© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Study of French History. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

French History, Vol. 24, No. 1doi:10.1093/fh/crp074, available online at www.fh.oxfordjournals.orgAdvance Access published on 8 December 2009

* Luc Racaut is a Lecturer in the School of Historical Studies at Newcastle University. He may be contacted at luc.racaut@ncl.ac.uk This research was conducted thanks to a British Academy Small Research Grant awarded in 2003 and an AHRC matching leave scheme awarded in 2006. The author would also like to thank Thierry Amalou, Stuart Carroll, Simon Ditchfield, Martin Farr, Alison Forrestal, Julien Ferrant, Mark Greengrass, Camilla Russell and Alain Tallon.

1 T. Wanegffelen, Ni Rome ni Genève: des fidèles entre deux chaires en France au XVIe siècle (Paris, 1997), 194-208. I would like to honour the memory of Thierry Wanegffelen who has just passed away: this article would not have seen the light of day without his inspirational scholarship. Professor Wanegffelen generously read and responded to early drafts of this article while he was terminally ill.

2 Idem, Une difficile fidélité: Catholiques malgré le Concile en France, XVIe-XVIIe siècles (Paris, 1999).

T H e S A C R I F I C e O F T H e M A S S A N D T H e R e D e F I N I T I O N O F C A T H O L I C

O R T H O D O x y D U R I N G T H e F R e N C H W A R S O F R e L I G I O N

L U C R A C A U T *

Abstract—Before the outbreak of the French Wars of Religion, there was internal disagreement over whether the Church should concede points of theology to Protestantism for the sake of concord. Charles de Guise, cardinal de Lorraine, sought a compromise with Lutherans in the Holy Roman empire and was prepared to forgo the sacrificial aspect of the Mass shortly before attending the Council of Trent. This coincided with the crown’s policy of conciliation, but also drew on contemporary understanding of the sacrifice of the Mass among French Catholics. The cardinal de Lorraine eventually rallied to the Council of Trent’s pronouncements, relinquishing former hopes of reaching a compromise with Protestant theologians. This required, in turn, an adjustment on the part of those whose theology had been compatible with a Lutheran understanding of the eucharist. Ironically, those who had been in dialogue with Protestants were better placed to refute their propositions than intransigents who had refused all contact with heresy. The former participated in the redefinition of Catholic orthodoxy and drew confessional battle lines just as the French Wars of Religion were beginning.

Just over ten years ago Thierry Wanegffelen’s influential thesis, Ni Rome ni Genève, highlighted internal divisions within French Catholicism in the face of heresy and argued that advocates of compromise with Protestantism had more room for manoeuvre than had previously been thought.1 In a more recent book, Wanegffelen argued that this period of theological flux ended with the Council of Trent and the adoption of its canons by the French clergy at the turn of the seventeenth century.2 More broadly, the pronouncements of the Council of Trent can be said to have precipitated the shoring up of confessional blocs in

at University of N

ewcastle on D

ecember 10, 2014

http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/D

ownloaded from

L U C R A C A U T 21

redefining for the Catholic laity what it was supposed to believe and why. I should like to test this thesis with respect to one particular aspect of Catholic eucharistic theology: the sacrifice of the Mass.

Pope Pius IV, who presided over the third and last session of the Council of Trent, put forward a declaration of faith in 1564 where the sacrifice featured prominently: ‘I recognize that a true sacrifice is offered to God in the mass’.3 This fuelled a common misconception that the mass was a new sacrifice, distinct from the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, something which had been denounced in Protestant circles since Luther’s time. While the more visible issue of the real presence had been dealt with in 1551, the decree on the sacrifice of the Mass was issued at Trent only in September 1562. This left a window of opportunity for advocates of conciliation to reach a compromise with Lutheranism. Recent evidence suggests that Charles, cardinal de Lorraine, was willing to compromise on this issue in order to pursue an alliance with Lutheran princes in the Holy Roman empire.4 Lorraine’s failure to inflect the course of the Council of Trent to that end, and his subsequent endorsement of its canons, had a dramatic impact on the French Wars of Religion on a theological as well as a political level.

I

Cardinal Charles de Lorraine had been the figurehead of the moyenneurs, advocates of religious compromise, just before he attended the Council of Trent, an apparent contradiction with his later position that is usually regarded with cynicism.5 Lorraine’s change of heart is often described as an ‘about-turn’ as it closely followed the Colloquy of Poissy, where he had championed dialogue with Protestant reformers.6 The national assembly of the Gallican clergy at Poissy was turned into an ecumenical council by Catherine de’ Medici in answer to the reconvening of the Council of Trent.7 In agreement with the political aims of the regent, Lorraine’s plan was to draft a common confession of faith that he would take to the Council of Trent for approval. Mario Turchetti has shown that Lorraine had placed his hopes on the Confession of Augsburg in the belief that Lutheran eucharistic theology could serve as a basis for discussion between Catholics and Calvinists.8

3 P. Martin, Une religion des livres (1640-1850) (Paris, 2003), 195.4 S. Carroll, ‘The compromise of Charles cardinal de Lorraine: new evidence’, J Eccles Hist, 54

(2003), 469-83.5 H. O. evennett, The Cardinal of Lorraine and the Council of Trent: A Study in the Counter-

Reformation (Cambridge, 1930); D. Nugent, Ecumenism in the Age of the Reformation: The Col-loquy of Poissy (Cambridge, MA, 1974); M. Turchetti, ‘Religious concord and political tolerance in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century France’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 22 (1991), 15-25.

6 H. O. evennett, ‘The Cardinal of Lorraine and the Colloquy of Poissy’, Cambr Hist J, 2 (1927), 133-50; D. G. Nugent, ‘The Cardinal of Lorraine and the Colloquy of Poissy’, Hist J, 12 (1969), 569-605; M. Turchetti, ‘Concorde ou tolérance? Les Moyenneurs à la veille des guerres de religion’, Re-vue de théologie et de philosophie, 118 (1986), 255-67.

7 A. Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente, 1518 -1563 (Paris, 1997), 306-9.8 M. Turchetti, ‘Une question mal posée: la confession d’Augsbourg, le cardinal de Lorraine et les

moyenneurs au Colloque de Poissy en 1561’, Zwingliana, 20 (1993), 75-89.

at University of N

ewcastle on D

ecember 10, 2014

http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/D

ownloaded from

22 T H e S A C R I F I C e O F T H e M A S S

The Confession of Augsburg turned out to be a controversial choice since neither Gallicans nor Calvinists were prepared to endorse its articles, but it testifies to the grandeur of the cardinal’s design: to put an end to the Reformation debate in the whole of Christendom, not just in France.9 To that end Lorraine asked the Calvinists’ spokesman at Poissy, Theodore Beza, whether he would be willing to subscribe to the Lutheran conception of the real corporeal presence of Christ’s body in the eucharist.10 The Histoire ecclésiastique des Églises réformées recorded Beza’s response in no uncertain terms: ‘his body is as far from the bread and the wine as the sky is from the earth’.11 This singular event placed the real presence centre stage and shifted blame for the Colloquy’s failure on to Calvinist intransigence. Beza retrospectively accused Lorraine of having deliberately chosen this divisive issue in order to cover up his own unwillingness to compromise.12

This matter perhaps lay at the origin of the black legend surrounding the cardinal that still has currency today: Lorraine favoured a compromise with the Lutherans all along and only feigned to pursue one with the Calvinists at Poissy.13 Lorraine’s alleged sympathy for Lutheranism coincided with strong diplomatic links between the French crown and Lutheran princes that reached back to the Franco-Habsburg war.14 Moreover, the Guises were instrumental in fostering these ties, notably through the friendship of the cardinal’s brother, François, 2nd duc de Guise, with the Lutheran duke of Württemberg.15 As Beza was probably aware, Lorraine’s choice of the real presence as a starting point for discussion was designed to sideline another aspect of Catholic theology: the sacrifice of the Mass. Unlike the real corporeal presence, around which Lorraine could hope to reach a compromise with Lutheranism, the sacrifice of the Mass was unanimously rejected by both Lutherans and Calvinists.

9 M. Turchetti, ‘Middle Parties in France during the Wars of Religion’, in Reformation, Revolt, and Civil War in France and the Netherlands, 1555-1585, ed. P. Benedict, G. Marnef, H. van Nierop and M. Venard (Amsterdam, 1999), 165-83, at p. 166.

10 Ibid., 81.11 ‘son corps est esloigné du pain & du vin, autant que le plus haut ciel est esloigné de la terre’:

G. Baum, e. Cunitz and R. Reuss (eds), Histoire ecclésiastique des Églises réformées au royaume de France, vol. 1 (Geneva, 1974), 574. Interestingly the diarist Claude Haton reported that Beza had initially agreed; L. Bourquin (ed.), Mémoires de Claude Haton, vol. 1: 1553-1565 (Paris, 2001), 197-200.

12 Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente, 333; evennett, The Cardinal of Lorraine and the Council, 385.

13 J.-L. Bourgeon, ‘Les Guise valets de l’étranger, ou trente ans de collaboration avec l’ennemi 1568-1598’, in Le mécénat et l’influence des Guise, ed. y. Bellenger (Paris, 1997), 509-22.

14 Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente, 308-12, 332-5; A. Kess, ‘Diplomacy, evangelism and dynastic war: the brothers Du Bellay at the service of Francis I’, in Moderate Voices in the European Reformation, ed. L Racaut and A. Ryrie (Aldershot, 2005), 13-31.

15 The conciliatory views of the Guise towards Lutheranism are illustrated by a contemporary enamel, the Triumph of the Eucharist and of the Catholic Faith by L. Limousin c.1561, kept in the Frick Collection, that represents the Guise clan riding a chariot crushing the heads of reformers, with the conspicuous absence of Luther: http://collections.frick.org/Obj1059$12400 (accessed 3 Aug. 2009).

at University of N

ewcastle on D

ecember 10, 2014

http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/D

ownloaded from

L U C R A C A U T 23

In this respect Lorraine’s attitude at Poissy should be placed in the context of earlier initiatives aimed at conciliation, especially the Colloquy of Regensburg of 1541. At Regensburg, the moderate Cardinal Gasparo Contarini and Martin Bucer had attempted to hammer out a consensual agreement based on the Confession of Augsburg.16 Their efforts had stumbled on the Lutherans’ rejection of the sacrifice of the Mass as a travesty of the sacrifice on the cross, while agreeing on the real presence. Alain Tallon has placed Lorraine’s attitude at Poissy in this context: it seemed logical to take the real corporeal presence, rather than the sacrifice of the Mass, as a starting point.17 While attempting to obtain Calvinist agreement to the Lutheran conception of the real presence at Poissy, Lorraine was also trying to reach a compromise with Lutherans on the sacrifice of the Mass. The fact that Lorraine was pursuing these two initiatives in parallel may be at the origin of his reputation for double-dealing and deceit: his discussions on the sacrifice of the Mass with Lutherans remained private.

Lorraine was encouraged in this direction by the crown, which would have derived a considerable amount of prestige had it facilitated a compromise that reconciled the whole of Christendom. After the failure of Poissy, Catherine de’ Medici invited Lutherans to a colloquy at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, while in parallel Lorraine met the duke of Württemberg’s theologian, Johannes Brenz, at Saverne in February 1562. All the while Catherine had given limited religious freedom to the Huguenots with the edict of January. Although Lorraine was prepared to discuss aspects of Protestant theology, he was absolutely opposed to religious pluralism since it amounted to an admission of defeat with respect to his overall aim of concord. As Olivier Christin has demonstrated, the two discourses of pluralism and concord were radically different and sometimes opposed to each other.18 The various peace treaties of the French Wars of Religion always included a proviso that they were temporary measures ‘until religious concord’ could be re-established, often appealing to the authority of a universal Church council.

So while Catherine de’ Medici experimented with religious pluralism she had not abandoned her dream of concord and still hoped that the Council of Trent could be steered towards conciliation with Reformed theology. She asked the cardinal to lead the French delegation with this in mind, and it is only retrospectively that one can say that the initiative was naive and doomed to fail.19 French participation in the third and final period of the Council of Trent was motivated by the political will to reach a compromise rather than an inclination towards intransigence. But Lorraine’s willingness to enter into

16 N. Thompson, Eucharistic Sacrifice and Patristic Tradition in the Theology of Martin Bucer, 1534-1546 (Leiden, 2005).

17 Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente, 314 : ibid., 328-35.18 Nugent, ‘Lorraine and the Colloquy’, 604.19 O. Christin, La Paix de religion: l’autonomisation de la raison politique au XVIe siècle

(Paris, 1997), 38-41; Turchetti, ‘Middle Parties’, 169.

at University of N

ewcastle on D

ecember 10, 2014

http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/D

ownloaded from

24 T H e S A C R I F I C e O F T H e M A S S

dialogue with Protestants, at the cost of being accused of heresy, made him all the more dangerous to the Protestant cause once he had changed his mind. A side effect of flirting with heretical ideas was not conversion but consolidation: the moderates’ familiarity with Protestant theology made them all the better equipped to refute it.

It should be noted that although the initiative to send a delegation to Trent rested with Catherine de’ Medici, it soon became clear that the Council was incompatible with the crown’s policy of pluralism.20 It was on those grounds that the crown agreed with the Parlement of Paris’ decision against registering the canons of Council of Trent as French law. Debates surrounding the Council of Trent became the arena where the two antagonistic discourses of concord and pluralism came to clash and where the cardinal de Lorraine became the champion of Catholic intransigence. The cardinal’s embracing of the Tridentine agenda was interpreted as a betrayal and proof of his bad faith, particularly by the Protestant theologians with whom he had been in dialogue.21 The circumstances that led to what has often been described as an ‘about-turn’ have been explored by Henry Outram evenett and Donald Nugent, who have contributed to the cardinal’s rehabilitation. While the cardinal’s later approval of the Council of Trent’s decrees might be perceived as a betrayal of his earlier policy, it was consistent with his overall aim of bringing concord back to Christendom.22

I I

Lorraine’s intentions are first of all reflected in the choice of theologians whom he invited to form part of the French delegation to the Council of Trent. These included Jean de Monluc, bishop of Valence, an adviser to Catherine de’ Medici and a known advocate of compromise. There is compelling evidence to suggest that Monluc specifically intended to influence the Council’s decision on the sacrifice of the Mass. Shortly after Poissy, Monluc co-authored a memoir sent to Pope Pius IV deploring the fact that the sacrifice of the Mass was extolled at the expense of the Passion of Christ: ‘churchmen . . . make more of this sacrifice than that which took place on the cross’.23 Monluc’s views were so suspect in Rome that news of his capture by the Huguenots on his way to Trent was greeted with relief.24

Another moderate theologian who was invited to Trent was Claude d’espence, whose career had begun during François I’s reign when war with the emperor

20 Ibid., 400-14.21 Ibid., 33.22 evennett, The Cardinal of Lorraine and the Council of Trent, 385.23 ‘les ecclésiastiques . . . font plus sonner ce sacrifice que celui qui a été fait en la croix’: Wanegffelen,

Ni Rome ni Genève, 199, 201-6; idem, Une difficile fidélité, 108, 155-6; Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente, 710-1; Anon., ‘Remonstrances faites au Pape Pie IV de la part du Roy Charles Ix’, in Histoire ecclésiastique, 734.

24 Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente, 322, 338, 357-8.

at University of N

ewcastle on D

ecember 10, 2014

http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/D

ownloaded from

L U C R A C A U T 25

encouraged a rapprochement with the Protestant princes. espence’s views on a number of theological points were suspect, and the Sorbonne had forced him to recant a sermon he had delivered in 1543.25 espence had participated in the second period of the Council of Trent, when his conciliatory views would have found resonance with the Italian spirituali who favoured the Lutheran concept of salvation by faith alone. He had met the future chancellor, Michel de L’Hôpital, at Bologna in 1548 and both men had benefited from the patronage of the newly appointed cardinal, Charles de Lorraine. espence had travelled to Strasbourg to meet Martin Bucer in 1546 and to Geneva to meet John Calvin in 1548, and he had also been one of Beza’s interlocutors at Poissy.26 espence nonetheless refused the cardinal’s invitation, possibly blaming him for having introduced the Confession of Augsburg out of turn and precipitating the failure of the Colloquy of Poissy.27

Second, Lorraine’s intention to influence the Council of Trent’s pronouncement on the sacrifice of the Mass is supported by his interview with Brenz at Saverne in February, as well as a meeting of the Privy Council held at Blois in August 1562. At Saverne Lorraine would have conceded to Brenz that the Mass was not a sacrifice in itself but a commemoration of the Passion.28 Moreover, Stuart Carroll has discovered that Lorraine proposed to excise the sacrifice from the canon of the Mass at a meeting of the Privy Council held just before leaving for Trent.29 We only know of the cardinal’s stance on these two occasions from Protestant interlocutors who were ultimately disappointed by the final outcome of the cardinal’s participation at Trent.30 But, together with Lorraine’s choice of theologians, this adds up to compelling evidence that Lorraine had taken such a compromise seriously.

Third, this perception was shared by theologians at Trent and prompted intransigents to rush through the decree on the sacrifice of the Mass in order to preclude any such compromise being reached before Lorraine’s arrival.31 The Tridentine fathers’ awareness of Lorraine’s intentions is attested in a letter from Charles Borromeo to Cardinal Ferrare indicating that it was no longer necessary for Lorraine to come to the Council now that the relevant decree had been issued.32 elsewhere Borromeo expressed his fear that the French would attempt

25 Ibid., 127-35, 839; Wanegffelen, Ni Rome ni Genève, 165 n. 4; J. Ferrant, ‘Claude d’espence face au catholicisme intransigeant: réforme rénovatrice contre réforme consolidatrice’, in Un autre Catholicisme au temps des réformes? Claude d’Espence et la théologie humaniste à Paris au XVIe siècle. Journée d’Etudes du 27 octobre 2007, ed. A. Tallon, forthcoming.

26 Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente, 127, 146; Wanegffelen, Ni Rome ni Genève, 51.27 Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente, 307 n. 88, 568 n. 14; Turchetti, ‘Une question mal

posée’, 90-2.28 Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente, 333.29 Carroll, ‘The compromise of Charles cardinal de Lorraine’, 474.30 Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente, 314-5, 334-5, 834-837; Wanegffelen, Ni Rome ni

Genève, 176-81; Carroll, ‘The compromise of Charles cardinal de Lorraine’, 469, 473, 476; Tur-chetti, ‘Une question mal posée’, 76, 80, 84-5.

31 A. Duval noted the uncharacteristic short time given to the deliberations: Des sacrements au Concile de Trente (Paris, 1985), 81, 108.

32 Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente, 365.

at University of N

ewcastle on D

ecember 10, 2014

http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/D

ownloaded from

26 T H e S A C R I F I C e O F T H e M A S S

to go back on the decrees that had already been passed, notably on the eucharist and justification, predicting correctly that they would push for communion in both kinds and liturgy in the vernacular.33 Indeed, between their arrival in November 1562 and January 1563, the French delegates synthesized their demands in thirty-four articles that included these two points from among those raised at the Privy Council the preceding August.34 Contrary to Borromeo’s fears, however, the French did not again raise the issue of the sacrifice for discussion.35

Lastly, sixteenth-century French Catholic theology supports the idea that a compromise on the sacrifice of the Mass was not entirely unrealistic. When Monluc wrote to the pope that the sacrifice of the Mass was extolled at the expense of the Passion, he voiced contemporary concern that this doctrine was often misinterpreted and in need of clarification. A criticism of the Mass, common to both Lutherans and Calvinists, was that it was a repetition of the sacrifice on the cross, a blasphemous travesty of the Passion of Christ. Whether it responded to this criticism consciously or not, contemporary Catholic theology insisted on the memorial of the cross and the uniqueness of the Passion. Mirroring the Lutheran ‘once-and-for-allness’ of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, Catholic discussions of the eucharist also insisted on the identification between the sacrifice of the Mass and the Passion.36

I I I

Virginia Reinburg remarked that in late medieval devotion ‘[t]he elevation of the host and chalice represented our Lord hung on the cross.’37 This is dramatically portrayed in the late fifteenth-century Triptych of Redemption by Franck van der Stockt.38 (Fig. 1) Framed by a diptych representation of the Fall of Man on the left and the Last Judgment on the right, the central painting portrays the crucifixion in the foreground and the elevation of the host and communion in the background. This is similar to a painting by Roger van der Weyden (van der Stockt’s master), but it is more insightful in giving pride of place to the Passion in a cosmic narrative of redemption.39 This late medieval

33 Ibid., 619-20.34 Ibid., 842-67.35 Turchetti, ‘Une question mal posée’, 75, 90-4; Wanegffelen, Ni Rome ni Genève, 51, 189-208;

Wanegffelen, Une difficile fidélité, 1-12, 98-110; Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente, 337-8.36 L. P. Wandel, The Eucharist in the Reformation: Incarnation and Liturgy (Cambridge, 2006),

226.37 V. Reinburg, ‘Liturgy and the laity in late medieval and Reformation France’, Sixteenth Century

Journal, 23 (1992), 535-7.38 Wandel, The Eucharist in the Reformation, 23-4; Wanegffelen, Une difficile fidélité, 103;

Wanegffelen, Ni Rome ni Genève, 18; V. van der Stockt (1420-1495), The Redemption Triptych, Museo Nacional del Prado; http://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/online-gallery/on-line-gallery/obra/redemption-triptych-the-crucifixion/ (accessed 6 Oct. 2009).

39 Van der Weyden’s painting is reproduced in Reinburg, ‘Liturgy and the laity’, 535-7; Wandel, The Eucharist in the Reformation, pp. 23-4; and discussed in Wanegffelen, Une difficile fidélité, 103; Wanegffelen, Ni Rome ni Genève, 18.

at University of N

ewcastle on D

ecember 10, 2014

http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/D

ownloaded from

L U C R A C A U T 27

Figure 1 Franck van der Stockt, Redemption Triptych: The Crucifixion, oil on canvas, 195cm x 127cm, Flemish, Second Half of the Fifteenth Century, Madrid, Museo

Nacional del Prado (Photo © Museo Nacional del Prado).

understanding can be found in the theology of René Benoist, who referred to the body of Christ in the Mass as ‘sacrificed on the altar of the cross’.40 Benoist’s views were not incompatible with a rapprochement with Lutheran theology, to the extent that Wanegffelen has described him as representing ‘neither Rome nor Geneva’, alongside Monluc, espence and Lorraine.

40 Benoist, Claire Probation, sigs e2r–v.

at University of N

ewcastle on D

ecember 10, 2014

http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/D

ownloaded from

28 T H e S A C R I F I C e O F T H e M A S S

Benoist benefited from the Guises’ patronage and had been chosen as confessor to their niece, Mary Queen of Scots. In 1562 Lorraine recalled him from Scotland so that he could attend the Council of Trent, but, ‘[h]aving returned to France, a little too late however to go to the Council, I endeavoured principally, after having been with your majesty the time that had been imparted to me, to apply myself to the lamentation of the calamities that inflicted France.’41 Like Monluc and espence, Benoist’s theology was not incompatible with a Lutheran understanding of the eucharist and the stance of the cardinal before the final session at Trent. Benoist’s works, published at the time of the Colloquy of Poissy, reflect a notion of the sacrifice of the Mass that centred on the Passion of Christ. While it could be reconciled with Lutheranism, his defence of the real corporeal presence made it unequivocally anti-Calvinist.

Benoist’s Claire Probation De La Necessaire Manducation De La Substantielle & Reale Humanité De Jesus Christ, published in 1561, emphasized the intimate connection between Mass and the crucifixion. This pattern of devotion offered points of contact with Lutheranism, while being unambiguous in its defence of the real presence.42 Benoist’s choice of words to depict the corporeality of Christ’s body in the eucharist does indeed have an extremely carnal aspect, almost designed to offend Calvinist sensibilities. As noted by Frank Lestringant, contemporary attacks against the real presence often evoked the figure of the cannibal eating and breaking the body of Christ into parts.43

The anonymous Sommaire, recueil des signes sacrez is a good example of these attacks: ‘Are you not more detestable executioners than your predecessors the lieutenants of the Roman church who crucified Jesus Christ without breaking his body into pieces, as was prophesized?’44 The tract continued: ‘it seems a thing illicit and all too inhuman to devour the flesh and body of Jesus Christ, if it was not for the symbol: namely the bread, in order to commemorate his flesh, and the body of Christ, that was sacrificed for our eternal life and nourishment’.45

41 ‘estant de retour en France, un peu bien tard toutesfois pour avoir la commodité d’aller au concile, iaçoit que fust mon principal desseing, après avoir esté avec vostre Majesté le temps qui m’avoit esté institué et ordonné, je me suis addoné à la déploration des calamitez lesquelles ont affligé la France’: R. Benoist, Du sacrifice evangelique: ou manifestement est prouvé, que la saincte messe est le sacrifice eternel de la nouvelle loy (Paris, 1564), sigs Aā7v- Aā8r; Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente, 568 n. 15.

42 R. Benoist, Claire Probation de la necessaire manducation de la substantielle & reale humanité de Jesus Christ, vray Dieu & vray homme, au S. Sacrement de l’autel (Paris, 1561); Wanegffelen, Ni Rome ni Genève, 191, 193.

43 F. Lestringant, Une sainte horreur ou, Le voyage en Eucharistie: XVIe-XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1996).

44 ‘Nestes-vous pas trop plus detestables bourreaux, que voz predecesseurs lieutenans de l’eglise Romaine, qui crucifierent Jesus-Christ, sans toutes-fois avoir brizé ny rompu par pieces son corps, comme il avoit esté prophetizé?’; Anon., Sommaire, recueil des signes sacrez, sacrifices, at sacre-mens instituez de Dieu, depuis la Creation du monde. Et de la vraye origine du sacrifice de la Messe (s.l., 1561), sig. F5v.

45 ‘il sembleroit autrement estre chose illicite & trop inhumaine de devorer la chair & le corps de Jesus-Christ, s’il n’y avoit figure: assavoir, le pain, pour reduire en memoire sa chair, & le corps de Christ avoir esté immolé pour nostre vie & nourriture eternelle’; ibid, sig. G5v.

at University of N

ewcastle on D

ecember 10, 2014

http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/D

ownloaded from

L U C R A C A U T 29

By contrast, Benoist evoked the eating of Christ’s body literally, while insisting on its indivisibility:

One must not think that it is necessary to tear the body of Christ with one’s teeth . . . no more than his body and blood is mutilated and torn by the hands of the infidels . . . so that . . . while remaining alive and whole . . . when it is eaten it is not divided into parts . . . but is received without any wounds, and is eaten whole.46

By the same token, he made the partaking of the host a participation in the unique sacrifice on the cross and stressed the connection between the Church and the mystical body of Christ. The indivisibility of the body of Christ, while being shared by the whole of Christendom, was just as mysterious as the ‘once and for-allness’ of the sacrifice on the cross that remained singular, despite being celebrated daily in the Mass. In this respect, Benoist followed his medieval forebears in every respect by quoting Peter Lombard († c.1160), who in turn cited St John Chrysostom’s Sententiae:

In Christ the saving victim was offered once. Then what of ourselves? Do we not offer every day? Although we do offer daily, that is done for the recalling of his death, and the victim is one, not many . . .. And just as what is offered in all places is one and the same body, so there is one and the same sacrifice.47

This formulation reconciled the singularity of the Passion with the sacrifice of the Mass through the idea that the crucifixion was a cosmic event that was accessed every time Mass was celebrated. Wanegffelen noted that although his conception of the eucharist was by no means heterodox, Benoist was careful not to use the words ‘sacrifice’ and ‘Mass’ together.48

Benoist’s Claire Probation stands in stark contrast with the work of one of his contemporaries, Gentian Hervet, who responded directly to the anonymous Sommaire, recueil des signes sacrez. Lorraine had met Hervet at Poissy and had employed him as his official theologian at the Council of Trent.49 Before being attached to Lorraine’s service, Hervet had been at the side of the spirituali Cardinal Pole but, after the latter’s death, he had served the intransigent Cardinal Cervini.50 It is likely that Hervet reacted all the more virulently to the cardinal de Lorraine’s conciliatory stance at Poissy because he had himself been a moderate.

46 ‘il ne fault penser qu’il faille deschirer le corps de Jesus-Christ avec les dens . . . le corps & sang d’iceluy ne sont plus mutilez & deschirez par les mains des infideles . . . en sorte que . . . demeurant toutesfois vivant & entier. . .. quand il est mangé il n’est pas divisé par parties . . . mais il est receu sans blessure, & est mangé tout entier’: Benoist, Claire Probation, sigs G2r, G3v, G4r-H1r, H3r.

47 F. Clark, Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Reformation (Devon, 1981), 76-7.48 Wanegffelen, Ni Rome ni Genève, 193 ; Benoist, Claire Probation, sigs e1r, e3v, F1r-v, F2v-

F3r, F4v, G1r, G2r, G3r, G4r-H1r, I2v.49 Wanegffelen, Une difficile fidélité, 87.50 Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente, 738.

at University of N

ewcastle on D

ecember 10, 2014

http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/D

ownloaded from

30 T H e S A C R I F I C e O F T H e M A S S

Unlike Benoist, Hervet explicitly defended the sacrifice of the Mass in Les ruses et finesses du diable pour tascher à abolir le saint sacrifice de Jésus-Christ. Hervet’s words seem to have been tailored specifically to denounce Lorraine’s conciliatory stance, attributing to the devil the ruse of deflecting attention away from the sacrifice of the Mass by focusing on the real presence instead:

Satan, seeing that the sacrifice that Luther had instinctively rejected was so well established that it was impossible to bring down, so that Catholics had no other concern but to defend it, called up this disagreement [the real presence] that is no less against Catholics than against Luther himself. And what profit does Satan derive from this contradiction? Namely that while from all sides we fight for the truth of the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the eucharist, we have less concern for the defence of the sacrifice.51

Les ruses et finesses du diable was dedicated to Lorraine and, as Tallon has pointed out, its publication coincided with the cardinal’s interview at Saverne in February 1562.52 Indeed, by focusing on the real presence at Poissy, Lorraine had engineered a rapprochement with Lutheranism at the expense of the sacrifice of the Mass. Aware of Lorraine’s plans to make common cause with Lutherans around the real corporeal presence, Hervet warned his patron against this strategy.53 A further remark in the work alluded to the coincidence between these efforts and diplomatic alliances forged with Lutheran princes during the war against the emperor: ‘there is also this evil, that it was necessary for the defence of the realm to call upon foreign nations, of which many were renegade to the Catholic faith’.54 This was a barely veiled reference to Protestant princes in the empire in general, and the friendship between the Guises and the duke of Württemberg in particular, written at the very moment that Lorraine was meeting with the latter’s theologian.

The suspicion that the cardinal would attempt to influence the Council of Trent towards conciliation with Lutheranism was evidently shared by his own

51 ‘Voyant Satan que ce sacrifice que Luther avoit par son instinct oppugné, estoit si tresbien fondé, qu’il estoit impossible de l’abbattre: principalement quand les catholiques n’auroient autre chose à penser, qu’à le defendre, il a suscité ce different qui n’est pas moins contre les catholiques, que contre Luther mesme. et quel proffit tiroit Satan ce ce different ? Il en tiroit, que ce pendant que de tous costez on combattoit pour la verité du corps & sang de Jesus Christ en l’eucharistie, on n’avoit pas si grant soing de defendre le sacrifice . . .. (car & les uns & les autres l’abhorrent)’: G. Hervet, Les Ruses et finesses du diable pour tascher à abolir le saint sacrifice de Jésus-Christ (Reims, 1564), sigs F3v, F4r.

52 Ibid., sig. F3v.53 Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente, 331; Hervet, Les Ruses et finesses du diable, sig.

A5r.54 ‘et puis il y avoit encore ce mal, qu’ayant esté de besoing pour la defence du Royaume,

d’appeler en nostre aide des nations estrangeres, desquelles plusieurs estoient desvoyez de la foy catholique’: Hervet, Les Ruses et finesses du diable, sig. G4r.

at University of N

ewcastle on D

ecember 10, 2014

http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/D

ownloaded from

L U C R A C A U T 31

entourage. Hervet’s tract can also be read as a critique of theologians such as Benoist, who defended the real corporeal presence while remaining ambiguous about the sacrifice of the mass. It is significant that of all the theologians mentioned so far, only Hervet actually attended the Council of Trent and may well have contributed to the cardinal’s turn away from his earlier conciliatory stance. His formulation of the doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass was rather more compatible with the Council’s canons than Benoist’s Claire Probation. Moreover, Hervet was responsible for translating the Council’s proceedings on the cardinal’s return from Trent in 1564, and he was appointed canon of the cardinal’s archbishopric of Reims for his pains.55 Hervet would certainly have been sympathetic to the cardinal’s newfound zeal for the Council of Trent even if he did not engineer it himself.

I V

The political implications of French involvement in the Council of Trent changed dramatically after the end of the first French War of Religion, just as the Peace of Amboise in March 1563 once more granted limited freedom to Huguenots. Lorraine’s opposition to this policy, together with news of the assassination of his brother, François duc de Guise, probably contributed to Lorraine’s change of attitude towards the Council of Trent. On his return to France in 1564, the cardinal defended the Tridentine doctrinal system as the sole mean of achieving concord, abandoning his earlier hopes of reconciling aspects of Catholic and Protestant theology piecemeal.56 This sealed his estrangement from court and its policy of pluralism. From that point onwards Lorraine sought to end the dialogue with Protestant theology that he had previously cultivated.57

It would credit the cardinal de Lorraine with too much influence, however, to assume that he piloted the writings of theologians in his entourage in a manner consistent with a rapidly evolving party line. It is nonetheless possible to track an evolution in the writings of theologians such as Benoist towards greater conformity with the Tridentine canons. The Council of Trent faced considerable opposition from the crown and the Parlement of Paris, and its decrees were officially adopted by the assembly of the clergy only at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Throughout the second half of the sixteenth century, papal interference in what was deemed exclusively French internal affairs was viewed with hostility, with the notable exception of the League.58 The political implications of Gallican opposition to the Council of

55 G. Hervet, Le Sainct, sacré, universel, et general concile de de Trente (Paris, 1564).56 Wanegffelen, Une difficile fidélité, 18.57 A. Tallon, ‘Le Cardinal de Lorraine au Concile de Trente’, in Bellenger, Le mécénat et l’influence

des Guises, 343; S. Carroll, Blood and Violence in Early Modern France (Oxford, 2006), 94; idem, ‘The compromise of Charles cardinal de Lorraine’, 478-9; D. Crouzet, Le haut coeur de Catherine de Médicis: une raison politique au temps de la Saint-Barthélemy (Paris, 2005), 261.

58 L. Racaut, ‘Anglicanism and Gallicanism: between Rome and Geneva?’, Archiv für Refor-mationsgeschichte, 96 (2005), 198-220.

at University of N

ewcastle on D

ecember 10, 2014

http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/D

ownloaded from

32 T H e S A C R I F I C e O F T H e M A S S

Trent are well known, but it seems that the French clergy was less reluctant to embrace its canons from a purely theological perspective.59 Catholic theologians accepted the pronouncements of the Council of Trent quickly, and relatively painlessly, in spite of institutional opposition to the registration of its canons as French law.

The difference between Hervet and Benoist lay in the adoption by the former of the Tridentine canon: ‘If anyone says that the sacrifice of the Mass is only one of praise and thanksgiving, or that it is a mere commemoration of the sacrifice enacted on the cross and not itself appeasing . . . let him be anathema.’60 Wanegffelen shrewdly observed that Trent condemned what was left unsaid as well as what was openly professed. Unlike Hervet, Benoist’s insistence on the memorial of the cross, and his initial failure to exclude Protestant interpretations, laid him open to the accusation of dissimulation if not outright heresy. The distinction was hairline, but the Tridentine fathers had specifically designed these canons to remove any ambiguity and prevent any possible accommodation with Reformed theology.

For all that, the Council of Trent’s decree on the sacrifice of the Mass did not jettison traditional formulations: for example, the expression ‘on the altar of the cross’, found in Benoist, was also used in the decree to describe the sacrifice.61 But its canons specifically excluded heterodox interpretations of these formulations and threatened contravening theologians with anathema should they fail to comply with the Council’s decisions.62 It made the sacrifice of the Mass a direct participation in the Passion of Christ and also unequivocally linked its celebration with the sacrament of ordination. According to the decree’s second canon, the Mass was truly propitiatory only if it was conducted by ordained priests, who alone empowered the words of institution. This made priests indispensable vehicles of salvation and removed any room for accommodation with the Reformers’ rejection of the special status of the priesthood.63

V

In this respect it is useful to look at the writings Benoist published after the canons of the Council of Trent were circulated, as a means of testing their impact on contemporary theologians. It is possible to track an evolution in Benoist’s theology between the Claire Probation of 1561 and the Response a

59 J. Parsons, Church in the Republic: Gallicanism & Political Ideology in Renaissance France (Washington, DC, 2004).

60 N. P. Tanner (ed.), Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. 2 (London, 1990), 735.61 Benoist, Claire Probation, sigs G3v, H1r, L1v; Duval, Des sacrements, 114; Wandel, The

Eucharist in the Reformation, 226.62 Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 735; G. Hervet, Apologie ou defense, contre une

response des ministres de la nouvelle eglise d’Orleans (Paris, 1562), sigs C4r-C5v; Wanegffelen, Une difficile fidélité, 109, 193.

63 Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 735.

at University of N

ewcastle on D

ecember 10, 2014

http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/D

ownloaded from

L U C R A C A U T 33

ceux qui appellent idolatres, which was published in 1564.64 Benoist was consistent in his attachment to pre-Reformation formulations in his defence of contemporary forms of devotion, notably processions and kneeling at the altar. The Response described the sacrifice of the Mass as a memorial of the crucifixion, ‘on the altar of the cross’, and the connection between the elevation and the crucifixion was once more evoked:

. . . the holy Host . . . must be adored . . .. Like the images of the cross, where we . . . see . . . Jesus Christ . . . for us crucified . . . the sacred Host . . . is elevated, while the people kneel . . . the aim and final goal of the adoration & veneration that we observe before the cross.65

However, in contrast to the earlier Claire Probation, Benoist openly attacked Lutherans who conceded the real corporeal presence, all the while criticizing kneeling at the elevation and adoration of the host in processions: ‘I do not know what some [men] of our time think, although they confess readily that . . . Jesus Christ is truly, really, & personally present in the sacred Host; for all that, they cannot agree that he should be adored there.’66

Another significant difference between the two tracts, as far as the doctrine of the sacrifice is concerned, is a clear endorsement of the special status of priests that had been specifically formulated at Trent. The Council concurred with Reformed theology that the eucharist was a participation in the Passion rather than a repetition of Christ’s sacrifice, but, while the identification of the Mass with the crucifixion was consensual, the historical foundation of the Mass in the Last Supper was much more controversial. The decree on the sacrifice defended the apostolic succession of priests by identifying Christ’s offering in the Last Supper with the priests offering the host during Mass: ‘by the words, Do this in remembrance of me, Christ . . . [made] . . . the apostles priests . . . that they and other priests. . . should offer his body and blood’.67

In the light of the Tridentine canon, Benoist’s earlier omission of the historical foundation of the Mass and the special status of priests exposed him to the accusation of being ambiguous, if not outright heretical.68 The Claire Probation could indeed be construed as being compatible with the Lutheran doctrine that the words of institution alone gave power to the sacrament rather than the priest: ‘So similarly this speech (this is my body) was spoken only once, but

64 R. Benoist, Response a ceux qui appellent idolatres, les Chrestiens & vrays adorateurs (Paris, 1564); Wanegffelen, Ni Rome ni Genève, 192.

65 ‘la sacrée Hostie . . . doit estre adorée . . .. Comme les images de la croix, en laquelle . . . voyons . . . Jesus Christ . . . pour nous crucifié . . . la sacrée hostie . . . estoit eslevée, le peuple se agenouillant . . . le but & scope final de l’adoration & veneration que faisons devant la croix’: Benoist, Response a ceux qui appellent idolatres, sigs. B4r, B7r, B8r.

66 ‘Pourquoy, je ne sçay ou pense quelques uns de nostre temps, lesquelz confessent bien . . . Jesus Christ estre veritablement, realement, & personellement en la sacrée hostie : & toutesfois, ne se peuvent pas accorder à consentir qu’il faille qu’il soit la adoré’: ibid., sig. B6r.

67 Tanner, Decrees of the ecumenical councils, 735.68 Benoist, Claire Probation (1564), sigs B1r-B3r, C5r.

at University of N

ewcastle on D

ecember 10, 2014

http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/D

ownloaded from

34 T H e S A C R I F I C e O F T H e M A S S

through all the altars of Christendom until now, and until the consummation of the world, it gives body and effectiveness to the sacrifice.’69 Trent, however, emphasized that there could be no sacrifice without a priest, in opposition to the Lutheran ‘priesthood of all believers’.

The canons of the Council of Trent thus confirmed that the words of institution had to be uttered by ordained priests, in contrast to the Lutheran belief that they had power in themselves.70 In the Response, Benoist conformed more closely to this position by involving priests in the economy of salvation: ‘through the word of God the host is consecrated by the Priest, ordained true . . . minister of . . . the sacrifice’.71 Benoist also alluded to the doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass more explicitly by using the formulation ‘sacrifice of the holy Mass’, suggesting that his earlier reluctance to use a divisive form of words was cooling: ‘This is no other than the adoration of the sacred host, that being elevated by the priest after consecration, and adored by the people assisting to the holy evangelical sacrifice, that is the Mass.’72 In addition to emphasizing the traditional connection between Mass and the Passion, Benoist now unequivocally made priests indispensable vehicles of salvation through the words of institution.

In 1564 Benoist also dedicated a whole treatise to the sacrifice of the Mass. Du Sacrifice Evangelique explicitly linked the doctrine of the sacrifice with ordination: ‘always the Law, the priesthood and the sacrifice have been conjoined’.73 This tract conformed more closely to the Council of Trent’s formulations than his earlier writings. It asserted that Christ was offered to God the Father so that communicants could participate in the merit of the sacrifice on the cross: ‘Jesus Christ is therein sacrificed to God his father, and must therein be adored and taken, so that by this means we participate in the merit of his passion and are saved.’ elsewhere Benoist defended the historicity of the sacrifice against the Protestant allegation that it had been invented at Trent: ‘the holy sacrifice of the Mass, is not a thing that has been newly invented, as some dare to say’.74 Moreover, a short defence of the historicity of the Mass was appended to the end of the work.75

69 ‘Aussi pareillement ceste voix là (celá est mon corps) a esté dicte une fois seulement, mais par tous les autelz de Chrestienté jusques à present, & jusques à la consommation du monde, elle donne fermeté & efficace au sacrifice’; R. Benoist, Claire Probation de la necessaire manducation de la substantielle & reale humanité de Jesus Christ (Paris, 1564), sig. F4v.

70 Wandel, The Eucharist in the Reformation, 226, 260.71 ‘par la parole de Dieu l’hostie est consacrée par le Prestre ordonné vray . . . ministre du . . .

sacrifice’; Benoist, Response a ceux qui appellent idolatres, sig. B6v.72 ‘Ce que n’estoit autre chose que l’adoration de la sacrée hostie, laquelle estoit eslevée par le

Prestre apres la consecration, & adorée du peuple assisant au sainct sacrifice evangelicque, qui est la Messe’: ibid., sig. B7r.

73 ‘tousjours la Loy, le sacerdoce & le sacrifice ayent esté conjoincts’: Benoist, Du sacrifice evan-gelique, sig. Aā6v.

74 ‘Jesus Christ y est sacrifié à Dieu son pere, & doit y estre adore & prins, afin que par ce moyen nous soyons participans du merite de sa passion & sauvez’, ‘le sainct sacrifice de la Messe, n’est une chose inventée de nouveau, comme osent bien dire quelques uns’: ibid., sig. Aa4r.

75 Proclus, Traité de la maniere de celebrer la saincte Messe en la primitive Eglise (Paris, 1564).

at University of N

ewcastle on D

ecember 10, 2014

http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/D

ownloaded from

L U C R A C A U T 35

After the outbreak of the Wars of Religion the logic of confrontation had gradually eroded theologians’ willingness to concede individual points of theology to their opponents. Works in the vernacular were increasingly destined for a lay readership and encouraged Catholics to shore up their defences against Protestantism. This was Benoist’s avowed aim on his return from Scotland, and there is evidence that his works were used in this light; for instance, the following passages in a copy of the 1564 edition of the Claire Probation were underlined and copied by hand by a contemporary reader: ‘it is my body . . . to show that really and in fact he gave them his own body and blood, and not the sign and figure of it . . . in its substance and truth, and not in quality and figure alone’.76 These passages were clear denunciations of the denial of the real presence of Christ in the eucharist.

Benoist was sucked into the ever-increasing web of controversy that was spun by the Wars of Religion and harnessed sterner theological arguments against Protestant opponents. One in particular, the former friar Jean de l’espine, had attended the Colloquy of Poissy and drafted the confession of faith of the French Reformed Churches.77 One of l’espine’s treatises, published clandestinely, was entitled Discours du vray sacrifice et du vray sacrificateur and attacked the Catholic doctrine of the sacrifice head on.78 Benoist responded with a Brieve et facile refutation that was in turn rejoined by l’espine’s Defense et Confirmation. A l’encontre des frivoles responses & argumens de M. René Benoist, published in 1567.79 Hervet, for his part, attacked l’espine so virulently that he broke the terms of the edicts of pacification: ‘not being ignorant that it is contravening to an edict of pacification. My book is sold publicly, if I offended, let me be punished.’80 Tatiana Baranova Debbagi has demonstrated that such ad hominem attacks contributed to a climate of violence that made pacification of the troubles all the more difficult.81

76 ‘c’est mon corps : & pour monstrer que realement & de fait il leur bailloit son propre corps & sang, & non le signe & figure d’iceluy . . . en sa substance & verité, & non en qualité & figure seule-ment’: Benoist, Claire Probation (1561), sigs B1r-B3r, C5r, D3r, D4r, D5r, e2r-v.

77 B. Roussel, ‘Jean de l’espine (c. 1505-97): écrire dans un temps de troubles’, in The Sixteenth-Century French Religious Book, ed. A. Pettegree, P. Nelles and P. Conner (Aldershot, 2001), 140.

78 J. de l’espine, Discours du vray sacrifice et du vray sacrificateur, oeuvre monstarnt à l’oeil, par temoignage de la saincte Escripture, les abus et resveries de la messe et l’ignorance, supersti-tion et impostures des prebstres (n.p., 1563).

79 R. Benoist, Brieve et facile refutation d’un livret divulge au nom de Jean de l’Espine, se dis-ant Ministre de la parole de Dieu: auquel violentant & detorquant l’escripture saincte, il blas-pheme malheureusement le sainct sacrifice Evangelique, dict vulgairement la saincte Messe (Paris, 1564);J. de l’espine, Defense et Confirmation du Traicte du Vray Sacrifice & Sacrificateur . . . A l’encontre des frivoles responses & argumens de M. René Benoist (Geneva, 1567) .

80 ‘ne restant pas ignorant que c’est de contrevenir à un edict de pacification. Mon livre se vent publiquement, si j’ay offensé, qu’on me punisse’: G. Hervet, Deux epistres, aux ministres, predicans et supposts de la congregation & nouvelle eglise (Paris, 1561); G. Hervet, Epistre ou advertissement au peuple fidele de l’Eglise Catholique, touchant les differens qui sont auioud’huy en la Religion Chres-tienne (Paris, 1562); Anon., Sommaire, recueil des signes sacrez, sigs G5v, G6v; G. Hervet, Confuta-tion d’un livre pestilent et plein d’erreurs, nomme par son auteur: les signes sacrez (Reims, 1565).

81 T. Baranova Debbagi, ‘ecrits diffamatoires et troubles civils: une culture politique dans la France des Guerres de Religion’ (Thèse de doctorat, Paris IV, 2006), 164-71.

at University of N

ewcastle on D

ecember 10, 2014

http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/D

ownloaded from

36 T H e S A C R I F I C e O F T H e M A S S

In 1569, the Claire Probation was reprinted alongside Benoit’s Refutation des vains pretendus fondemens de certains lieux de l’escriture, in which Benoist used the Scriptures to refute the arguments of his adversaries. In this work he defended the Tridentine doctrine of the sacrifice against ‘those who . . . infer that the Mass is not a propitiatory sacrifice’.82 By using the expression ‘propitiatory sacrifice’ Benoist conformed in all points to the formulation of the Council of Trent that asserted the sacrifice of the Mass was truly propitiatory: ‘through the merit of his passion their sins are wiped clean with the participation of his grace. According to which it is certain that the Mass is a sacrifice of propitiation, and an act of grace; such is the continual sacrifice . . . such that when it will have ceased, Christianity will have failed.’83 Rather than being atypical, as some historians have argued, I would like to argue that Benoist was representative of a much wider circle of Catholic theologians whose importance is only just beginning to be appreciated.84

So far scholars have focused on the registration of the Council of Trent’s decrees in legal terms, along with the endless debates that they generated among Gallicans and Ultramontanists at court and in the Parlement. Few, however, have attempted to assess the impact of its theological pronouncements on the body of theologians who existed below the surface, but were nonetheless crucial for the redefinition and dissemination of Catholic orthodoxy during the French Wars of Religion. There is strong evidence to suggest that the Catholic population of France looked up to its clergy for answers to the perceived threat of Calvinism and what it meant to be Catholic. In this respect the Council of Trent contributed to the confessionalization process, decades before it was officially recognized. By focusing on theology, the French Gallican clergy was able to circumvent political objections to the reception of the Council of Trent and made it possible to be a good Frenchman (bon français) and a good Catholic.

V I

The gradual ‘tridentinization’ of the French clergy manifest in the evolution of Benoist’s theology was paralleled by an increasing willingness to embrace the Council’s canons at an institutional level. Despite continuing opposition from the crown and the Parlement to their registration as French law, French bishops

82 ‘ceux qui . . . veulent inferer, que la Messe n’est point sacrifice propriatoire’; R. Benoist, Refu-tation des vains pretendus fondemens de certains lieux de l’escriture saincte (Paris, 1569), sigs D8v, e2r.

83 ‘par le merite de sa passion leurs pechez soient effacez avec participation de sa grace. Parquoy c’est chose certaine, que la Messe est sacrifice de propiciation, & d’action de graces: car tel est le continuel sacrifice . . . lequel quand il sera cessé, le Christianisme defaudra’: Duval, Des sacrements, 104.

84 Benoist is discussed in a chapter entitled ‘The Bellows of Satan’, by B. B. Diefendorf, Beneath the Cross: Catholics and Huguenots in Sixteenth-Century Paris (New york, 1991), 151; Alison Carter gives a comprehensive summary of the historiography on René Benoist to date and offers a reevaluation: ‘René Benoist and the instruction of the Catholic laity’ (PhD, University of Durham, 2006), 36-52.

at University of N

ewcastle on D

ecember 10, 2014

http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/D

ownloaded from

L U C R A C A U T 37

increasingly saw the benefits of implementing them. Although members of the Gallican clergy were reluctant to recognize the pope’s authority, they saw in the Council of Trent an opportunity to reclaim privileges that had passed to the crown with the Concordat of Bologna in 1516. By placing bishops at the centre of the Catholic Reformation the Council of Trent gave bishops in France, like those elsewhere, compelling reasons for adhering to its reforming agenda.85 This explains why, notwithstanding their institutional suspicion of anything that emanated from Rome, Gallican bishops began promoting the Council of Trent in France. The cardinal de Lorraine’s efforts were crowned posthumously with the assemblies of the clergy of Blois (1576) and Melun (1579) which petitioned the crown for the Council of Trent to be recognized.86

For many Gallicans this spelled the end of a golden age when France had led the way in terms of theological compromise with Protestantism, a dream of concord that both the crown and a fraction of the Catholic clergy had briefly embraced. It was in pejorative terms that Wanegffelen wrote of a ‘tridentinization’ of the French clergy, as if it marked the triumph of intransigence over moderation. Rather, I should like to argue that the French alignment with Rome marked the end of a period of theological indeterminacy that was the source of much anxiety amongst French Catholics. As Hervet had written in 1561: ‘the people has become more curious than usual, and it is no longer satisfied with believing, but is asking for some reasons for its faith, so that it can the better resist the heretics’.87

This agenda was promoted by the Council’s canons, notably following the decree on the sacrifice of the Mass of September 1562: ‘the holy synod instructs the shepherds and all who have responsibility for souls [to] frequently . . . give some explanation of this mysterious and most holy sacrifice’.88 It seems that the sacrifice of the Mass, much less visible in the historiography, was as crucial for the redefinition of Catholic orthodoxy as the issue of the real presence. The cardinal de Lorraine played a significant role in this process, albeit indirectly, contrary to his original intention of influencing the course of the debate towards conciliation with Lutheranism. It is doubtful that the French clergy would have agreed to his agenda had they known the full extent of his intentions, yet the theological fluidity of pre-Tridentine formulations, evident in Benoist’s work, made it much more likely to succeed.

Wanegffelen argued that Benoist and other like-minded theologians were ‘neither of Rome nor Geneva’ and that the Council of Trent forced them to defend positions that they would not otherwise have chosen freely.89 This is

85 Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente.86 M. Venard, Le Catholicisme à l’épreuve dans la France du XVIe siècle (Paris, 2000), 153.87 ‘le peuple estoit devenu un peu plus curieux que de constume, & qu’il ne luy suffisoit pas de

croire, mais demandoit encores quelques raison de sa foy, afin de pouvoir plus aiséement resister aux heretiques’: G. Hervet, Catechisme, et ample Instruction de tout ce qui appartient au devoir d’un Chrestien (Paris, 1568), fo. ã3v.

88 Wandel, The Eucharist in the Reformation, 228.89 Wanegffelen, Une difficile fidélité.

at University of N

ewcastle on D

ecember 10, 2014

http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/D

ownloaded from

38 T H e S A C R I F I C e O F T H e M A S S

symptomatic of a certain historiography that saw Gallicanism as a ‘golden mean’, not unlike the argument for Anglicanism, between Roman Catholic and Calvinist intransigence.90 The idea was a seductive one, especially for the French and english crowns, which were seeking to curb, with various degrees of success, the worst excesses of religious passion. This rhetoric was particularly prescient of modernity and formed the ideological backbone of the French crown’s policy of pluralism.91 The dream of concord re-emerged amongst Gallican lawyers at the turn of the seventeenth century, just when Henri IV was engineering a rapprochement with Rome. This Gallican vision of concord put its hopes in a national rather than a universal council and referred to the Colloquy of Poissy as a missed opportunity.92 Ironically, it was the very same national councils (the assembly of the clergy) that subsequently promoted the Council of Trent in France.

V I I

The sacrificial aspect of the Mass is less visible in Reformation historiography than the real corporeal presence, but it illustrates the emergence of confessional blocs just as dramatically. Lorraine’s dialogue with Lutheran theology until his participation at the Council of Trent provoked violent reactions on both sides of the growing confessional divide in France. On the Calvinist side, it provided the context for Beza’s unambiguous rejection of the real presence at Poissy, while on the Catholic side it provoked a panic at Trent around the sacrifice of the Mass. The perception that moderate Catholics around Lorraine were willing to compromise with Lutherans on the issue of the sacrifice may have hastened the issuing of the decree of September 1562. Lorraine’s subsequent embracing of the Council doubtless encouraged French Catholic theologians to fine-tune their theology in agreement with its canons.

This trend can be traced in the theology of René Benoist, who had belonged to a group of moderate theologians whose formulations would have been compatible with the cardinal’s agenda until that point. Hervet’s remark that the real presence was defended at the expense of the sacrifice was targeted at Lorraine, but it could equally have been written with Benoist in mind.93 As Wanegffelen suggested, the Council of Trent’s definition of orthodoxy was as much targeted at Catholic moderates as at Reformed theology.94 Lorraine’s about-turn facilitated confessionalization: moderate theologians such as Benoist

90 Racaut ‘Anglicanism and Gallicanism’.91 M. Greengrass, Governing Passions: Peace and Reform in the French Kingdom, 1576-1585

(Oxford, 2007).92 Anon., Advis et resolution de messieurs de l’assemblee du Clergé de France tenuë à Poissi

en l’an 1561 (n.p., 1594); G. Ribier, Apologie pour le Discours au Roy sur la reunion de ses sujets en une même et seule Religion (n.p.., 1607), 12.

93 Hervet, Les ruses et finesses du diable, sig. F3v; Wanegffelen, Ni Rome ni Genève, 193.94 Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente, 331, 364-5, 710, 712; Duval, Des sacrements, 109;

Carroll, ‘The compromise of Charles cardinal de Lorraine’, 473.

at University of N

ewcastle on D

ecember 10, 2014

http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/D

ownloaded from

L U C R A C A U T 39

abandoned theological fluidity and harnessed the Council’s pronouncements against former Protestant interlocutors. The historiography frequently puts them back to back, but the moderates’ initial willingness to enter into dialogue with Protestant theology made them more formidable adversaries than the intransigents: the cardinal de Lorraine is a good case in point.

The decree on the sacrifice of the Mass of September 1562 was crucial to the redefinition of Catholic orthodoxy in France in more that one respect. First, it marked the end of Lorraine’s attempt to reach a compromise with Lutherans around the Confession of Augsburg. The debate with Beza at Poissy on the real presence had served as a smokescreen to the much grander scheme of bringing the Reformation debate to an end. This scheme was denounced by Beza retrospectively and by Hervet simultaneously with Lorraine’s interview at Saverne. Secondly, it put an end to a generation-long tradition of theological accommodation with Lutheran theology among, to name but a few, espence, Monluc and Benoist. Thirdly, it ushered in a new strategy of dealing with the Protestant adversary: a discussion of catholicity in full knowledge of the opponent’s views replaced a tendency to fall back on tradition and the continuing adherence of the masses to a faith that was not fully understood.

Lastly, the decree on the sacrifice of the Mass demonstrates that institutional opposition to the Council of Trent did not prevent Gallican theologians from adopting its canons relatively painlessly. This contradicts the idea that Gallicanism was a via media between Rome and Geneva as Wanegffelen has argued.95 Beyond moderation and intransigence, it seems that Gallican theologians gradually saw the merits of adopting a theological system that was easier to defend. The Council of Trent provided the clergy with ready-made arguments that it could use to educate the laity. This coincided with a hardening of confessional lines that encouraged theologians to adopt formulations increasingly in opposition to, rather than in dialogue with Protestant adversaries. A state of theological fluidity that had encouraged a rapprochement with Reformed theology was replaced with a rapid process redefining Catholic orthodoxy. One can even speak of the dawn of a slow process of confessionalization, ushered in by the Council of Trent just as the French Wars of Religion were beginning.

95 A. Tallon, Conscience nationale et sentiment religieux en France au XVIe siècle: essai sur la vision gallicane du monde (Paris, 2002), 16 n. 2.

at University of N

ewcastle on D

ecember 10, 2014

http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/D

ownloaded from