Popular Religious Solidarity in Sixteenth-Century Dijon

In the past ten years the darkness that once enveloped the history of popular militant religiosity in the French Wars of Religion has been slowly yielding to light, beginning with the pioneering work of Natalie Davis and Janine Garrisson-Estebe.1 This article seeks to explore further religious affiliation and will argue that the motivations for militant artisans and winegrowers to affiliate with the Protestant or Catholic faction was rooted in a mentality placing a very high value on solidarity and consensus. Various nodes of solidarity in popular culture affected religious choice in Dijon in the turbulent 1560s and beyond, and significant correlations exist between confessional affiliation and occupation, between militancy and wealth, and especially between religion and neighborhood. Dijon's Protestant community had been growing in the 1550s, and during the last week of October 1561 its activities gave the Catholic civil authorities reason to think a coup de main was imminent. Whether or not the events that transpired during this tense week did in fact constitute a challenge to vested authority is of

Political science · Solidarity · European Political History Analysis · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

• Transatlantic Catholicism

  Open Access•Megan C Armstrong•History Compass•2007

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