The Massacre of Sens was a religious riot that occurred in 1562 during the opening weeks of the French Wars of Religion. With the death of 100 Huguenots, it was one of the most fatal popular massacres of the French Wars of Religion until the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. [1]
Protestants who followed the teachings of John Calvin, known as Huguenots, had been subject to continued persecution in France since the Affair of the Placards in the reign of King François I. [2] The regency of Catherine de' Medici for her son King Charles IX of France, beginning in 1561, presented the possibility of tolerance. This manifested in the publication of the Edict of Saint-Germain in January 1562 which allowed for freedom of conscience and private worship, and a few sites for public temples. [3]
The community of Huguenots in the City of Sens was small, 600 people in a city of 16,000 but well established among the religious and legal elite, counting among their number the Provost and the Deacon of the Cathedral. [4] They were likewise well-represented among the middle classes of the town, and much less so in the surrounding rural communities. [5] The community benefited from a degree of organisation, having long had an armed guard to protect their services from potential intrusions. [6]
As a result they contested the nomination of representatives to the Estates General with one Protestant and one Catholic being sent. Further upon the announcement of the Edict of Saint-Germain they sought quickly to petition for a place to worship. The mayor of Sens, a hardline Catholic named Hémard, sought to obstruct this petition, encouraging Catholic preachers to denounce its construction. [7]
On 1 March 1562, François, Duke of Guise stopped at the town of Wassy while travelling to Paris, and encountered a Huguenot congregation. He and his gentlemen committed a massacre. [8] This precipitated the first French War of Religion, with Louis, Prince of Condé citing it in his 8 April Manifesto shortly after he began hostilities with the seizure of Orléans on 2 April. [9] This state of civil war placed Sens in a dangerous environment, while much of the surrounds of Champagne were subject to the Duke of Guise, the Duchy's governor, François II, Duke of Nevers had sworn loyalty to Condé. [10]
On 29 March, Easter Sunday, Huguenots returning from a church service outside the walls were set upon by boatmen from the nearby settlement of Paron. While they were able to escape, they decided to send away their pastor and cease hosting religious services for safety reasons. [11] Whilst they waited for instructions from the Duke of Nevers on how to proceed, their Catholic opposition in the town moved fast, in the first two weeks of April taking control of first the town artillery and then the gates, forming a militia 150 members strong. On 10 April there would be a meeting of Catholic notables of the town at which the Huguenots historians of the Historie Ecclesiastique would later assert a plan of massacre was devised. [12]
The notables put their plan into action on 12 April, taking advantage of the increase in support from rural pilgrims in the town for the feast of Saint Savinien. In the early hours the mayor ordered the people to tear down the Huguenot church. This accomplished, later in the day after the feast, he ordered the militia to arrest the Protestant leadership of the town, catching them off guard with their Gascon captain Mombaut out of the city for the afternoon. [13] The arrests were incompetently carried out, but when Mombaut returned he gathered the Huguenots together in a fortified house and prepared a defence. The Catholics brought artillery to bear on the house, and in the ensuing hours Mombaut and those with him were killed. [14] The mayor and the militia lost control of the proceedings and a general massacre of the town's Huguenot population ensued, the rural pilgrims from out of town setting themselves upon the burghers, with over 50 houses looted and 100 killed. [15] The authorities sought in vain to re-establish control on 13 April but their orders were ignored. [16] The bodies were thrown into the Yonne, a tributary of the Seine, and several days later Pierre Paschal would report seeing bodies in the river near Paris. [17]
In the wake of Wassy, Huguenot fears of massacre and desire for revenge were further compounded. While Condé had prohibited iconoclasm or the destruction of Catholic temples by his troops upon his entry into Orléans, news of Sens made this unenforceable. [18] In nearby Troyes, news of the massacre would spur the Protestants to desperate action, seizing the gates of the town and holding them for several days before being convinced by the Duke of Nevers to stand down. [19] Over the next several months they would face murder and repression. [20]
The loss of the Protestant leadership in Sens, and the potential for an anti-crown coup to seize control of the town as was the model elsewhere in France, furthered the Catholic domination of the Champagne region both during and after the first War of Religion which was concluded by the Peace of Amboise on 19 March 1563. [21] Under the influence of the Guise client Nicolas de Pellevé, the town of Sens was an eager adopter of the charter of the Catholic League in the 1570s. [22]
Charles IX was King of France from 1560 until his death in 1574. He ascended the French throne upon the death of his brother Francis II in 1560, and as such was the penultimate monarch of the House of Valois.
The French Wars of Religion were a series of civil wars between French Catholics and Protestants from 1562 to 1598. Between two and four million people died from violence, famine or disease directly caused by the conflict, and it severely damaged the power of the French monarchy. One of its most notorious episodes was the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572. The fighting ended with a compromise in 1598, when Henry of Navarre, who had converted to Catholicism in 1593, was proclaimed King Henry IV of France and issued the Edict of Nantes, which granted substantial rights and freedoms to the Huguenots. However, Catholics continued to disapprove of Protestants and of Henry, and his assassination in 1610 triggered a fresh round of Huguenot rebellions in the 1620s.
The House of Guise was a prominent French noble family that was involved heavily in the French Wars of Religion. The House of Guise was the founding house of the Principality of Joinville.
The Edict of Saint-Germain, also known as the Edict of January, was a landmark decree of tolerance promulgated by the regent of France, Catherine de' Medici, in January 1562. The edict provided limited tolerance to the Protestant Huguenots in the Catholic realm, though with counterweighing restrictions on their behaviour. The act represented the culmination of several years of slowly liberalising edicts which had begun with the 1560 Edict of Amboise. After two months the Paris Parlement would be compelled to register it by the rapidly deteriorating situation in the capital. The practical impact of the edict would be highly limited by the subsequent outbreak of the first French Wars of Religion but it would form the foundation for subsequent toleration edicts as the Edict of Nantes of 1598.
Claude II de Lorraine, duc d'Aumale was a Prince étranger, military commander and French governor, during the latter Italian Wars and the early French Wars of Religion. The son of the first Duke of Guise he started his career in a pre-eminent position in French politics as a son of one of the leading families in the court of Henri II of France. Upon the death of his father in 1550, Aumale inherited the governorship of Burgundy from his father, and the duchy of Aumale from his brother who assumed the titles of Guise. Aumale was made colonel-general of the light horse by the new king and fought in Italy, Alsace and Picardie between 1551 and 1559. While leading the light cavalry during the defence of Metz he was captured, and held for the next two years, until his mother in law Diane de Poitiers paid his ransom. He achieved success at the siege of Volpiano and played an important role in the capture of Calais for which he was rewarded with the governorship of French Piedmont.
Louis de Lorraine, cardinal de Guise et prince-évêque de Metz was a French Roman Catholic cardinal and Bishop during the Italian Wars and French Wars of Religion. The third son of Claude, Duke of Guise and Antoinette de Bourbon he was destined from a young age for a church career. At the age of 18 he was appointed Bishop of Troyes, a position he could only serve in an administrative capacity as he would not reach the Canonical Age for another 9 years. Having served in this position for 5 years, he transferred to become Bishop of Albi, staying in this role until 1561, when he was replaced due to his lethargic suppression of 'heresy'. From here he moved to become Archbishop of Sens, a see he would hold from 1561 to 1562, during which time a massacre of Protestants would occur in the city. By 1562 he decided to retire from active episcopal involvement. Nevertheless, he would become Prince-Bishop of Metz in 1568, an office he would hold until his death a decade later. While he lacked much interest in spiritual matters and was renowned for his drinking, he built up a considerable empire of abbeys during his life, which he passed on to his nephew Claude, chevalier d'Aumale.
Louis II de Lorraine, cardinal de Guise was a French prelate, Cardinal and politician during the latter French Wars of Religion. The third son of François de Lorraine, duke of Guise and Anne d'Este Louis was destined for a career in the church. His uncle Cardinal Lorraine resigned his offices of Archbishop of Reims to him in 1574, and the death of his other uncle Louis I de Lorraine, Cardinal de Guise passed his ecclesiastical empire on to him upon his death in 1578. At which time the king made him Cardinal. Cardinal Guise actively involved himself in the first Catholic Ligue that rose up in opposition to the generous Peace of Monsieur which brought the fifth war of religion to a close in 1576. The ligue succeeded in resuming the civil war the next year and a harsher peace was concluded. Over the following years of peace, he would feud with Épernon, and receive Henri III's new honour when he was made a chevalier de l'Ordre du Saint-Esprit in 1578 among the first cohort. Finally reaching the ecclesiastical age at which he could assume his responsibilities as Archbishop of Reims in 1583 he entered the city in triumph and oversaw a council at which he pushed for the promulgation of the Tridentine Decrees.
Wassy is a commune in the Haute-Marne department in north-eastern France. Its population, as of 2019, is 2,819. Wassy has been twinned with the German town of Eppingen in north-west Baden-Württemberg since 1967.
The Battle of Dreux was fought on 19 December 1562 between Catholics and Huguenots. The Catholics were led by Anne de Montmorency while Louis I, Prince of Condé, led the Huguenots. Though commanders from both sides were captured, the French Catholics won the battle which would constitute the first major engagement of the French Wars of Religion and the only major engagement of the first French War of Religion.
The siege of Rouen was a key military engagement of the first French War of Religion. After having been seized by those opposing the crown on 16 April, the siege, beginning on 28 May and culminating on 26 October brought the important city of Rouen back into the crowns control. The fall of Rouen would set the stage for the main battle of the war at Dreux several months later.
The Edict of Amboise, also known as the Edict of Pacification, was signed at the Château of Amboise on 19 March 1563 by Catherine de' Medici, acting as regent for her son Charles IX of France. The Edict ended the first stage of the French Wars of Religion, inaugurating a period of official peace in France by guaranteeing the Huguenots religious privileges and freedoms. However, it was gradually undermined by continuing religious violence at a regional level and hostilities renewed in 1567.
The Massacre of Vassy was the murder of Huguenot worshippers and citizens in an armed action by troops of the Duke of Guise, in Wassy, France on 1 March 1562. The massacre is identified as the first major event in the French Wars of Religion. The series of battles that followed concluded in the signing of the Peace of Amboise on 19 March 1563.
Louis de Bourbon, Duc de Montpensier was the second Duke of Montpensier, a French Prince of the Blood, military commander and governor. He began his military career during the Italian Wars, and in 1557 was captured after the disastrous battle of Saint-Quentin. His liberty restored he found himself courted by the new regime as it sought to steady itself and isolate its opponents in the wake of the Conspiracy of Amboise. At this time Montpensier supported liberalising religious reform, as typified by the Edict of Amboise he was present for the creation of.
The Michelade is the name given to the massacre of Catholics, including 18 Catholic priests and monks, by Protestant coup officials in Nîmes on Michaelmas 1567, after the outbreak of the second French War of Religion after the failure of the Surprise of Meaux. The massacre represented one of the largest non-military massacres by Protestants during the civil wars.
On 24 February 1563, Francis, Duke of Guise was assassinated by the Huguenot Jean de Poltrot during the Siege of Orléans. His death represents a critical turning point in the French Wars of Religion. It would be the first major assassination in what would become a blood feud between the various aristocratic houses which would see the deaths of Louis, Prince of Condé and the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre follow. It also proved a decisive factor in bringing the first War of Religion to a close in the Edict of Amboise.
The St Bartholomew's Day massacre in the provinces refers to a series of killings that took place in towns across France between August and October 1572. A reaction to news of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in Paris, total deaths are estimated as between 3,000 and 5,000, roughly equivalent to those incurred in Paris. These events severely impacted Huguenot communities outside their strongholds in Southern France; the deaths combined with fear and distrust of Catholic intentions resulted in a large wave of conversions, while many others went into exile.
The Edict of July, also known as the Edict of Saint-Germain was a decree of limited tolerance promulgated by the regent of France, Catherine de' Medici, in July 1561. Whilst it emphasised a continued commitment to banning Huguenot worship in France, it granted pardon for all religious offenses since the reign of Henry II, who had died two years earlier, which was a victory for the Protestant community. A further Protestant victory was in the reaffirmation of the removal of the death penalty for heresy cases. The edict would be overtaken by events, and ultimately left unenforced as France moved first to the landmark Edict of Saint-Germain and then into the Wars of Religion.
The Edict of Amboise (1560) was a decree that created the framework to separate heresy from sedition, promulgated by the young king Francis II on the advice of his council and mother Catherine de' Medici. The edict was the first promulgated in France that lessened the persecution of Huguenots through the provision of amnesty for past religious crimes on the condition the offender returned to the Catholic fold. The edict was published during the Amboise conspiracy whilst the royal court was resident in the Châ
François II de Clèves, duc de Nevers et comte de Rethel was a French Prince étranger, military commander and governor of Champagne. Beginning his military career during the latter Italian Wars, he fought under François, Duke of Guise in Italy as captain of light horse.
Across France Protestants responded to Condé's manifesto and the beginning of the first French War of Religion by seizing cities and taking control of territories. In total around 20 of the 60 largest cities in the kingdom would fall under rebel Protestant control. Among them Lyon, Tours, Amboise, Poitiers, Caen, Bayeux, Dieppe, Blois, Valence, Rouen, Angers, Le Havre, Grenoble, Auxerre, Beaugency, Montpellier, Mâcon and Le Mans. In the areas of Protestant domination iconoclasm and the seizure of churches was often undertaken. Protestant armies attempted to seize more cities that had not fallen to them. Among the leading Protestant commanders were the comte de Crussol who assumed a position of leadership in Languedoc and Dauphiné; the baron des Adrets in Dauphiné, the seigneur de Duras in Guyenne; the prince de Porcien in Champagne and the comte de Montgommery in Normandie.