Barbara B. Fairmaw's Day Massacre

Throughout Europe during the sixteenth-century tensions over religion were rising to the boiling point. The Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre is easily the premiere example of how the two sides of the religious reformation collided. The recanting of the thoroughly chronicled massacre and the events prior and after it, are retold in highly different manners from the opposing sides. The collection of primary sources by Barbara B. Diefendorf not only gives a detailed record of events surrounding the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, but as well as allowed readers to understand what forces drove people to use violence in support of their religions. The sources, furthermore, provide insight that not all people of the society during the sixteenth …show more content…
The Protestants felt that “faced with persecution, the faithful had just two choices: They could flee to a place where they could practice their religion freely, or they could accept the prospect of persecution and steel themselves for martyrdom” (7). They saw the Catholic Church as vain and being only concerned with issues of worldly wealth. In The Antithesis of Jesus Christ and the Pope by Simon du Rosier contrasts the images of Christ with images of the pope in order to show the humbleness of Christ against the vanity of the Pope. The purpose of this document was to show the true meaning of the last supper and the sacrament of communion. Moreover, the document was used to show the misuse of this holy sacrament by the Catholic Church (41-42). The Reformed Church of Paris wrote to Protestant leaders in Switzerland to provide detailed information on the attacks at Rue Saint-Jacques. In this report, it can easily be seen that the Protestants were in great fear of the Catholics because upon being attacked, they were urged to recant their faith in the Reformed Church or face the penalty of being burned to death (55). The fear that Protestants had towards Catholics was common and fairly understandable considering that they were forced to worship outside city walls or practice their faith in secret. Additionally, many of their services were ended by being attacked by Catholics or Catholic supported troops. The Protestants, like Jean de Pas, saw the wrongs in the Roman Catholic Church and chose to convert to the reformed church because of this. In Jean de Pas’s wife memoirs she retells of her late husband’s conversation by explaining that once her husband began to become aware of the abuses of the Catholic Church he was forced by good conscience to profess his faith in Protestantism (62). This was common among the attitudes of the