The Edict of Châteaubriant, issued from the seat of Anne, duc de Montmorency in

Brittany Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...

, was promulgated by

Henri II of France Henry II (; 31 March 1519 – 10 July 1559) was King of France from 1547 until his death in 1559. The second son of Francis I and Claude, Duchess of Brittany, he became Dauphin of France upon the death of his elder brother Francis in 1536. As ...

, 27 June 1551. The Edict was one of an increasingly severe series of measures taken by Henry II against

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

s, whom he regarded as heretics. In the preamble, the Edict frankly reported that previous measures against

heresy Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, particularly the accepted beliefs or religious law of a religious organization. A heretic is a proponent of heresy. Heresy in Heresy in Christian ...

in the kingdom had proved ineffectual. "Heretics", the Edict reported, met in

conventicle A conventicle originally meant "an assembly" and was frequently used by ancient writers to mean "a church." At a semantic level, ''conventicle'' is a Latinized synonym of the Greek word for ''church'', and references Jesus' promise in Matthew 18: ...

s, infected schools, invaded the judicial bench and forced toleration upon judges. To ensure more rigorous judgements, in 1547 Henri had already created a special judicial chamber drawn from members of the ''

parlement Under the French Ancien Régime, a ''parlement'' () was a provincial appellate court of the Kingdom of France. In 1789, France had 13 ''parlements'', the original and most important of which was the ''Parlement'' of Paris. Though both th ...

s'', solely to judge cases of heresy (called by Protestants the ''Chambre Ardente'' (the "Burning Chamber"). The Edict contained quite detailed provisions: it called upon the civil and

ecclesiastical court In organized Christianity, an ecclesiastical court, also called court Christian or court spiritual, is any of certain non-adversarial courts conducted by church-approved officials having jurisdiction mainly in spiritual or religious matters. Histo ...

s to detect and punish all heretics, and placed severe restrictions on Protestants, including loss of one-third of property granted to informers, who were also granted immunity and confiscations of property both moveable and immovable belonging to those who had fled to

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

, with whom the king's subjects were forbidden to correspond or to send money. Fourteen of its forty-six articles were concerned with

censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governmen ...

; its terms strictly regulated the press by prohibiting the sale, importation or printing of any book unapproved by the Faculty of Theology at the

University of Paris The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...

, then or, now it was implied, in the future. Booksellers were to display a copy of the Faculty's printed list of prohibited books alongside a list of books for sale. Delegates of the Faculty were to make visits twice a year to each bookseller to ensure that the provisions were complied with. Since 1542 it had been a requirement that any shipment of books into France be opened and unpacked in the presence of delegates from the Faculty of Theology, which now, according to Roger Doucet,Doucet, ''Les institutions de la France'', (Paris:Picard) 1948:II:747), noted by Farge 1995:218f and note. "assumed the intellectual direction of the kingdom." Though the Edict went so far as to forbid the discussion of religious topics at work, in the fields, or over meals, it proved insufficient to stem the rising tide of reform in religion. Sterner measures would be taken in the next edict of the series, the Edict of Compiègne, 1557, which applied the death penalty for all convictions of heresy.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Edict of Chateaubriant History of Catholicism in France 16th-century anti-Protestantism Huguenot history in France 1551 in France Chateaubriant Henry II of France 1551 in Christianity

See also

Notes