France: Notable Groups, Organizations and Movements

1098 - Cistercians (All Facts)

• Catholic religious order that was founded at Citeaux in France

• Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines to follow the Rule of Saint Benedict, and the Latin Rule of St. Bernard of Clairvaux

• By 1116, they seemed to be dwindling in numbers, but the inspired teaching of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, along with the organizing talent of Stephen Harding helped transform the order into the fastest-growing of all the monastic orders at the time

• Its monasteries included

  • The Citeaux Abbey

  • The Clairvaux Abbey

1100s - Waldensians (All Facts)

• Movement founded by Peter Waldo also called the “poor men of Lyons,” which

  • was founded in Lyons in southern France

  • pleased the poor, which received bread and soup from him and other wealthy converts to Christianity

  • made the Church fear for its authority, and alarmed local Church leaders

• Its members

  • live the life of the early Christians, giving up all possessions in order to help the poor

  • consider that all believers should have the same rights as priests, and feel that the pope and other churchmen have lost touch with the real needs of the poor

  • took literally Jesus’s teaching that one should “go sell what one has and give it to the poor”

  • rejected the license of the official Church

  • elected their own priests

  • adopted a simple way of life

• Movement which was condemned as heretical in the 1184 Synod of Verona by Pope Lucius III

1150 - University of Paris (All Facts)

• In 1252, the secular masters of the namesake university fought against the mendicant orders there

• In 1381, Henry of Langerstein attempted to end the Western Schism, but King Charles VI of France did not accept his argument and Langerstein was forced to leave the namesake university and France altogether

• In 1398, the namesake university persuaded King Charles VI of France and the clergy to withdraw their obedience from Benedict XIII, thus depriving him of much of his income

1200s - 1500s - Beguines (All Facts)

• Religious lay order of women best known as “beggars” who served their communities by begging (some worked as textile workers)

• Communities of single women over thirty who chose to live together in peace and prayer

• They were easily identifiable by the black dresses and white veils that they worse

• They were committed to stay in the namesake place for six years after one year of initiation

• They were characterized by a theological independence demonstrated by their translations of the Bible and at their strict meetings

  • This worried the catholic establishment in France, Germany, and Belgium

• The Bishop of Mainz in Germany

  • initiated the second Church crackdown on the activities of the namesake group

  • accused them of being idle, gossiping vagabonds who refused to obey men under the pretext that God is best served in freedom

  • excommunicated the namesake beggars

  • threatened to evict the namesake beggars from their parishes

1257 - College of Sorbonne (All Facts)

• Founded by Robert de Sorbon, it was a college for students of theology within the University of Paris

1352 - Order of the Star (All Facts)

• Order instituted by King John II of France

• Order that was the French equivalent / imitation of the “Order of the Garter” in England

1300s - Routiers (All Facts)

• English and Gascon Free companies who terrorized the French countryside during the Hundred Years' War

• Armies of freebooting mercenaries who roamed and laid to waste great swathes of Europe, in which they

  • lived off the land

  • terrorized the townspeople and peasantry

  • took hostages for ransom

  • threatened to destroy the political fabric of much of the European continent

• One contemporary writer described them as “resembling the passing of swarms of locusts… they stripped the land bare and human government proved powerless to restrain them”

• When legal action was attempted against their leaders, they generally claimed that they were men of chivalry and acting on the king’s behalf

  • Many of their leaders were pardoned, bought for cash by the king or king’s government

• Most local people preferred to pay their ransom to the namesake freebooters and stay quiet rather than complain and face punishment for the crime of paying it

• However, they were vulnerable to attack themselves by other groups like the French Tuchins

1300s - Tuchins (All Facts)

• Anarchic movement of peasants and artisans (craftsmen) who were driven by the cities due to taxation loosely organized into groups of no more than 20 and made a living from robbery

  • The groups were bound together by bloodcurdling oaths

  • They claimed patriotic motives

  • They stole livestock, jewelry, and cash

  • They captured churchmen and nobles for ransom

• Some of them were upperclassmen like Pierre de Bres, who was connected to many leading families of the Auvergne and Languedoc

  • He joined the anarchic movement after robbing his uncle, a bishop; and discovering his wife having an affair with his squire

• Their favorite target was the English Routiers

1300s - Echorcheurs (All Facts)

• French Free companies who terrorized the French countryside during the Hundred Years' War

• Armies of freebooting mercenaries who roamed and laid to waste great swathes of Europe, in which they

  • lived off the land

  • terrorized the townspeople and peasantry

  • took hostages for ransom

  • threatened to destroy the political fabric of much of the European continent

• One contemporary writer described them as “resembling the passing of swarms of locusts… they stripped the land bare and human government proved powerless to restrain them”

• When legal action was attempted against their leaders, they generally claimed that they were men of chivalry and acting on the king’s behalf

  • Many of their leaders were pardoned, bought for cash by the king or king’s government

• Most local people preferred to pay their ransom to the namesake freebooters and stay quiet rather than complain and face punishment for the crime of paying it

1517 - College of the Three Languages / Collegium Trilingue (All Facts)

• College founded by Guillaume Bude during the reign of King Francis

• College famous for having taught Greek, Latin, and Hebrew simultaneously

• College which became the model for the College of France