Disciplining Song in Sixteenth-Century Geneva, Journal of Musicology 32, no. 1 (Winter 2015):...

Disciplining Song in Sixteenth-Century GenevaAuthor(s): Melinda LatourSource: The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Winter 2015), pp. 1-39Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jm.2015.32.1.1 .

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Disciplining Song in

Sixteenth-Century Geneva

MELINDA LATOUR

Song was a persistent subject of judicial disci-pline in sixteenth-century Geneva.1 Between 1542 and 1552, more thanone hundred cases involving illicit singing came before the court knownas the Consistory as part of a broad effort to control the practice ofsinging in the newly Reformed city. A mother singing to her child; twoyoung girls singing as they play in the street; a group of butchers hum-ming a tune to pass the time while working in their shop; a powerfulsyndic and his friends enjoying a song or two at a private party—thesingers in each of these scenarios were subjected to interrogation in theGenevan courts to determine the content and character of their singingand, if found guilty of singing illicit songs, were subject to public censureand punishment.

No singer was too young or too old, too socially insignificant orpolitically important to avoid scrutiny by the court. Consider the caseagainst the woman named Bucline, who was brought before the Consis-tory on 8 October 1545, for singing ‘‘chansons deshonnestes’’ while

Early versions of this article were read at the Annual Meeting of theRenaissance Society of America, 24–26 March 2011 and theAnnual Meeting of the Sixteenth-Century Society, 27–29 October2011. I would like to thank Jeffrey Watt, Kate van Orden, OliviaBloechl, and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful sugges-tions and comments.

1 Although my own thinking on the concept of discipline owes a significant debt toFoucault, my use of the word discipline in this essay is rooted in a historical sense of theterm. This term was used widely during the period of my study, particularly by theReformed church in referring to the church discipline implemented through the Con-sistory and in referring to matters of church organization. Notably, the practical printedmanuals outlining Reformed church order, from marriage and funeral procedures to theestablishment of Consistories, distributed to Reformed churches beyond Geneva, werecalled Disciplines.

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The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 32, Issue 1, pp. 1–39, ISSN 0277-9269, electronic ISSN 1533-8347. © 2015 bythe Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission tophotocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permis-sions website, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/JM.2015.32.1.1



working in her house and yard. She was strongly admonished by theConsistory, was asked to recite the prayer in French (which she did notsay very well), and was dismissed.2

The ritual of judicial discipline through the Consistory3 was a centralaspect of life in Calvinist Geneva, and it evidently shaped and directedthe conduct of residents.4 This civic emphasis on discipline, which had itsbasis in Calvinist theology, distinguished Calvinism from Lutheranismand other branches of the Reformation.5 In his Institutes of the ChristianReligion, Jean Calvin wrote that discipline provides the sinews of thechurch, for it is through discipline that ‘‘the members of the body adheretogether, each in its own place.’’6 The weekly cycles of accusation, admo-nition, and restoration enacted through the activities of the Consistorywere intended to forge a unified Reformed body in which all levels ofGenevan civil society—citoyens, bourgeois, and habitants7—were account-able to the same laws and disciplinary procedures.8 Consistory discipline

2 Registres du Consistoire de Geneve, II, fol. 1v (8 October 1545); Registres du Consistoire deGeneve au temps de Calvin, ed. Thomas A. Lambert, Isabella M. Watt, and Wallace McDonald,vol. 2 (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2001), 42. Hereafter, I will give both the original MS foli-ation (R. Consist.) and the page number in the published edition (Registres du Consistoire).

3 There is a growing body of scholarship on the Genevan Consistory. For a broadoverview and synthesis of scholarship on Consistory discipline, see Philip Benedict, Christ’sChurches Purely Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism (New Haven: Yale University Press,2002), 460–89; Important studies of the Genevan Consistory include Robert M. Kingdon,Adultery and Divorce in Calvin’s Geneva (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995);Karen E. Spierling, Infant Baptism in Reformation Geneva: The Shaping of a Community, 1536–1564 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005); E. William Monter, Enforcing Morality in Early ModernEurope (London: Variorum Reprints, 1987); John Witte and Robert M. Kingdon, Sex,Marriage, and Family in John Calvin’s Geneva, vol. 1: Courtship, Engagement, and Marriage(Grand Rapids, MI.: W.B. Eerdmans, 2005); Jeffrey R. Watt, ‘‘Calvinism, Childhood, andEducation: The Evidence From the Genevan Consistory,’’ The Sixteenth Century Journal 33,no. 2 (2002): 439–56; Watt, ‘‘Women and the Consistory in Calvin’s Geneva,’’ The SixteenthCentury Journal 24, no. 2 (1993): 429–39.

4 Jean Calvin was the most influential leader of the Reformed branch of the Protes-tant Reformation that flourished in Switzerland, France, and other parts of NorthernEurope in the sixteenth century and was an important force in the creation of the Con-sistory of Geneva. For more on Calvin’s biography and influence, see Bruce Gordon, Calvin(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009); and Denis Crouzet, Jean Calvin (Paris: Fayard,2000).

5 Robert M. Kingdon (with Thomas A. Lambert), Reforming Geneva: Discipline, Faithand Anger in Calvin’s Geneva (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2012), 9–17.

6 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids,MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1989), 4.12.1.

7 Citoyen: limited to native-born Genevan males who were members of the bourgeoi-sie. Only citoyens could vote or hold positions in the higher levels of the civil government,such as serving on the Small Council. Bourgeoisie: residents of Geneva who inherited bour-geoisie status or who were able to purchase it. Habitants: all other residents of Geneva. SeeWilliam E. Monter, Studies in Genevan Government (1536–1605), Travaux d’Humanisme etRenaissance, 62 (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1964).

8 Harro Hopfl, The Christian Polity of John Calvin, Cambridge Studies in the Historyand Theory of Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 196.

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thus shaped—and perpetually reshaped—the Reformed community ofGeneva, in this case, by outlining through jurisprudence a moral regu-lation of song.9

Attention to the disciplining of song in sixteenth-century Geneva isimportant for its own sake, but it also provides a crucial historical contextfor understanding the cultivation of devotional music in Geneva andother Reformed centers. Scholars such as Richard Freedman, Kate vanOrden, Laurent Guillo, and Frank Dobbins have published importantstudies of sixteenth-century Reformed devotional music, a vast repertoireincluding polyphonic versions of the Psalter, chansons spirituelles, andcollections of purified contrafacta circulated for domestic use inReformed communities.10 These studies explore the musical, cultural,and material development of devotional music and its location inReformed communities.

What has not been considered until now is the intense scrutiny ofsong in the sixteenth-century Genevan courts—a legal framework regu-lating song that exercised a significant influence over many aspects ofmusical life in sixteenth-century Geneva, from the composition and pro-duction of authorized devotional music prints, to the decision ofa Reformed baker to purchase a print of spiritual songs, and to thesingular choice of a maid to sing a particular song as she worked ina Genevan household.11

9 Raymond Mentzer suggests that the rituals of discipline and repentance in theFrench Consistories provided a form of public bonding for the Reformed community,which no longer practiced Catholic forms of communal penitence. See RaymondA. Mentzer, ‘‘Notions of Sin and Penitence Within the French Reformed Community,’’ inPenitence in the Age of Reformations, ed. Katharine Jackson Lualdi and Anne T. Thayer(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), 84–100.

10 See in particular Richard Freedman, The Chansons of Orlando di Lasso and theirProtestant Listeners: Music, Piety, and Print in Sixteenth-Century France (Rochester, NY: Uni-versity of Rochester Press, 2001); Kate van Orden, ‘‘Cheap Print and Street Song followingthe Saint Bartholomew’s Massacres of 1572,’’ in Music and the Cultures of Print, ed. Kate vanOrden (New York: Garland, 2000), 271–323; Laurent Guillo, Les editions musicales de larenaissance lyonnaise, Domaine musicologique 9 (Paris: Klincksieck, 1991); Frank Dobbins,Music in Renaissance Lyons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); Marc Honegger, ‘‘Les Chan-sons Spirituelles de Didier Lupi et les debuts de la musique protestante en France au XVIesiecle’’ (Ph.D. diss., Universite de Lille, 1970); Psalms in the Early Modern World, ed. LindaPhyllis Austern, Kari Boyd McBride, and David L. Orvis (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011); RobertWeeda, Itineraires du Psautier Huguenot a la Renaissance (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009); idem, LePsautier de Calvin: L’histoire d’un livre populaire au XVIe siecle (1551–1598) (Turnhout: Brepols,2002); Edith Weber, La Musique Protestante de langue francaise (Paris: H. Champion, 1979);and the following classic studies, Orentin Douen, Clement Marot et le Psautier huguenot, etudehistorique, litteraire, musicale et bibliographique, 2 vols. (Paris, 1878; reprint, Nieuwkoop: B. deGraaf, 1967); Pierre Pidoux, ed., Le Psautier Huguenot du XVe siecle, 2 vols. (Basel, Switzerland:Edition Baerenreiter, 1962); and Henri-Leonard Bordier, Le Chansonnier Huguenot du XVIesiecle (Paris: Librairie Tross, 1870).

11 Robert Weeda makes occasional reference to Consistory records in his broadcultural study of the Psalter; his focus, however, is elsewhere. See Weeda, Psautier de Calvin.

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This analysis of Consistory jurisprudence of song indicates that thelegislation regulating indecent singing in Geneva defined a contrarioa positive domain of licit song and proper singing. The repressive leg-islation subjected the content of songs and the practice of singing tomoral evaluation through a discourse of honnestete (decency) that repu-diated lewd songs and singing behaviors associated with forbiddenfleshly pleasures, such as fornication or gambling, and ultimatelyviewed deshonneste singing as a recipe for social and political unrest.This discursive moralization of singing and the related criminalizationof indecent song raised the stakes of devotional song cultivation to thelevel of a moral imperative—influencing not only Geneva but also themany Reformed diasporic cities that imported the Genevan model ofConsistorial discipline along with Genevan theological and musicalprint culture.12

This article examines the disciplining of song in Geneva during thefirst decade of the Consistory’s activity and asks how and why singing wasits particular target. This first decade of Consistorial activity defines animportant period in the early history of Calvinist Geneva, beginning withCalvin’s rise to prominence and concluding with the landmark trial ofBolsec over the issue of predestination. The analysis of the disciplining ofsong begins with a brief introduction to illicit singing in Geneva and an

-Musicologists have begun to mine a variety of court records in other locations. See forexample, Alexander J. Fisher, ‘‘Song, Confession, and Criminality: Trial Records as Sourcesfor Popular Musical Culture in Early Modern Europe,’’ Journal of Musicology 18, no. 4 (2001):616–57.

12 The most important difference between the Genevan Consistory and diasporicConsistories lay in their different political and social circumstances. For a helpful com-parison of Genevan and French Consistory discipline, see Raymond A. Mentzer, ‘‘TheGenevan Model and Gallican Originality in the French Reformed Tradition,’’ in Adapta-tions of Calvinism in Reformation Europe: Essays in Honour of Brian G. Armstrong, ed. Mack P.Holt (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 147–64. Diasporic Consistories typically had no recourseto punitive civil enforcement yet they still had considerable social power to regulate thebehavior of their congregations. See Judith Pollman, ‘‘Honor, Gender and Discipline inDutch Reformed Churches,’’ in Dire l’interdit: the Vocabulary of Censure and Exclusion in theEarly Modern Reformed Tradition, ed. Raymond A. Mentzer, Francoise Moreil, and PhilippeChareyre (Leiden: Brill, 2010). For important studies of Consistories in the Reformeddiaspora, see Sin and the Calvinists: Morals Control and the Consistory in the Reformed Tradition,ed. Raymond A. Mentzer, Sixteenth-Century Essays and Studies v. 32, (Kirksville, MO:Truman State University Press, 2002); Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, Social Discipline in the Reforma-tion: Central Europe, 1550–1750 (London and New York: Routledge, 1989); Raymond A.Mentzer, ‘‘Disciplina nervus ecclesiae: The Calvinist Reform of Morals at Nımes,’’ SixteenthCentury Journal 18, no. 1 (1987): 89–116; Michael F. Graham, The Uses of Reform: ‘‘GodlyDiscipline’’ and Popular Behavior in Scotland and Beyond, 1560–1610 (Leiden: Brill, 1996); J.Estebe and B. Vogler, ‘‘La Genese d’une societe protestante: etude comparee de quelquesregistres consistoriaux languedociens et palatins vers 1600,’’ Annales. Economies, Societes,Civilisations 31, no. 2 (1976): 362–88; and Alfred Soman and Elisabeth Labbousse, ‘‘LeRegistre consistorial de Coutras, 1582–1584,’’ Bulletin de la Societe de l’histoire du protestantismefrancais 126 (1980): 193–228.


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overview of the workings of the Consistory court. Based on a survey of theConsistory cases spanning the period from 1542 to the beginning of1552, the discussion that follows examines cases involving charges oradmonishments against indecent singing.13 These cases reveal the Con-sistory’s efforts to regulate singing in all sectors of Genevan society, andthey provide new evidence for understanding the boundaries betweendecent and indecent singing in Reformed communities. The majority ofcases dealing with song from this period involved charges of impropersinging alongside other illicit behaviors, such as gambling, blasphemy,and fornication. Thus we can see that the Reformed belief in song’spower to affect the heart and influence bodily practices for moral orimmoral ends justified the need to control song and the practice ofsinging through court discipline. This conviction of song’s ability toinfluence outward behavior encouraged a juridical association betweenillicit singing and charges of other immoral behaviors—a direct legalconsequence of this neo-Platonic view of music.

The Consistory

The juridical disciplining of song developed as part of the broad pro-gram of social Reform spearheaded by Calvin upon his return to the cityof Geneva in 1541. During his exile in Strasbourg, Calvin had observedthe power of the Consistory in that city to enforce the church’s moralauthority through juridical process, a model that he immediately urgedthe Council to implement in Geneva.14

The Consistory was an ecclesiastical court that operated as a commit-tee of the municipal government of Geneva.15 The Consistory boardconsisted of the Company of Pastors and a group of elders elected fromthe magistracy of the governing councils by the members of these civil

13 The transcripts of the Consistory proceedings are being published by ThomasA. Lambert, Isabella M. Watt, Wallace McDonald, and Jeffrey Watt (formerly under thedirection of the late Robert Kingdon) through Librairie Droz. This article surveys the re-cords of the proceedings from the earliest documentation of the Consistory meeting on 16February 1542 (the records for the first ten meetings have not survived) until February1552. I am grateful for the excellent critical edition of the Consistory transcripts publishedby Droz and for the generosity of the Meeter Center for Calvin Studies in Grand Rapids, MI,for granting me access to the original manuscripts on microfilm.

14 For more on the history of the Genevan Reformation, see Benedict, Christ’sChurches Purely Reformed; William G. Naphy, Calvin and the Consolidation of the Genevan Ref-ormation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003); E. William Monter, Calvin’s Geneva(New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1967); Amedee Roget, Histoire du peuple de Geneve depuis laReforme jusqu’a l’Escalade, 7 vols. (Geneva: John Jullien, 1870–83), vols. 1–2.

15 For further information on the formation and workings of the Consistory, seeKingdon, Reforming Geneva; Thomas A. Lambert and Isabella M. Watt, introduction to theRegisters of the Consistory of Geneva in the Time of Calvin, vol. 1, trans. M. Wallace McDonald(Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2000), xvii–xxxv.

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councils.16 The delegation of civil officials included one of the four syndics(the highest position in the city) who presided over the Consistory proceed-ings. Consistory cases could be initiated either by the dizainier—a supervisorresponsible for monitoring the behavior of everyone in his district—or bymagistrates, pastors, or, indeed, any resident of the community. The Con-sistory relied on the participation of all social levels of the community tobring accusations and eye-witness testimonies to the proceedings and toenforce the constant surveillance needed to regulate the behavior of thecommunity. Consistory proceedings took place in the former cloister of thecanons of St. Peter’s Cathedral and were documented hastily by an electedsecretary who then deposited them in the Genevan city archives.

The Consistory was primarily concerned with the spiritual formationand morals of the Reformed church of Geneva and derived its spiritualauthority from the New Testament directives concerning church disci-pline.17 This relationship between the Consistory board and the congre-gation was theoretically a voluntary submission by church members totheir spiritual authorities. Yet, as every resident of the city was required toconfess the Reformed faith in order to live in the city, the church con-gregation and the civic polis were in fact identical in disciplinary practiceeven if they continued to operate as two distinct spheres of juridicalauthority with distinct ideological foundations and aims.18

In contrast to the civil courts of Geneva that tried and punishedcriminal cases, the Consistory had no direct punitive power. Rather itused friendly spiritual admonishments meant to provoke sinners torepentance and restoration with the church body.19 The most severepunishment that the Consistory could enforce was the denial of Com-munion and excommunication.20 The power in Consistorial discipline

16 For an introduction to the civil polity of sixteenth-century Geneva, see Monter,Studies in Genevan Government.

17 Calvin, Institutes, 4.12.2–6; Matthew 18: 15–18, ESV.18 Hopfl, The Christian Polity, 120. Scholars have noted the need to consider a dis-

tinction between the ‘‘history of crime’’ and the ‘‘history of sin.’’ For a classic discussion ofthis issue, see Heinz Schilling, ‘‘‘History of Crime’ or ‘History of Sin’?—Some Reflectionson the Social History of Early Modern Church Discipline,’’ in Politics and Society in Refor-mation Europe: Essays for Sir Geoffrey Elton on his Sixty-fifth Birthday, ed. E. I. Kouri and TomScott (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan, 1987), 289–310. In the case ofGeneva, these two histories overlapped as church and state discipline in Geneva wereofficially linked, although each court carried out a different role in this discipline.

19 The Ecclesiastical Ordinances drafted by the Company of Pastors in 1541 and passedby the Small Council with minor revisions outlined the limited powers of the Consistoryand the relationship to the civil courts. See Registres de la Compagnie des Pasteurs de Geneve autemps de Calvin, ed. Robert M. Kingdon and Jean Francois Bergier, vol. 1 (Geneva: LibrairieDroz, 1964), 1–13.

20 For more on the practice of excommunication in Geneva, see Christian Grosse, LesRituels de la cene: le culte eucharistique reforme a Geneve (XVIe–XVIIe siecles) (Geneva: LibrarieDroz, 2008).


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lay in the fact that the Consistory worked in tandem with the civil courtsand had the authority to send any case to the civil courts for further trialand possible punishment. Thus, persons convicted by the Consistory ofserious moral infractions or defendants deemed rebellious and unrepen-tant were sent to the Council for civil trial and the application of financialor corporal punishments. The friendly admonishments of the Consistorywere in fact legally enforced disciplinary demands with direct, swift con-sequences for disobedience.

Reformed discipline was penitential and punitive.21 Penitence re-mained the primary goal of Consistory discipline, but punitive measuresprovided the civil weight to impel rebellious sinners toward contritionand subsequent restoration within the church body. According to Calvin,discipline offered the Reformed community ‘‘the best help to sounddoctrine, the best foundation of order, and the best bond of unity.’’22

The discipline that Calvin sought to impose through the Consistorycentered on parallel religious and civil concerns for an ordered, decent(honnete) society. Honnestete and its inverse deshonnestete worked as criticalpair of concepts in Calvin’s thought—linking honor and decency tocivilization and social harmony.23 Disciplining moral behavior towardhonnestete therefore worked doubly to uphold Christ’s directives for thechurch and to ensure the maintenance of a stable civil polity. Mostsignificantly, discipline protected the church against the grievous sinof allowing an unfit person to participate in the Eucharist. Consideringthat the reformers believed that God would unleash wrath upon both thechurch and civil state for polluting the Eucharist, church disciplineguarded the safety of the church and protected the prevailing civilauthorities from the judgment of God. Thus, Reformed discipline simul-taneously guaranteed the purity of the church community and preservedthe existing social order.

The ruling syndics of Geneva communicated their belief in disciplineas an essential safeguard for the community in a public announcement

21 See Benedict, Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed, 463.22 Calvin, Institutes, 4.12.4.23 See Calvin, Institutes, 4.12., ‘‘Of the discipline of the Church, and its principal use

in censures and excommunication.’’ Honnestete was an important concept for definingsocial relations in the early modern period. In the sixteenth century, the concept retainedits classical associations with honor, worth, and good reputation. For Calvin, honnestete waslinked to civil order, chastity (particularly for women), peace, harmonious relations, andcivilization. See in particular Colette Demaiziere, ‘‘‘Honneste’ et ses derives dans les dic-tionnaires francais, de Robert Estienne a la fin du XVIIeme siecle,’’ 9–20, and MargueriteSoulie, ‘‘‘L‘Honnestete’ dans la pensee theologique et morale de Calvin,’’125–34, in LaCategorie de l’honneste dans la culture du XVIe siecle, Actes du colloque international de Som-mieres 2 (Saint-Etienne: Institut d’etudes de la renaissance et de l’age classique, 1985). Thespecifically gendered use of deshonnestete in the Consistorial disciplining of song is a richtopic that I plan to explore in a future study.

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delivered at the sermons and catechisms on Sunday, 18 January 1549.After lamenting that their rules and ordinances for Reform were beingignored and even despised, they reaffirmed their commitment to disci-pline the moral behavior of the community as a protection from the wrathof God.

[I]n consequence of the transgressions which are committed againstthe Word of God and our orders and edicts in conformity with it, con-cerning the abolition of papal ceremonies, idolatries, superstitions, blas-phemies, sorceries, charms, drunkenness, gluttony, dances, impropersongs [chansons deshonnestes], games, dissoluteness in clothing, fornica-tion, usury, thieving, deceitfulness, and other such iniquities and scan-dals which are prevalent, by which the wrath of God is provoked andkindled . . . we declare that it is our intention to take matters in hand andto give every care and diligence that all, great and small, shall conform toa Christian manner of living.24

Disciplining song was one facet of this moral defense against God’swrath toward a disobedient people. The reformers were particularlyconcerned with song because they believed that it had a special powerto influence individual and social behavior for moral or immoral ends.In his well-known preface to the Psalter of 1542, Calvin described sing-ing as a form of public praying with special emotive powers ‘‘to stir upand inflame the hearts of men to call upon and praise God with a zealmore vehement and ardent.’’25 Music’s emotional power could, on theother hand, ignite lust or provoke debauchery if the texts were lasciv-ious. In an expanded version of the preface published in 1543, Calvincontinued, ‘‘It is true that every evil word (as Saint Paul says) corruptsgood morals. But when melody is with the words, they will pierce theheart much more strongly and enter inside. Just as wine is cast intoa vessel through a funnel, so also venom and corruption are droppeddown into the depths of the heart through melody.’’26 Thus the mysti-cal power of song when accompanied by biblically edifying texts couldbring worshipers into direct communion with God and his angels, or

24 The Register of the Company of Pastors of Geneva in the Time of Calvin, ed. and trans.Philip Edgcumbe Hughes (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1966), 91.

25 Translations mine unless otherwise indicated. ‘‘Et a la verite, nous congnoissonspar experience, que le chant a grand force & vigueur d’esmouvoir & enflamber le coeur deshommes, pour invoquer & louer Dieu d’un zele plus vehement & ardent.’’ Transcribed inPidoux, Psautier Huguenot, vol. 2, 17.

26 ‘‘Il est vray que toute parole mauvaise (comme dict sainct Paul) pervertit les bonnesmoeurs: mais quand la melodie est avec, cela transperce beaucoup plus fort le coeur, &entre au dedans: tellement que comme par un entonnoir le vin est jette dedans le vaisseau:aussi le venin & la corruption est distillee jusques au profond du coeur, par la melodie.’’Transcribed in Pidoux, Psautier Huguenot, vol. 2, 21.


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when paired with lascivious texts could lead them to shamefulbehavior.27

Song required discipline to ensure that it engendered unity andholiness, rather than sin and disorder. In the revised Psalter preface of1543, Calvin explained the need to carefully control the power of song.

Now among other things fit to delight man and give him pleasure,music is either the first or one of the principal; and we ought to regardit as a gift of God appointed for that use. Therefore, we must be all themore vigilant not to misuse it, for fear of soiling and defiling it, con-verting to our condemnation what was dedicated to our profit andsalvation. If there were no other consideration than this alone, it shouldmove us to govern [moderer] the use of music, to make it serve all decentbehavior [honnestete ] and that it be not at all an occasion to give freereign to dissolution, or to make us effeminate in disorderly delights,and that it be not an instrument of fornication, neither of wantonness.But there is still more: because almost nothing in the world is more ableto turn and bend here and there the morals of men, as Plato hasprudently considered it. And in fact, we have proven that it has a secretand almost incredible power to move hearts in one manner or another.That is why we must be all the more diligent to regulate [reigler] it insuch a way as to be for our profit, and not for our destruction. For thisreason the ancient doctors of the church often complained, that thepeople of their time were addicted to illicit and obscene songs [chansonsdeshonnestes & impudiques], which not without cause they regarded andcalled a deadly and satanic poison for corrupting the world.28

27 Calvin did not make a distinction in this passage between the danger of singingthese improper songs and the danger of hearing them, although these were separate butinterrelated concerns. For more on neo-Platonic approaches to listening, see Kate vanOrden, ‘‘An Erotic Metaphysics of Hearing in Early Modern France,’’ Musical Quarterly82, no. 3–4 (1998): 678–91.

28 ‘‘Or entre les autres choses qui sont propres pour recreer l’homme & lui donnervolupte, la Musique est ou la premiere, ou l’une des principales: & nous faut estimer quec’est un don de Dieu depute a cest usage. Parquoy d’autant plus devons-nous regarder den’en point abuser, de peur de la souiller & contaminer, la convertissant en nostre con-damnation, ou elle estoit dediee a nostre profit & salut. Quand il n’y auroit autre consid-eration que ceste seule, si nous doit-elle bien esmouvoir a moderer l’usage de la musique,pour la faire servir a toute honnestete: & qu’elle ne soit point occasion de nous lascher labride a dissolution, ou de nous effeminer en delices desordonnees, & qu’elle ne soit pointinstrument de paillardise, ne d’aucune impudicite. Mais encore y a-il davantage: car agrand’ peine y a-il en ce monde chose qui puisse plus tourner ou flechir ca et la les mœursdes hommes, comme Plato l’a prudemment considere. Et de fait, nous experimentonsqu’elle a une vertu secrette & quasi incroyable a esmouvoir les cœurs en une sorte ou enl’autre. Parquoy nous devons estre d’autant plus diligens a la reigler en telle sorte qu’ellenous soit utile, & nullement pernicieuse. Pour ceste cause les docteurs anciens de L’Eglisese complaignent souventesfois, de ce que le peuple de leur temps estoit addonne a chan-sons deshonnestes & impudiques, lesquelles non sans cause ils estiment & appellent poisonmortel & satanique, pour corrompre le monde.’’ Transcribed in Pidoux, Psautier Huguenot,vol. 2, 20–21.

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Here, Calvin presented a clear justification for the use of court disciplineto regulate the practice of singing. Song’s power to influence bodiestoward rebellious acts of immorality and social disorder demanded thatit be carefully controlled.29 Regulating decent singing was thereforeintegral to the maintenance of decent living within the Reformed com-munity. Disciplining song was, by this logic, both a religious and a civicduty.30

The juridical disciplining of song in the Consistory and civil courtsmight at first glance appear to be a trivial matter compared to biblicallymandated moral infractions, such as fornication, drunkenness, usury, orblasphemy. The historical and legal evidence, however, reveals that theGenevan authorities took the misuse of song seriously, as suggested bythe harsh nature of the punishments, the broad social spectrum broughtbefore the court, and the repeated injunctions issued by the authoritiesagainst all forms of improper singing. Over the course of the periodconsidered in this study, the Consistory ordered a string of announce-ments and proclamations warning against illicit singing. Heralded by thesound of trumpets, town criers spread these prohibitions and threats ofpunishment against improper song to the inhabitants of the city, leavingno room for claimed ignorance of the edicts. When Jacques Portierappeared before the Consistory in August 1542 for singing impropersongs, the Consistory board pointedly demanded why he had refusedto observe the proclamations banning illicit songs from the city.31

29 Recognition of the power of song to incite disorder went beyond the Reformedcommunity. For example, Kate van Orden highlights the royal ordinances pronounced byCharles IX’s provincial governor, de Losses, against ‘‘dissolute songs and songs leaningtoward sedition’’ in 1564 Lyon. According to van Orden, these edicts and their harshpunishments emphasized ‘‘song as a transmitter of social disease and religious unrest.’’ Seevan Orden, ‘‘Cheap Print and Street Song,’’ 274–75.

30 Although the focus of this article centers on the disciplinary aspects of theReformed church toward song, I would like to clarify that I do not subscribe to the long-standing and historically inaccurate view of the Reformers as the enemies of music, a per-spective famously espoused by Douen in Clement Marot et le Psautier Huguenot, vol. 1, 377.This view has been recently reiterated by Richard Taruskin in The Oxford History of WesternMusic, 6 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 1:754–55. For a brief introduction tothe historiography on Calvin and music, see Charles Garside, ‘‘The origins of Calvin’stheology of music, 1536–1543,’’ Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 69, no. 4(1979): 1–36. In contrast to a purely negative view of the role of music in the Reformation,I see the severe disciplinary activity against illicit music as working in tandem with a positivepromotion of licit musical activity, not only toward the new practice of congregationalsinging in Reformed communities but also toward promoting musical literacy for allmembers of the community. For an insightful introduction to the positive cultivation ofmusic in Geneva, see Daniel Trocme-Latter, ‘‘The psalms as a mark of Protestantism: theintroduction of liturgical psalm-singing in Geneva,’’ Plainsong and Medieval Music 20, no. 2(October 2011): 145–63; and John D. Witvliet, ‘‘The Spirituality of the Psalter: MetricalPsalms in Liturgy and Life in Calvin’s Geneva,’’ Calvin Theological Journal 32 (1997): 273–97.

31 R. Consist. I, fol. 56 (7 Sept 1542); Registres du Consistoire de Geneve au temps de Calvin,ed. Thomas A. Lambert and Isabella M. Watt, vol. 1 (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1996), 112.


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After new proclamations in 1544 warning against indecent singingthe Company of Pastors drafted a set of supplemental ordinances thatsolidified legislation for the discipline of song and other moral infrac-tions in the Genevan villages.32 Put into law by the Small Council on3 February 1547, these ordinances declare that ‘‘if anyone sings indecent,dissolute or outrageous songs [chansons deshonnestes, dissolues, ou oultra-geuses] or dances the virelai or other dances, they will be held in prisonfor three days and then be sent before the Consistory.’’33 When wecompare the penalties fixed for other moral infractions (table 1), we cansee that the Genevan authorities regarded singing illicit songs as a rela-tively serious offense. Minor offenses such as drunkenness, missingchurch, and blasphemy led to verbal reprimands and/or small fines,while more serious crimes, such as illegally baptizing an infant, fornicat-ing, dancing, and singing illicit songs, called for imprisonment and insome cases large fines.34

Presumably this already harsh penalty for singing illicit songs was notas effective a deterrent as the magistrates had hoped because they con-tinued to issue proclamations against singing indecent songs. In August1549 they repeated prohibitions against frivolous behavior, ‘‘chansonsdeshonnestes,’’ and dancing under pain of the punishments announcedin previous proclamations.35 Moreover, in December of that year, theConsistory sent a general warning to the council that they had uncoveredwhat appeared to be a ring of illicit partying, noting that they had foundpeople singing ‘‘chansons deshonnestes,’’ playing cards and gambling atthe homes of Le Berche, Le Byerchoz, Jehan Dunant, and Denys Hugoz.They recommended that the proclamations be made yet again.36

Clearly these repeated verbal warnings and initial punishmentsfailed to discourage illicit singing, because on 20 January 1550, the SmallCouncil ordered a new proclamation announcing an increase in the pun-ishment for singing ‘‘chansons deshonnestes’’ or dancing to three days inprison on bread and water and a sixty sous fine for each infraction.37 Eventhis does not seem to have curbed the singing to the satisfaction of the

32 Registres du Conseil de Geneve 38, fol. 337 (22 August 1544) (hereafter R.C.); Registresdu Consistoire, vol. 2, 5.

33 ‘‘S’il y a aulcun qui chante chansons deshonnestes, dissolues ou oultrageuses, oudancer en virolet ou aultrement, il tiendra prison par troys jours, puis sera renvoie auConsistoire.’’ Registres de la Compagnie des Pasteurs, vol. 1, 18.

34 The authorities typically showed leniency for first-time offenses. For example, firsttime fornicators or adulterers were generally sentenced to only three days in jail and weredenied communion. Jeffrey Watt, personal communication, 14 August 2013.

35 R. Consist. IV, fol. 184v (9 August 1549); Registres du Consistoire de Geneve au temps deCalvin, ed. Isabella M. Watt and Thomas A. Lambert, vol. 4 (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2007),225.

36 R. C. 44, fol. 287v (16 December 1549); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 4, 247.37 R. Consist. IV, fol. 306v (20 January 1550); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 4, 254.

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Genevan authorities. Just eight months later the Consistory advised theCouncil to make still more proclamations warning against ‘‘chansonsdeshonnestes.’’38

TABLE 1Ordinances of 1547

Infraction Penalty

Missing a sermon (withouta legitimate excuse)

Fine of 3 sous

Repeatedly missing sermons(after being warned)

Fine of 3 groats per absence

Unlawful baptizing of an infant 3 days in prison on bread and waterand a fine of 3 sous

Observance of Roman festivals orfasts

Verbal reprimand

Attendance at Mass Verbal reprimand andimprisonment or special fines

Blasphemies1st occasion Must kiss the ground2nd occasion Fine of 5 sous3rd occasion Put in the stocks for one hour

Drunkenness1st occasion Fine of 3 sous2nd occasion Fine of 5 sous3rd occasion Fine of 10 sous and imprisonment

Keeping a tavern open or enteringa tavern during public worship

Fine of 3 sous

Singing illicit songs or dancing 3 days in prison and a mandatoryappearance before the Consistory

Usury Fine determined by offenseGambling Fine of 5 sous in addition to the

money stakedFornication

1) Both parties unmarried 6 days in prison and a fine of 60 sous2) Adultery (one party married) 9 days in prison and a special fine

determined by the Magistrates

Source: Registres de la Compagnie des Pasteurs, vol. 1, 14–21.

38 R. Consist. V, fol. 55 (14 Aug 1550); Registres du Consistoire de Geneve au temps deCalvin, ed. Isabella M. Watt and Thomas A. Lambert, vol. 5 (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2010),178–79.


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The escalating and serious penalties administered for illicit singingand the repeated public warnings against indecent singing suggest thatthe small percentage (about 3%) of yearly cases from the Consistoryrecords that involve song do not necessarily indicate a lax attitude on thepart of the authorities toward the regulation of song. Rather, the smallnumbers may instead suggest that the majority of Genevan residents choseto heed the stern warnings and reform their singing. Of course, any prem-ise drawn from quantitative analysis of court records needs the qualifica-tion that court records provide a limited, often fragmented window intothe juridical past. As Judith Pollmann discovered through an analysis ofseventeenth-century court records from Utrecht, Consistory records maycontain omissions, whether strategically or by accident, as the court sec-retary redacted the court proceedings in real time.39

Another possible explanation for the small number of recordedcases of illicit singing in Geneva during this period is that singers wereindividually warned by others in the community and heeded the per-sonal warnings against the illegal singing before they were reported tothe authorities. Indeed, in Geneva, some of the cases involving indecentsinging indicate that the singers had already been warned in private byauthorities or concerned neighbors before formal charges were madebut had refused the warning. Thus, the Consistory records provide onlya limited glimpse into what was likely a much more pervasive culture ofprivate or informal disciplining of song.

An additional challenge presented by the Consistory records is thatthey are not full transcriptions of complete interrogations (fig. 1).40

Sometimes the secretary wrote only a brief encapsulated account, leavingout the questions asked by the interrogators, paraphrasing important re-sponses by the accused, and summarizing the concluding admonish-ments. At other times, the secretary provided much more detail,transcribing the flow of the interrogation in a narrative style. Many casesseem to offer contradictory information or obviously omit portions of theproceedings, making straightforward interpretation and analysis difficult.This analysis takes into account the possible distance between the Consis-tory as a lived experience and the Consistorial records, which provide anaccount of that experience, recognizing that even fragmentary or editedrecords offer valuable insight into the disciplining of song in Geneva.

The one hundred-plus cases involving illicit singing recorded in thefirst decade of Consistory activity provide a rich field of evidence for

39 Judith Pollmann, ‘‘Off the Record: Problems in the Quantification of CalvinistChurch Discipline,’’ Sixteenth Century Journal 33, no. 2 (2002): 423–38.

40 The brief entry shown in figure 1 records the admonishments made against aninnkeeper named Arthaudaz, who was warned to abstain from indecent singing and otherimmoral activities.

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examining the Consistory’s ongoing attempt to regulate the practice ofsinging in the city.41 I divide the cases involving song into three majorcategories. The first category includes cases censuring indecent singingalone or in tandem with the closely related charges of dancing or playingmusical instruments. The second concerns cases in which singers wereaccused of improper singing and defended themselves by claiming tohave been singing licit songs, and the third includes Consistory cases thatinvolved charges of improper singing alongside other illicit behaviors,such as gambling, blasphemy, and fornication (table 2).42

figure 1. Registres du Consistoire I, fol. 14v (4 April 1542). Courtesy ofthe Geneva State Archives. Consistoire R 1, fol. 14v

41 These one hundred and five cases specifically mention song or singing in either theaccusations, testimonies, or admonishments. Many other cases that I have not counted inthe tables here involved accusations of dancing and/or instrumental music making,activities that were strongly associated with indecent singing and typically lumped togetherinto a single category in lists of punishments and official edicts. I have chosen to focus myconsideration on the juridical disciplining of song in Geneva because the practice ofsinging had a licit cultivation in the liturgy and in domestic singing and thus deservesa separate analysis. Even so, I will offer a brief look at the complex relationship betweenillicit song, dance, and instrumental music within my analysis below. The Consistory re-cords from 15 November 1548 to May 1550 have been lost, so for vol. 4, the editors of theDroz publication have included the Registers from the Council during that period. TheCouncil, a civil court that followed up cases brought before the Consistory and meted outpunishments, offers documentation of the most serious cases seen by the Consistory. Still,there were most likely a number of Consistory cases involving song that never went to theCouncil. For this group of cases, we have no surviving record.

42 There are many possible strategies for counting cases in Consistory records, anissue highlighted in Pollman, ‘‘Off the Record.’’ I count as one case all appearancesassociated with a particular incident, even if it involves multiple defendants, witnesses, and


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http://www.jstor.org/action/showImage?doi=10.1525/jm.2015.32.1.1&iName=master.img-000.jpg&w=309&h=174


Category 1: Indecent Song

The Consistory’s campaign against indecent song pervaded every sector ofGenevan society. The cases reveal the Consistory’s concern over a wide vari-ety of contexts, spaces, and modes of illicit singing. Jehan Parmier appearedbefore the Consistory in 1550 for singing ‘‘chansons deshonnestes’’ with hismanservant on Mardi Gras.43 In March 1550, La Naviotte testified that twoother women, Serga Pillisson and Anthoenne La Rosse, sang ‘‘chansonsdeshonnestes’’ during catechism on Sunday.44 The next week, Armande,a servant of Mr. Dupont and daughter of Guillame Truffet, repented underConsistory scrutiny for loudly singing ‘‘chansons deshonnestes.’’45

Indecent singing was a popular group activity in Geneva and its villages.In 1545, seven girls and women from Russin faced accusations of singingand dancing ‘‘chansons dissolues’’ in a case that prompted the Consistoryto call for the Lord of Saint-Victor to reiterate the prohibitions againstdances and songs in the village.46 In March 1550, the Consistory chargedseven apprentices of ribbon-maker Pierre de Pers with singing ‘‘chansonsdeshonnestes.’’47 A few months later Pierre Romand, his wife, and his twosons came under scrutiny as a family for singing ‘‘chansons deshonnestes.’’48

In November 1546, the Consistory charged a group of butchers for dissolutespeech and singing ‘‘chansons deshonnestes’’ in their booths.49 And in May1547, Jehan de Chollie and the sons of Thevena faced censure for singing‘‘chansons deshonnestes’’ while at their post guarding the door.50

TABLE 2Cases involving song 1542–1552

Total Cases 105

Cases involving indecent songs alone or with dancing/instruments

40 38%

Cases in which the defendant claimed licit singing 13 12%Cases involving indecent singing and other illicit behavior 64 61%

Note: Some cases fall under multiple categories.

-repeat interrogations over weeks or months. I count a case as involving song if any portionof the interrogation, testimonies, or admonishments mentions singing or song.

43 R. Consist. V, fol. 5 (27 February 1550); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 5, 18.44 R. Consist. V, fol. 11 (20 March 1550); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 5, 36.45 R. Consist. V, fol. 14v (27 March 1550); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 5, 48.46 R. Consist. II, fol. 7v (5 November 1545); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 2, 63. Indecent

singing and dancing seem to have been more common in the countryside than in the city.47 R. Consist. V, fol. 7 (6 March 1550); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 5, 23.48 R. Consist. V, fol. 47 (10 July 1550); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 5, 151.49 R. Consist. II, fol. 90 (11 November 1546); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 2, 326.50 R. Consist. III, fol. 89 (29 May 1547); Registres du Consistoire de Geneve au temps de Calvin,

ed. Thomas A. Lambert and Isabella M. Watt, vol. 3 (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2004), 123.

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Although the vast majority of Consistory cases involving song recordonly a general accusation of singing prohibited songs, a handful of casesindicate the name of the indecent song sung by the accused. These casesoffer insight into the type of songs that might have been categorized asindecent and offer concrete historical evidence for the specific use ofcertain chanson.

Consider the case against Jana Bonivard, a girl summoned before theConsistory court in 1542. The court authorities accused her of singingsongs with her friend Philiberte Biollesian in violation of the civic edictsoutlawing all forms of indecent singing. According to the Consistorialproceedings, Jana defended herself against the charges of licentioussinging and claimed to have sung no ‘‘chansons deshonnestes,’’ but onlychansons ‘‘de l’Evangille’’ (songs of the gospel). She admitted only tosinging ‘‘L’aultre jour quand chevauchoye’’ (The other day when I wasriding). In her defense, she added that she attended sermons as often asshe could. The Consistorial authorities were evidently satisfied with herresponse because they dismissed her with admonishments to obey hermother, to attend the sermons as often as possible, to uphold the doc-trine of the Lord, and to attend the Sunday catechism.51

The indecent song that Jana confessed to have sung belonged to animportant group of popular chansons beginning with some variation ofthe opening phrase ‘‘L’autre jour m’en chevauchoye.’’ Loyset Comperecomposed a prominent four-voice arrangement of ‘‘L’autre jour m’enchevauchoye’’ (ex. 1),52 that was included in Petrucci’s Canti C (Venice,1503) and appears in Florence, Biblioteca del Conservatorio di Musica‘Luigi Cherubini,’ MS Basevi 2442 (‘‘Strozzi Chansonnier’’), a manu-script that according to Joshua Rifkin may have been copied in Franceca. 1510–1515.53 I offer the Compere version here as an illustrative and

51 R. Consist. I, fol. 57 (14 September 1542); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 1, 115.52 Petrucci’s Canti C includes only the incipit of the opening text for Compere’s 4v

arrangement. On Canti C, see Stanley Boorman, Ottaviano Petrucci: Catalogue Raisonne (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 2006), 525–34. For a modern edition of the full setting, seeCompere’s Opera Omnia, ed. Ludwig Finscher, Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 15, vol. 5(American Institute of Musicology, 1972), 31–32.

53 Census-Catalogue of Manuscript Sources of Polyphonic Music 1400–1550, ed. CharlesHamm and Herbert Kellman (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1979–88), vol. 1, 235–36; the catalogoffers both Howard Mayer Brown’s later dating 1518–1528, probably ca. 1527, and Floren-tine origin as well as Rifkin’s earlier date and provenance ‘‘not of Florentine origin, con-ceivably written in France.’’ For more on this manuscript, see Louise Litterick, ‘‘Chansonsfor Three and Four Voices,’’ The Josquin Companion, ed. Richard Sherr (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2000), 335–91; Howard Mayer Brown, ‘‘Words and Music in Early 16th-Century Chansons: Text Underlay in Florence, Biblioteca del Conservatorio, Ms Basevi2442,’’ Formen und Problem der Uberlieferung mehrstimmiger Musik in Zeitalter Josquins Desprez,ed. Ludwig Finscher, Quellenstudien zur Musik der Renaissance 1 (Munich: Krauss Interna-tional Publications, 1981), 97–141; Brown, ‘‘The Music of the Strozzi Chansonnier (Florence,Biblioteca del Conservatorio di Musica, MS Basevi 2442),’’ Acta musicologica 40, no. 2/3


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widely circulated example of this chanson group, particularly importantfor this study because it was preserved with both the music and full text.54

example 1. Loyset Compere, L’autre jour m’en chevauchoye (tenor only)from Petrucci, Canti C (Venice, 1503), 64v, additional textfrom Florence MS Basevi 2442

-(1968): 115–29; and Lawrence F. Bernstein, ‘‘Notes on the Origins of the Parisian Chanson,’’Journal of Musicology 1, no. 3 (1982): 275–326.

54 For several closely related chanson texts, see Brian Jeffery, ed., Chanson Verse of TheEarly Renaissance, 2 vols. (London: Tecla Editions, 1976), vol. 1, 196–97, 199–200, vol. 2,124–26, 222–25. Paris, BnF fr. 12744 includes an alternate version, ‘‘L’autre hier quant je

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Although the specific details of the story and the poetic forms usedin the ‘‘L’autre jour (m’en chevauchoye)’’ chansons vary widely, theyhave the same basic narrative structure. The narrator (sometimesa knight) is riding through the woods toward a named city when hemeets a pretty girl (often a shepherdess) and has lustful thoughts abouther/or dallies with her. The text of the Compere chanson, translatedhere, follows this typical outline (ex. 2). With their playfully lewd textsand the possibility for endless and creative variation, the ‘‘L’autre jour’’chansons as a group provided ample reason to fall under the category ofdeshonneste singing and therefore warrant the vigilant censorship of theConsistory.

Another particularly interesting example from May 1549 involvedStephen ‘‘Rigollet’’ Du Mollars, sent by the Consistory to the council forsinging the illicit song, ‘‘Aut robinet tu m’as ma meur donnee.’’ This is

example 2. Text and translation from Loyset Compere, L’autre jour m’ychevauchoye. Florence MS Basevi 2442

L’autre jour m’y chevauchoye,Mon chemin a la Rochelle,Rencontray en mon chemin hault

de bois,Joly bois une gente demoiselle,He dieu, qu’elle est malade.

The other day when I was riding,On my way to La Rochelle,I met on my way, through the high

wood,The pretty wood, a pretty girl.Oh god, she is having her flowersi (i.e.,

fertile, ready for sex).ii

iRandall Cotgrave, A Dictionary of the French and English Tongues, 1611,notes that the phrase elle est malade is ‘‘said of a woman that hath her flowers,’’a euphemism for a woman having her menstrual cycle.

iiLaurent Joubert, The Second Part of the Popular Errors (Paris, 1579)explains that the phrase ‘‘a woman’s flowers’’ as a reference to menstruation wasalso associated with fertility and ovulation. ‘‘When this flow is perceived, a womanis said to have her flowers and could well produce fruit if she happens to con-join.’’ See the translated and annotated edition by Gregory David de Rocher(Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1995), 173.

-chevauchois,’’ with different text and music than the Compere version. A facsimile of thecomplete manuscript is available for free at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8454676w/f21.image.r¼12744.langEN. For a discussion of Paris, BnF fr. 12744 and its role withina long tradition of related texts going back to the thirteenth century see John Haines, EightCenturies of Troubadours and Trouveres: The Changing Identity of Medieval Music (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2004), 69–71; for several related incipits see also Jane Alden,Songs, Scribes, and Society: the History and Reception of the Loire Valley Chansonniers (New York:Oxford University Press, 2010), 34 n82. For other possible versions of this couplet, somewith text only, others with music but lacking the full text, see Howard Mayer Brown, Musicin the French Secular Theater, 1400–1550 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), 252.


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http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8454676w/f21.image.r=12744.langEN




almost certainly the popular chanson ‘‘He Robinet tu m’as la mortdonnee’’55 (ex. 3). The tune and full text can be found in the superius partof a triple chanson ‘‘He Robinet, tu m’as la mort donnee—Trigalore—Parung vert pre’’ from the fifteenth-century manuscript Paris n.a. fr. 4379.56

The song is a virelai and expresses the woes of having an unfaithful lover.‘‘He Robinet’’ must have been a well-known tune because it was turned intoa quodlibet,57 appearing in the fifteenth-century chansonnier Escorial58 asa combinative chanson with ‘‘O Rosa Bella’’ in the superius and a quodlibet of

example 3. Refrain of He Robinet (superius only) from Paris n.a. fr. 4379

55 R. C. 44, fol. 88 (6 May 1549); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 4, 207. ‘‘He Robinet’’islisted in David Fallows, A Catalogue of Polyphonic Songs, 1415–1480 (Oxford: Oxford Uni-versity Press, 1999), 182–83. Another interesting historical record of this song is found inthe chronicles of Metz, which tell of a man who went to the gallows in 1437 singing, ‘‘HeRobinet tu m’as la mort donnee/Car tu t’en vais, et je suis demeuree.’’ J. F. Huguenin, LesChroniques de la ville de Metz (Metz: S. Lamort, 1838), 201–202.

56 Paris n.a. fr. 4379 is a fragment of the Seville chansonnier 5–I–43. Facsimile repro-duction of the manuscripts Sevilla 5–I–43 & Paris n.a. Fr. 4379 (pt. 1) (Brooklyn: Institute ofMediaeval Music, 1962). For the full text and a complete transcription of the three parts,see Dragan Plamenac, ‘‘A Reconstruction of the French Chansonnier in the BibliotecaColombina, Seville —I,’’ The Musical Quarterly 37, no. 4 (1951): 534–35.

57 A quodlibet was a witty song composed of fragments taken from several differentpopular tunes. See Maria Rika Maniates, Peter Branscombe, and Richard Freedman,‘‘Quodlibet,’’ in Grove Music Online (accessed 9 March 2013).

58 El Escorial, Biblioteca del Monasterio, MS IV. a. 24, fol. 4v.

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‘‘He Robinet’’ in the tenor.59 In his fifteenth-century music treatise Propor-tionale musices, Tinctoris uses a similar version of this combinative chanson,this time beginning with the opening fragment from the famous ‘‘L’hommearme’’ tune and using ‘‘He Robinet’’ as the second fragment.60 Althoughthe text varies from the original to the different quodlibet versions, eachtext involves the sexual exploits of Robinet and exemplifies the sort ofpopular bawdy song text that so offended the Reformed authorities.

The text of ‘‘He Robinet’’ was not the only moral issue at stake,however. The song is a virelai, a form also known as a chanson baladee thatmaintained a strong tradition of accompanying dance.61 The virelai musthave been popular in Geneva because it was specifically banned in theordinances of 1547 along with the general warnings against illicit singingor dancing under threat of imprisonment.62 Dancing, as we have alreadyseen, was harshly suppressed in Geneva. Unlike song, which had poten-tial as a vehicle for praising God and providing healthy domestic recre-ation, dancing was unilaterally prohibited because its physicalexuberance and close contact between couples was thought to lead tofornication.63

The Consistory records occasionally indicate the type of offendingdance by name in the interrogations, in the period of this study, specif-ically virelais, bransles, and pavannes. For instance, in April 1549, just one

59 For the full text and translation of the version in Escorial, see Maria Rika Maniates,The Combinative Chanson: An Anthology (Madison: A–R Editions, 1989), xix.

60 Johannes Tinctoris, Proportions in music/Proportionale musices, ed. Albert Seay (Col-orado Springs: Colorado College Music Press, 1979), 70. The tenor quodlibet cited byTinctoris reads ‘‘Lome, lome, lome arme/Et Robinet tu m’as la mort donnee/Quand tut’en vas.’’ Tinctoris himself does not attribute the melody fragments. This quodlibet wasthought to be the original l’homme arme text until 1898 when Michel Brenet was able todemonstrate that the three lines of text were each taken from three pre-existent chansons.For an account of this history see Plamenac, ‘‘A Reconstruction of the French Chansonnierin the Biblioteca Colombina, Seville —I,’’ 522 n53.

61 For an introduction to the virelai, one of the so-called formes fixes, see CharlesBrewer, ‘‘French Ars Nova,’’ in A Performer’s Guide to Medieval Music, ed. Ross Duffin (Bloo-mington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2000), 192.

62 Registres de la Compagnie des Pasteurs, vol. 1, 18.63 Calvin made this connection between dancing and sex in his sermon on Duet. 5:18

on 2 July 1551, ‘‘on sait bien que les danses ne peuvent etre, sinon des preambules apaillardise, qu’elles sont pour ouvrir la porte a Satan, et pour crier qu’il vienne et entrehardiment.’’ CO, vol. 26, col. 341. See Weeda, Le Psautier de Calvin, 78–81. For more onReformed views of dancing see Marianne Ruel, Les Chretiens et la danse dans la France moderne:XVIe-XVIIIe siecle (Paris: Champion, 2006); and H. P. Clive, ‘‘The Calvinists and the Ques-tion of Dancing in the 16th Century,’’ Bibliotheque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 23, no. 2(1961): 296–323. See also Kate van Orden, Music, Discipline and Arms in Early Modern France(Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2005) for an excellent account of thepolitical and disciplinary role of dance and music in France during this period. In her Dancein the Renaissance: European Fashion, French Obsession (New Haven: Yale University Press,2008), Margaret M. McGowan not only offers information on various dance forms duringthis period, she also outlines neo-Platonic theories of dance and the debates over the moraldangers or positive benefits of dancing.


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month before the ‘‘He Robinet’’ case mentioned above, the Consistorysent a large party from Malagny and Genthod to the Council for havingdanced and sung to a virelai. The Council records note that after thegroup was released from prison, each member was asked to pay a three-sous fine for the public denouncement.64

It is important to note that the fact that no instrumentalists werecensured in this case is not necessarily an omission in the records.According to Lawrence Earp, there existed a long tradition of dancingto unaccompanied song going back to the Middle Ages.65 Moreover, thevirelai was a form of dance song specifically highlighted in medievalnarrative accounts surveyed by Earp and retained the longest associationwith actual dancing. Furthermore, we have evidence that the popularpractice of accompanying dance with singing continued in France atleast until the end of the sixteenth century, according to the travel writ-ings of Robert Dallington. He reported that French women of all socialclasses would ‘‘dance usually in the Citie streets, in a round, like ourcountrey lasses on their towne greene, about the May-pole, making mu-sick of their own voices, without any instrument.’’66 Considering theserious invectives against dancing, we can see that songs would not onlyhave been considered indecent, purely based on their texts. Rather,songs would also have been judged indecent based on their use of par-ticular rhythmic and poetic forms used to generate dancing.

Of course, dance tunes were most often paired with bawdy texts.Thus not only was indecent singing censured in part for its associationwith dancing, but one of the major arguments raised against dancing wasthe fact that it was typically accompanied by lewd songs. In his lengthydiatribe against the evils of illicit dancing, Traite des danses, LambertDaneau speaks on behalf of the ministers of the Reformed church inpointing to the bawdy content of the songs accompanying dances.67 Inthese dances, ‘‘The most common songs there will be those that reek oflove, that is to say of fornication and impurity: the songs will be sung withwide open mouths and loud voices, refrains, and the greatest glee, themore so the naughtier the subject.’’68 Thus the indecency of illicit singing

64 R. C. 44, fol. 61v (5 April 1549); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 4, 201.65 Lawrence Earp, ‘‘Genre in the Fourteenth-Century French Chanson: The Virelai

and the Dance Song,’’ Musica Disciplina 45 (1991): 123–41.66 Robert Dallington, A Method of Travell. Shewed by taking the view of France, As it stoode

in the yeare of our Lord 1598 (London: Thomas Creede, s.d.), quoted in Clive, The Calvinists,323.

67 The book was dedicated to the King of Navarre on behalf of the ministers of theReformed Church.

68 Lambert Daneau, Traite des danses, Auquel est amplement resolue la question, a savoir s’ilest permis aux Chrestiens de danser (Geneva, 1582; first published in Geneva, 1579), 30; ‘‘Carles chansons les plus communes seront la de paroles puantes d’amour, c’est a dire de

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and dancing worked in both directions, each inciting the dangerous prac-tice of the other. This close multi-directional association explains the factthat indecent singing and dancing were almost always paired in prohibi-tions and given identically harsh punishments in Geneva.

Instrumental music had a close relationship with both indecent sing-ing and dancing and was also disciplined in the Consistory. The Consis-tory sent several musicians to the Council in 1549 for playing indecentsongs on instruments. The Consistory sent Fourgallaz before the Councilbecause he played his fiddle for several dances and ‘‘chansons deshon-nestes’’ at weddings and in other places.69 Later that year, the Consistorysent the violin player Claude Le Bornoz to the Council for playing several‘‘chansons et pavannes deshonnestes.’’70 And the drummer Tabussetand the blind violinist (probably Claude Jacquier) faced the Consistoryand then the Council for making music for ‘‘chansons et danses deshon-nestes.’’ Concluding their trial, the Council reiterated the seriousness ofthis offense as being against God and the civil ordinances and orderedthem seized and imprisoned.

These cases of instrumental music raise the question of whether anyinstrumental music making was permissible in Geneva. It is well knownthat the Calvinist reformers banned all instrumental music from thechurch services and that they undertook an unnecessarily violent waragainst organs, destroying most of the city’s organs except the one inthe cathedral of St. Pierre by 1535.71 Even the St. Pierre organ ultimatelysuffered an ill fate, when in 1562 the Council ordered the pipes meltedand donated in part to the hospital.72 These draconian measures sup-pressing instrumental music or any form of harmony or polyphony in theReformed liturgy, however, were not necessarily meant to ban part sing-ing or instrumental music in the everyday musical life of Geneva. Outsidethe walls of the church, people were especially encouraged to sing asa form of godly domestic recreation. Loys Bourgeois’s elementary musictreatise, Le Droict chemin de musique, which was published with a license inGeneva in 1550, provides an unabashed enthusiasm for the pleasure andbeauty of singing polyphonic music.73

-paillardies & impurete: lesquelles se chanteront a plaine bouche, avec haussement de voix,refrains & gayetez les plus grands, selon que le sujet sera le plus villain.’’

69 R. C. 44, fol. 97v (13 May 1549); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 4, 209.70 R. C. 44, fol. 277v (28 November 1549); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 4, 242.71 For more on the Reformed liturgy and musical life in Geneva, see Trocme-Latter,

‘‘The Psalms as a Mark.’’72 Weeda, Psautier de Calvin, 25–27, from R.C. 57, fol. 101 (17 August 1562).73 Considering the strict censorship of the publishing industry in Geneva at this time,

we can infer support from the contents of this music manual that they represented a viewaccepted by the Reformed authorities. In this case, Calvin personally read Bourgeois’smanuscript and recommended that the Council grant him a license for publication. See R. C.44, fol. 379 (8 May 1550) and R. C. 45, fol. 1v (11 May 1550), cited in Pidoux, Psautier


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For is it not amazing to hear two, three, four, five, six, seven, etc. personssinging divers sounds, nevertheless in accord, yet uttering nothing morethan ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la? With regard to the melody that is produced(saving the word of God) what in this world is so delectable?74

The legal status of instrumental music is a more complicatedissue.75 On one hand there is some evidence that instrumental musicmaking was permitted in Geneva. For example in 1545 the Councilgranted Guillaume Fabri, the cantor of Geneva, a financial advanceto learn to play the lute as an aid to his job of teaching the childrento sing the Psalms.76 And in the preface to Le Droict chemin de musique,Bourgeois states that he intends to write a tutorial on learning to playmusical instruments.77 Even Calvin described musical instruments asbeing good in their essential nature, although he warned of the possi-bility for human abuse.78 In his Commentaries on Genesis 4:20, Calvinwent even further in stating that instrumental music should not becondemned for its ability to bring pleasure. He explained that although

the invention of the harp and other musical instruments are for sensualpleasure and delights rather than necessity; it is not necessary, however,to hold them as entirely superfluous and they deserve condemnationeven less.79

In contrast to these positive indications of the possibility of licit instru-mental music in Geneva, there is much evidence that instrumental music wasfrequently censured in Geneva, not only for its association with Catholicism,-

Huguenot, vol. 2, 47. See Jean Francois Gilmont, John Calvin and the Printed Book (Kirksville,Mo.: Truman State University Press, 2005) for a detailed look at censorship and publicationin Geneva.

74 Louis Bourgeois, The Direct Road to Music (Le Droict Chemin de Musique, 1550), trans.and ed. Bernarr Rainbow (Kilkenny: Boethius Press, 1982), 130–31. Immediately after thisstatement, Bourgeois continues, ‘‘For which reason, let us all apply ourselves henceforth toput it to such a use, as is suitable to it, leaving such lechers to express the pleasures andyearnings of their folly (which they call love) by other means than Music. For it is written,Sing ye to the Lord our God A new rejoicing song: etc. Psalm 149,’’ thus following Calvin inemphasizing the need to use the power of music for appropriate rather than illicit ends.

75 For Reformed communities outside Geneva, instrumental music was an establishedform of licit domestic recreation, judging by the number of Reformed music prints publishedoutside Geneva that include the popular phrase, ‘‘bien convenable aux instruments.’’ See forexample, Loys Bourgeois, Le Premier Livre des Pseaumes (Lyon, 1547), catalogued in Pidoux,Psautier Huguenot, vol. 2, 37.

76 R. C. 40, fol. 207 (7 August 1545), cited in Pidoux, Psautier Huguenot, vol. 2, 28.77 Bourgeois, The Direct Road to Music, 32–33.78 See Weeda, Psautier de Calvin, 26.79 ‘‘Or Combien que l’invention de la harpe & autres instrumens de Musique, serve

plustost a volupte & delices qu’a necessite, toutesfois il ne la faut pas tenir pour superfluedu tout, & merite encore moins d’estre condamnee.’’ Jean Calvin, Commentaires de M. JeanCalvin, sur les cinq livres de Moyse (Geneva: Francois Estiene, 1564), 49–50.

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but also because of the frequent role of instrumental music as an accom-paniment to the iniquitous crimes of dancing and indecent singing.80

The legitimacy of instrumental music was obviously still under questionduring the years of this study because in 1556 the Council received a peti-tion from a group of musicians and singers requesting permission to play‘‘violins and other instruments’’ for singing the Psalms in honor of God.The Council denied their request, explaining that they could not be surethat their activities would not include other things tending to vanity.81

This Council decree at first blush seems to confirm a full ban oninstrumental music in Geneva, even for accompanying the Psalms. Yet itmight have been the Council’s concern with the specific instruments inquestion, such as the violin, which prompted them to deny this request. 82

For example, a more refined instrument like the lute may have beenacceptable because its soft tone made it impractical for accompanyingrowdy songs or dancing. It is clear that the musicians disciplined mostfrequently in the Consistory records were those who played violins, fifes,and drums—all instruments strongly associated with the dance. And inthe cases I have surveyed so far, the charge of illicit instrumental music istypically linked directly to charges of dancing or indecent singing.

The case against Jomet Jaquet, who in March 1551 was accused ofhaving played the spinet (epinette), offers support for the possibility ofa semi-licit status for some instrumental music. The accusations make itquite clear that Jaquet was brought before the Consistory, not for playingthe spinet per se (or for that matter for owning a spinet), but for playingthe spinet for illicit dancing. One witness defended Jaquet against thesecharges by testifying that he only remembered the spinet being playedfor some Psalms, in what appears by this testimony a licit use of thismusical instrument. Jaquet and other witnesses who were brought beforethe court also admitted to his playing the spinet, but Jaquet continued to

80 For example, in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin describes ‘‘the songs andmelodies that are composed only for the pleasure of the ear, as are all the fringots [jollytunes] and fredons [sounds of string instruments] of Papism, and all that they call brokenmusic [measured music] and such things, and songs in four parts, do not in the least suitthe majesty of the Church, and can only greatly displease God.’’ Quoted in Trocme-Latter,‘‘The psalms as a mark,’’ 150; see also Weeda, Psautier de Calvin, 24–26, 78–81, 87–90 formore on Reformed attitudes to instrumental music.

81 ‘‘Muziciens et chantres, compagnions, quelz ont supplie leur ester permis de po-voir en ceste cite joyer de viollons et aultres instrumens pour chanter psalms en l’honneurde Dieu.’’ R. C. 51, fol. 55v (19 March 1556), cited in Pidoux, Psautier Huguenot, vol. 2, 90.

82 In fact, the petition to the Council in March of 1556 was preceded by a series ofcases involving a violin player and charges of indecent singing and dancing. The accusedclaimed to be singing Psalms in their defense. It seems likely that these were the samemusicians who made the petition to the Council, and that they were denied on the sus-picion of their past behavior. For more on the role of the violin in dance, see David D.Boyden, The History of Violin Playing from its Origins to 1761, and its Relationship to the Violin andViolin Music (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), 49–59.


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insist that he had not played any dances.83 Instrumental music, accord-ing to this complex state of evidence, occupied a space at the boundaryof illicit and licit musical activities.

Category 2: Claims of Licit Singing

The boundary between illicit and licit was much clearer for song than forinstrumental music. Defendants in the second category of cases useda strategy similar to the one found in the case against Jaquet and hisspinet, in that they countered the Consistory board’s accusations of illicitsinging by claiming to have been singing proper, godly songs. Sometimesthey identified the name of the licit song they had sung, but more oftenthey identified only the genre of licit song. On 7 September 1542 theConsistory accused three women, Pernette Bonivard, Peycier’s wife, andClauda Panchaud for singing songs at night, in what appears to be a fol-low-up to an earlier, general complaint about illicit nightly singing infront of The Parrot Inn (Le Papegay).84 The three women denied thecharges and claimed they were singing ‘‘chansons a la louange de Dieu etde l’Evangille’’ (songs in praise of God and the Gospel). A week later,when the Consistory accused the serving girl Clauda Myvella of singingsongs at night, she claimed she did not sing any ‘‘chansons deshon-nestes.’’ She asserted that she only sang the song ‘‘Nostre Pere toutpuissant’’ and one other song that she could not remember.85

Evidence suggests that in this defense Clauda was claiming to have sungClement Marot’s well-known Benediction devant manger (Prayer before eat-ing) titled ‘‘Nostre bon Pere tout puissant.’’86 This text was included withother prayers and psalm versifications in Marot’s Instruction et foy d’ungChrestien (Paris, 1533) and appended to Marguerite de Navarre’s Le Miroirde l’ame pecheresse (Paris, 1533). These early sources offer no music and giveno indication that this prayer was meant to be sung. But Matthieu Malin-gre’s 1545 collection of chansons spirituelles included Marot’s ‘‘Nostre bonPere’’ with the suggestion that it be sung to the timbre Les Bourguignons,87

and several polyphonic settings of the text appeared in the early 1550s.88

83 R. Consist. VI, fol. 7v–8 (5 March 1551); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 6, 21–22.84 R. Consist. I, fol. 55v (7 September 1542); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 1, 112.85 R. Consist. I, fol. 58 (14 September 1542); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 1, 116.86 Although there are a number of texts opening with combinations of ‘‘Dieu tout

puissant’’ or ‘‘Nostre Dieu tout puissant,’’ the phrase ‘‘Nostre Pere tout puissant’’ is unique.The fact that this poem was a well-circulated text by Clement Marot, the poet of the Psalter,lends support to my conclusion that Clauda was referring to Marot’s Benediction.

87 Anne Ullberg, Au Chemin de salvation: la chanson spirituelle reformee (1533-1678), ActaUniversitatis Upsaliensis, Studia Romanica Upsaliensia 77 (Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet,2008), Annexe 1, 358.

88 Howard Mayer Brown, ‘‘The ‘Chanson Spirituelle,’ Jacques Buus, and ParodyTechnique,’’ Journal of the American Musicological Society 15, no. 2 (1962): 154.

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Although we cannot be certain which tune Clauda was singing in 1542,her case demonstrates that a sung version of this text was in circulationprior to its first appearance in a music print.

After Clauda, more cases followed where defendants claimed licitsinging. On 14 December 1542, the Consistory accused Pauloz Tarex,a member of the Council of Two Hundred, of singing ‘‘chansons in-fames’’ in his house instead of praying. He replied that he did not singany ‘‘chansons deshonnestes’’ but sang only ‘‘chansons de guerre’’(songs of war) and songs ‘‘selon l’Evangille.’’89 Procureur-generalThomas Geno defended himself against charges of improper singingin 1545 by claiming that he did not sing any improper songs but onlychansons ‘‘de l’Evangille’’ and ‘‘des guerres.’’90 Claude Galloys opted fora similar defense in May 1547, when he denied the charges of indecentsinging and claimed he was singing ‘‘chansons de guerre.’’91 When theConsistory charged Don Claude de La Piera de Vendouvres in 1546 ofimproper singing along with fornication and other sins, he denied thesinging charges and claimed that the only songs he sang were ‘‘hon-nestes,’’ such as the song ‘‘Se nous perdons nostre valle, nous perdronstout’’ (If we lose our valley, we lose all).92

This category of cases corroborates musicological evidence that cer-tain genres of secular song were considered decent by Reformed stan-dards.93 Songs of war or patriotism were clearly an acceptable type ofsinging, judging by the multiple cases in which defendants denyingcharges of improper singing claimed to have sung these genres. Theboundary between licit and illicit singing, although clear in law anddiscourse, was more difficult to determine in juridical practice as theConsistory attempted to establish evidence confirming the character orcontent of an accused singer’s performance. How could a witness becertain that her neighbor was singing improper songs unless she wasclose enough to hear all of the words clearly?

This problem of hearing and listening perhaps motivated the Con-sistory’s reliance on multiple witnesses to testify as to which songs theyheard or what singing behaviors they observed to provide necessary evi-dence to make the appropriate conviction or admonishments. We mightask whether these defendants claimed to have sung an entirely different

89 R. Consist. I, fol. 75 (14 December 1542); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 1, 148.90 R. Consist. II, fol. 18 (17 December 1545); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 2, 94.91 R. Consist. III, fol. 89 (29 May 1547); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 3, 123.92 R. Consist. II, fol. 51v (20 April 1546); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 2, 201.93 For example, editors of Reformed contrafacta included some popular secular songs

with neutral texts in their collections unchanged from their original form. Two examplesare Lasso’s lovely ‘‘La nuict froide et sombre’’ and the anticlerical chanson ‘‘Monseiurl’Abbe,’’ which humorously details the antics of a drunk abbot. See Freedman, The Chansonsof Orlando di Lasso, 21–26.


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licit song than the indecent song the accusers testified that they heard.Or were some of these defendants acknowledging that the accuser heardthe tune correctly but misheard the words, in fact claiming that they weresinging a contrafactum of the song with spiritual lyrics replacing the lewdlyrics. For example, when Jana Bonivard, in a case mentioned earlier,claimed she had not sung any ‘‘chansons deshonnestes’’ except those ofthe gospel, was she perhaps saying that she was not singing the bawdypopular version but a licit version of the popular tune with new devo-tional lyrics?94 That defense would certainly have been the most difficultto contradict.

The Consistory cases in this second category also raise questionsabout the attitude of the Reformed authorities toward the cultivationof Reformed devotional contrafacta. Were these books of contrafactamerely a resigned concession? Did the authorities recognize that peoplewere going to keep singing the bawdy songs and that their best strategywas to accommodate the popularity of the music by reforming the texts?Clearly the authorities were already experiencing difficulty in pinningdown illicit singing. Would not the presence of authorized contrafactahave made this even more challenging? If individuals were singing thespiritual version of a popular bawdy song, would they not remember and,perhaps, relish the original salacious lyrics? In his invectives against danc-ing, Lambert Daneau worried about the power of bawdy tunes to recallillicit words when played on instruments alone. Even when the offendingtexts were not sung, ‘‘the instruments express to the spirit the subject ofthe chansons and vaudevilles, which will be only too common: and whichwill give the infection and the poison with more pleasure.’’95 AlthoughDaneau’s anxieties were aimed at instrumental music used for dancing,his point about the ability of melody to recall lewd song texts raisessimilar concerns about the use of these tunes in devotional contrafacta.It is doubtful that the new spiritual lyrics could completely erase the old.Perhaps at best, the song would become a palimpsest of meaning, withthe devotional Christian words redeeming the sinful original lyrics. Forthe less devout, the contrafacta may have merely authorized a space for

94 Although the publishing of Reformed contrafacta was still in its infancy in the late1540s and did not flourish until the decades following the period of Consistory activitysurveyed here, the practice of contrafacture had a long history, allowing for the possibilitythat residents of Geneva could have devised their own strategic contrafacta and circulatedthem orally during the early years of Consistory activity as a creative way to continue singingthe songs they enjoyed. For the rise of Reformed contrafacta in Lyon, see Dobbins, Music inRenaissance Lyons, 264–67.

95 Daneau, Traite des danses, 31. ‘‘Si on replique que les danses ne se feront pastousiours avec telles chansons de voix & paroles prononcees, mais au son des instruments:ce n’est pas encor assez pour les justifier. Car les instrumens representeront aux esprits lesuiet desdites chansons & vaudevilles, qui ne seront que trop communs: et ne servira celaque de donner l’infection, & le poison avec plus de plaisir.’’

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subversive enjoyment of songs forbidden in their original form, thusworking against the Consistory’s efforts to obliterate references to sexfrom singing.

Category 3: Indecent Song and other Indecent Acts

More than sixty percent of the cases surveyed here include accusations ofillicit singing combined with accusations of other immoral behavior.These cases, which comprise my third major category of analysis, mostoften tried indecent singing along with dissolute speech, gaming, miss-ing sermons, and fornication (table 3). The Consistory censured Loyse in1546 for speaking dissolute words, singing ‘‘chansons deshonnestes,’’and disobeying her mother.96 And Robert Wyan, the well-placed assistantof the Chastellain, faced charges in 1550 for living a scandalous life andsinging ‘‘chansons scandaleuses’’ (scandalous songs) at his home.97

Inns offered environments ripe for engaging in improper singingand immoral behavior, as indicated by the Consistory’s frequent interro-gations of innkeepers for personally engaging in a combination of illicitsinging and other behaviors or for permitting these immoral activities intheir establishments. Two different female innkeepers fell under Consis-tory scrutiny in 1542 for multiple moral infractions. The Consistory ad-monished Arthaudaz, an innkeeper on the Bourg du Four, to abstain fromindecent songs and other immoral behaviors.98 Likewise, Anthoyne, hostof the Three Quail Inn, appeared before the Consistory for songs, gamesand other improper acts.99 And in December 1547, the Consistory

TABLE 3Indecent Song and Other Acts

Cases involving indecent singing and other illicit behavior 64

with usury 1 .02%with violence 2 .03%with gambling, cards, games 7 11%with missing sermons 7 11%with general charges of improper acts, scandalous behavior 12 19%with improper speech or blasphemy 19 30%with illicit sex 19 30%

Note: Some cases fall under multiple categories.

96 R. Consist. II, fol. 42 (25 March 1546); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 2, 172.97 R. Consist. V, fol. 53 (14 August 1550); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 5, 171.98 R. Consist. I, fol. 14v (4 April 1542); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 1, 28.99 R. Consist. I, fol. 15v–16 (6 April 1542); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 1, 33.


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charged Matthew Gathsiner, the innkeeper of the Trois Mercier, witha variety of faults, including skipping sermons, blaspheming, and allowingimmorality in his establishment. In particular, the Consistory accused hisdaughter and a serving girl of dissolute behavior, fornication, and singing‘‘chansons deshonnestes.’’100

The most serious cases in this category included the doubly seriouscharges of indecent singing and sexual misconduct, such as prostitution,fornication, or adultery. In September 1550 Surpy faced accusations thathe allowed fornication and ‘‘chansons deshonnestes’’ in his lodgings.101

In November 1547, the Consistory summoned Pierre de Pers and his twoservants to answer accusations against the servants who were makinga habit of singing dishonest songs and fornicating.102 Miribello andJeanne Pinard came under Consistory scrutiny in March 1547 on chargesof fornication and indecent singing. Witnesses testified to the Consistoryin March 1547 that Miribello and Jeanne Pinard were spending timealone together, singing until late at night at either one or the other’shomes, and playing cards. After these musically incriminating testimo-nies, Jeanne confessed to fornication.103

Another case involving indecent song and sex occurred in April1547. The primary defendant was the wife of Collon, who faced accusa-tions of immoral behavior with three men, identified as Vulliet, LaTourt,and Le Blet, with whom she fraternized at her house for eight days. Inher interrogation, the Consistory demanded to know whether she sang‘‘chansons deshonnestes avec gros blasphemes.’’ Le Blet’s interrogationfollowed. Initially he claimed the men were singing only Psalms andnothing improper. But later he admitted that the group sang the song‘‘Madame, Madame’’ and that Jacques the laborer played the fife (a sureindication that they were dancing and singing illicit songs). Roguet LeJeune was then brought before the Consistory and also asked about thecharacter of the singing. He replied that no one sang any impropersongs, only the Psalms of David.

Beginning on 21 January 1546 the Consistory tried a more compli-cated case involving indecent singing and fornication. The case openedwith Jehan Blancq’s testimony before the Consistory accusing AntoineFavre (‘‘La Ponssoniere’’) and Claude La Suisse of an illicit meeting atthe home of Tevena Vincent (‘‘La Coinode’’). Jaques Guidonent thentestified that several times he saw men at the home of La Ponssoniere formore than an hour, but he could not name the men. Gonin Ramel addedconfirmation to the earlier testimonies, saying that men were staying all

100 R. Consist. III, fol. 183 (1 December 1547); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 3, 246–47.101 R. Consist. V, fol. 67 (18 September 1550); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 5, 212–13.102 R. Consist. III, fol. 180 (24 November 1547); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 3, 242.103 R. Consist. III, fol. 38 and 41 (24 March 1547); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 3, 52–54.

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or almost all night with her this winter and singing songs until late.104

He could not say for sure who the men were, but he thought that he sawClaude La Suisse.

In the proceedings that followed, La Ponssonniere said her husbandhad gone to Lyon for the fair and had not returned yet. She admitted shewas in the company of Claude La Suisse and others at La Coinode’sovernight, but she claimed that La Suisse slept in a different bedroom.The Consistory noted at this point that they did not believe this excuseand were presuming henceforth that there was fornication because ofthe woman’s reputation and the clear transfer of her affections from herhusband to Claude La Suisse. In Claude La Suisse’s interrogation, theConsistory asked if it was true that he sang ‘‘chansons deshonnestes.’’ Hedenied having sung at all and was then remonstrated for having con-fessed to fornication with someone named Percevaux. Finally, La Coin-ode faced the Consistory for her scandalous behavior with LaPonssoniere and for singing ‘‘chansons vileines’’ with her. She admittedunder this interrogation to La Ponssoniere’s prior disrepute and sexualrelationship with Claude La Suisse.105

It is fascinating to note that in the case against La Ponssoniere andClaude La Suisse and in a number of similar cases, the Consistory main-tained an interest in the presence of indecent singing when they wereultimately charging the defendants with the much more serious moralcrimes of fornication or prostitution. The pattern of interrogations inthese sex cases suggests that the connection between indecent singingand illicit sex went beyond loose association. Indecent singing by theaccused seems to have provided a form of evidence accepted by theConsistory to confirm the presence of illicit sex.

In the Consistory cases disciplining song along with other immoralacts, we see the Reformed neo-Platonic view of song worked out in jurid-ical process. Indecent singing came under double scrutiny, not only asa moral sin in its own right, but also as a partner to other indecent acts andan indicator of more serious moral failure.106 The cases coupling deshon-neste singing with other indecent behaviors were clearly central to theproject of disciplining song in Geneva. Not only did this category comprisethe majority of cases in terms of numbers, but more important, these cases

104 The manuscript includes the word ‘‘deshonnestes’’ crossed out here.105 R. Consist. II, fol. 26v–31 (21 January 1546–4 February 1546); Registres du Con-

sistoire, vol. 2, 123–38.106 Musicologists have demonstrated the close link between illicit musical practice

and immoral (usually sexual or demonic) behavior, in particular for women. See SuzanneCusick, ‘‘Re-Voicing Arianna (And Laments): Two Women Respond,’’ Early Music 27, no. 3(1999): 437–49; Bonnie Gordon, Monteverdi’s Unruly Women: The Power of Song in EarlyModern Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Susan McClary Feminine End-ings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2002).


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vividly provided the foundational justification for the entire project ofdisciplining of song. Singing indecent songs not only indicated that otherimmoral behavior might be present but had the power to entice evena previously chaste singer to begin engaging in immoral acts. MinisterFabri made this point clearly when he warned Jehanne Meyrot in 1550before reporting her to the Consistory that her indecent singing anddancing were setting her on the path to fornication.107 Singing impropersongs opened the doorway of the heart to base desires and other illicit actsand therefore required discipline to protect the community from fallinginto debauchery.

The Complainte de Bolsec

Concerns over improper song leading to illicit behavior—and ultimatelyto social disorder—were dramatically illustrated in a cluster of Consistorycases related to the famous Bolsec controversy that exploded in Genevanear the end of 1551. Although the Bolsec affair is well known as a land-mark theological battle in the history of Geneva, one crucial aspect of theincident that has received little attention is the central role of Bolsec’ssong in the trial and public response to the affair. The musical portion ofthe case, which began with Bolsec’s lengthy trial but continued with theaftershocks of the trials of his supporters, involves both a fascinating caseof contrafacture, as well as charges of heresy, sexual misconduct, andspreading social unrest. Thus in terms of timing and content, the Bolsecsong trials serve as the culmination of the first decade of Consistoryactivity, offering an opportunity to analyze in closer detail the centralissues at stake in the disciplining of song in Geneva.

Jerome Bolsec was a former Carmelite who turned to the Reforma-tion, moved to a village near Geneva, and found work as a physician.Bolsec apparently went into Geneva often and enjoyed arguing points oftheology with the pastors in the city. These debates reached a climax on16 October 1551, when Bolsec publicly argued against Calvin’s doctrineof predestination in the city’s weekly ‘‘congregation’’ (biblical meetingsthat included preaching and a forum for discussion). Calvin entered theroom without being seen and proceeded to respond to Bolsec in a spir-ited debate. Immediately after the meeting, Bolsec was arrested oncharges of blasphemy and put in prison to await trial in the city courts.108

107 R. Consist. V, fol. 79v (13 November 1550); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 5, 245.108 For accounts and records of the Bolsec controversy, see Philip C. Holtrop, The

Bolsec Controversy on Predestination, from 1551 to 1555: The Statements of Jerome Bolsec, and theResponses of John Calvin, Theodore Beza, and other Reformed Theologians, 2 vols. (Lewiston, NY:E. Mellen, 1993); see also Roget, Histoire du peuple de Geneve, vol. 3, 157–206; CO, vol. 8,141–248; and Registres de la Compagnie des Pasteurs, vol. 1, 81.

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Finally on 23 December 1551, Bolsec’s trial concluded with a publicceremony of condemnation and banishment from the city.

During his extended stay in prison, Bolsec composed a musicallament of his unjust captivity. The original manuscript, which still sur-vives in the Geneva State Archives is titled ‘‘Complainte de HieromeBolsec en prison en Geneve sur le chant du psalme: Mon Dieu me paistsoubz sa puissance haulte’’ (fig. 2) and is a contrafactum on Marot’s ver-sification of Psalm 23 from the Geneva Psalter.109 Bolsec gave copies ofhis contrafactum to several friends, among them Philibert Bonna and M.de Falais, and the song then entered the popular sung repertoire ofGeneva, much to the dismay of Calvin and the authorities.110

Bolsec’s criminal trial records indicate that the authorities focusedthe interrogation of 30 November 1551 to an examination of Bolsec’ssong. They read the text to the court and proceeded to question Bolsecabout his intentions in writing the song and on the meaning of specificcouplets, particularly those portraying Calvin and the other ministers ina negative light.111

Bolsec’s contrafactum epitomizes the dangerous potential of song sofeared by Calvin and his followers. By setting his lament to a tune fromthe Psalter, Bolsec harnessed the power of a well-known melody that wasat the symbolic core of a unified Reformed church, and used it to dis-seminate his theological argument and bring to light his unjust treat-ment to members of the Geneva community. Bolsec’s choice of Psalm 23(ex. 4)112 was a strategic move that offered a relationship between Mar-ot’s Psalm text (ex. 5)113 and his own lament (ex. 6).114 Rebecca Oettin-ger and Alexander Fisher have both demonstrated the importance ofintertextual readings of Protestant contrafacta, and I believe that Bolsec’slament is an excellent example of a deliberate strategy of intertextuality

109 Bolsec’s original contrafacta manuscript has been preserved in the records of hiscriminal trial in the Geneva State Archives, P.C. 471, fol. 3–34. A copy was sent to Bern andis held in the Bern State Archives among the correspondence of Jean Calvin (B III 61,Epistolae virorum clarorum: Korrespondenz des Jean Calvin I).

110 CO, vol. 8, col. 228.111 CO, vol. 8, col. 227–28.112 See Pidoux, Psautier Huguenot, vol. 1, 31–32 for minor variations found in different

published versions of this Psalm tune. The version I include here was first published in theLyon 1547 edition and was used in the definitive Geneva 1562 edition.

113 Translations from Claude Le Jeune, Dodecacorde, ed. Anne Harrington Heider(Madison: A–R Editions, 1983), xxx.

114 The full text is reproduced in CO, vol. 8, 225–27. Translation from Holtrop, TheBolsec Controversy, 545–46. I have made one modification to Holtrop’s translation. For v.7,Holtrop and other scholars argue that the text ‘‘Amy C — —-‘‘ in the Geneva manuscriptmust indicate Calvin. The Bern copy, which I have also examined, clears up the confusion.It reads ‘‘Ami Chrestien.’’


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figure 2. Title page, Complainte de Hierome Bolsec. Courtesy of theGeneva State Archives. P.C. 471, fol. 33–34

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http://www.jstor.org/action/showImage?doi=10.1525/jm.2015.32.1.1&iName=master.img-001.jpg&w=309&h=452


on the part of the composer.115 Bolsec made clear word references to theMarot Psalm text by opening with the same ‘‘Mon Dieu,’’ and referenc-ing both ‘‘David’’ and ‘‘lambs’’ in his text. He also beautifully maintainedthe poetic meter of the original, thus allowing the new text to be easilylearned and remembered through the well-known tune.

Through his narrative of trials at the hands of evildoers and hisreliance in the safe protection of God’s mercy, Bolsec clearly placedhimself in the position of the Psalmist David, casting Calvin and theauthorities as the unjust persecutors (in what seems to be a rather astutecomparison, based on the evidence that we have from Bolsec’s trial).This would have been a particularly piercing comparison for membersof the Reformed establishment in Geneva, many of whom had fled Cath-olic persecution and were likely deeply invested in the Psalms as a markerof their identity as a persecuted minority community throughout Eur-ope. In case his witty reversal of casting the once victim as the new villainwas not clear enough, Bolsec asked in the fifth verse, ‘‘Brebiz de christ

example 4. Mon Dieu me paist, Psalm 23 from the Geneva Psalter

115 Rebecca Wagner Oettinger, Ch. 6 ‘‘Music and Mockery in the Reformation,’’ inMusic as Propaganda in the German Reformation in (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), 89–136; andFisher, ‘‘Song, Confession, and Criminality.’’


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sont elles si cruelles?’’ (Have lambs of Christ become so cruel?). Clearlythe answer for Bolsec and his supporters was an unequivocal yes. Thepersecuted lambs who relied on the Lord as their shepherd from theReformed Psalm 23 had now become the cruel wolves clamoring for thedeath of the new innocent lamb, Bolsec.

Bolsec’s song certainly became known outside of Bolsec’s immediatecircle, for we find evidence in the Consistory records of several otherindividuals specifically accused of singing Bolsec’s song. Even after hisbanishment, popular support for Bolsec continued in Geneva for a num-ber of years. According to Robert M. Kingdon, the Bolsec theologicalcontroversy attracted noticeably more local interest than most otherstrictly theological debates in Calvin’s lifetime, based on the evidencefrom these court records. Furthermore, Kingdon notes that the suppor-ters of Bolsec who were interrogated by the Consistory over the nextseveral years seemed to have understood at least the basic elements of

example 5. Selected verses from Mon Dieu me paist, Psalm 23 (ClementMarot)

1. Mon Dieu me paist sous sapuissance haute:

C’est mon berger, de rien je j’auray faute.En tect bien seur, joignant les beaux

herbages,Coucher me fait, me meine aux clairs

rivages,Traite ma vie en douceur tres-humaine,

Et pour son nom par droits sentiers memeine.

2. Si seurement, que qaund au val viendroyeD’ombre de mort, rien de mal ne craindroye.Car avec moy tu es a chacune heure:Puis ta houlette & conduite m’asseure.

Tu enrichis de vivres necessariesMa table, aux yeux de tous mes adversaries.

3. Tu oings mon chef d’huiles & senteursbonnes,

Et jusqu’aux bords pleine tasse me donnes:Voire & feras que ceste faveur tieneTant que vivray compagnie me tiene:Si que tousjours de fair ay EsperanceEn la maison du Seigneur demeurance.

1. My God pastures me under his exaltedpower:

He is my shepherd, nothing shall I lack:In a very safe stable near lovely meadows

He makes me lie down, he leads me tolimpid shores:

He treats my life with very benevolentsweetness,

And for his Name leads me along righteouspaths.

2. So securely that, should I come to the valleyOf the shadow of death, I would fear no evil:For thou art with me at every hour:Moreover, thy shepherd’s crook and

guidance strengthen me:Thou enrichest with necessary foodsMy table before the eyes of all my enemies.

3. Thou anointest my head with oils andgood perfumes.

And a brimming full cup thou givest me:Truly thou shalt ordain that thy present favor,As long as I live, may accompany me:So that forever, I hope to makeIn the house of the Lord my home.

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example 6. Selected text from the Complainte de Hierome Bolsec

1. Mon Dieu, mon roy, ma force et ma fiance

Mon seul appuy et ma seule esperance

Vers moy ton serf qui reclame ta grace

Tourne tes yeulx: et monstre moy ta face.

Charite dort et cruaulte m’assiege

Pour me tirer en ses filletz et piege.

2. En prison suys comme meurdrier inique

Comme meschant qui a tout mal s’applique.

Prive de biens et d’amys je demeure.

On va criant, tolle! tolle! quil meure!

Et toutesfoys cest pour verite seule

Que contre moy ilz ont si rude gueule.

3. Ilz vont criant: ce seducteur machine

Getter en bas nostre saincte doctrine

Il veult troubler et conciter la ville

Il veult gaster la paix de l’evangille.

Tolle tolle que faictes vous justice!

Crucifige faictes en sacrifice.

5. Chrestiens sont ilz devenuz tyranniques?

Chrestiens ont-ils zeles pharisaiques?

Chrestiens ont-ils perdu leurs meurs si belles?Brebiz de christ sont elles si cruelles?

O durs assaulx, o mortelles allarmes

Qui font mon cueur tout consumer en larmes.

7. Amy C . . . . . . respons est-il licite

Dire que dieu veult, induict, necessite

L’homme a pecher? comment se peult-il faire

Veu que peche luy est si fort contraire?

Et puis David les iniques menasse

Car Dieu ne veult que le peche se fasse.

8. Dieu tout-puissant tant soit fort et robuste

Ne peult vouloir chose qui ne soit juste.

Iniquite ne peult vouloir justice

Ne la virtu peult dcsirer le vice.

En Dieu ne sont deux contraires ensemble

Car Dieu tousjours a soy mesmes ressemble.

10. Sus donc mon cueur, reprens vigueur et

force

Chasse douleurs et de chanter t’efforce.

Louange a Dieu qui pour ton salut veille

Il est pour toy quelque mal qu’on te veuille;

Chasse les pleurs, gette douleur amere,

Pour louer Dieu, pour invoquer ton pere.

1. My God, my king, my strength and assurance,

My only help and only confidence

Toward me, your slave, who now implores your

grace,

Please turn your eyes, and show to me your face.

For love now sleeps, while cruelty besets

And draws me in its snares and treacherous nets.

2. I am in prison like a murderer,

A wicked and all-evil plunderer;

Deprived of goods and friends, I here now lie.

They cry, ‘‘Away with him!’’ and ‘‘Let him die!"

And yet, it is for truth alone that they

With their rude snout against me now inveigh.

3. They cry that this seducer plots around

To cast our holy doctrine to the ground;

He will incite the city to rebel,

He will despoil the peace of the gospel,

"Take him away! Let justice now be done!

And crucify the sacrificial one!"

5. Have Christians now become tyrannical?

Is Christian zeal now pharisaical?

Have Christians lost their lovely courtesy?Do lambs of Christ now practice cruelty?

O hard assaults! O dread and mortal fears

That cause my heart to be consumed in tears!

7. Friend [Christian], tell me: Can it ever be

That God both wills and leads man by necessity

To carry out his sin? How is that so?

For sin and God are incompatible.

Moreover, David threatens wicked men,

Since God does not want even them to sin.

8. Our God almighty, totally robust,

Cannot desire a thing that is unjust.

The evil cannot think that just is nice,

And virtue cannot wish to live with vice.

In God, two opposites cannot combine,

For God himself would then be out of line.

10. Rise up, my heart! Let life and power ring!

Chase sorrow off, and force yourself to sing!

Praise be to God, who wants you to be saved!

He is for you, though others are depraved!

Chase tears away! Cast bitter sorrow out,

To praise your God, your Father, beyond doubt!


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Bolsec’s theology against predestination, in particular the argument thatCalvin’s view made God the source of evil and was thus incompatible withthe nature of God. Kingdon concludes that Bolsec ‘‘had discovered a for-mula, or a series of cliches, that were understandable among the generalpublic.’’116 I suggest that the Bolsec contrafactum may have been animportant element in this so-called formula for generating popular sup-port and promoting Bolsec’s theological arguments. The seventh andeighth verses of the contrafactum clearly emphasized the aspects of Bol-sec’s theological view most comprehended by his supporters in King-don’s account, explaining the incompatibility of predestination withthe nature of God in easily comprehensible terms that would have beenreinforced through the power of melody.

The particularly salacious case of Jean de Cortean, involving chargesof singing the Bolsec contrafactum and multiple counts of fornication,illustrate exactly the linking of dishonest song with sexual misconductoutlined above. Jean de Cortean was an apothecary who appeared beforethe Consistory on 10 December 1551, on charges of supporting thedoctrine of Jerome Bolsec, singing Bolsec’s song, and fornicating withAnne Thibaud.117 His case went to the Council, where he was imprisonedfor his part in publicizing Bolsec’s song. In January 1552, the plot thick-ened as Francois Batalle, a fellow Bolsec supporter, was accused of havingsex with Jean de Cortean and of singing a song with lyrics that seem to bea perversion of the Lord’s Prayer ‘‘Nostre volente soit factes ainsi en laterre comme au ciel’’ (‘Our’ will, instead of the proper ‘your’ will bedone on earth as it is in heaven). In the testimonies and interrogationsthat followed, evidence of Jean de Cortean and Francois Batalle’s sexualrelationship were brought to light by multiple witnesses. One key witnesswas de Cortean’s apprentice, Jean Le Peigner, who testified not only tothe gentlemen’s disrobing and having sex but also confessed to his owninvolvement in discussions of predestination with de Cortean.

The Consistory cases related to the Bolsec affair therefore linked thepractice of indecent singing with the most extreme degrees of illicit sex,seditious theology, and ultimately to civil unrest—an illustration of pre-cisely the type of social disorder that motivated the entire project ofdisciplining song in the Consistory. And considering the centrality ofsong in the Bolsec affair and its aftershocks, the Reformed authorities’concerns over the power of deshonneste singing as a catalyst for rebellionseem warranted. My preliminary work on the years after 1552, duringwhich the city of Geneva underwent a turbulent period of civil unrest

116 Robert M. Kingdon, ‘‘Popular Reactions to the Debate between Bolsec and Calvin,’’in Willem van’t Spijker ed., Calvin Erbe und Auftrag (Kampen, Netherlands: Kok Pharos,1991), 145.

117 R. Consist. VI, fol. 76 (10 December 1551); Registres du Consistoire, vol. 6, 213–14.

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before Calvin’s supporters solidified their control of the city in 1555,reveals that Bolsec’s use of illicit song to stir up anti-Calvin support wasmerely the first in a string of civil disturbances that harnessed the powerof song for rebellion.

The evidence from the Consistory records contributes to our under-standing of the key role that song played in marking the members of theReformed faith. Scholars such as Natalie Zemon Davis, Edith Weber, Katevan Orden, and Barbara Diefendorf have demonstrated through cul-tural and historical evidence the new importance of song in identifyingthe members of the Reformed church as a community of participants.118

The activities of the Consistory, however, reveal that the identification withsong extended beyond the cultural realm and penetrated the legal andjuridical realm of Genevan society. This regular censuring of indecentsongs was more than a prudish reaction to songs with bawdy lyrics; it wasa strategy for protecting civil harmony. For the reformers believed thathonnestes behaviors ensured the stability and maintenance of the existingsocial order, while deshonnestes activities had power to create disorder,incite unbounded immorality, and threaten the social order throughprovoking the judgment of God on the entire community.

The spiritual and political unification of the Reformed body socialwas of utmost concern to the leaders of the Reformed faith in the city ofGeneva, and they recognized that singing had great power in groupunification. But would this group cohesion bolster the existing structuresof civil and religious power that Calvin and his political allies had createdor work to overturn them? With this question in mind, we can see therationale for the frequent and serious Consistory discipline of womenand men who were singing indecent songs, whether by a gardener sing-ing a lewd ditty while at his work or by a seditious mob marching in thestreet. For from the perspective of the unified Reformed body, singingindecent songs was always an attack on the social body because it acted asa profound sonic marker of disorder and rebellion that either indirectlyor directly threatened the maintenance of the newly establishedReformed order. The work of the Consistory, then, enacted the dualpurpose of limiting the incendiary power of indecent singing whilesimultaneously reinforcing the coherence of the Reformed social bodythrough its weekly rituals of discipline and repentance.

118 Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France: Eight Essays (StanfordUniversity Press, 1975); Edith Weber, ‘‘Chants des eglises protestantes et expression popu-laire,’’ Ethnologie francaise 11, no. 3 (1981): 263–70; van Orden, ‘‘Cheap Print and StreetSong’’; and Barbara Diefendorf, ‘‘The Huguenot Psalter and the Faith of French Protestantsin the Sixteenth Century,’’ in Culture and Identity in Early Modern Europe (1500–1800): Essays inHonor of Natalie Zemon Davis, ed. Barbara B. Diefendorf and Carla Alison Hesse (Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press, 1993), 41–63.


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ABSTRACT

Song was frequently disciplined in the sixteenth-century Consistoryof Geneva as part of the broad program of social Reform led by Calvin.Between 1542 and 1552, more than one hundred cases involving illicitsinging came before the Consistory court. These cases reveal the Con-sistory’s persistent attempt to control the singing of all members ofGenevan society regardless of social status or situation. They also offera new field of evidence for exploring the boundaries between proper(honneste) and improper (deshonneste) singing in Reformed commu-nities. The bulk of the cases surveyed from this period involved chargesof illicit singing alongside other immoral behaviors, such as gamblingand fornication. These cases directly linked indecent singing to otherforbidden acts—a connection that worked out a neo-Platonic view ofmusic in juridical process and provided the rationalization for the entireproject of disciplining song in the courts. Concerns over improper songleading to illicit behavior and ultimately to social disorder were dramat-ically illustrated in a cluster of Consistory cases related to the famousBolsec affair that exploded in Geneva near the end of the year 1551.Bolsec’s contrafactum on the tune of Psalm 23 from the Geneva Psalter—written during Bolsec’s lengthy stay in prison—spread his dissentingtheology to his supporters and enacted the dangerous potential of songto disrupt the unity of the Reformed city.

Keywords: chanson, Consistory, discipline, Geneva, Reform, song

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