Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of St Andrews, March 1998.

Texte remanié de: Th.--Université catholique--Louvain, 1977. / Bibliogr. p. 23-25. Bibliogr. des ouvrages édités par J. Crespin, p 245-260. Index.

Jean Crespin's 'Histoire des vrays tesmoins' was the official martyrology of the French Reformed Church. Published in Geneva in 1554, this collection has been consistently quarried as a fundamental source for the study of the early Reformation in France. Historians and other commentators of the period 1523-1555 have made use of this collection of martyr stories as a repository of reliable first-hand evidence as to the nature and make-up of the early French evangelical movement. However, the central theme of this dissertation is that the 'Histoire' is, in fact, far from a reliable source. Written with a profoundly different sense of objectivity than twentieth-century ideals of history-writing, Crespin's collection must be used with more care and circumspection than has previously been the case. Written by a firm adherent to Calvin's nascent regime in Geneva, Crespin's collection was compiled within well-defined traditions of Christian martyrology as a pedagogical tool, which necessarily affected its authenticity as a historical souce. The eight chapters of the thesis offer a corrective evaluation of the reliability and woth of the 'Histoire' as evidence in assessing this period. Crespin's ambitions and methodology are set out, as are the traditions of history-writing within which he operated (chapter 2). Subsequent chapters show how an uncritical analysis of the 'Histoire' has distorted our view of the period of the French Reformation up to the establishment of open Calvinist churches in 1555. This is especially the case when it is shown that the edition most used by modern-day historians is, in fact, the least reliable (chapter 7). For Crespin, concurrent persecution in other parts of Europe confirmed the righteousness of the Protestant cause. Consequently, the 'Histoire' became the most international of all the Protestant martyrologies that were produced in the sixteenth century, something that is relected in chapter 6.

The aim of my project is to show how the lives, strategies and attitudes of Huguenot printers of the late sixteenth century both reflected and influenced the self-image of Protestant Europeans. Historians of the book such as Roger Chartier and Adrian Johns have argued that the process of printing includes several components which are easily overlooked by historians interested in exploring thoughts and attitudes. My project attempts to put these insights to practical use by demonstrating how printers were as integral to the process of reading as were readers and writers. I investigate the lives, social networks, and business strategies of a pair of successful Huguenot printers of Geneva, Jean Crespin and Eustache Vignon. My investigation shows how they relied on cooperative, international networks to practice their business and that this fostered a practical, cosmopolitan attitude among them. I then examine Jean Crespin’s most famous work, the Livre des Martyrs, showing how it supplied the needs of his readers for a sense of meaning an community. I show how this work changed over time in response to changing needs and circumstances, as seen most dramatically in the version which Eustache Vignon produced after his partner’s death. Finally, I examine how Vignon – along with other Protestant printers of his time – began to produce books about the New World. I argue that these New World Works, reflecting the printers’ cosmopolitan perspective, promoted a more ecumenical vision of Christianity and a universal ethic based on kindness and justice.