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Exegesis as Public Performance: Controversialist Debate and Politics at the Conference of Fontainebleau (1600)

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Politics and Religion in Early Bourbon France

Abstract

The celebrated and thoroughly contrived encounter at the royal palace in Fontainebleau between Jacques Davy Du Perron and Philippe Duplessis-Mornay in May 1600 marked an important shift in the religious politics of early Bourbon France. At one level, the Conference of Fontainebleau subscribed to an intellectual tradition that joined syllogistic logic, philology, and biblical hermeneutics. At another, it was cruel theatre as Du Perron cleverly set the terms of the debate so that Mornay could not but ‘lose’. Mornay’s ritual humiliation served as a symbolic sacrifice by the king of an old friendship, indeed his whole prior life, to improve his Catholic bona fides.

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Notes

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Authors
  1. Michael Wolfe
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland

    Alison Forrestal (Lecturer in Early Modern History) (Lecturer in Early Modern History)

  2. Missouri State University, USA

    Eric Nelson (Assistant Professor of History) (Assistant Professor of History)

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© 2009 Michael Wolfe

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Cite this chapter

Wolfe, M. (2009). Exegesis as Public Performance: Controversialist Debate and Politics at the Conference of Fontainebleau (1600). In: Forrestal, A., Nelson, E. (eds) Politics and Religion in Early Bourbon France. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230236684_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230236684_4

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-35628-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-230-23668-4

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

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