The Voices of Nîmes: Women, Sex, and Marriage in Reformation Languedoc

by Suzannah Lipscomb

Most of the women who ever lived left no trace of their existence on the record of history. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century women of the middling and lower levels of society left no letters or diaries in which they expressed what they felt or thought. Criminal courts and magistrates kept few records of their testimonies, and no ecclesiastical court records are known to survive for the French Roman Catholic Church between 1540 and 1667. For the most part, we cannot hear the voices of ordinary French women - but this study allows us to do so.

Based on the evidence of 1,200 cases brought before the consistories - or moral courts - of the Huguenot church of Languedoc between 1561 and 1615, The Voices of Nimes allows us to access ordinary women's everyday lives: their speech, behaviour, and attitudes relating to love, faith, and marriage, as well as friendship and sex. Women appeared frequently before the consistory because one of the chief functions of moral discipline was the regulation of sexuality, and women were thought to be primarily responsible for sexual sin. This means that the registers include over a thousand testimonies by and about women, most of whom left no other record to posterity.

Women also featured so prominently before the consistories because of an ironic, unintended consequence of the consistorial system: it empowered women. Women quickly learnt how to use the consistory: they denounced those who abused them, they deployed the consistory to force men to honour their promises, and they started rumours they knew would be followed up by the elders. The registers therefore offer unrivalled evidence of women's agency, in this intensely patriarchal society, in a range of different contexts, such as their enjoyment of their sexuality, choice of marriage partners, or idiosyncratic spiritual engagement. The consistorial registers, therefore, let us see how independent, self-determining, and vocal women could be in an age when they had limited legal rights, little official power, and few prospects. As a result, this book suggests we need to reconceptualize female power: women's power was not just hidden, manipulative, and devious, but also far more public than historians have previously recognized.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Feminism, France, Womens, Historical, Gender

400 pages, Hardcover

First published February 14, 2019

About the author

Prof Suzannah Lipscomb is Professor Emerita in History at the University of Roehampton. She is the author of 1536: The Year that Changed Henry VIII, A Visitor's Companion to Tudor England, The King is Dead: The Last Will and Testament of Henry VIII, Witchcraft, and The Voices of Nimes: Women, Sex and Marriage in Reformation Languedoc. She edited, with Helen Carr, What is History, Now? (out 2021). She also writes and presents television programmes, including series on Henry VIII and his Six Wives, Witches: A Century of Murder, and Elizabeth I; hosts the podcast Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, and writes a regular column for History Today.

Reviews

[Kinga · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoroughly-researched account into the lives of women in 16th century France, focussing on the Protestants of Nimes. The book was accessible, though I did tire, at times, of the endless examples. Susannah Lipscomb did an incredible amount of research, combing through the consistory records to write a very detailed book.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detailed, in-depth, and profoundly well researched, this monograph will become essential reading for anyone interested in early modern gender relations and the roles of women in those societies. While focused on just a few decades in Languedoc, and based on the Protestant consistories (and thus not representing the entire society), Suzannah Lipscomb does well to incorporate her findings into the bigger picture. In some areas - women's agency in the h0me, the precarious position of (young) women in service, and women's role in upholding patriarchy - Lipscomb's arguments support those made by other historians. However, in other areas - sexual violence in France, for example - her work turns that of others on its head. As Lipscomb has utilised an underused resource she has been able to look deeper into women's lives, and although the conclusions are necessarily based on very specific evidence, the implications are far broader.

[Caitlin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dry

[Bill Lenoir · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent window into life during 16th/17th century France

[Anthony J Bridges · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting Perspectives

I read this on a recommendation, it did not disappoint. Perhaps for the casual reader it is too detailed with too many quoted cases. I conclude that life at the time was tough for both men and women. One suspects that for a poor woman from the country, there would be much exploitation (or at the least the scope to be exploited).
Gossip made the world go round. Claim and counterclaim prevailed. Has society progressed that much? At least there is a semblance of a societal improvement in the lives of women and children.

[C.Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eminently readable, she has a lovely style and her inclusion of individuals stamens and those of the consistory bring to life the people, who seem remarkably modern without the veil of modern perceptions of the age being superimposed and reading the actual words of the time. I have to admit that this same inclusion of individuals and their statements meant that I had to chunk down the book into chapter length readings to avoid them blurring into one. So glad I got this book.

[Hazel R · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having retired from nursing 4 years ago, I realised recently that the only thing I miss is academic reading. So this study of women’s lives in southern France in the late 16th and early 17th century filled that need in me. It was a tough read, both in the subject matter and in the academic tone. But I loved it. Well worth the time invested.

[rabbitprincess · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up

[Wendy Dunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review to come.

[gloria pope · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting history facts and stories

[Ella Myers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very detailed and thorough exploration of the consistorial records and the conclusions that can be taken from them. The vast number of examples that Lipscombe mentions can sometimes get confusing, especially as she often flits from one case to another in her analysis, but this seems to be inherent to the source.