From the Pulpit to the People: Class Rhetoric and Ideology in Huguenot Sermons

In analyzing a number of seventeenth-century Huguenot sermons, I examine the ways Protestant ministers articulated a new vision and world view that became remarkably competitive in the early modern battle ground of religious ideologies.  For the Huguenots, linguistic codes for capitalism, science, and technology came to replace church, rank, and privilege (a value set historians typically associate with the Ancien Régime) as the new markers of social value and authority.  Such rhetoric resonated with those merchants and artisans, who saw their destiny, perceived or real, as tied to the socioeconomic and modernizing tendencies of the early modern age.

Absolutism represented the greatest challenge facing the Huguenot party during the seventeenth century as it signified the hegemonic intensification of feudal cultural elements. While scholars debate its thoroughness and the extent to which centralization was a negotiated process, absolutism meant more than the growth of royal power and institutions at the expense of peripheral regions.   French monarchs achieved hegemonic domination by winning the consent of pivotal actors, who, operating within important social and cultural settings, cherished the traditional feudal values of church, rank, and privilege. 

The absolutist symbolism that served to enhance the power of the king and his brokers meant little to Huguenot artisans and merchants, however.  These groups desired validation for their social contributions and roles in a society in which the dominant cultural system afforded them minimal esteem. The core elements of Huguenot ideology, vocation, election, and divine purpose, which Huguenot ministers articulated so well through their artisanal and commercial rhetoric, undercut preconceived notions of church and state. With their ideology, Huguenot ministers created a community of believers, whose common aim for social legitimacy challenged the absolutist model.