Geneva: Painted by J. Hardwicke Lewis & May Hardwicke Lewis.; Described by Francis Gribble. — John Shaqi
Geneva: Painted by J. Hardwicke Lewis & May Hardwicke Lewis.; Described by Francis Gribble.Gribble, Francis Henry
History
Geneva: Painted by J. Hardwicke Lewis & May Hardwicke Lewis.; Described by Francis Gribble.
Gribble, Francis Henry
Geneva (Switzerland) -- Description and travel; Geneva (Switzerland) -- History
Stories such as those related above make it clear that rowdyism was
likely to be the note of the Reformation at Geneva so long as Farel
remained at the head of ecclesiastical affairs. With all his fiery
zeal for Gospel truth, he was no better than a theological demagogue;
and what Geneva wanted at the moment was not a demagogue, but a
disciplinarian. Calvin supplied that need. He was a Protestant wanderer
over the face of the earth, and he came to Geneva on his way from Italy
to Strassburg. Farel, who had come to know his own limitations, called
upon him in his inn, and prevailed upon him to stay and help him to
keep order in the town, and, in particular, to help him to suppress
certain Libertines, or Friends of Liberty, who had been protesting that
the Reformers had no right to ‘require the citizens to attend sermons
against their will,’ and demanding ‘liberty to live as they chose
without reference to what was said by the preachers.’ Calvin, after
much hesitation, consented, and so a new era began.
It was not the work of a day. Calvin began energetically enough,
admonishing Bonivard for undue familiarity with his servant-maid,
standing a gambler in the pillory with a pack of cards hung round his
neck, imprisoning a hairdresser for making a client look too beautiful,
and endeavouring to throw ridicule upon conjugal infidelity by obliging
an offender to ride round the town on a donkey. But the recalcitrants
fought stubbornly for the right of living as they chose. The people
who wanted to live dissolute lives allied themselves with the people
who wanted unleavened bread to be used for the Holy Communion; and the
coalition was powerful enough to get Calvin and Farel first forbidden
to meddle with politics, and then ordered to leave the town within
three days.
They were no sooner gone, however, than they began to be missed. The
disorders, rampant during their absence, became intolerable, and there
was some danger that the Duke of Savoy might see his way to take
advantage of them. A majority of the citizens came to the conclusion
that strict regulations were to be preferred to insecurity, and they
sent ambassadors to Calvin, inviting him to return, and to ‘stay
with them for ever because of his great learning.’ He agreed to do
so, and they voted him a small but sufficient salary, and gave him a
strip of cloth to make him a new gown. In return, he drafted for their
acceptance a new and original constitution, whereby the morals, and
even the manners, of the community were placed under ecclesiastical
supervision. That was the famous Theocracy, established in 1541, which
seemed to John Knox to make Geneva ‘the most perfect school of Christ
that ever was in the earth since the days of the Apostles.’ A recital
of a few of the enactments, taken from a contemporary translation
entitled ‘The Laws and Statutes of Geneva,’ will be the most simple
means of presenting the picture of the social life of the town under
the regime:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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