The Consistory and Social Discipline in Calvin’s Geneva Changing Perspectives on Early Modern Europe James B. Collins, Professor of History, Georgetown University Mack P. Holt, Professor of History, George Mason University The Scourge of Demons: Pragmatic Toleration: Possession, Lust, and Witchcraft in a The Politics of Religious Heterodoxy in Seventeenth-Century Italian Convent Early Reformation Antwerp, 1515–1555 Jeffrey R. Watt Victoria Christman Expansion and Crisis in Louis XIV’s Violence and Honor in France: Franche-Comté and Prerevolutionary Périgord Absolute Monarchy, 1674–1715 Steven G. Reinhardt Darryl Dee State Formation in Early Modern Noble Strategies in an Early Modern Alsace, 1648–1789 Small State: The Mahuet of Lorraine Stephen A. Lazer Charles T. Lipp Consuls and Captives: Louis XIV’s Assault on Privilege: Dutch-North African Diplomacy in the Nicolas Desmaretz and the Early Modern Mediterranean Tax on Wealth Erica Heinsen-Roach Gary B. McCollim Gunpowder, Masculinity, and Warfare A Show of Hands for the Republic: in German Texts, 1400–1700 Opinion, Information, and Repression Patrick Brugh in Eighteenth-Century Rural France Jill Maciak Walshaw A complete list of titles in the Changing Perspectives on Early Modern Europe series may be found on our website, www.urpress.com. The Consistory and Social Discipline in Calvin’s Geneva • Jeffrey R. Watt Copyright © 2020 by Jeffrey R. Watt CC BY-NC All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation, no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded, or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. First published 2020 University of Rochester Press 668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA www.urpress.com and Boydell & Brewer Limited PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK www.boydellandbrewer.com ISBN-13: 978-1-64825-004-0 ISSN: 1542-3905; vol. 22 Cataloging-in-Publication data available from the Library of Congress. Cover illustration: John Calvin Presiding over the Company of Pastors of Geneva in 1549 from Harmsworth History of the World: Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Close of the Napoleonic Era (London: Educational Book Company, 1914). Lithograph based on a painting from ca. 1852 by Pierre-Antoine Labouchère. This book is published as part of the Sustainable History Monograph Pilot. With the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Pilot uses cutting-edge publishing technology to produce open access digital editions of high-quality, peer-reviewed monographs from leading university presses. Free digital editions can be download- ed from: Books at JSTOR, EBSCO, Hathi Trust, Internet Archive, OAPEN, Project MUSE, and many other open repositories. While the digital edition is free to download, read, and share, the book is under copyright and covered by the following Creative Commons License: CC BY-NC. Please consult www.creativecommons.org if you have questions about your rights to reuse the material in this book. When you cite the book, please include the following URL for its Digital Object Identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.38051/9781787449428 We are eager to learn more about how you discovered this title and how you are using it. We hope you will spend a few minutes answering a couple of questions at this url: https://www.longleafservices.org/shmp-survey/ More information about the Sustainable History Monograph Pilot can be found at https://www.longleafservices.org. For Isabella, again and always • Contents Abbreviations and Illustration xi Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 The Consistory Encounters Resistance 15 Chapter 2 The Push for Religious Uniformity 39 Chapter 3 Educating and Disciplining the Young 69 Chapter 4 Controlling Lust and Regulating Marriage 100 Chapter 5 Superstitions, Magic, and Witchcraft 138 Chapter 6 Promoting the Industrious and Sober Lifestyle 162 Chapter 7 Conflicts, Reconciliation, and the Confession of Sins 191 Conclusion 220 Notes 231 Selected Bibliography 303