Catholic League (French)

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The Catholic League of France, sometimes referred to by contemporary (and modern) Roman Catholics as the Holy League, was formed by Duke Henry of Guise in 1584.[1] In a time when religious fundamentalism was unusual, the League was an extremist group bent on the eradication of French Protestants--also known as Calvinists or French Huguenots--during the Protestant Reformation.

Pope Sixtus V, the Jesuits and Philip II of Spain were all supporters of this intransigent ultra-Catholic party.

Contents

[edit] The Catholic League's political origins

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The leaders and people of France had seen what Protestant rebels did when they gained power having watched what had happened previously in England, the Low Countries, Germany and the Calvinist cantons of Switzerland. Once in power they closed all Catholic churches and abolished the Catholic form of worship, the Mass. They tore every vestige of the ancient Church out of the government of the state, the life of the community, and the devotion of the people. Wherever they gained power, they hung on like bulldogs, especially after they had taken over all Catholic Church lands, mainly those of monasteries and convents which they seized as one of their first acts. The only way to preserve Catholic France was to prevent the initial takeover by any means necessary and moral, whatever the cost. [2]

The Catholic League of France aimed to preempt any such radical change in France, and to protect French Catholics' right to worship. The methods they took to accomplish this goal found parallels with those used by the Protestants in their lands. The Catholic League's cause was fueled by religious rhetoric where any religious views outside of the Catholic Church or Catholic tradition was heresy, blasphemous, and intolerable. Catholic Leaguers saw their fight against Calvinism (French Protestantism) as a form of Holy War; a Crusade against Calvinism and their apologists at the time, and sometimes since, justified their Holy War efforts in passages and scriptures they interpreted from the Old Testament. As did Protestant pastors for their part, the pamphleteers of the Catholic League instanced any natural disaster occurring in France at the time as God's way of punishing France for tolerating the existence of the Calvinists.

"What is the final judgement on the Catholic League? It would be a mistake to treat it, as so many historians have, as nothing more than a body motivated purely by partisan politics or social tensions. While political and social pressures were doubtless present, and even significant in the case of the Sixteen in Paris, to focus on these factors exclusively overlooks a very different face of the League. For all its political and internecine wrangling, the League was still very much a Holy Union. Its religious role was significant, as the League was the conduit between the Tridentine spirituality of the Catholic Reformation and the seventeenth century devots. Often overlooked is the emphasis the League placed on the internal and spiritual renewal of the earthly city. Moving beyond the communal religion of the later Middle Ages, the League focused on internalizing faith as a cleansing and purifying agent. New religious orders and confraternities were founded in League towns, and the gulf separating laity and clergy was often bridged as clerics joined aldermen in the Hotel de Ville where both became the epitome of goodly magistrates. To overlook the religious side of the League is to overlook the one bond that did keep the Holy Union holy as well as united" [3]

The League formed in response to what many French Catholics felt was the French throne's inability to deal with the Protestant problem. After a series of bloody conflicts during the French Wars of Religion (1562 – 1598) between Catholics and Protestants, the Catholic League formed as an intolerant, zealous, radical and fanatical extremist group incapable of coexistence with the French Protestants ( Huguenots ). The Catholic League saw the French throne under Henry III as moderate. The League disapproved of Henry III’s attempts to mediate any coexistence between the Huguenots and Catholics. In fact, during the “Day of the Barricades” on May 12, 1588, Henry III was driven out of Paris.

The Catholic League also saw any moderate French Catholics, known as Politiques, who tolerated Calvinists and were pro-coexistence, just as dangerous as the Protestants, and a threat to the Catholic values the League adamantly stood for. The Politiques were also tired of the religious wars and failure to solve France's religious problem but were willing to exercise tolerance and coexistentance rather than escalating violence.

Similar to religious extremist groups of the modern era, the Catholic League was sponsored and funded by foreign participants attempting to influence social, religious, and political affairs within France. Most notably Philip II of Spain. Like revolutionary and extremist groups today, they leveraged the media of their day to promote their cause. Between 1588 to 1589 nearly 500 pamphlets and other forms of print were circulated supporting the Catholic League's rhetoric.

[edit] Henry III’s response

The Valois king, Henry III of France, feared the power of the Guise faction and thus accepted the existence of the League but made himself its commander, eventually disbanding it in 1577 after using it to win several victories over the Huguenots. Charles of Lorraine, Duke of Mayenne won battles for the Catholic League.

The French throne under Henry III dealt with the growing power of Henry of Guise and the Catholic League's eagerness to replace Henry III with a ruler more sympathetic to its Catholic cause, Cardinal de Bourbon – Henry of Navarre’s uncle, in 1588 by assassinating Henry of Guise and his brother, the Cardinal de Guise.

[edit] The Catholic League's response

The assassination, or martyrdom of Henry I, Duke of Guise, as the Catholic League saw it, only further strengthened their cause and they began promoting tyrannicide, challenging Henry III's legal rule over France.

In 1588, after the murder of Henry I, Duke of Guise, the League rose up against the king in favor of the imprisoned Cardinal de Bourbon, whom they proclaimed "Charles X" (the next person to claim this title was Charles X of France, brother of Louis XVI).

[edit] Outcome

However, King Henry allied himself with a third faction, led by Henry of Navarre, in April 1589 and together they besieged Paris. Henry III was assassinated during the siege.

This struggle in the French Wars of Religion is often known as the "War of the Three Henrys". The League was eventually forced to acknowledge the kingship of Henry of Navarre (after his conversion to Catholicism) and it died out under his rule.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Holt, Mack P. : The French Wars of Religion, 1562-1629, page 122. New York, 1995
  2. ^ Carroll, Warren H. : The Cleaving of Christendom : A History of Christendom vol. 4, page 432. Christendom Press, 2004
  3. ^ Holt, Mack P. The French Wars of Religion, 1562-1629, page 149-150. New York, 1995
  • Baumgartner, Frederic J. Radical Reactionaries: The Political Thought of the French Catholic League (Geneva:Droz) 1976
  • Jensen, De Lamar Diplomacy and Dogmatism: Bernardino de Mendoza and the French Catholic League Mendoza's role in Philip II's intervening foreign policy.
  • Konnert, Mark "Local politcs in the French Wars of Religion"
  • Leonardo, Dalia M. "Cut off this rotten member": The Rhetoric of Heresy, Sin, and Disease in the Ideology of the French Catholic League" The Catholic Historical Review 88.2, (April 2002:247-262).
  • Yardeni, Myriam "La Conscience nationale en France pendant les guerres de religion"

[edit] See also