Christian History Home > Issue 71 > Order in the Church
Order in the Church
Reforming doctrine was just the beginning of a vigorous campaign to restructure Christian life—at church, at home, and in each believer's heart.
Raymond A. Mentzer | posted 7/01/2001 12:00AM
On Friday morning, March 31, 1542, the wife of sheath-maker Louis Pyaget appeared before the Geneva consistory to make an account of her faith. According to records, she "[s]aid she has a daughter who knows her faith better than she, and she did not know it except in Latin as in former times, and in the French language she could not say her creed; in Latin in a general way. And she does not know it in another language and does not understand it otherwise, and as for the sermons she has not frequented them."
What was the meaning of the Reformation for ordinary, largely illiterate men and women in France and nearby city-states such as Geneva? How do we interpret the plight of a distraught woman who, like Madame Pyaget, was raised Catholic and admitted that she was unable to "comprehend anything, no matter how much they instructed her" in the new religion and its practices? In what ways did the Protestant innovations seek to transform her daily life?
The Huguenots restructured ritual and ecclesiastical ... To view this item, you must be a member of ChristianHistory.net.
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