The Affair of the Placards (french: Affaire des Placards) was an incident in which anti-
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
and in four major provincial cities,
Blois
Blois ( ; ) is a commune and the capital city of Loir-et-Cher department, in Centre-Val de Loire, France, on the banks of the lower Loire river between Orléans and Tours.
With 45,898 inhabitants by 2019, Blois is the most populated city of the ...
Tours
Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the prefecture of the department of Indre-et-Loire. The commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabitants as of 2018 while the population of the whole metro ...
and
Orléans
Orléans (;"Orleans" (US) and Francis I at Amboise, an affront and a breach of security that left him shaken. The ''Affaire des Placards'' brought an end to the conciliatory policies of Francis, who had formerly attempted to protect the
Protestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
s from the more extreme measures of the
Parlement de Paris
The Parliament of Paris (french: Parlement de Paris) was the oldest ''parlement'' in the Kingdom of France, formed in the 14th century. It was fixed in Paris by Philip IV of France in 1302. The Parliament of Paris would hold sessions inside the ...
, and also of the public entreaties for moderation of
Philip Melanchthon
Philip Melanchthon. (born Philipp Schwartzerdt; 16 February 1497 – 19 April 1560) was a German Lutheran reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, intellectual leader of the Lu ...
.
The placards
The placards carried the title "Genuine articles on the horrific, great and unbearable abuses of the papal mass, invented directly contrary to the Holy Supper of our Lord, sole mediator and sole savior Jesus Christ.". This provocative title was a direct attack on Catholic conceptions of the
Eucharist
The Eucharist (; from Greek , , ), also known as Holy Communion and the Lord's Supper, is a Christian rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches, and as an ordinance in others. According to the New Testament, the rite was instit ...
. The text supported
Zwingli
Huldrych or Ulrich Zwingli (1 January 1484 – 11 October 1531) was a leader of the Reformation in Switzerland, born during a time of emerging Swiss patriotism and increasing criticism of the Swiss mercenary system. He attended the Univ ...
's position on the
Mass
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...
which denied the
Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist
The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is the Christian doctrine that Jesus Christ is present in the Eucharist, not merely symbolically or metaphorically, but in a true, real and substantial way.
There are a number of Christian denomina ...
.
The individual who has been traditionally credited as the chief inspiration, if not the direct author, of the placards, was the French Protestant leader
Guillaume Farel
William Farel (1489 – 13 September 1565), Guilhem Farel or Guillaume Farel (), was a French evangelist, Protestant reformer and a founder of the Calvinist Church in the Principality of Neuchâtel, in the Republic of Geneva, and in Switzerland ...
, but it seems probable that
Antoine de Marcourt
Antoine Marcourt was a Protestant pastor of the 16th century. He was from the French region of Picardy, and became the first pastor of Neuchâtel.
In 1533, he published a satirical work about Catholic practices, such as the cult of Saints and pilg ...
, a pastor of Neuchâtel from Picardy, was the real author: Antoine Froment averred that "these placards were made at Neuchâtel in Switzerland by a certain Antoine Marcourd". Writing anonymously the following month, Marcourt took credit for the placards in the address to benevolent Readers of his anonymous "Most useful and salutary little treatise of the holy Eucharist", published at Neuchâtel, 16 November 1534, in which he avers "I have been moved by true affection to compose and edit in writing some true Articles on the unbearable abuses of the Mass. Which Articles I wish to be published and posted throughout the public places of the land..."
Aftermath
Processions were announced in all the parishes of Paris for the following Sunday. In Paris, the King himself stood under the canopy where the Most Holy Eucharist was usually carried, making a clear political statement.
In addition, a reward of a hundred écus was advertised for information leading to the arrest of the perpetrator or perpetrators, who were to be burned at the stake. Protestant sympathizers were soon identified and sent to the Châtelet. The first condemnations were pronounced 10 November; the first of those burned at the stake, on 13 November, was a cripple named Barthélemi Milon.
The polemic against the Catholic Church was considered a severe insult to Catholics, and the King now publicly affirmed his Catholic faith. The immediate public outcry necessitated the flight of several prominent Protestant leaders, including John Calvin, and of scholars and poets like Clément Marot.
In another provocative action the following 13 January, when François had recently returned to Paris, broadsheets of a tract on the Sacraments were deposited in the streets and doorways of Paris. Later, printing was banned by royal decree.''The Body broken: the Calvinist doctrine of the Eucharist and the symbolization of power in sixteenth-century France'' By Christopher Elwood: pp. 29-30 /ref>