Calvinism, Childhood, and Education: The Evidence from the Genevan Consistory

Abstract

The Protestant Reformation had an important impact on practices pertaining to children, and the registers of the consistory provide valuable insight to changes in child-rearing in Calvin's Geneva. Genevan leaders aggressively attacked practices they deemed papist, eliminating, for example, baptisms performed postmortem or by midwives and the naming of children after saints. The consistory also exhorted mothers and especially fathers to oversee carefully the religious education of their sons and daughters, mandated that all children attend weekly catechism lessons, and forbade matriculation at schools in Catholic territories. In dealing with sick children, Genevan authorities forbade parents to say prayers to saints and to employ cures considered superstitious. In so doing, Calvin and his colleagues contributed unintentionally to a certain desacralization of mentality. In spite of the initial strong resistance to some of these changes, the Genevan laity eventually conformed to the child-rearing practices espoused by Calvin.