On the Verge of lèse majesté divine: Patterns of Subversive Behavior in Seventeenth-Century France

Abstract

The seventeenth-century crimes of “lèse majesté divine’’ varied from heresy and apostasy to such petty offences as swearing and cursing. This study focuses on the borderline infringements that involved subversive words and gestures that caught the attention of the authorities, even though they could have been easily overlooked. A priest who made a lame joke about the altar, or a simple worker who played a flute instead of listening to the clerics, was accused of blasphemy and sacrilege. At the same time more outrageous gestures (in terms of our modem sensibility), such as dancing in the church with a dead body, were not punished. It would be easy to dismiss this incongruity as a quirk of the juridical and social system (the dance involved a noblemen and thus was treated differently). Yet the relative insignificance of such cases provides useful insights into how blasphemy and sacrilege were perceived by the church and state authorities and by the general population. It would be simplistic to equate this perception with petty vindictiveness or superstition: both motivations should be acknowledged but viewed within the broader context of the Reformation.