This is a study of the politics of devotion in the Grand siecle . It concentrates on the activities of a small group of devout Catholics in Paris, who from the beginning to the end of the century exercised an influence on public life out of proportion to their numbers. This group came to be known to historians as the parti devot . The men and women of the parti devot were celebrated both for their profound spirituality and their political activism in the Catholic cause. Devot women were visible everywhere, teaching the young, healing the sick and proselytizing their families. They were so much at the centre of French devotional life that at times they appeared to steal the initiative from men. Yet many in the Church continued to fear their influence, and to regard them as dangerously vulnerable to heresy. How, then, were they able to rise above their limitations and take a central place in the devotional life of the period? The answer lies in the political position of devot clerics. France in the seventeenth century was a nation haunted by fear of religious war and external attack. As a result, Catholic clergy were under scrutiny as they had seldom been before, forced to choose between God and Caesar. Their divided loyalties rendered them less effective as reformers. It was against this background that women came to be so important to the reform of French Catholicism. Devot clerics encouraged women to do what they could not do, say what they could not say, knowing that women were not taken seriously as either theologians or political leaders. Thus women were valuable to the Church precisely because they were marginal in society. They, in turn, were able to exploit the situation for their own benefit, discovering a world of devotion and religious activism which had previously been closed to them.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/9350 |
| Date | January 2000 |
| Creators | Legault, Lise. |
| Contributors | Rapley, Elizabeth, |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 430 p. |
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