jour de may mil v c xxviij pour acoustrez Jehan Lalleman sergent et trompecte de ladite ville d’un soye de drap avecq ung escuczon armoyé des armes de ladite ville sur l’une des manches dudit soye et racoustrez et regarniz sa trompecte de tafetas de parreille qu’estoit la vieille :

  • A esté payé à Jehan Debrays marchant de draps pour troys aulnes de drap noir de Paris, pour le scoye dudit Lalleman, l’aulne apreciée à la somme de xlij s. vj d. pour ce vj L. vij s. vj d. 
  • Item pour une aulne ung quart de tafetas blanc à bandez ledit soye tout à l’entour à xxvij s. vj d. l’aulne, pource xxxiiij s. iiij d. ob.
  • Item dempuis ung quart pour ce que n’y en eut pas assez, pource vj s. x d. ob.
  • Item pour une aulne ung tiers de tafetas blanc et noir pour meptre à ladite trompecte et yrins de la frange de soye, prinse à la maison de la ville, pource xxxvi s viij d.
  • Item fut poyé à ung brodeurs qui feist ledit escuczon d’or fin et argent avecq une cordeliere tout allentour dudit escuzon et au collet dudit soye par marché faict avecq le brodeurs à la somme de C s. monnoie.
  • Item fut payé au cousturier qui feist ledit soye et acoustra ladite trompecte, pource x s. monnoie.

Somme dudit accoustrement declarée ou present feillet, xv L. xv s. 5 d. monnoie ».


  1. “Aux carrefours du grand bout de Cohuë, la Cherbonnerie, la Cisne, les Carmes, Toussaincts et autres lieux et endroits accoustumez à faire bannies, environ l’heure de midy dudict jour, en grande congregation de peuple à ce voir et ouyr faire, apres le son de trompette faict par Michel Coquart, Trompette ordinaire audict Rennes.”, Arrest de la court de Parlement, portant defenses à tous Seigneurs, Gentils-hommes et autres, de fortifier maisons, et tenir en icelles soldats et gens de Guerre, n’y contraindre les paysans et laboureurs à aucunes impositions (Angers: Antoine Hernault, 1598) USTC 67804, cried in Rennes on 30 March 1598. []
  2. See Lauren Kim, French Royal Acts Printed Before 1601. A Bibliographical Study (University of St Andrews thesis, 2008), I, p. 44. []
  3. John Palsgrave, L’esclarcissement de la langue francoyse, ([London], John Haukyns and Richard Pynson, 1530) USTC 55807, f. 69. []
  4. On this emblem and its use, see Laurent Hablot, ‘Pour en finir – ou pour commencer ! – avec l’ordre de la Cordelière’ in Dominique Le Page (ed.), Pour en finir avec Anne de Bretagne ? (Nantes: Archives départementales de Loire-Atlantique, 2004), pp. 47–70. []
  5. Accounts for 1529, Archives municipales de Rennes, CC 140 f. 5r. []
  6. The sons arrived in France on 22 March 1530, having been released following the signing of the peace of Cambrai the previous year, a ‘hollow peace’, see Robert Knecht, Francis I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 221. []
Categories
Germany Low Countries Rouen Shipping

Flotsam not jetsam. Recovering stolen goods during the Wars of the religion

Rouen’s status not just as a seafaring port but also as a city in which merchants haggled and struck commercial agreements is a recurrent feature of many of the documents we have analysed. But maritime trade was not without risks. We have already seen the frustration of a merchant who watched on helplessly as his ship sunk with most of its cargo whilst ‘helpers’ pilfered some of its contents… If it was so easy to steal right in front of the owners, what chance was there of recouping goods lost many miles away? Well, that was exactly the task that Nicolas de Flammare faced in 1592.

Barrels and bales floating free as a ship sinks. Woodcut from Marcus Tulius Cicero, Officia. Ein Buch, So Marcus Tullius Cicero der Römer, zu seynem Sune Marco (Augsburg: Heinrich Steiner, 1531), USTC 679342, Digitised by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.

Sixteenth-century Rouen was full of foreign visitors. From exiles to mercenaries and seafarers from all over Europe and beyond, the city welcomed people from many different countries. But one of the most numerous communities was formed by traders from the Low Countries and the Hanseatic world. The early modern period was marked by the economic power and activity of the Hanseatic League, an organisation of towns and merchants mainly located in the Netherlands, in the north of the Holy Roman Empire and along the shores of the Baltic Sea.1 The merchants developed an extensive commercial network and Rouen, on the western confines of their normal areas of exchange, was an outpost for ships sailing towards southern Europe and beyond.

The archives of the city stand testament to their presence. And it is there, in the leaves of the notary records, that we find Nicolas de Flammare, described as a merchant of Lübeck, acting for Matthias Tileke (“Mathieu Tilque”) of Hamburg. These were two of the wealthiest Hanseatic cities, powerhouses of the northern European economy.

Lübeck (above) and Hamburg in 1572 as engraved by Georg Braun, printed in his Civitates orbis terrarum – this copy digitised by Gallica.

Though identified as a resident of Lübeck, Flammare’s name is one that is to be found elsewhere in Normandy. A namesake, perhaps his son, was buried in Trouville in 1688 at the ripe old age of 88. A member of the protestant community, Nicolas’s residence aboard was perhaps a result of the religious strife and the persecution of Protestants. However, he seems to have stayed in Normandy during the difficult years of civil conflict known as the Wars of the Catholic League (1588-1598). Indeed, our story starts in 1592 at the height of the conflict in the province when a ship of goods transported by Matthias Tileke ran aground in the Normand coast.

Tileke seems to have specialised in the trade between the Mediterranean and northern Europe. He is notably known for having ferried merchandise between Venice and Lübeck .2 But in 1592, aboard a ship named the Black bear, he ran into trouble just off Granville in western Normandy. The Cotentin coast was treacherous with rocks and sand banks often concealed by high tides and shipwrecks were common throughout the early modern period.3 The ship hit a rock identified as the “Isle de Mainquere”. The “island” of Minquaire can be identified a little to the north of Granville on the ‘Cassini’ map of the area – though the name disappeared in later depictions and seems to be completely forgotten today.

Location of Minquaire on the Cassini map of 1757 digitised by Gallica.

That the ship was so close to the shore suggests that it was using coastal navigation, which consisted of employing landmarks in order to calculate position and course – as did many sixteenth-century vessels. Certainly, the Black bear was stranded close enough to the shore for locals to have relatively easy access. The document denounced the way it had been ‘plundered and depredated by a number of burghers from Granville and the surrounding area’.

Flammare thus directly accused them of acting as wreckers, unlawfully seizing flotsam that should have been given back to the goods’ rightful owners. There is no indication of what happened to the crew or any mention of attempts to fight off the plunderers. Tileke himself survived and moved on fairly quickly. By the following year, he was already master of another ship named the Saint James (‘Sankt Jakob’).4

Allegorical depiction of a shipwreck by Cornelis Cort, ca 1595. Digitised by the Rijksmuseum, RP-P-1908-2352

Though we do not know what the ship was carrying, the cargo must have been of great value. Flammare set about trying to recover the goods at significant cost and started judicial proceedings against locals in the law courts. In this he was aided not by Tileke, but by a third figure: Sebastien Pittavin. Described as a merchant presently residing in the town of Honfleur, a sea port situated on the southern bank of the mouth of the Seine, Pittavin was mostly connected with a key city in Low Countries: Middelburg.5

Located on the westernmost tip of the newly independent United Provinces, it was a strategic Dutch port that had traditionally been an active (though peripheral) member of the Hanseatic League. By the end of the sixteenth century, it was turning towards trade further afield, and notably towards the Indies. Pittavin, who had previously been described as a burgher and merchant of Middelburg,6 was probably already involved in such transoceanic exchanges.7 This perhaps gives us an idea of why the cargo was so valuable.

Plan of Middelburg – note the way the city is built around the port and the protection of ships within the city walls. Engraving from Lodovico Guicciardini, Description de touts les Pays-Bas, autrement appellez la Germanie Inférieure ou Basse Allemagne (Amsterdam: Cornelis Claesz, 1609), digitised by the Rijksmuseum.

Pittavin provided Flammare with considerable sums of money. Over the years that followed Pittavin advanced no less that 1,957 gold écus – a huge amount. Such a loan suggests that not only were the goods valuable, but that the Dutch connection was important. The ship’s name, the Black bear, was also typical of ships from the Low Countries – it was cited amongst the traditional names that made the country’s fleet resemble a ‘menagerie’.8

The loan despite the great “inconvenience, risks and dangers” it represented for Pittavin, paid off. After six years of lawsuits, Flammare’s persistence was rewarded: the burghers of Granville were forced to pay compensation and he made sure Pittavin was the first to get his money back. The whole sum was paid back in April 1598. In the context of the Wars of the Catholic League during which trade suffered and Protestant possessions were targeted, Flammare’s perseverance was remarkable. It is perhaps telling that he began at last to get compensation in the very month that the Edict of Nantes was signed by Henry IV, signalling the end of civil conflict.

Court proceedings in sixteenth-century France, from Jean Milles de Souvigny, Praxis criminis persequendi (Paris, Simon Colines, 1541), USTC 140268.

The story shows how maritime trade involved a complex network of merchants from northern cities stretching from Honfleur to Lübeck. It also highlights how vulnerable the system was to such simple things as protruding rocks or the opportunistic designs of others. But it also emphasises that persistence could pay off, even during bitter conflicts like the French Wars of religion.

The original document is to be found in the registers of the notaries of Rouen at the Archives Départementales of the Seine-Maritime under pressmark 2E1/636. Here is a transcription of the main part of the agreement:

« Fut present Nicollas de Flamare marchand demeurant à Lubec pais d’Allemagne lequel de son bon gré et vollunté confessa avoir eu et receu comptant plusieurs et diverses fois tant ce jour d’huy que precedent audit jour d’huy de honnorable homme Sebastien Pittavin, marchand demeurant à present à Honnefleur, la somme de mil six cens cinquante sept escus sol laquelle susdite somme ledit de Flamare disoit avoir receue à son contentement dudit Pittavin et emploier depuis l’an mil v c iiij xx douze jusques aujourd’huy pour subvenir aux frais à la poursuicte en procez intenté par ung maistre de navire de la ville de Hambourg nommé Mathieu Tilque dont ledit Flammare disoit avoir charge et luy procureur par procuration que leur dit avoir esté à ce passée par ledit Tilque devant Le Forestier et Cuillot, tabellions en la ville de Caen, le xvj e fevrier mil v c quatre vingtz traize concernant le deperdement dudit navire de Tilque nommé l’ours noir pillée et depredé par nombre de bourgeois de Granville et des environs estant eschoué prez de l’Isle de Mainquere.

Allencontre desquelz bourgeois ledit Flamare disoit tant par charge à presse que vertu de procuration il a mené et soustenu devers par plusieurs proces depuis ladite année iiij xx xij jusques à ce jour sans avoir eu en tout ledit temps aucune aide, assistance, argent ny moiens dudit Tilque ny autres personnes synon dudit Pottavin.

A raison de quoy ledit Flamare a promis et promect assister ledit Pittavin et ce qu’il luy sera possible que des premieres et plus clere deniers qui proviendroit desdits procez au proffict dudit Tilque en faire et toucher et recepvoir audict Pittavin ladite somme de mil ix cens cinquante sept escus sol par ledit Pittavin loiallement et avec sa tres grande incommodité, perilz et dangers baillée et prestée audit Flamare pour subvenir à la s.. que dessus à quoi cession de prest et deboursement icelluy Flamare a dict, juré et confermé qu’il n’eust et ne pourroit satisfaire par et au moien de la presente recognoissance, prest et obligation ledit Pittavin a tenu et tient quicte ledit Flammare de certain brevet montant la somme de neuf cens quarante trois escus sol enquoy ledit Flamare s’estoit vers luy obligé pour la cause et condition audit brevet ».



  1. This went from the present day Netherlands to Germany through Poland and up to Estonia. See the definitions and maps in the introduction to Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz and Stuart Jenks, The Hanse in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 1-35. []
  2. Pierre Jeannin, ‘Die Rolle Lübecks in der hansischen Spanien- und Portugalfahrt des 16. Jahrhunderts’, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Lübeckische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, LV (1975), 5-40 at p. 23. []
  3. See the mini-series of articles devoted by Charles de La Morandière to the ‘Naufrages granvillais’ in Le Pays de Granville between 1937 and 1939 []
  4. Pierre Jeannin, op. cit., p. 23. []
  5. Pittavin spent some time in Honfleur and was still there in 1610, see Charles and Paul Bréard (eds), Documents relatifs à la marine normande et à ses armements aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles pour le Canada, l’Afrique, les Antilles, le Brésil et les Indes (Rouen, A. Lestringant, 1889) p. 170 []
  6. See Drost (M. A.) (ed.). Documents pour servir à l’histoire du commerce des Pays-Bas avec la France jusqu’à 1585 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1984), I, pp. 520 and 529. []
  7. In 1608, he was involved in trade with Canada: Charles and Paul Bréard (eds), op. cit., p. 110-112. []
  8. See John Lothrop Motley, History of the United Netherlands (London: John Murray, 1867), IV, 322. []