Religious Refugees And The Genevan Economy
RELIGIOUS REFUGEES AND THE GENEVAN ECONOMY
Under Calvin, Geneva became a symbol of the Protestant Reformation. The biblical image of a “city on a hill,” whose light could not be hidden, was widely applied to the fledgling Protestant republic, which achieved almost iconic significance to Protestants throughout Europe in the late 1540s and early 1550s. As the religious persecution of Protestants gained momentum in Calvin's native France, many wealthy French Protestants took a momentous decision: they would seek refuge in Geneva. They believed they would be welcomed there on account of their religious beliefs, and knew that they would be useful on account of their wealth and professional skills. They included printers (such as Robert Estienne), watchmakers (Geneva's association with watches dates from this period), and armorers.
The population of Geneva around 1500 is estimated to have been about 5,000. By 1550, it had climbed to 13,100; by 1560, it had reached 21,400. The main reason for this massive growth in its population was the influx of religious refugees, mainly from France. In that these refugees were attracted to Geneva on account of its reputation as a bulwark of Protestantism, it is hardly surprising that the refugees were generally strongly supportive of Calvin's religious ideas and policies.
Yet it was not only French Protestants who sought refuge in Geneva. For our purposes, the most important of these asylum-seekers was a group of “Marian exiles”—that is, English Protestants who fled to Europe to escape the repressive religious policies of Mary Tudor, who came to the English throne in 1553. Edward VI, who reigned from 1547–53, was heavily influenced by a group of senior figures who were openly Protestant in their sympathies. During his reign, a number of continental Protestant divines were welcomed to England to assist with the theological consolidation of the English Reformation. Edward VI appointed the Strasbourg reformer Martin Bucer as Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and Peter Martyr Vermigli to the Regius chair at Oxford. It seemed that it was only a matter of time before England consolidated its position as a Protestant nation.
Portrait of Edward VI as Prince of Wales, attributed to a follower of Hans Holbein the Younger
But Edward's early death in 1553 put an end to these Protestant experimentations. Mary Tudor was determined to reestablish Roman Catholicism within England, and systematically eliminated those who stood in her way. Mary's accession to the English throne marked a radical reversal of the Protestant policies openly pursued under Edward VI. Those whose religious views had endeared them to one monarch alienated them from his successor. Some were banished; others deemed it prudent to escape before a worse fate overtook them.
Those English Protestants who could afford to do so went into exile in the Protestant cities of Europe—such as Geneva or Zurich—to await a change in the religious climate. According to John Foxe (1516–87), “well near to 800 persons, students and others together” fled England for refuge within the Protestant havens of Europe in the first few years of Mary's turbulent reign. It can be estimated that more than half of this figure of 800 was male—perhaps 450. Of these, Foxe estimated that 148 were gentry, 74 clergy (including four bishops), and 99 were students of divinity.
So where did these émigrés—who have come to be known as the Marian exiles—settle while they waited for Mary to die? The favored sites of exile were the Swiss cities of Aarau, Basel, and Zurich; the German cities of Emden, Frankfurt, and Strasbourg; and the independent city of Geneva. Some were wealthy enough to support themselves in exile; others received discreet financial support from well-wishers back home, particularly from wealthy Protestant merchants who already had extensive trading links with the cities in which their protegés sought refuge. It proved to be a relatively easy matter to link business deals with merchants in Strasbourg, for example, with covert support for their exiled colleagues.
John Master's 1544 Portrait of Mary tudor at the age of 28
The Marian exiles appear to have regarded their time in the cities of Europe as paralleling a biblical event that took place two thousand years earlier—the exile of the people of Jerusalem in Babylon. Was not this time of exile to be a time of purification and preparation for a return to their native land? And would not the returning exiles bring a purer form of religion with them? In the event, the period of the Marian exile was a mere six years, in comparison with the seventy of their biblical counterpart. Yet it was a period the exiles saw as one of schooling, in preparation for their return. Their time of exile allowed them firsthand experience of successful working Protestant churches and communities, and provided them with role models that would shape their vision of the new reformed Church of England, which they proposed to establish on their return. The anticipation of a new era of Protestant renewal and reform in England sustained the English Protestant communities during their exile.
The period of exile was difficult for many reasons, not least in that nobody had any real idea how long it would last. Economic hardship was widespread in the small English communities; the exiles were often treated with disinterest or hostility by their host cities. Serious divisions arose over issues of liturgy and theology within the exiled English Protestant communities in Basel, Emden, and Frankfurt, causing embitterment and demoralization. An exception to this was provided by Geneva—attracting approximately one quarter of the émigrés—which was hailed by John Knox as “the most perfect school of Christ,” the finest embodiment of a Christian society since the time of Christ. The English community in Geneva proved to be especially important in forging attitudes among the exiles that would be of particular importance in shaping the debates and tensions of Elizabethan Protestantism.
When they were not fighting each other, the Marian exiles continued the struggle for the establishment of a Protestant national church in England. They realized that one of the most effective weapons at their disposal was the printing press. The works they produced can be divided into two broad categories.
Works published in Latin, intended to be read by a broad European readership, intended to justify the principles of the English Reformation to the intellectual elite of the region. Latin was the only language that the English exiles had in common with their hosts in the cities of Europe. Roughly forty works are known in this category.
Works published in English, which were intended to be smuggled into England, where they were expected to find a ready readership among the religiously oppressed population. Roughly 120 works are known in this category. One of the most prolific of the Marian exiles was John Foxe, who settled in the Swiss city of Basel. Foxe's experience of exile led him to write about the English Lollards, whom he regarded as heroic forerunners of the English Reformation. However, it is clear that Foxe had a much grander work in mind, one that would take in a much wider range of historical events.
What triggered his decision to write a much larger work in English was the launch of a vigorous official wave of persecution against England's Protestants in January 1555. This may be said to have changed Foxe's whole agenda. Prior to this he had written about Lollards, the fourteenth-century followers of John Wycliffe, often regarded as a forerunner of the Reformation. The people that Foxe would now write about were people whom he had known personally. In 1559, he produced an expanded edition of the work, including accounts of those who were martyred under Henry VIII and Mary Tudor. The resulting work—known as the Book of Martyrs—achieved a wide readership, shaping and hardening Protestant attitudes to the Catholicism that Mary attempted to restore, and it remains an important source for historians.
The most important single literary production of the Marian exiles was the English translation of the Bible undertaken in Geneva, which has simply come to be known as “the Geneva Bible.” There is no doubt that the success of this volume contributed to the decision of James I of England to authorize a new English translation of the Bible. At the Hampton Court Conference of 1604, James expressed his grave concern over the Geneva Bible. It was, he remarked, the worst English translation he knew. In fact, this judgment needs careful scrutiny, in that James's comments appear to apply to the marginal notes that accompanied the English translation, rather than the translation itself—notes that James deemed to be “very partial, untrue, seditious, and savoring too much of dangerous and traitorous conceits.”
So how did this translation come into being? And why did it prove so popular? To understand the issues, we must first consider a serious difficulty that had arisen earlier in the Reformation—the need for reliable biblical interpretation.