Introduction

This chapter considers the challenges of finding the voices of ordinary women who lived in the mid-sixteenth to seventeenth centuries. It describes the sources used in the study: the registers of the Reformed churches of Languedoc, and why they are an important new source for the study of women and gender. Surveying the historiography on women in early modern France, it identifies that despite the impression given by synthetic literature there is actually little material examining the patterns of behaviour, motivations, beliefs, and scope for action of women of lower to middling sorts in France in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries: most work focuses on social structures and elite women. This is followed by an overview of the historiography on the consistories, and a discussion of models and methods used in the book.

Conclusion

The conclusion considers how interactions of the women of Languedoc with the consistory influenced gender and patriarchy. It recaps the consistory’s goals, and the unintended provision of a mechanism for women to wield against men and other women. It charts women’s active engagement with faith and how the consistory’s pursuit of morality promoted a voyeuristic culture. It notes how women policed sexual behaviour and were active in bringing matters under scrutiny. It considers why the registers expose this as other sources have not: women initiated cases, there was no charge, punishments were light, and church was voluntary. It recaps evidence of women’s invective and violence, and affective reasons for marriage and for seeking release from them. It notes the prevalence of sex outside marriage and considers instances of unprosecuted sexual assault, and marital conflict. It concludes with findings about women’s power and agency, and how women challenged and upheld patriarchy.

Sex

Section 1 considers sexual intercourse outside marriage, known as paillardise. Drawing on two hundred cases, it examines attitudes to sexual sin and the circumstances that aroused suspicion. It looks at the prevalence of sex after engagement, and how sex acted as a step in marriage formation, meaning women could be lured into sex by promises to marry. It also considers sex outside the context of promises to marry, and the cohabitation of unmarried couples. Section 2 considers over a hundred cases of sexual assault, many outside the legal contemporary definition of rape. It considers the identity of the predators, the circumstances of sexual abuse, the use of force and coercion, plus threats, promises, and persuasion. It also considers sexual assault in the context of conditional consent, the consequences of assault for women, and women’s strategies in the context of rape and abuse. It finishes by looking at false accusations.

Social Relations

Section 1 examines the function of gossip in community life. It highlights the role of women as gossips, motivated by a profound interest in the sexual activities of others, and using gossip to delineate the moral boundaries of the community. It considers how gossip led to female denunciation and action. Section 2 identifies forty-one different insults used against women. It considers the ubiquity of the insult putain (whore), but also how women were charged with drunkenness and lacking control through other sexually denigrating synonyms, and some non-sexual insults. It concludes that sexual insults were about sex, and were mostly used by women against women. Section 3 examines disputes over sacred spaces, which were bound up with social status, and violent neighbourly quarrels. It considers the causes of such fights, and how women were verbally and physical violent against other women, and men.

The Pursuit of Morality

This chapter considers the purpose and goals of Calvinist moral discipline, based on biblical precedent. It details popular reaction to the consistories, and considers the church’s disciplinary priorities: eradicating superstition and popular culture, punishing illicit sexuality, ensuring harmony, and dealing with public misconduct. Next, we examine the membership of the consistory—the identity of ministers and elders, their social status, and the process of co-optation on to the consistory. We consider the relationship between sacred and secular governance, and the overlap among consuls, councillors, and elders. We examine the operation of the consistory—the nature of interrogations, the reliance on hearsay, the shaming punishments it inflicted, its other responsibilities beyond moral discipline, and the links between Protestant churches. Finally, given the consistory’s agenda of enforcing patriarchy, we consider their attempts to implement domestic patriarchy, and their preoccupation with women’s appearance and sexuality, seen in their crusades against women’s clothing and prostitution.

Landscape

The first section of this chapter considers the physical landscape of Languedoc, the governance of its cities and towns, the growing population and pauperization of the period, outbreaks of plague, and the growth of Protestantism, before examining the wars of religion in the Languedoc, especially in Nîmes, in some depth. The second section reviews the sixteenth century’s notions about women’s physical and moral weakness and their consequent lack of formal access to power. It also examines the practical realities of their lives: life cycle, age at marriage, pregnancy and childbirth, mortality rates and widowhood, wealth and poverty, wages and standard of living, social hierarchies, types of work, and understanding of time. Both parts are designed to set the cases that follow in context.

The Trials of Marriage

Section 1 of this chapter considers the experience of marriage breakdown among ordinary people. It examines the causes of marital disharmony, revealing gender ideals and how spouses failed to meet them, and women’s strategies when faced with marital conflict. It considers the incidence of domestic violence, and the circumstances in which it became sufficiently public, excessive, or unjustified to cause comment and denunciation. It charts how few reports were made by battered women themselves, and consistory’s limited sympathy for such wives. Section 2 examines adultery. Cases of male adultery were often brought to light by gossip and eyewitness denunciations. The consistories also provide evidence of women’s reactions to their husbands’ infidelity, within and outside the consistory. On female adultery, the chapter explores men’s anxiety about being known to be cuckolded, and husbands’ reports of adultery nonetheless; it also looks at the allegations made by neighbours and the community, and women’s strategies in response to accusation.

Love and Marriage

Section 1 considers the Protestant Church’s idea of engagement, and compares it with the promises to marry made by ordinary people. It considers popular ideas about the role of gifts and ritual in the making of marriage, including sharing bread and wine, exchanging rings and other presents, and dowries. It exposes the gap between religious and popular ideas about what constituted a proper betrothal. It also examines how people chose whom to marry, and considers the role of parental consent, affection, and individual choice. Section 2 considers women and men wishing to break off engagements to marry. It examines the reasons why women chose not to proceed with marriage, focusing on gender ideals and men’s unsuitability as spouses, and then how women tried to use the consistory to enforce marriage promises, considering their chances of success and the evidence they required.

Belief

Section 1 considers women’s faith, examining their conversions to Protestantism or re-admittance to the church after apostasy. It considers the questions of gradual or sudden conversions, and the appeal of both Protestantism and of Roman Catholicism to female believers. We examine evidence of Protestant devotion in consistorial cases, wills, and legacies, and the continuing influence of Roman Catholicism. This is seen in the large number of marriages at the Mass or of Protestant women to Roman Catholic men, attendance at the Mass, and in the ways Catholic ritual offered women solace. We also look at women’s resistance to religious authorities. Section 2 considers the use of ‘superstition’, divinatory practices, contact with the bohémiens, folk healers, and magic. We consider the evidence of popular beliefs in witchcraft and sorcery, set against consistorial scepticism towards witchcraft and greater concern with blasphemy.