Week 7: Wednesday, March 1
Background on the French Wars of Religion
The reading by Contarini focuses on the French wars of religion, so a little background might help you interpret the text. Henry II of France (1519-1559 / r. 1547-1559) had ruled France with a pretty steady hand and proved a worthy foe of Charles V, the Habsburg emperor. Unfortunately, he was mortally wounded in a jousting incident, leaving behind his wife, Catherine de Medici (of the famous Florentine family from Italy) and three underage sons.
Henry's eldest son, Francis II (b. 1544) became king, but since he was a minor, his uncles, Francois, Duke of Guise, and Charles of Guise, cardinal of Lorraine, became regents.
Francis' death in 1560 led to the accession of Charles IX (b. 1550) with his mother as regent, acting with Antoine of Bourbon, King of Navarre—a Calvinist (otherwise known as Huguenots in France). Civil war broke out in France only two years later. Charles IX never had the opportunity to assert himself as king, dying in 1574. He was succeeded by Henry III who was eventually assassinated in 1589.
Upon Henry III's
assassination, Henry of Navarre, the leader of the Protestants in France, became
the heir to the throne. It required almost a decade of fighting, Henry of Navarre's
conversion to Catholicism, and large concessions to the Protestants before the
civil war eventually fizzled out.
Contarini, Venice's ambassador to France, wrote his assessment of the French civil wars in 1572, only two years before the death of Charles IX.
1) With what developments do historians often associate the "military revolution"?
2) What appears to account for the decline of Spain as a great military power in the 17th century?
3) In what ways did Wallenstein and Gustavus Adolphus break new ground in warfare?
4) According to Contarini, why did people convert to Protestantism? What factors did he think allowed Protestantism to spread?
5) What did Contarini believe caused the French civil wars? What did he think were the occasions for the war? (These are two different things so don't mix them up.) What motivated each side in the conflict?
6) According to Contarini, how had the wars begun to tear up the fabric of society?
7) Grimmelshausen gives a graphic description of what happened when soldiers went on the loose in search of food, money, and sex. Why would a state object to this kind of behavior?
Jacques Callot, Selections from the Miseries of War, Etchings (1633)
Born in Nancy, Jacques Callot (1592-1635) became one of the leading engravers of his time. Son of a well-connected bourgeois who had gained a noble title, Callot obtained his artistic training in Italy before settling for good in the Duchy of Lorraine. Like his father, Callot was an astute businessman who made a great deal of money from the sale of his etchings. Although he represented a wide variety of subjects, Callot could not avoid illustrations associated with war. Massive conflicts with religious complexions raged close by. Northward, the Dutch persisted in their revolt against the Spanish Habsburg crown. To the East, just across the Rhine, the Thirty Years War pursued its destructive course. Indeed, during the 1620s, Lorraine found itself sucked into the dynastic and religious quarrels that plagued Europe during this period. By the time of Callot's death from an ulcer in 1635, Louis XIII of France had added the Duchy of Lorraine to his domains.
In 1633, Callot produced a series of eighteen etchings entitled the Miseries of War. In this series, he protested the chaos, misery, and suffering associated with the conflicts raging during this period. In particular, he deplored the endless cycle of violence perpetuated by unruly troops preying upon civilians. A selection of etchings from the Miseries of War follows below. Each etching has a poem that serves as a caption. Since they relate a narrative, please look at them in order. Does he provide a solution for the types of problems against which he protested?
Recruiting Soldiers: "The metal inside Pluto's veins/Which at the same time causes peace and war/Attracts the soldier without fear of danger/From his birthplace to foreign lands/Where having chosen to follow the army/He must arm himself with virtue against vice."
The Battle: "However rough the attacks of Mars/And the blows that his arm strikes everywhere/That does not undermine the invincible courage/Of those whose valor can fight the storm/And who, to win the name of warrior/Water their laurels with their enemy's blood."
Plundering a Farmhouse: "Here are the great exploits of these inhuman hearts/They ravage all over, nothing evades their hands/To get gold, one invents torture/Another inspires his accomplices with a thousand misdeeds/And all in the same spirit commit wickedness/Theft, kidnapping, murder, and rape."
Destroying a Convent: "Here, in a sacrilegious and barbarous action/These crazed and greedy demons/Pillage and burn everything, ruin the altars/Mock the respect owed to the Immortals/And take from the holy places the forsaken virgins/Whom they carry off to rape."
Laying a Village Waste: "Those whom Mars feeds with wicked deeds/Treat in such a manner the poor country people/They make them prisoner and burn their villages/And even ravage the animals/Neither fear of the law nor a sense of duty/Nor tears and cries can stop them."
The Hanging: "In the end, these infamous and lost thieves/Like unhappy fruit on this pendulous tree/Show well that crime (horrible and black spawn)/Is itself the instrument of shame and vengeance/And that it is the destiny of vicious men/To experience sooner or later the justice of heaven."
The Stake: "These enemies of heaven who sin a thousand times/Against the sacred decrees and the divine laws/Find glory in wickedly pillaging and destroying/The temples of the true God with an idolatrous hand/But as punishment for burning them [the temples of God]/They are themselves finally consigned to the flames."
Breaking on the Wheel: "The ever-watching eye of the divine Astrée [Justice]/Banishes entirely the mourning from the country/When holding the sword and scales in her hands/She judges and punishes the inhuman thief/Who awaits passersby, hurts them, and plays with them/[And] then becomes himself the plaything of a wheel."
Soldiers' Hospital: "See how the world is and how many dangers/Pursue without end the children of the god Mars/The crippled ones drag themselves on the ground/More fortunate ones obtain promotion in war/Others on the gallows die by a fatal blow/And others go from the camp to the hospital."
The Peasants Strike Back: "After the soldiers have committed many depredations/The peasants, whom they have treated as enemies, finally/Wait for them and by a surprise/Put them to death and strip them down to their shirts/And avenge themselves on these unfortunate ones/For the loss of their goods due solely to them."
Distribution of Honors: "This example of a leader full of understanding/Who punishes the wicked and remunerates the good/Ought to prick the soldiers with the goad of honor/Since on their virtue depends all their happiness/And since they ordinarily receive from vice/Shame, infamy, and the worst punishment."
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Copyrighted by Hugh Dubrulle, 2006.