Hatred in Print by Luc Racaut

Author:Luc Racaut [Racaut, Luc]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General
ISBN: 9781351931571
Google: 4AskDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-05-15T04:54:23+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

The ‘world turned upside down’, the femmelettes and the French Wars of Religion

This chapter explores two salient features of sixteenth-century society inversion and misogyny - in the context of the French Wars of Religion. The use of the word femmelette and the theme of the 'world upside down' were rhetorical tools in the hands of the Catholic polemicists to discredit their Huguenot adversary. The use of these 'memes' (self-replicating media viruses) followed strict rules dictated by theology and tradition. The uniformity with which they were used in France (but also in England, Germany and Spain) against Protestants suggests that they weie rhetorical conventions.

Catholic theologians argued that Protestantism was giving more freedom to women. Their reaction, which has been used as a gauge of the improvement of the condition of women by some, is indeed very strong. To allow women to take a greater part in the spiritual affairs of the community was akin, these theologians argued, to turning the world upside down. For example, Simon Vigor accuses the Protestants of turning justice on its head, to oppress the people and to turn all order 'topsy-turvy'.1 The topos of the 'world turned upside down' had universal appeal and is still used today by reactionary politicians to curtail change.2 Catholics accused the Protestants of turning the world upside down, and pandering to women (referred to as femmelettes) was one of its many manifestations. The role of inversion and misrule in popular culture was first brought to our attention by Mikhail Bakhtin in a pioneering book on Francois Rabelais.3 His work was applied by others who showed the relevance of inversion to phenomena as varied as witchcraft, the reformation of manners and grain riots.4 Prominently, Nathalie Davis has shown parallels between popular culture and the urban massacres of the French Wars of Religion.5 The pamphlets published by French Catholic theologians during this period offer an opportunity to explore this world of contradiction and analogy a little further. Many aspects of contemporary culture were diverted for the use of religious polemic, and the 'world turned upside down' was no exception.

It is the versatility of these symbols which allowed them to be harnessed by Reformers and defenders of the Catholic Church alike throughout the Reformation. The polemical use of inversion in the German Reformation has been well studied by Robert Scribner, who provides numerous examples of satirical woodcuts depicting the overturning of the Papacy, the monastic orders and the ecclesiastical hierarchy.6 The idea of the 'world turned upside down', rather than being the vehicle of seasonal merriment, turned into a polemical weapon reflecting a genuine crisis. But, unlike peasants' riots where these symbols were used in the context of a 'class war', they were used by an entire cross-section of society against another, by Protestants against Catholics and in turn by Catholics against Protestants.

Analogies which reflect social, political and religious order were used throughout the French Wars of Religion. The 'analogy of the body' pervaded early modern society where everything and everyone had its proper place in the 'great chain of being'.

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