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.55 As a result of this mêlée, the roi, andleading members of the Confraternity of Saint-Yves, were summoned bythe grand chambre at Bordeaux to explain Catholic involvement in thedisturbances.56 Matters escalated dramatically in 1556, with the institu-tion of military-style structures within the collège de Guyenne.The écol-iers had divided themselves into four divisions (Gascogne, France,Navarre and Provence), each headed by a captain and sub-lieutenant tooversee discipline.Each cell would be responsible for coordinatingspecific militant activity in Bordeaux, and be able to deploy separately orin conjunction with other units.57 Gaullieur highlights the close resem-blance between these measures and the innovations of the synods ofClairac and Sainte-Foy after 1560, and suggests that the schemesemployed by the écoliers at this early date may well have been precursorsto the military initiatives adopted by these reformed synods four yearslater.58This escalation forced the parlement into stronger action.In April1556, it issued an arrêt banning  any pieces relating to religion, theChristian faith, the veneration of the saints, and the institutions of thechurch from the plays and comedies of both the basoche and écoliers,censoring a large body of traditional content in the process.59 The follow-ing year, the court went further still, proscribing any material thatdefamed the jurats and parlementaires themselves.Howard Harvey hasshown that caricatures of royal and provincial magistrates had been rareduring the early decades of the sixteenth century, with farces tending toreflect notorious criminal trials, as in the oft-performed  La condamna-cion des banquetz , or would parody the basoche and lesser officialsthemselves, as in  La farce de Mestre Trubert et d Artrongnart and Plaidoyé de la Simple et de la Rusée.60 During the high period of evangel-55ADG, 1B 158, Arrêt du parlement (14 May 1555), fos 93 7.56ADG, 1B 161, Arrêt du parlement (September 1555), fo.30.57Gaullieur, Histoire du collège de Guyenne, pp.257 60.It is interesting to note that thestudents of the University of Paris in the early thirteenth century were similarly divided intofour nations: France, Picardy, Normandy and England.See David Nicholas, The Evolutionof the Medieval World (London, 1992), p.349.58Gaullieur, Histoire du collège de Guyenne, p.257.59AHG, 3, p.466.60Harvey, The Theatre of the Basoche, pp.72 103.THE BIRTH OF CATHOLIC ACTIVISM AT BORDEAUX 31ism in the 1550s, however, Catholic sentiment turned on those magis-trates and clergy suspected of sympathizing with the reform church, withanti-magisterial and anti-clerical performances increasing dramaticallyacross France.61 By 1559 both groups had taken to patrolling the streetsof Bordeaux in gangs, actively seeking out their rivals, with armed skir-mishes the norm.On one occasion, in May 1560, a band of écoliers wasintercepted by the town guard before it could disrupt Catholic services atSaint-André.In the ensuing fight, though, the guard found itself soheavily outnumbered that only assistance from the soldiers at the nearbyChâteau Hâ allowed escape without too many casualties.62 Theparlement ordered an immediate inquest into this outrage, requisitioningall similar cases of accusations of armed bands of écoliers roaming theregion so as to track down the ringleaders.63 On 16 May, the court tookthe decisive step of banning the écoliers from assembling outside the wallsof their collège, warning that further transgressions would be severelypunished.64The collège de Guyenne, though, had a powerful patron in Antoine deBourbon, king of Navarre, and governor of the province.Althoughabsent from the region, Navarre had been informed of this punishment,and had dispatched letters to Bordeaux vilifying the magistrates forshowing favour to the basoche, forcing the court to rescind its punitivearrêt.65 This divided the parlement completely.Catholic conseillers andconfrères opposed vehemently such interference, urging that furthermeasures, not concessions, should be taken against the collège.Themoderate party within the court, however, led by the premier président,Jacques-Benoît de Lagebâton, affirmed the governor s right to interveneand urged conciliation between all parties.A compromise of sorts wasreached, with Catholic magistrates agreeing to re-examine the decision tocensure the écoliers so long as all accusations of illicit assemblies inBordeaux were investigated fully by the court.66 Thus, in January 1561,the parlement dispatched a number of its conseillers in pairs, and accom-panied by soldiers from the Château Hâ for protection, to survey thetown and to arrest those caught attending any illegal gatherings.In fact,61See for example the morality play  Mars et Justice (c.1553), a prime example of adiatribe against the latitude being granted to Calvinist ministers, and the anti-clerical farcesof the late 1550s:  Les pauvres deables ;  Le meunyer de qui le diable emporte l ame ;  Leporteur de Patience ;  Frère Guillebert ;  Du pardonneur, du Triaculeur ;  De la Tavernière :Harvey, The Theatre of the Basoche, pp.51, 173.62AMB, ms 766, fos 433 42.63ADG, 1B 214, Arrêt du parlement (3 May 1560), fo.23.64AMB, ms 766, fos 452 8.65BMB, ms 367, fo.213.66AMB, ms 766, fos 461 6.32 CATHOLIC ACTIVISM IN SOUTH-WEST FRANCE, 1540 1570within two months, six conseillers were being employed on a full-timebasis to search suspect houses and remove any weapons found to threatenthe security of the maison de ville.67 Yet difficulties remained.OneCatholic merchant, whose name is missing from the registres, complainedto Charles de Couci, sieur de Burie, the lieutenant du roi in Guyenne, thathe had sent six communiqués to the parlement relating details of overthirty illegal armed assemblies within the town in recent months, but hadheard nothing in return.68 Similarly, Protestants who had lodged counter-complaints against Catholics suspected of contravening various clauseswithin recent royal edicts asserted that little had been done to satisfy theirclaims.69Matters intensified in February 1561, when the incumbent roi de labasoche, Charles Amussat, marched a large force of armed basochiens tothe gates of the collège, intent on gaining entry and attacking the écoliers.Fortunately, the parlement had been informed of this, and deployed anumber of soldiers in the vicinity to forestall full-scale fighting.70 Thebeleaguered magistrates were now compelled to act.On 15 February theyissued an arrêt censuring the activities of both parties.The écoliers wereordered to disband their divisional structures, while the basoche wereprevented from electing a roi for the immediate future.71 Five days later,the grand chambre issued a more detailed ordinance forcing both écoliersand basochiens to disarm and relinquish all weapons to the court [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]