Projects of the Gallican Church and the ‘Everyday Piety’ Reform on the Eve of the Wars of Religion

Abstract

During the so-called ‘Gallican crisis’ between 1551 and 1552, Pope Julius III accused the French king of preparing an ecclesiastical schism, while the possibility of establishing a French patriarchate was discussed in the royal council. Before long, however, the conflict gave way to a close alliance between the Pope and King Henry II. Was the ‘Gallican crisis’ just a tool of political pressure on Julius III? To what extent were the plans of the king and his entourage to reform the Gallican Church serious? The lack of sources can be filled, at least in part, by turning to the work by Raoul Spifame, a lawyer of the Paris Parliament, titled Dicaearchiae Henrici Regis Christianissimi Progymnasmata (1556). In its essence, it is a collection of rhetorical exercises in the field of jurisprudence written in the form of royal decrees designed to reform everything in the kingdom. Surprisingly, some of these fictional measures later would be actually implemented. The reason for the author’s ‘clairvoyance’ lies in his contacts with the secretaries of state who were then preparing large-scale reforms, which would eventually be cancelled due to the unexpected death of the king and the outbreak of the Wars of Religion. A considerable part of the decrees is devoted to plans of the reform of the Gallican Church: from the elevation of the Bishopric of Paris to the rank of an archdiocese to tightening control over the morals of prelates. This article pays special attention to how the Dicaearchiae regulated the elements of ‘everyday piety’ — the rituals of blessing of the bridal chamber, purification after childbirth, and belief in the existence of limb. A limitation of ‘luxury’ was also to be introduced: refusal of precious ecclesiastical ornaments, redundant bells, and a reduction in the number of holidays associated with the veneration of saints. Without abandoning the cult of saints, Spifame undertakes a reform of the ecclesiastical calendar and creates a sort of national martyrology of warriors who died for their homeland and ‘are venerated as saints without a canonisation’.