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Shouting Down Abraham: How Sixteenth Century Huguenot Women Found Their Voice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Catharine Randall
Catharine Randall*
Affiliation:
Fordham University
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Extract

Il fit sa confession de foi avouant

qu'il avoit beaucoup reçu et peu profité.

Et comme on lui répondait qu'il avoit fidèlement employé son talent:

“Eh! qu'y a-t-il du mien?” s'écria-t-il.

“ne dites pas moi, mais Dieu par moi.”

— Philippe Du Plessis Mornay, on his deathbed, 1623

The strange case of French Calvinist women writers poses one of the more puzzling questions that scholars face in their efforts to reanimate the lost or silenced voices of early modern women. The pool of possibilities for the examination of these Huguenot writers is paltry, due to many factors, all of which obstruct a clear hearing of their voices. Admittedly, since women writers are relatively rare in sixteenth-century Calvinism, there is an inevitable temptation to stretch meager evidence too far.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , Summer 1997 , pp. 411 - 442
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1997

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